Sword Art Online Alternative – Gun Gale Online - BestLightNovel.com
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SECT.6 - The Beginning of the Battle
“Wha?”
What LLENN discovered were obviously humans.
From the outskirts of the forest she was currently in, she saw an urban area astride a wide highway—— and on that large road, she saw men walking in a line, hiding behind the pile of rubble. They were far away and thus small, so she could not see them well, but there were large, black rods in their hands. It probably wasn’t possible that those were not guns.
LLENN hid at the side of a large tree nearby, with only her right eye peeking out.
“Er, M-san…… Enemy detected……”
“There’s 30 seconds until the scan. Explain as best as you can.”
“Huh? E-err, on the other side of a highway! Inside the city! Probably 200 metres or more away! Err, err——”
“Calm down. How many do you see? What about the guns?”
“At least five of them! Don’t know about the guns! But, they’re not small! They’re on the other side of some rubble, ah, all of them stopped now!”
“They plan to look at the scan. They’ll notice you.”
“W-www-what should I do? Shoot them? Ff-fire at them?”
With her voice full of impatience, LLENN repeated.
“First, calm down. You can’t take them on with your P90 at that range. At any rate, you’ll be discovered. The scan is starting now. Wait there.”
“Hyaa.”
While giving a small shriek, LLENN looked at the watch on her left wrist. For certain, 14:10.
“Even though I discovered them fi-irst!”
LLENN unintentionally blurted. What bad luck.
The scan should have begun, but LLENN, who wasn’t operating a terminal, could not see it. 10 seconds that felt like forever pa.s.sed,
“Confirmed. There’s a team at the boundary of the urban area and highway. The distance is a little over 200 metres.”
M’s overly calm voice reached her ears.
“A-anyone else?”
At LLENN’s question,
“It’s fine. At the moment, there isn’t anyone within range who can come here to fight immediately.”
M answered. *Whew*, the moment that she sighed in relief following the great news, translucent red lines soundlessly extended towards the forest she was in.
It looked like a laser beam meant for alignment, but this was actually a Bullet Line.
It was a „In a moment, bullets will come flying here“ kind of considerate notice in GGO. They numbered over a hundred.
They can be clearly seen even at night, or if it was raining, or if the player was in a fog. The scene of the red lines piercing the forest and jumping was like a flashy concert venue.
“Hyaa! M-san! I’m being targeted!”
While shrieking, LLENN drew her head back and at the same moment, *byun!* a sound similar to the las.h.i.+ng of a whip hit the tree she had hid behind. In various places, the sound of trees being shot joined in.
Late by one tempo, a heavy and low *dododododododo* and a light *tatatatatatatatatan* rhythmthat was far louder than before resounded.
Even though they did not see LLENN’s body, the location she was hiding in had been exposed by the scan. Naturally, the bullets would gather there, and thus the surrounding 30 metres or so were a.s.saulted by a hail of bullets like a guerrilla rainstorm(1).
The soil flew up from the ground, while the leaves of the fern fluttered about. Occasionally, anorange, bright line, differing from the Bullet Lines, ran horizontally. It was the light of a tracer(2) that s.h.i.+ned to make it easier for the shooter to grasp the trajectory of their bullets.
Her vision perceived - red lines and the ground and tree trunks popping like popcorn. Her hearing perceived - a *chun* sound of bullets flying, a *bis.h.i.+bas.h.i.+* sound of trees being pierced and the sound of gunfire completely mixed together.
“Hyaa! M-SA-AN! I’m under heavy fire! It’s scary! HE-ELP!”
What came to LLENN’s left ear after she called for help without moving from her current position was,
“Yeah. The opponent is using a machine gun huh.”
A voice of calm a.n.a.lysis.
“Whaaa?”
“A 7.62 mm cla.s.s general-purpose machine gun. Judging from the sound of rapid fire, it’s probably an ≪FN MAG≫. Two or more of them. There’s also a high-speed rapid-fire sound, lightly resounding, so a 5.56 mm is also mixed in. A ≪Minimi≫ from the same FN Herstal company?”
“Hey! Aren’t you going to help me?”
“Since you’re fine right now, it’s safe for you to hide there. Keep still.”
“Let’s get’em!”
In front the rubble in the urban area around 200 metres away from LLENN,
“Hyahhaa!”
Were men pounding away with their machine guns with eloquent smiles.
Five in total.
All of them had quite rough-bodied avatars, though not to the extent of M.
And, the small arms in their hands were all rough as well.
“This is fuuuuuuuun!”
The man shouting this was pounding away with one of the most famous machine guns in the world, the FN MAG, in full auto.
With his bipod mounted on the pile of rubble, his target was, of course, the forest across the highway.
A heavy and low *dodododododododododododododo* sound resounded, pulling in dust from the surroundings with the shockwave of its muzzle. The 7.62 mm bullets in the ammunition beltextending from the left side of the gun were sucked up at a speed of 10 bullets or more per second and discharged forward, while the empty sh.e.l.ls were ejected from the metal linksattached to the belt and dispersed to the gun’s right side.
The muzzle kept spewing out red, red flame, and the tracers inserted at intervals of 1 every 5 bullets kept drawing orange lines. Several metres to the side was,
“Doryaaaaaaaaaaaa!”
Heatedly shouting, a man who was holding a ≪M240B≫, a model of the FN MAG adopted by the United States Armed Forces—— which was the same gun except for its appearance—— by itscarrying handle in his left hand, with the gun’s stock under his arms, attacked in rapid-fire while standing.
The remaining three men also used machine guns.
One with a 7.62 mm ≪M60E3≫ machine gun.
One with a 5.56 mm light machine gun, the Minimi.
And the last one with a ≪Negev≫, which was inspired by the Minimi and made by the Israel Military Industries, lying atop a pile of rubble while shooting.
The battle scene was being broadcast, so light blue circles, indicating the position of cameras in the air, were moving around them, looking for a cool angle.
The team that was currently broadcast, and raised excitement in the bar were the five men who,
『Let’s survive at least 15 minutes! (3)』
Made such a rather pitiable vow the previous night.
On the list, they were named ≪ZEMAL≫. Neither LLENN, M, nor any other player was aware that this was the abbreviation of ≪Zen-nihon(4) Machine Gun Lovers≫.
They were men who could not stop loving machine guns.
They were players scattered throughout j.a.pan who had met each other by chance and hit off well in-game. As for why the merely five-man team called themselves All-j.a.pan, they included residents from Hokkaido and Okinawa, and that was the entire reason for the name.
„Loving machine guns too much is cool“ was their common preference.
This was why the guns they used absolutely had to be machine guns.
They did not use anything else, and if they did, they would be excommunicated. They did not even have a pistol side arm. As for optical guns and the like, they were a company of guys who thought „What is that, is it tasty?“.
A considerably high strength value was needed to handle heavy guns, so what they mainly raised went without saying. Machine guns were expensive guns, thus one had to put in steady labour or, depending on the person, invest real money to obtain them; that’s how pa.s.sionate they had to be.
And, although they enjoyed GGO together, they had one characteristic.
The characteristic of „being excessively weak in battles against other people“.
A machine gun was a powerful weapon that was capable of unleas.h.i.+ng a large hail of bullets. Basically, it used ammunition attached to a belt, and thus it was capable of continuously firing 100 bullets or more without break.
If they used their guns to keep firing bullets around the area where the enemy was located and suppress them, then used an a.s.sault rifle or submachine gun to shoot them in the backs in the meantime, they would have had a considerable advantage in battle, but…
“Uooooo!” “This feeels gooooood!” “Hyahaaaaa!” “Doryaa!” “Di~e!”
Currently, all five of them, who were pounding away as they pleased, did not even know the „c“ from cooperation(5).
That was because they believed that it was enough to shoot with their machine guns with all their strength. If they could feel the extending sound and vibration, it was enough for them.
They did not desire to go through the trouble of studying tactics, collecting information about their opponents and working cooperatively. They even had the defiant view that „Pounding away is our tactic.“
That was why, until now, they had not seriously taken part in a battle against people. They had only pounded away at monster opponents to earn experience points and credits. They had encountered other teams on their way to and from farming, but…
“They’re all equipped with live-ammunition machine guns. They’re not coming back from a farming session. Let’s pa.s.s.”
They arbitrarily judged, „Those guys are good at battles against people“ about their opponents, and have never even attacked anyone.
They had also partic.i.p.ated in the individual BoB tournament, but even when they were lucky and broke through the first match by bulldozing with sheer firepower, they could not go any further and had never partic.i.p.ated in the main tournament.
And then came this SJ.
They entered this tournament, where they could pound away with their machine guns as a team, in high spirits, thinking that this was a tournament made for them, and the game started,
“This close on the first scan, huh!”
“Yeah, lucky!”
“Thank you, G.o.d of machine guns!”
And all they had done was pound away.
Setting aside the hidden power of such opponents,
“Hyaa!”
To LLENN, who was being shot at, it did not change the fact that she was in a pinch.
The 5 machine guns kept incessantly firing bullets at her, so the surrounding area was in an awful condition.
In merely a minute, the trees near LLENN had become riddled with holes. Naturally, some of them were also destroyed.
LLENN ended up imagining ‘Even the large tree trunk I’m hiding behind, though I can’t see it, could be half gouged out, and in the meantime, they could be coming to kill me.’
“Uu……”
s.h.i.+vers went down her spine.
While the rain of iron continued mercilessly,
“M-san M-sa-an!”
LLENN sought help from her only comrade.
The satellite scan time should have already ended, so she thought ‘Even if he came to save me, no, even if coming here was unreasonable, he could do something,’ but…
“Stay where you are. Don’t move tactlessly.”
The answer from M was very cool yet cold.
“Guu……”
LLENN wanted to somehow run away from this bullet hailstorm area , but even if she moved,Bullet Lines conspicuously shone in the surroundings. She would be shot before she reached the next tree.
“s.h.i.+t!”
Swearing in an unfeminine manner, she curled herself up and sat motionlessly.
Speaking of M, at that time——
Behind LLENN, he had moved closer by about 100 metres. While using a thick tree as a cover, he cautiously peeked out, and in his field vision, he saw the Bullet Lines of the guns aiming at LLENN from the other side of some forest trees. He understood that the forest was crawling with red lines.
Occasionally, he changed direction to avoid the Bullet Lines, and even though some had come close to his position, he had not needed to dodge them yet.
Without care for the bullets that came flying the moment the Bullet Lines disappeared, he lurked motionlessly in the shadow of a tree, while placing priority on keeping watch on the west side where enemies could approach them.
M looked at the wrist watch on the inner part of his left arm. 3 minutes had pa.s.sed since the scanat 14:10.
“It should be soon……”
The communication item picked up M’s mutter,
“What should be soon?”
Expecting an order, a voice came from LLENN, but M replied without delay.
“Nothing. Stay where you are.”
“Reloading!”
Shouted one of the Zen-nihon Machine Gun Lovers, the guy who had been shooting with the M240B while standing, as he crouched. What he took out from the long and narrow backpack that he carried on his back was a bag with spare ammunition belts and spare gun barrels.
A machine gun was a gun that could shoot in rapid-fire, but nevertheless, it wasn’t like it could shoot endlessly.
Because of the frequent shots, the barrel would suffer from heating, and its capability would suddenly decrease. For that reason, after shooting for some time, it was absolutely necessary to exchange gun barrels, and this was reproduced even in GGO.
A gun’s durability is determined by each of its parts, and the first effect to realistically arise after continuing to shoot in rapid-fire was the barrel. If one were to continuing pounding away without minding this, the gun’s accuracy would fall below practical levels and, finally, the gun would no longer be able to function.
“Roger!” “Aye!” “Leave it to us.” “Gotcha!”
The surrounding comrades answered. They had almost no tactical cooperation, yet as expected of the men who exceedingly loved machine guns, only in times like this would they stand firm.
The man pulled the loading lever and took down the belt, confirming that the top cover with no remaining bullets was open.
Next, by pressing the b.u.t.ton on the left side of the gun, the carrying handle that was attached to the belt twisted to the left with a jerk. With just this, the lock on the barrel was released and it came off to the front.
The moment it was unfastened, he equipped a new barrel, then equipped a new ammunition beltto the gun, and finished his reload in merely a few seconds.
“Aww yeaah! I’m pounding away!”
The man, who once again stood up and pointed his muzzle at the forest where LLENN probably was, with a smile——
Without even firing a single bullet, tumbled down from his spot.
On the back of the neck of the man who had collapsed head-first, at the point where the spinal cord ran, was the trace of a bright red light indicating where he was shot. *Pikon*, on top of his body, a 【Ｄｅａｄ】 marker appeared.
In other words, deaths.h.i.+bou.
“Hm? ——Whaa?”
The man pounding away with his minimi noticed that his comrade had died. Their guns were roaring too much, so they could not hear the gun shots of their enemy at all.
“Oii! Guys! Hold fire!”
The man stopped firing and shouted out loud. Since this was inside a game, his voice reached his comrades.
“What’s wrong?” “Huh?” “What’s ‘rong?”
In the world that suddenly became quiet, they looked around restlessly, and discovered their comrade who was killed in action.
“W-what’s wrong? Did something happen?”
“Well, I don’t know that……”
“Don’t tell me, suicide?”
“H-he’s not that stupid, don’t you think!”
“Did he get shot from the forest?”
“During such a barrage?”
On the back of the FN MAG user who had said that, a red hit effect was induced. He escaped instant death, but his hit point gauge mercilessly decreased. It crossed the safe green zone and immediately went into yellow.
“Nuaaaa”
In agony because of the dull pain that arose in his back, the man bent his back, and shortly thereafter, the next bullet came flying and hit the back of his head. A blow to the vitals had the power of bringing instant death, so his hit points, which had decreased to about a third, were instantly wiped out.
The number of corpses with the 【Ｄｅａｄ】 tag increased by one, and hearing the sound of the two bullets echoing from the buildings——,
Realisation finally dawned on them, and all of the Zen-nihon Machine Gun Lovers understood the situation completely.
The man using the M60E3 faced his remaining comrades and shouted:
“A sniper! He’s shooting from behind!”
Those were his last words in SJ.
His comrades saw. How a bullet hit his brow as he was turning, and he died instantly with just 1 bullet.
He should have seen the vivid Bullet Line extending towards him. However, unfortunately, his reaction speed wasn’t high enough to avoid it immediately.
“Hide!”
“Uhya!”
The Minimi and Negev users jumped to the other side of the pile of rubble that they had lain on.
“Hm? What’s going on? Huh?”
Her surroundings had suddenly become quiet, so LLENN, who had curled herself up and was sitting on the ground grasping her knees, stood up. The silence was too abrupt, so, for a moment, she thought that she could have been shot and died. ‘Is this heaven, no, the waiting area that you are transported to after death?’
At her soliloquy,
“A team that was in the urban area finally came within the effective range of their guns. You did hear three gunshots from different guns, right? You’ve been saved.”
M’s calm, and just a tad glad, voice answered. Then,
“I’m coming to you now. Don’t shoot me by mistake.”
That phrase.
LLENN waited, shouting ‘fi-nally!’ in her mind.
Soon, the dark depths of the forest squirmed, and she recognised the large figure in camouflage clothes.
In the suddenly still world, M arrived at the shadow of a large tree 10 metres to the left of LLENN, and skillfully expanded his EBR’s bipod, then lay down on top of the soil.
While M was peeking through the M14 EBR’s scope in a p.r.o.ne posture,
“So……, what happened?”
Finally feeling relieved, LLENN asked, and finally, M answered.
“I didn’t dare to tell you about it, but at the time of the scan, there was another team aside from those machine gun guys. They were within range to partic.i.p.ate in the battle. Moreover, they were in the south, in the central part of the urban area.”
“I see…… So those people hurriedly came, and attacked the people who were shooting at me, from behind.”
“Right. Those machine gun guys either saw the scan and thought that there was still some distance between them and were negligent, or were surprised that you, LLENN, were too close, or completely overlooked it from the start. Either way, they were careless.”
“Th-then! M-san, you understood that and decided to use me as a decoy?”
LLENN asked while showing her anger a bit, but…
“Right.”
She had no words to reply with, due to how quickly he affirmed that.
M searched his pocket with a rummaging sound and,
“Take this.”
Threw something as he faced LLENN.
‘Basing on the size, a grenade?’, thought LLENN and put herself on guard, but since there was absolutely no reason for him to attack a comrade, she immediately rea.s.sessed it. He threw that something to her with splendid control, and she herself splendidly caught it with just her left hand.
It was a tiny monocle, in other words, a telescope(6) meant to be used with one eye. Some time ago, she had borrowed this from Pitohui and had used it. It was a convenient item that came with the ability to measure distance with a laser, and it should be considerably expensive to buy.
“You haven’t held one? Use it. For a while, observe the situation from here.”
“Th-thanks.”
LLENN transferred it to her right hand, and while having it in front of her dominant right eye, she sneakily and slowly peeked out from the shade of the tree.
No Bullet Lines could be seen in her vicinity, so at least for the moment, it seemed that there was no need to worry about being shot by the machine gun group.
If she was being targeted by an enemy on the other side—— in the case of not discovering the enemy, the initial Bullet Line would not be shown, so she could no longer do anything about it, but she believed that even they would probably defeat the enemy in their vicinity first. There should be another 5 minutes or more until the next satellite scan and the possibility of yet another enemy coming here was low.
“There were five machine gun b.a.s.t.a.r.ds. Three are already dead.”
Just as M, who confirmed the situation through the scope of his M14 EBR, said, LLENN saw three men with 【Ｄｅａｄ】 tag s.h.i.+ning over them beyond the lens. For a test, she pressed the b.u.t.tonto measure the distance, and „197M“ was displayed.
In that vicinity, in front of the pile of rubble, were the surviving two. They were guarding against the enemy from their backs, thus they were currently exposing their whole bodies to LLENN and M.
“Those two, they are not looking at us at all. M-san, can’t we use this opportunity to shoot them?”
LLENN enquired. 200 metres should be a certain-hit distance for M’s M14 EBR. But instead, she wanted to shoot and kill them with her P90. To pay them back for the scary feeling moments ago.
“You can’t. Right now, we’re not attacking them from here. I’m even giving you an order, so don’t you dare shoot.”
‘Why’, LLENN wanted to ask, but refrained from doing so.
“They’re coming…… The main street on the left side. In the shadow of an upside down bus.”
LLENN pointed her lens to the left at the street M indicated. About 150 metres away from the group, a large bus was toppled over and smashed, and human figures squirmed at its side.
“Ooh!”
Excited, LLENN increased the magnification by operating the device with her fingers. It zoomedsmoothly like a video camera, and the device automatically focused, allowing her to recognise the details of those people.
The new enemy team comprised four people. Their black and dark brown camouflage matching clothes were like a team uniform. On their heads, they had similarly camouflage-patterned helmets. Additionally, they were wearing bank robber-like black ski masks, called ≪balaclava≫, and she could not see their faces at all.
The four currently moved in a vertical line, and the man in the vanguard, holding a black andslim rifle, was smoothly, as if his gun wasn’t shaking at all, advancing forward.
Judging from their appearance, the three following him from the back were holding the same guns, and maintaining a reasonable distance of about 2 metres. Only the last one of them occasionally turned around and watched their rear.
LLENN could not recognise the type of rifle, but as if reading her thoughts,
“≪FALs≫ huh. 7.62 mm. It’s the airborne troop short version.”
She heard M’s voice.
A FAL had a high accuracy rate semi auto fire, along with the power of 7.62 mm bullets, thus they were popular among players. The four men were holding the airborne troop version of that FAL. It was a model with a folding stock and a rather short barrel that made it easier to use.
The group of four with matching guns and matching masks and camouflage clothes continued moving from the shadow of the bus to the side of a pile of rubble, then to the shadow of another broken vehicle without pause.
Before they moved out from the corner of their cover, LLENN saw the man in the vanguard holding something out in front of him, and wondering what it was, she tried zooming in and realised that it was a small mirror attached to the tip of a pole.
‘I get it, they’re confirming what’s around the corner, LLENN admired.
The destination of the four was, of course, the location where the two machine gun guys that were bewildered at the loss of their comrades, and hadn’t moved at all since then.
“The masked guys sure know what they’re doing. They’re cooperating.”
M revealed his impression of them, and, while peeking through the monocle, LLENN asked.
“That team only has four people?”
“No. There are more.”
“How? Do you see them? Where?”
“I haven’t found them, but they are advancing towards the position of those two guys by following one of the shortest paths while completely hiding themselves. Someone has to be giving them instructions from the top of a building. The other two are probably watching from the window of a building. They’re definitely carrying sniper rifles. They are also the guys who shot those three machine gun guys.”
‘Uhya’, uttered LLENN, and decreased the magnification.
In a situation when the position of the opponent was unknown, the Bullet Lines would not be shown. Snipers who could shoot all of a sudden and were capable of instantly killing someone in one bullet were disliked in both the real world and in GGO.
There were buildings of various sizes lined up on the other side of the pile of rubble, so there were just as many points suitable for sniping. LLENN tried observing carefully again, but saw neither the figures of the people, nor their guns.
“They’re not there.”
“They’re not in a place where you can find them easily. Exposing their guns and bodies as they shoot is the death of a sniper.”
A persuasive answer came from M. And then,
“Dividing their team with merely six members is a bold strategy. A team that can do so without hesitation is strong.”
Words of appraisal as well.
“Those two are going to be hit soon.”
At M’s words, LLENN, who had still been looking for the snipers, returned her field of vision to the two machine gun guys.
The four masked guys got within 50 metres range of the two machine gun guys, and continued approaching by treading through piles of rubble.
The two guys, who hadn’t noticed this at all, seemed to talking about something in a panic, but, of course, LLENN could not hear it.
“Let’s get out of here!”
“But, if we poke our heads out, we’ll be shot!”
‘Something like that?’, LLENN imagined.
As LLENN watched attentively, the four guys, who had approached the pile of rubble merely 20metres away before their targets, finished their preparations for an attack. With faint gestures, they suddenly spread out.
The one in the vanguard threw a grenade. It fell and exploded in a place slightly away from their two targets where it wouldn’t deal great damage, but that was sufficient.
The two machine gun guys stood up in a panic and ran away. The remaining three attackers targeted their backs and began quickly and accurately firing at them with rhythmicallyresounding gunshots.
The two hadn’t managed to get far, so, without even being able to counterattack, they collapsed on the spot with gaudy, red hit effects flas.h.i.+ng and ended up with the same fate as their comrades.
“Sigh……”
It was unclear whether LLENN’s sigh was mourning that the two characters were killed in action, or feeling sorry that they left SJ, or lamenting that she wanted to kill them herself.
LLENN looked at the time and saw that it was 14:14.
‘Only 4 minutes?’, LLENN was surprised.
‘There are 6 minutes until the scan. Right now, the position of those four guys is almost completely visible and, moreover, they’re not aware of us. It’s our chance.’
“M-san, don’t let them get away!”
LLENN said with a unruly smile, but the answer was no.
“No way. If there were only one of them, you would be able to kill him, but the others would end up hiding. In that case, we’d have no choice but to run back into the forest. Let it pa.s.s. Those guys should be expecting us to have retreated deeper into the forest.”
Uugh, LLENN groaned in her mind. She refused to go back to the disadvantageous forest after all their effort of coming here.
“Leaving that aside, I want to observe them a bit more.”
She decided to follow M’s words. At the very least, it was true that they could safely observe from their position for another 5 minutes.
Returning her gaze to her monocle, she saw that the four figures had disappeared. They couldn’t be seen anywhere. The guys had probably skillfully retreated.
30 seconds afterwards,
“There they are.”
Was M’s voice.
“LLENN. Look at the building designed with a warped outer wall. Its middle floors.”
Finding the indicated building and zooming in,
“Ah! There they are!”
There, she saw the figure of the person that she was looking for. On the middle, probably tenth floor, of the building, designed like the sail of a yacht. There was a person at a window with all of its gla.s.s blown away. He was carrying a long and narrow rifle.
She measured the distance to be 503 metres, so he was probably about 300 metres away from those machine gun guys. For a sniper with high-precision sniper rifles and skill, it was a distance where he could easily target the vitals.
Just as LLENN thought ‘What is he going to do?’ the guy threw a long rope towards the ground as if to answer her.
And then, the guy immediately put the rope in front of his body and straddled it, then, with his legs kicking away the outer wall of the building, he smoothly descended. The height was close to 30 metres, but, in the blink of an eye, he hid behind a pile of rubble concealing the ground and disappeared. Next, the second one descended. Just like the other one, he instantly disappeared from sight. The only thing that remained afterwards was the slightly swaying rope. And even it disappeared, as if put away into storage.
“What is that? Amazing!”
LLENN innocently praised.
“It’s rappelling. Descending by using a rope.”
“Wow. Useful for vertical movement, huh. Much faster than going down the stairs, huh. There’s askill like that. I kinda want it.”
“It’s a bit different for them.”
“Hm?”
“With the rappelling skill in GGO, you can’t go down as fast as they did. I know that since I’ve tried it.”
At M’s answer, LLENN inclined her head,
“Then, how did those people do it?”
“That was the ability of the player.”
“Player ability? What does that mean?”
Not being able to quickly understand what M said, LLENN turned her face towards him and asked. While holding the M14 EBR and peeking through the scome, M,
“In other words, the people playing GGO can do that in RL, is what it means.”
“Ah, I get it! I’ve just remembered what I’ve heard from Pito-san!”
In all VR games, including GGO, there were two types of „things that one can do“.
The first was—— what the character can do.
In other words, things that anyone could do automatically if their character obtained the required skill in exchange for experience points.
In GGO, there were things like high-power bomb production, gun part and knife production, increasing sniping accuracy rate, seeing details from afar with astounding eyesight—— and a variety of other abilities.
Skills also had levels, so either the success rate, speed or grade would increase in proportion to how much the skill was raised.
And, the other was——, things that the player could do in RL even without having the skill .
Naturally, it was possible for players to do what they could in RL even without taking the skill. Since the body would according to the nerve impulses detected by the AmuSphere.
For example, calligraphy. This didn’t exist in GGO, but characters that obtained a skill „writing characters beautifully“ could achieve magnificent handwriting by just trying to write as they always do.
On the other hand, players who were fond of handwriting in RL could do that even without taking the skill. Of course, such a person could not write better than they had learned in RL.
Naturally, what one could do with a skill could only be done in the game.
Basically, just because someone obtained a calligraphy skill, that doesn’t mean they would be able to write beautiful characters in the real world.
“In other words, even smoothly descending with a rope, rappe…… what’s it called again?”
“ Rappelling.”
“Yeah that. Does it mean that those people can do that in RL? That’s amazing. Maybe they’re mountain climbers?”
LLENN carefreely said, frankly admiring them, but…
“It would be nice if they were.”
M’s words sounded very serious.
Having returned her view to the monocle, LLENN looked at the four men going into the distance, while carefully watching their surroundings, to meet up with the other two men, and said,
“M-san, based on your way of speaking, it seems you know who those people are in RL?”
“Just a guess.”
“Which is?”
LLENN couldn’t guess what he was guessing, so she frankly enquired.
The answer that came to her left ear was,
“Seeing their careful and disciplined movements, and nimble rappelling, I thought. That those guys are probably fighting pros.”
“Pro? Come again?”
Without her understanding the meaning, LLENN moved the monocle away from her eye, as the four had disappeared, and looked at M, who returned the look. His stern face looked a bit diffident.
His mouth moved.
“Literally, „people who make money by fighting“. Those six guys are—— either working in the police, or in the special forces of the j.a.pan Coast Guard, or are personnel of the Self-Defence Force.”
NOTES
1. ^ According to wikipedia, “guerrilla rainstorm” (ゲリラ豪雨) is an expression which is used by j.a.panese media to describe short localized downpours of over 100 mm of rain per hour since 2006. 2. ^ Tracers are bullets that leave a visible trail of their trajectory, allowing the shooter to make aiming corrections. 3. ^ The same line in SECT.4 did not have “at least” (最低), in case anyone decides to compare them. 4. ^ j.a.panese for “All-j.a.pan” 5. ^ “Re” from “renkei” (連携) in the original. 6. ^ Binoculars and monocles are counted as types of telescopes in j.a.panese.
“Wha?”
What LLENN discovered were obviously humans.
From the outskirts of the forest she was currently in, she saw an urban area astride a wide highway—— and on that large road, she saw men walking in a line, hiding behind the pile of rubble. They were far away and thus small, so she could not see them well, but there were large, black rods in their hands. It probably wasn’t possible that those were not guns.
LLENN hid at the side of a large tree nearby, with only her right eye peeking out.
“Er, M-san…… Enemy detected……”
“There’s 30 seconds until the scan. Explain as best as you can.”
“Huh? E-err, on the other side of a highway! Inside the city! Probably 200 metres or more away! Err, err——”
“Calm down. How many do you see? What about the guns?”
“At least five of them! Don’t know about the guns! But, they’re not small! They’re on the other side of some rubble, ah, all of them stopped now!”
“They plan to look at the scan. They’ll notice you.”
“W-www-what should I do? Shoot them? Ff-fire at them?”
With her voice full of impatience, LLENN repeated.
“First, calm down. You can’t take them on with your P90 at that range. At any rate, you’ll be discovered. The scan is starting now. Wait there.”
“Hyaa.”
While giving a small shriek, LLENN looked at the watch on her left wrist. For certain, 14:10.
“Even though I discovered them fi-irst!”
LLENN unintentionally blurted. What bad luck.
The scan should have begun, but LLENN, who wasn’t operating a terminal, could not see it. 10 seconds that felt like forever pa.s.sed,
“Confirmed. There’s a team at the boundary of the urban area and highway. The distance is a little over 200 metres.”
M’s overly calm voice reached her ears.
“A-anyone else?”
At LLENN’s question,
“It’s fine. At the moment, there isn’t anyone within range who can come here to fight immediately.”
M answered. *Whew*, the moment that she sighed in relief following the great news, translucent red lines soundlessly extended towards the forest she was in.
It looked like a laser beam meant for alignment, but this was actually a Bullet Line.
It was a „In a moment, bullets will come flying here“ kind of considerate notice in GGO. They numbered over a hundred.
They can be clearly seen even at night, or if it was raining, or if the player was in a fog. The scene of the red lines piercing the forest and jumping was like a flashy concert venue.
“Hyaa! M-san! I’m being targeted!”
While shrieking, LLENN drew her head back and at the same moment, *byun!* a sound similar to the las.h.i.+ng of a whip hit the tree she had hid behind. In various places, the sound of trees being shot joined in.
Late by one tempo, a heavy and low *dododododododo* and a light *tatatatatatatatatan* rhythmthat was far louder than before resounded.
Even though they did not see LLENN’s body, the location she was hiding in had been exposed by the scan. Naturally, the bullets would gather there, and thus the surrounding 30 metres or so were a.s.saulted by a hail of bullets like a guerrilla rainstorm(1).
The soil flew up from the ground, while the leaves of the fern fluttered about. Occasionally, anorange, bright line, differing from the Bullet Lines, ran horizontally. It was the light of a tracer(2) that s.h.i.+ned to make it easier for the shooter to grasp the trajectory of their bullets.
Her vision perceived - red lines and the ground and tree trunks popping like popcorn. Her hearing perceived - a *chun* sound of bullets flying, a *bis.h.i.+bas.h.i.+* sound of trees being pierced and the sound of gunfire completely mixed together.
“Hyaa! M-SA-AN! I’m under heavy fire! It’s scary! HE-ELP!”
What came to LLENN’s left ear after she called for help without moving from her current position was,
“Yeah. The opponent is using a machine gun huh.”
A voice of calm a.n.a.lysis.
“Whaaa?”
“A 7.62 mm cla.s.s general-purpose machine gun. Judging from the sound of rapid fire, it’s probably an ≪FN MAG≫. Two or more of them. There’s also a high-speed rapid-fire sound, lightly resounding, so a 5.56 mm is also mixed in. A ≪Minimi≫ from the same FN Herstal company?”
“Hey! Aren’t you going to help me?”
“Since you’re fine right now, it’s safe for you to hide there. Keep still.”
“Let’s get’em!”
In front the rubble in the urban area around 200 metres away from LLENN,
“Hyahhaa!”
Were men pounding away with their machine guns with eloquent smiles.
Five in total.
All of them had quite rough-bodied avatars, though not to the extent of M.
And, the small arms in their hands were all rough as well.
“This is fuuuuuuuun!”
The man shouting this was pounding away with one of the most famous machine guns in the world, the FN MAG, in full auto.
With his bipod mounted on the pile of rubble, his target was, of course, the forest across the highway.
A heavy and low *dodododododododododododododo* sound resounded, pulling in dust from the surroundings with the shockwave of its muzzle. The 7.62 mm bullets in the ammunition beltextending from the left side of the gun were sucked up at a speed of 10 bullets or more per second and discharged forward, while the empty sh.e.l.ls were ejected from the metal linksattached to the belt and dispersed to the gun’s right side.
The muzzle kept spewing out red, red flame, and the tracers inserted at intervals of 1 every 5 bullets kept drawing orange lines. Several metres to the side was,
“Doryaaaaaaaaaaaa!”
Heatedly shouting, a man who was holding a ≪M240B≫, a model of the FN MAG adopted by the United States Armed Forces—— which was the same gun except for its appearance—— by itscarrying handle in his left hand, with the gun’s stock under his arms, attacked in rapid-fire while standing.
The remaining three men also used machine guns.
One with a 7.62 mm ≪M60E3≫ machine gun.
One with a 5.56 mm light machine gun, the Minimi.
And the last one with a ≪Negev≫, which was inspired by the Minimi and made by the Israel Military Industries, lying atop a pile of rubble while shooting.
The battle scene was being broadcast, so light blue circles, indicating the position of cameras in the air, were moving around them, looking for a cool angle.
The team that was currently broadcast, and raised excitement in the bar were the five men who,
『Let’s survive at least 15 minutes! (3)』
Made such a rather pitiable vow the previous night.
On the list, they were named ≪ZEMAL≫. Neither LLENN, M, nor any other player was aware that this was the abbreviation of ≪Zen-nihon(4) Machine Gun Lovers≫.
They were men who could not stop loving machine guns.
They were players scattered throughout j.a.pan who had met each other by chance and hit off well in-game. As for why the merely five-man team called themselves All-j.a.pan, they included residents from Hokkaido and Okinawa, and that was the entire reason for the name.
„Loving machine guns too much is cool“ was their common preference.
This was why the guns they used absolutely had to be machine guns.
They did not use anything else, and if they did, they would be excommunicated. They did not even have a pistol side arm. As for optical guns and the like, they were a company of guys who thought „What is that, is it tasty?“.
A considerably high strength value was needed to handle heavy guns, so what they mainly raised went without saying. Machine guns were expensive guns, thus one had to put in steady labour or, depending on the person, invest real money to obtain them; that’s how pa.s.sionate they had to be.
And, although they enjoyed GGO together, they had one characteristic.
The characteristic of „being excessively weak in battles against other people“.
A machine gun was a powerful weapon that was capable of unleas.h.i.+ng a large hail of bullets. Basically, it used ammunition attached to a belt, and thus it was capable of continuously firing 100 bullets or more without break.
If they used their guns to keep firing bullets around the area where the enemy was located and suppress them, then used an a.s.sault rifle or submachine gun to shoot them in the backs in the meantime, they would have had a considerable advantage in battle, but…
“Uooooo!” “This feeels gooooood!” “Hyahaaaaa!” “Doryaa!” “Di~e!”
Currently, all five of them, who were pounding away as they pleased, did not even know the „c“ from cooperation(5).
That was because they believed that it was enough to shoot with their machine guns with all their strength. If they could feel the extending sound and vibration, it was enough for them.
They did not desire to go through the trouble of studying tactics, collecting information about their opponents and working cooperatively. They even had the defiant view that „Pounding away is our tactic.“
That was why, until now, they had not seriously taken part in a battle against people. They had only pounded away at monster opponents to earn experience points and credits. They had encountered other teams on their way to and from farming, but…
“They’re all equipped with live-ammunition machine guns. They’re not coming back from a farming session. Let’s pa.s.s.”
They arbitrarily judged, „Those guys are good at battles against people“ about their opponents, and have never even attacked anyone.
They had also partic.i.p.ated in the individual BoB tournament, but even when they were lucky and broke through the first match by bulldozing with sheer firepower, they could not go any further and had never partic.i.p.ated in the main tournament.
And then came this SJ.
They entered this tournament, where they could pound away with their machine guns as a team, in high spirits, thinking that this was a tournament made for them, and the game started,
“This close on the first scan, huh!”
“Yeah, lucky!”
“Thank you, G.o.d of machine guns!”
And all they had done was pound away.
Setting aside the hidden power of such opponents,
“Hyaa!”
To LLENN, who was being shot at, it did not change the fact that she was in a pinch.
The 5 machine guns kept incessantly firing bullets at her, so the surrounding area was in an awful condition.
In merely a minute, the trees near LLENN had become riddled with holes. Naturally, some of them were also destroyed.
LLENN ended up imagining ‘Even the large tree trunk I’m hiding behind, though I can’t see it, could be half gouged out, and in the meantime, they could be coming to kill me.’
“Uu……”
s.h.i.+vers went down her spine.
While the rain of iron continued mercilessly,
“M-san M-sa-an!”
LLENN sought help from her only comrade.
The satellite scan time should have already ended, so she thought ‘Even if he came to save me, no, even if coming here was unreasonable, he could do something,’ but…
“Stay where you are. Don’t move tactlessly.”
The answer from M was very cool yet cold.
“Guu……”
LLENN wanted to somehow run away from this bullet hailstorm area , but even if she moved,Bullet Lines conspicuously shone in the surroundings. She would be shot before she reached the next tree.
“s.h.i.+t!”
Swearing in an unfeminine manner, she curled herself up and sat motionlessly.
Speaking of M, at that time——
Behind LLENN, he had moved closer by about 100 metres. While using a thick tree as a cover, he cautiously peeked out, and in his field vision, he saw the Bullet Lines of the guns aiming at LLENN from the other side of some forest trees. He understood that the forest was crawling with red lines.
Occasionally, he changed direction to avoid the Bullet Lines, and even though some had come close to his position, he had not needed to dodge them yet.
Without care for the bullets that came flying the moment the Bullet Lines disappeared, he lurked motionlessly in the shadow of a tree, while placing priority on keeping watch on the west side where enemies could approach them.
M looked at the wrist watch on the inner part of his left arm. 3 minutes had pa.s.sed since the scanat 14:10.
“It should be soon……”
The communication item picked up M’s mutter,
“What should be soon?”
Expecting an order, a voice came from LLENN, but M replied without delay.
“Nothing. Stay where you are.”
“Reloading!”
Shouted one of the Zen-nihon Machine Gun Lovers, the guy who had been shooting with the M240B while standing, as he crouched. What he took out from the long and narrow backpack that he carried on his back was a bag with spare ammunition belts and spare gun barrels.
A machine gun was a gun that could shoot in rapid-fire, but nevertheless, it wasn’t like it could shoot endlessly.
Because of the frequent shots, the barrel would suffer from heating, and its capability would suddenly decrease. For that reason, after shooting for some time, it was absolutely necessary to exchange gun barrels, and this was reproduced even in GGO.
A gun’s durability is determined by each of its parts, and the first effect to realistically arise after continuing to shoot in rapid-fire was the barrel. If one were to continuing pounding away without minding this, the gun’s accuracy would fall below practical levels and, finally, the gun would no longer be able to function.
“Roger!” “Aye!” “Leave it to us.” “Gotcha!”
The surrounding comrades answered. They had almost no tactical cooperation, yet as expected of the men who exceedingly loved machine guns, only in times like this would they stand firm.
The man pulled the loading lever and took down the belt, confirming that the top cover with no remaining bullets was open.
Next, by pressing the b.u.t.ton on the left side of the gun, the carrying handle that was attached to the belt twisted to the left with a jerk. With just this, the lock on the barrel was released and it came off to the front.
The moment it was unfastened, he equipped a new barrel, then equipped a new ammunition beltto the gun, and finished his reload in merely a few seconds.
“Aww yeaah! I’m pounding away!”
The man, who once again stood up and pointed his muzzle at the forest where LLENN probably was, with a smile——
Without even firing a single bullet, tumbled down from his spot.
On the back of the neck of the man who had collapsed head-first, at the point where the spinal cord ran, was the trace of a bright red light indicating where he was shot. *Pikon*, on top of his body, a 【Ｄｅａｄ】 marker appeared.
In other words, deaths.h.i.+bou.
“Hm? ——Whaa?”
The man pounding away with his minimi noticed that his comrade had died. Their guns were roaring too much, so they could not hear the gun shots of their enemy at all.
“Oii! Guys! Hold fire!”
The man stopped firing and shouted out loud. Since this was inside a game, his voice reached his comrades.
“What’s wrong?” “Huh?” “What’s ‘rong?”
In the world that suddenly became quiet, they looked around restlessly, and discovered their comrade who was killed in action.
“W-what’s wrong? Did something happen?”
“Well, I don’t know that……”
“Don’t tell me, suicide?”
“H-he’s not that stupid, don’t you think!”
“Did he get shot from the forest?”
“During such a barrage?”
On the back of the FN MAG user who had said that, a red hit effect was induced. He escaped instant death, but his hit point gauge mercilessly decreased. It crossed the safe green zone and immediately went into yellow.
“Nuaaaa”
In agony because of the dull pain that arose in his back, the man bent his back, and shortly thereafter, the next bullet came flying and hit the back of his head. A blow to the vitals had the power of bringing instant death, so his hit points, which had decreased to about a third, were instantly wiped out.
The number of corpses with the 【Ｄｅａｄ】 tag increased by one, and hearing the sound of the two bullets echoing from the buildings——,
Realisation finally dawned on them, and all of the Zen-nihon Machine Gun Lovers understood the situation completely.
The man using the M60E3 faced his remaining comrades and shouted:
“A sniper! He’s shooting from behind!”
Those were his last words in SJ.
His comrades saw. How a bullet hit his brow as he was turning, and he died instantly with just 1 bullet.
He should have seen the vivid Bullet Line extending towards him. However, unfortunately, his reaction speed wasn’t high enough to avoid it immediately.
“Hide!”
“Uhya!”
The Minimi and Negev users jumped to the other side of the pile of rubble that they had lain on.
“Hm? What’s going on? Huh?”
Her surroundings had suddenly become quiet, so LLENN, who had curled herself up and was sitting on the ground grasping her knees, stood up. The silence was too abrupt, so, for a moment, she thought that she could have been shot and died. ‘Is this heaven, no, the waiting area that you are transported to after death?’
At her soliloquy,
“A team that was in the urban area finally came within the effective range of their guns. You did hear three gunshots from different guns, right? You’ve been saved.”
M’s calm, and just a tad glad, voice answered. Then,
“I’m coming to you now. Don’t shoot me by mistake.”
That phrase.
LLENN waited, shouting ‘fi-nally!’ in her mind.
Soon, the dark depths of the forest squirmed, and she recognised the large figure in camouflage clothes.
In the suddenly still world, M arrived at the shadow of a large tree 10 metres to the left of LLENN, and skillfully expanded his EBR’s bipod, then lay down on top of the soil.
While M was peeking through the M14 EBR’s scope in a p.r.o.ne posture,
“So……, what happened?”
Finally feeling relieved, LLENN asked, and finally, M answered.
“I didn’t dare to tell you about it, but at the time of the scan, there was another team aside from those machine gun guys. They were within range to partic.i.p.ate in the battle. Moreover, they were in the south, in the central part of the urban area.”
“I see…… So those people hurriedly came, and attacked the people who were shooting at me, from behind.”
“Right. Those machine gun guys either saw the scan and thought that there was still some distance between them and were negligent, or were surprised that you, LLENN, were too close, or completely overlooked it from the start. Either way, they were careless.”
“Th-then! M-san, you understood that and decided to use me as a decoy?”
LLENN asked while showing her anger a bit, but…
“Right.”
She had no words to reply with, due to how quickly he affirmed that.
M searched his pocket with a rummaging sound and,
“Take this.”
Threw something as he faced LLENN.
‘Basing on the size, a grenade?’, thought LLENN and put herself on guard, but since there was absolutely no reason for him to attack a comrade, she immediately rea.s.sessed it. He threw that something to her with splendid control, and she herself splendidly caught it with just her left hand.
It was a tiny monocle, in other words, a telescope(6) meant to be used with one eye. Some time ago, she had borrowed this from Pitohui and had used it. It was a convenient item that came with the ability to measure distance with a laser, and it should be considerably expensive to buy.
“You haven’t held one? Use it. For a while, observe the situation from here.”
“Th-thanks.”
LLENN transferred it to her right hand, and while having it in front of her dominant right eye, she sneakily and slowly peeked out from the shade of the tree.
No Bullet Lines could be seen in her vicinity, so at least for the moment, it seemed that there was no need to worry about being shot by the machine gun group.
If she was being targeted by an enemy on the other side—— in the case of not discovering the enemy, the initial Bullet Line would not be shown, so she could no longer do anything about it, but she believed that even they would probably defeat the enemy in their vicinity first. There should be another 5 minutes or more until the next satellite scan and the possibility of yet another enemy coming here was low.
“There were five machine gun b.a.s.t.a.r.ds. Three are already dead.”
Just as M, who confirmed the situation through the scope of his M14 EBR, said, LLENN saw three men with 【Ｄｅａｄ】 tag s.h.i.+ning over them beyond the lens. For a test, she pressed the b.u.t.tonto measure the distance, and „197M“ was displayed.
In that vicinity, in front of the pile of rubble, were the surviving two. They were guarding against the enemy from their backs, thus they were currently exposing their whole bodies to LLENN and M.
“Those two, they are not looking at us at all. M-san, can’t we use this opportunity to shoot them?”
LLENN enquired. 200 metres should be a certain-hit distance for M’s M14 EBR. But instead, she wanted to shoot and kill them with her P90. To pay them back for the scary feeling moments ago.
“You can’t. Right now, we’re not attacking them from here. I’m even giving you an order, so don’t you dare shoot.”
‘Why’, LLENN wanted to ask, but refrained from doing so.
“They’re coming…… The main street on the left side. In the shadow of an upside down bus.”
LLENN pointed her lens to the left at the street M indicated. About 150 metres away from the group, a large bus was toppled over and smashed, and human figures squirmed at its side.
“Ooh!”
Excited, LLENN increased the magnification by operating the device with her fingers. It zoomedsmoothly like a video camera, and the device automatically focused, allowing her to recognise the details of those people.
The new enemy team comprised four people. Their black and dark brown camouflage matching clothes were like a team uniform. On their heads, they had similarly camouflage-patterned helmets. Additionally, they were wearing bank robber-like black ski masks, called ≪balaclava≫, and she could not see their faces at all.
The four currently moved in a vertical line, and the man in the vanguard, holding a black andslim rifle, was smoothly, as if his gun wasn’t shaking at all, advancing forward.
Judging from their appearance, the three following him from the back were holding the same guns, and maintaining a reasonable distance of about 2 metres. Only the last one of them occasionally turned around and watched their rear.
LLENN could not recognise the type of rifle, but as if reading her thoughts,
“≪FALs≫ huh. 7.62 mm. It’s the airborne troop short version.”
She heard M’s voice.
A FAL had a high accuracy rate semi auto fire, along with the power of 7.62 mm bullets, thus they were popular among players. The four men were holding the airborne troop version of that FAL. It was a model with a folding stock and a rather short barrel that made it easier to use.
The group of four with matching guns and matching masks and camouflage clothes continued moving from the shadow of the bus to the side of a pile of rubble, then to the shadow of another broken vehicle without pause.
Before they moved out from the corner of their cover, LLENN saw the man in the vanguard holding something out in front of him, and wondering what it was, she tried zooming in and realised that it was a small mirror attached to the tip of a pole.
‘I get it, they’re confirming what’s around the corner, LLENN admired.
The destination of the four was, of course, the location where the two machine gun guys that were bewildered at the loss of their comrades, and hadn’t moved at all since then.
“The masked guys sure know what they’re doing. They’re cooperating.”
M revealed his impression of them, and, while peeking through the monocle, LLENN asked.
“That team only has four people?”
“No. There are more.”
“How? Do you see them? Where?”
“I haven’t found them, but they are advancing towards the position of those two guys by following one of the shortest paths while completely hiding themselves. Someone has to be giving them instructions from the top of a building. The other two are probably watching from the window of a building. They’re definitely carrying sniper rifles. They are also the guys who shot those three machine gun guys.”
‘Uhya’, uttered LLENN, and decreased the magnification.
In a situation when the position of the opponent was unknown, the Bullet Lines would not be shown. Snipers who could shoot all of a sudden and were capable of instantly killing someone in one bullet were disliked in both the real world and in GGO.
There were buildings of various sizes lined up on the other side of the pile of rubble, so there were just as many points suitable for sniping. LLENN tried observing carefully again, but saw neither the figures of the people, nor their guns.
“They’re not there.”
“They’re not in a place where you can find them easily. Exposing their guns and bodies as they shoot is the death of a sniper.”
A persuasive answer came from M. And then,
“Dividing their team with merely six members is a bold strategy. A team that can do so without hesitation is strong.”
Words of appraisal as well.
“Those two are going to be hit soon.”
At M’s words, LLENN, who had still been looking for the snipers, returned her field of vision to the two machine gun guys.
The four masked guys got within 50 metres range of the two machine gun guys, and continued approaching by treading through piles of rubble.
The two guys, who hadn’t noticed this at all, seemed to talking about something in a panic, but, of course, LLENN could not hear it.
“Let’s get out of here!”
“But, if we poke our heads out, we’ll be shot!”
‘Something like that?’, LLENN imagined.
As LLENN watched attentively, the four guys, who had approached the pile of rubble merely 20metres away before their targets, finished their preparations for an attack. With faint gestures, they suddenly spread out.
The one in the vanguard threw a grenade. It fell and exploded in a place slightly away from their two targets where it wouldn’t deal great damage, but that was sufficient.
The two machine gun guys stood up in a panic and ran away. The remaining three attackers targeted their backs and began quickly and accurately firing at them with rhythmicallyresounding gunshots.
The two hadn’t managed to get far, so, without even being able to counterattack, they collapsed on the spot with gaudy, red hit effects flas.h.i.+ng and ended up with the same fate as their comrades.
“Sigh……”
It was unclear whether LLENN’s sigh was mourning that the two characters were killed in action, or feeling sorry that they left SJ, or lamenting that she wanted to kill them herself.
LLENN looked at the time and saw that it was 14:14.
‘Only 4 minutes?’, LLENN was surprised.
‘There are 6 minutes until the scan. Right now, the position of those four guys is almost completely visible and, moreover, they’re not aware of us. It’s our chance.’
“M-san, don’t let them get away!”
LLENN said with a unruly smile, but the answer was no.
“No way. If there were only one of them, you would be able to kill him, but the others would end up hiding. In that case, we’d have no choice but to run back into the forest. Let it pa.s.s. Those guys should be expecting us to have retreated deeper into the forest.”
Uugh, LLENN groaned in her mind. She refused to go back to the disadvantageous forest after all their effort of coming here.
“Leaving that aside, I want to observe them a bit more.”
She decided to follow M’s words. At the very least, it was true that they could safely observe from their position for another 5 minutes.
Returning her gaze to her monocle, she saw that the four figures had disappeared. They couldn’t be seen anywhere. The guys had probably skillfully retreated.
30 seconds afterwards,
“There they are.”
Was M’s voice.
“LLENN. Look at the building designed with a warped outer wall. Its middle floors.”
Finding the indicated building and zooming in,
“Ah! There they are!”
There, she saw the figure of the person that she was looking for. On the middle, probably tenth floor, of the building, designed like the sail of a yacht. There was a person at a window with all of its gla.s.s blown away. He was carrying a long and narrow rifle.
She measured the distance to be 503 metres, so he was probably about 300 metres away from those machine gun guys. For a sniper with high-precision sniper rifles and skill, it was a distance where he could easily target the vitals.
Just as LLENN thought ‘What is he going to do?’ the guy threw a long rope towards the ground as if to answer her.
And then, the guy immediately put the rope in front of his body and straddled it, then, with his legs kicking away the outer wall of the building, he smoothly descended. The height was close to 30 metres, but, in the blink of an eye, he hid behind a pile of rubble concealing the ground and disappeared. Next, the second one descended. Just like the other one, he instantly disappeared from sight. The only thing that remained afterwards was the slightly swaying rope. And even it disappeared, as if put away into storage.
“What is that? Amazing!”
LLENN innocently praised.
“It’s rappelling. Descending by using a rope.”
“Wow. Useful for vertical movement, huh. Much faster than going down the stairs, huh. There’s askill like that. I kinda want it.”
“It’s a bit different for them.”
“Hm?”
“With the rappelling skill in GGO, you can’t go down as fast as they did. I know that since I’ve tried it.”
At M’s answer, LLENN inclined her head,
“Then, how did those people do it?”
“That was the ability of the player.”
“Player ability? What does that mean?”
Not being able to quickly understand what M said, LLENN turned her face towards him and asked. While holding the M14 EBR and peeking through the scome, M,
“In other words, the people playing GGO can do that in RL, is what it means.”
“Ah, I get it! I’ve just remembered what I’ve heard from Pito-san!”
In all VR games, including GGO, there were two types of „things that one can do“.
The first was—— what the character can do.
In other words, things that anyone could do automatically if their character obtained the required skill in exchange for experience points.
In GGO, there were things like high-power bomb production, gun part and knife production, increasing sniping accuracy rate, seeing details from afar with astounding eyesight—— and a variety of other abilities.
Skills also had levels, so either the success rate, speed or grade would increase in proportion to how much the skill was raised.
And, the other was——, things that the player could do in RL even without having the skill .
Naturally, it was possible for players to do what they could in RL even without taking the skill. Since the body would according to the nerve impulses detected by the AmuSphere.
For example, calligraphy. This didn’t exist in GGO, but characters that obtained a skill „writing characters beautifully“ could achieve magnificent handwriting by just trying to write as they always do.
On the other hand, players who were fond of handwriting in RL could do that even without taking the skill. Of course, such a person could not write better than they had learned in RL.
Naturally, what one could do with a skill could only be done in the game.
Basically, just because someone obtained a calligraphy skill, that doesn’t mean they would be able to write beautiful characters in the real world.
“In other words, even smoothly descending with a rope, rappe…… what’s it called again?”
“ Rappelling.”
“Yeah that. Does it mean that those people can do that in RL? That’s amazing. Maybe they’re mountain climbers?”
LLENN carefreely said, frankly admiring them, but…
“It would be nice if they were.”
M’s words sounded very serious.
Having returned her view to the monocle, LLENN looked at the four men going into the distance, while carefully watching their surroundings, to meet up with the other two men, and said,
“M-san, based on your way of speaking, it seems you know who those people are in RL?”
“Just a guess.”
“Which is?”
LLENN couldn’t guess what he was guessing, so she frankly enquired.
The answer that came to her left ear was,
“Seeing their careful and disciplined movements, and nimble rappelling, I thought. That those guys are probably fighting pros.”
“Pro? Come again?”
Without her understanding the meaning, LLENN moved the monocle away from her eye, as the four had disappeared, and looked at M, who returned the look. His stern face looked a bit diffident.
His mouth moved.
“Literally, „people who make money by fighting“. Those six guys are—— either working in the police, or in the special forces of the j.a.pan Coast Guard, or are personnel of the Self-Defence Force.”
NOTES
1. ^ According to wikipedia, “guerrilla rainstorm” (ゲリラ豪雨) is an expression which is used by j.a.panese media to describe short localized downpours of over 100 mm of rain per hour since 2006. 2. ^ Tracers are bullets that leave a visible trail of their trajectory, allowing the shooter to make aiming corrections. 3. ^ The same line in SECT.4 did not have “at least” (最低), in case anyone decides to compare them. 4. ^ j.a.panese for “All-j.a.pan” 5. ^ “Re” from “renkei” (連携) in the original. 6. ^ Binoculars and monocles are counted as types of telescopes in j.a.panese.
