CHAPTER 8
Reflection
—The Fifth Ordeal—
When Llenn opened her eyes, Llenn was standing before her.
“Hyeep?”
They bulged with shock, as did the eyes of the Llenn right in front of her.
“Ohhh… It’s just a mirror…,” she muttered, realizing that she was merely looking at an enormous reflective surface.
That was her up ahead, dressed in desert pink, sporting a desert-pink hat with a white line along its length and carrying a desert-pink P90.
Except that she was holding the P90 in her left hand, and the line on her hat was on the left side, too. Her mirror image, in other words.
Yes, yes. Very tiny and cute. And the pink looked great as well. Even that gun was adorable. Llenn beamed at herself.
Then she turned to the right, and there was Llenn.
“Hmm?”
She turned to the left, and there was Llenn.
“Uh?”
She turned all the way around, and there was Llenn. And when her eyes shifted to the side, she saw many Llenns.
“Oh… It’s a fun house…”
One of those things at amusement parks that had floor-to-ceiling mirrors placed like walls at strange angles. It was the first time Llenn had been inside one—and Karen, too.
She looked down at the ground and found it perfectly dark. The floor was hard and reflected no light at all.
Then she checked up, and the ceiling was the same way. Black boards hung about ten feet overhead—higher than the average home and absent of mirrors.
There were no light fixtures, either, not on the walls nor the floor nor hanging from the ceiling.
Yet despite the lack of any light sources, she could perfectly make out her reflection in the mirrors. Long live the virtual world.
She walked closer to one of them. When she outstretched her left hand, the reflected Llenn held out her right, and she felt something hard on her fingertips.
Since the placement and angles of the mirrors were so varied, if she tilted her head a little, she could see many versions of herself at different angles all at once. At some points, the reflective surfaces also faced one another, creating an endless corridor effect.
She tried pushing on the mirror as hard as she could. It didn’t budge. Then she took a few steps and tried again in a different spot. This one was like a rotating door, and it easily spun in place. Beyond it was a space filled with more mirrors. It seemed this was meant to be a maze.
“I think I’m going to get lost… What am I supposed to do here?” she grumbled to herself, before having a very belated realization.
Where are my teammates?
“Everybody! Where are you?” she shouted, assuming that her comm had been deactivated. The mirrors on either side echoed slightly. She received no response.
Hrmm…
Llenn decided to inspect her situation.
The upper left of her vision still displayed a list of her teammates, but their hit point bars were hidden. M only had an X mark for a bar because he was already dead.
Her weapons: P-chan, Vor-chan, Kni-chan—all present.
Ammo: fully replenished.
Status effects: none.
Communications: As suspected, there was an X over her comm icon, which showed that it was unusable.
RESIGN button: eligible to use.
“So I’m supposed to fight on my own…?”
Llenn squeezed her P90, felt for the safety selector to ensure it was set to full auto, and then heard the disembodied voice of Suuzaburou announce, “Welcome to the fifth ordeal, everyone.”
Realizing that everyone else was getting this at the same time, she listened carefully. Suuzaburou’s voice ringing in the absence of his presence made her feel like she was listening to the voice of God.
“Each of you is in an isolated location. You do not know the state of any other player. You cannot communicate or meet up.”
Just as I thought.
“You are trapped where you are. You cannot escape unless you finish the trial, die, or resign. Victory hinges on fighting and defeating a single opponent. If your hit points deplete completely, you will fail the ordeal. In the event that you slay your foe, you will be taken to the meetup point. Your team will have cleared the fifth ordeal when all survivors are together.”
Essentially, she had to defeat just one enemy here in this house of mirrors, then meet up with the rest of the surviving team members to beat the quest.
In that case, time was of the essence.
If she couldn’t beat her opponent or was taking too long, she could choose to resign as a strategic option and hope that her teammates had already finished. But the risk was that if she withdrew without anyone else beating their foes, she was just taking herself out of contention. And she had no way to know which was the right call.
“The present time is 1:44. You have six minutes. Prepare for battle.”
In the upper-right corner, a countdown appeared reading six minutes. It ticked down to 05:59.
That was a severely restrictive time limit, even for just one enemy. She couldn’t take her time—she needed to locate and finish off her opponent immediately.
That was when Llenn heard a cute, boyish voice in her mind.
“Llenn! I don’t care who our enemies or allies are! Never let me go! My incredible rate of fire will slaughter them all!”
That’s right, P-chan. I need your help. Oh, but don’t shoot any allies. That part is bad, she thought.
But then came another voice, a relaxed one.
“Ah, how long it has been. Do you not think such a place behooves you to employ me?”
Ooh! Kni-chan’s got a point!
In a close-combat situation, the combat knife she kept behind her back at all times might be the better choice.
Then two additional, identical voices rang out.
“Hey! Aren’t you forgetting something?”
“Hey! I think you’re forgetting something!”
Oh, right…
For a brief moment, Llenn debated her alternatives, then made up her mind and swung her hand through the air.
“Yeah!”
When the window appeared, she selected SWITCH EQUIPMENT.
“Awww, no faaaair!” squealed her adorable P90 as it vanished from her hand, along with the ammo pouches on either hip. They were replaced by two black holsters on her thighs. Inside were two pink pistols. A rectangular black backpack with pink-and-white lines had appeared on her shoulders.
They were Llenn’s personal handguns, which Pitohui had arranged for her as a gift in the pistols-only area in SJ4. This GGO-original design was called the AM.45 because it was a subcompact .45-caliber pistol. Since they had a custom-color job to match Llenn, they were called the AM.45 Version Llenn, aka the Vorpal Bunnies.
Llenn pulled the Vorpal Bunnies out of their holsters.
“Let’s do this!”
“Let’s kill ’em!” they roared lustily.
She rested the protruding rear sights on the guns against her belt, then pushed her arms downward. That pulled the slides back, and the power of their springs pushed them into place, loading the squat, acorn-like .45-caliber ACP rounds into their chambers.
Her guns were loaded.
Each one could shoot six times. There were spare magazines in her backpack, but until she went for them, she could fire a maximum of twelve rounds.
As soon as she had her fangs in hand, Suuzaburou announced that the ordeal had commenced.
“And now, best of luck.”
So…where’s the enemy?
And…what are they like?
Keeping the Vorpal Bunnies steady at shoulder height, Llenn moved forward slowly.
Since her opponent might grab her weapons, she refrained from extending her arms. Instead, she held them close to her body, keeping them reasonably tense so she could swivel and point rapidly.
There was no guarantee that the enemy would approach her if she stayed in place. In fact, based on the previous ordeals, they probably wouldn’t.
So Llenn stayed on the move.
The fun house projected many Llenns, stirring and shimmering as she moved. The Vorpal Bunnies in both hands slid silently past the mirrors.
She kept her index fingers outside the trigger guards for now to avoid accidentally touching them and creating a bullet line—and more importantly to avoid accidentally firing if she fell over.
Thirty quiet but tense seconds passed. Remaining time: 05:10.
Llenn strained her ears even harder than before. Perhaps her hearing would help her detect the enemy first in a place like this. However, the material underfoot was a mystery—it made no sound at all, even if she stomped her feet. That told Llenn that she didn’t need to worry about her foes overhearing her footsteps, but by the same token, it also removed her ability to hear the same.
That meant she’d have to narrow in on smaller sounds, like her opponent’s body moving through the air.
Where…?
Time passed in silence that was so absolute it was terrifying.
What is it…?
Remaining time: 04:58.
She had seen herself so many times and was getting so sick of the sight that she almost failed to notice the enemy right before her eyes.
When Llenn passed one wall of mirrors and turned the corner, she saw her standing there, ten feet ahead.
The space was nearly black because of its low mirror density, save for a single mirror reflecting her straight ahead.
A mirror image, staring back at her. A reflection with the white line in her hat on the right side.
But Llenn’s sharp gaze did not miss what was off.
She pointed straight at the reflected Llenn with the Vor-chan in her right hand.
The Llenn of the mirror ten feet away also had her left Vor-chan trained at her.
But at the moment, Llenn’s gun was tilted a bit, aimed slightly to the inside.
By contrast, the Llenn ten feet away was essentially holding her weapon at a vertical angle.
As soon as Llenn squinted at the image with confusion, that was how she could tell.
The Llenn ten feet away remained as expressionless as a mannequin.
Oh…that’s it.
She let her right index finger touch the Vorpal Bunny’s trigger and pulled.
The two fired almost simultaneously.
“Gahk!”
I knew it! Llenn shrieked to herself, triumphant that she had been correct, before a dull pain in her right shoulder knocked her back. It glowed red with bullet damage, and her hit points went down to 80 percent.
The mystery was solved.
She knew who the enemy was.
It was her. The one who’d taken Llenn’s shot to the left shoulder blade and had flipped backward the same way.
Llenn quickly got up, pointing the muzzle of the left Vorpal Bunny—but her foe was already gone.
“Gah!”
Instead, the enemy’s remaining health had now appeared in her upper-right field of view in a bar of its own. It looked about 80 percent. The same as Llenn.
My opponent is a copy of myself!
The version of herself she saw a moment earlier hadn’t been a reflection. It had been the enemy.
It was a model of herself, dressed exactly as she was, only mirrored from left to right.
And when she fired, the enemy had deduced that she’d been found out and so attacked her back a split second later. Both of them had taken a .45-caliber bullet to the shoulder as a result.
The fifth ordeal’s opponent was a copy of herself.
“Argh! What poor taste!” Llenn shouted. But she was also fired up. “That’s my opponent! And she’s going down!” Another cute little girl in pink, just like her. “I’ll beat her! I’ll destroy her!”
She smiled viciously and sprinted in the direction her foe had probably gone.
Then she spotted the enemy against the black space and, giving in to her battle instincts, pointed the right Vorpal Bunny. The other girl pointed her left Vorpal Bunny in a complete mirror image.
Wait, no!
She realized her mistake too late.
The Vorpal Bunny whose trigger she pulled smirked, “You can’t call take-backsies. I’m a machine.”
Its hammer fell, striking the firing pin inside the gun and causing the pin to hit the primer. In other words, the gun activated and propelled its loaded bullet forward and into the mirror she was pointing at, just as she’d intended to do when pulling the trigger.
From elsewhere in the black space, a different bullet sped toward Llenn, who had accidentally shot at her reflection. She managed to twist herself so that the new round passed just inches from her side.
“Dammit!”
Rolling and rolling, she fired two shots with each hand in the direction she heard the bullet come from.
It didn’t seem to do any good.
She curled up on the floor instantly before four return shots flew at her. They each struck her backpack, pushing her four times. “Gug-gah-gah-gah!”
Fortunately, the bulletproof plates from M’s shield had prevented the rounds from penetrating. She’d lost no hit points.
Llenn twisted and jumped to her feet, hopping quickly from side to side as she retreated. As she did, she liberally switched out the magazines that still had good bullets in them, dropping the loaded ones and sticking the grips of the pistols into the bottom of her backpack so she could click in new ones. When the slides were back in place, she had a total of fourteen new bullets between the two guns.
After retreating a bit, Llenn stopped and hid behind a mirror.
04:14.
She glanced at the remaining time and stood there in quiet contemplation.
Can’t just blast away as soon as I see the enemy. Could be me in the mirror.
And if I fire, my opponent is guaranteed to shoot the same number of rounds back. So first I have to make sure it’s not a reflection, then shoot as many bullets as possible to ensure it won’t return fire…
She started sprinting.
As her feet pattered soundlessly on the black flooring, she rushed through the darkness in search of the flashes of pink. In other words, a place with more mirrors. Eventually, she passed a number of other Llenns on her left and right.
When she saw herself straight ahead, she couldn’t tell if it was a mirror or a foe. Assuming it was a mirror, she fired a round from her right gun anyway. As long as she could keep moving, any counterattacks would most likely pass her by.
This way, I can search for her location!
This one was a mirror, its image distorting from the bullet. She heard a sharp whistle from the left.
By the time her spine tingled, it was already too late.
A tiny pink shadow came barreling toward her from over her left shoulder, jamming one of her pistols at Llenn from just six feet and unloading. She tried to dodge, but it was just too close. The bullet passed through her side as she contorted.
“Urk!”
She fell, backpack and all, eventually smashing into a mirror and shattering it to pieces. When she twisted around, she found that the enemy hadn’t stopped moving for a second after shooting.
Covered in glass shards, she lay prone as her hit points instantly decreased by 30 percent, the gauge turning from green to yellow.
She’s fast! She’s quick! She’s tough!
Llenn had nothing but praise for her foe.
She’d approached with inhuman speed, nimbly launched her assault, and disengaged. It was a brilliant use of the hit-and-run strategy. For the first time in her life, Llenn truly appreciated how unpleasant it could be to duel a small, quick opponent.
I have to wonder, has everyone who’s fought me…found me annoying? she pondered, a quick haiku.
Now she got why people called her by that horrible nickname, the Pink Maiden of Manslaughter. She understood it firmly. She understood it thoroughly. She understood it violently.
For Llenn, who’d only ever tangled with opponents who were bigger and slower than she was, this was the first foe in GGO she wasn’t sure how to defeat.
This is really tough…
The countdown was at 03:59.
But she couldn’t just lay there on the floor. Llenn sprang to her feet, scattering shards of mirror.
Her hit points were at 50 percent. The enemy was at 80 percent.
Thanks to her build, she couldn’t sustain too much punishment. A single shot from a .45-caliber ACP round to one of her extremities had stolen 30 percent of her health. A bullet to the head or heart would spell instant death.
But that meant her opponent had the same constitution. She was an exact copy with the same features and capabilities. It wouldn’t be fair otherwise.
If she could just nail her foe with a single head shot, Llenn stood a chance of snatching victory from defeat.
Slowly marching forward, Llenn realized that she should stay away from areas with high mobility. Places like this, where mirror density was low, gave the enemy more opportunities to move quickly.
Her doppelgänger wouldn’t attack first, even if she was right over her shoulder. Instead, she was relying on a battle style where she would wait for Llenn to take the initiative before counterattacking.
That was because of the time limit, she deduced. There was no need to rush things when your opponent could lose just by taking too long.
That meant the key to victory was for her to spot the enemy first, then blast her until she was undeniably dead.
Llenn crept forward, six rounds in her right Vorpal Bunny, seven rounds in her left.
Eventually, she found herself in a room with many mirrors on the walls, though she couldn’t tell if she had looped back to the start or if it was another location entirely.
03:25.
Here we go; this should work, Llenn mused, gazing upon a sea of herself. Now…time to do this…
She prayed that this was going to play out the way she’d envisioned.
Let’s go, Vor-chan.
Without aiming anywhere in particular, she reached out and fired her left Vorpal Bunny.
The instant she pulled the trigger, Llenn dropped to the floor and listened for the reprisal round flying back over her head.
I knew it. She was right.
Her foe would only fire as many rounds as she’d fired herself. It attacked like a mirror, reflecting the player’s actions.
Llenn was flat on the ground; she was an easy target, but her adversary wasn’t firing. Clearly, the game designer had intentionally set up the mirror enemy this way.
Once the bullet had whizzed past, she got back up and examined her surroundings.
There was nothing but Llenn after Llenn as far as the eye could see. So many Llenns. She spun around for a full view. A whole bunch of Llenns. Here, there, and everywhere. All Llenns.
Mirror-image Llenns.
And…regular Llenns.
There was a Llenn with the line on the left side of her cap, right there. Their eyes met.
“Found you!”
Llenn rushed straight for that “mirror” and launched herself into a ferocious slide. She clenched her guns hard to make sure they wouldn’t fly loose. When her feet hit a mirror, she pointed her firearms in that direction.
If there was a reflection of Llenn standing there, it would look proper when viewed in the mirror. And Llenn would be able to look her in the eyes.
She conjectured, then charged; sure enough, she’d found her doppelgänger.
About thirteen feet away from the spot where she came sliding to a halt.
With her two pistols pointed back at Llenn.
It doesn’t matter how much she shoots me as long as I shoot her.
The difference in their postures—the sizes of the strike zones each one offered—possibly gave the real Llenn the edge.
It was a desperate ploy to secure a chance at survival, a gamble in the midst of near-certain death.
“Taaa!” Llenn shouted, squeezing the triggers of both Vorpal Bunnies.
They released no bullets.
Huh?
Despite the force she was applying with her fingers, the triggers seemed firmly fixed in place.
Huhhh?
She caught sight of the rear of her Vorpal Bunnies.
Ohhhhh! What have I done?! she screamed.
It was obvious why she hadn’t been able to shoot them.
She’d lifted the safety selector on each pistol with her thumbs as she’d gripped them—almost certainly a byproduct of squeezing them so hard while sliding. By simply gripping her weapons harder than she’d needed to and accidentally turning on the safety, she’d ruined herself.
I really screwed up! I’m so sorry, everyone; I couldn’t make it, she apologized—yet another haiku—waiting to be riddled with bullets.
Time passed in silence.
Llenn had failed to fire, but her opponent didn’t even shoot.
“Huh?”
Right in front of her, merely thirteen feet away, the enemy held a pair of mirror-image Vorpal Bunnies without firing.
“Why…?” she asked thoughtlessly. Her doppelgänger said nothing.
She was just standing there. The same as when Llenn had first found her.
“Ohhh!”
An electrical signal shot through her brain like lightning as understanding dawned on her.
The enemy won’t attack unless it is attacked. And it won’t strike if I can’t.
Those were the underlying principles of her foe’s actions.
Even though she was training her pistols on the other Llenn with her fingers on the triggers, the system was aware that her safety mechanisms were on. It knew those guns were not going to release any bullets.
No human player would have ever given her this benefit of the doubt. Loaded or not, a pointed gun signaled an intent to attack, so you would typically shoot and kill. Besides, it was basically impossible to determine the status of the safety from the front of a gun.
“……”
Slowly, Llenn tilted her firearms. She kept the safeties on.
“Excuse me, Llenn? Aren’t you going to shoot?”
“Why not take the safeties off and let us loose?” complained her Vor-chans, who didn’t comprehend the situation.
“Mlp!”
“Mrf!”
She stuck them back in their holsters.
As expressionless as ever, her opponent slowly moved her hands and put the mirror-image Vorpal Bunnies back in their holsters.
Llenn steadily walked toward her opponent.
If I attack, she’ll attack, she reckoned. So I just have to prevent her from striking back…
She got closer.
The opponent is a reflection of me…reversed left to right…
She came right up to her foe. Save for her empty expression, it was just like looking in a mirror. Then again, Llenn didn’t know what face she was currently making; maybe it was just as blank as the enemy’s.
I’ll only have one chance! I just have to hope this works!
Llenn stuck out her left hand.
“Shake!”
“……”
The enemy said nothing. It wasn’t clear whether she identified that as an attack, but she also stuck out her left hand regardless.
And once Llenn saw that it was the left hand, not the right, she realized, I can win this!
She reached and touched her doppelgänger’s left hand with her own, then grabbed it. It was the first time she’d ever shaken hands with herself.
She squeezed harder. “Feeling good?”
“……”
The enemy said nothing. It wasn’t clear whether she identified that as an attack, but she also squeezed back regardless.
“Die.”
Llenn reached behind her back and grabbed the handle of Kni-chan, who announced, “Yes, my time has come.”
Her foe reacted immediately to Llenn’s intention to strike. She used her empty right hand to reach behind her back—and grasped nothing but empty air.
A mirror image isn’t going to find the handle there, is it?
Llenn pulled her dagger out backhand with her right and swung it at maximum speed. The blade passed through the middle of her opponent’s neck at the moment its right arm passed in front of Llenn’s neck, too.
Even as her doppelgänger’s body toppled backward, glowing with damage on her neck, Llenn refused to release her grip. The enemy’s hit points dropped further and further.
Yanking with all her might, she spun the lifeless body of her opponent so that its back struck her chest. Now she was firmly gripping a body exactly like her own from behind.
“You were…so strong…,” she whispered lovingly. “So just in case…”
It wouldn’t be nice if all of this wasn’t enough to kill, so she plunged the knife right into her body double’s chest.
The HP gauge went down as far as it could go, and the enemy body she clutched to her chest burst into pieces. The countdown clock stopped at 02:23.
“Very well done,” announced God—er, Suuzaburou. Then she was standing in a field.
It had been an instantaneous teleportation, with no flash of light. In the blink of an eye, she’d been transported to another location entirely.
Spread out before her was a breathtaking sight.
Tall green grass rippled and waved in the gentle breeze. A multitude of low, rolling hills continued all the way to the horizon. Cirrocumulus clouds dotted the sky in the distance. But overhead, it was beautifully clear. It was a reddish-blue hue (this was still GGO, after all) but it seemed clearer and more brilliant than usual. The midday sun blazed down from on high.
GGO was set in a world where civilization had collapsed following a world war that had been devastating enough to affect the atmosphere. Apparently, however, some beauty still remained. Or perhaps this landscape was a reward for finishing the quest.
Llenn returned the knife to its sheath behind her back.
“Hey, took you a while,” came a voice from over her shoulder.
She didn’t need to look to tell who it was. It was Shirley. But she checked anyway, and it was still Shirley.
“Sigh…” Llenn exhaled.
There was also a large house ahead. It was a country-style dwelling like you’d expect to see in an American TV drama, a log cabin with a chimney in the middle and a beautiful gabled roof. It was also huge—about a hundred feet wide and thirty feet long.
Log cabins like this were a frequent sight in GGO, and their interiors and furniture placement would always be identical. While the exteriors might have been run-down and ancient, the insides were always well-preserved. The glass windows were still intact, and the roof hadn’t fallen through anywhere.
The house was nestled between hills on three sides, right, left, and rear; east, west, and north. A fence wrapped around the house with plenty of yard space. The grass on half the yard had been trimmed to serve as a lawn, while the other half housed rows of plants.
Just one tree stood in the yard, and a child’s swing hung from one of its large, thick branches. Barrels for capturing rainwater had also been set up, and a small doghouse sat under the eaves of the tree.
In the corner of the yard was a gray-brick well, its black mouth yawning toward the sky. Its bucket had been pulled up and was overflowing with sparkling liquid.
It was a place people could call home.
The pastoral sight made you wonder, was this the house of a family who had lived off the land for generations and generations after that foolish war wiped out nearly all of humanity?
Shirley sat down on the cushion of a small, rusty tractor in front of the yard, its tires sunken into the grass. She clutched her freakish rifle in front of her.
The red tractor was a Porsche, the German automaker famous for their sports cars. As far as tractors went, it was pretty cool-looking and also pointed in the front. The female sniper sitting in it looked equally cool.
“Congrats! You beat your copy, too!” Llenn cheered, approaching through the waist-high grass.
“Yeah. It was creepy, though.”
“How long did it take you?” she asked. Shirley had undoubtedly been faster than Llenn, but she was curious.
“Thirty seconds from the start. I’ve been bored out of my skull this whole time. I didn’t think anyone else was showing up.”
“That’s so fast! How did you do it?”
“Hmm? I wandered around the fun house, then noticed one of my reflections looked different. That’s when I realized it was the enemy, not a reflection.”
That had been the same as Llenn.
“But I was too close, so I didn’t use my rifle. I drew my ken-nata and attacked her with that. She did the exact same thing back, so that’s when I realized even my attacks would be a copy…”
Llenn’s experience had also been identical. She’d just figured it out much quicker. But how did she manage to do better than a stalemate?
“I held back my swing at the last second and stuck out my thigh to take my foe’s blade. Did you know that really developed muscles, like your thighs, can lock so tightly around a deep stab that the blade won’t be able to slide back out?”
“Urgh?”
Llenn did not know that. How the heck were you supposed to find out about something that gruesome?
“While she was busy trying to pull it out, I just grabbed her around the neck with both hands and choked her out. Didn’t take that long, actually.”
“Urgh…”
Llenn really hadn’t needed to hear that.
“Nobody else is showing up,” murmured Llenn, leaning against the rusty tractor and taking in the beautiful scenery.
She’d assumed that she would at least see Shirley’s HP bar show up again after finishing the ordeal, especially since the sniper was sitting right there, but that didn’t happen. Llenn had also thought the area would act like a victory screen and prevent her from shooting, but her guns hadn’t been disabled, either.
“Whether they show up or not, we’ve still finished the quest,” noted Shirley nonchalantly.
“True,” acknowledged Llenn, who didn’t really have any other explanation to offer.
“Might be too late for us to win the fastest finish. It’s quite likely the other guys beat us to the punch.”
She was referring to ZEMAL and MMTM’s alliance. They had gone into the fun house before LPFM and SHINC, after all.
“Probably.”
“Do you think Pitohui died, too? The stronger you are, the tougher it should be to beat your doppelgänger. I won pretty easily by not using my rifle. If we’d gotten into a shoot-out, it would have been a draw.”
“Hmmm…”
Pitohui was perfectly capable in every kind of engagement, it seemed. Would she really fall in battle to a mirror image? Maybe they ran each other through with their photon swords.
Shirley watched the wind rustle through the grass in the field and murmured, “It’s beautiful. I can’t believe there’s somewhere in GGO like this.”
“No kidding.”
“I don’t want to have to fight somewhere so peaceful.”
“Neither do I. But I don’t think it’ll be necessary. I have a feeling this is a reward for beating the quest.”
“I hope so.”
Shirley and Llenn fell silent, basking in the moment.
“Fwuh? Where am I?”
Suddenly, the splendor of nature was shattered by the introduction of a new figure carrying a pair of grenade launchers: Fukaziroh. Since nothing had telegraphed her instantaneous arrival, it was startling.
Before Llenn could even get a word out, Boss appeared, too. “Hnn?”
And Tohma. “Ah!”
The three of them were in a line facing away toward the fields.
“Yoo-hoo! Guys! Over here!” Llenn called.
Fukaziroh turned around, beaming. “Yo, Llenn! Did you murder Llenn?”
“You bet. Did you gut that teensy blond, Fuka?”
“Yeah, she was tough… And let me tell you, it was hard to kill someone so beauteous and fair… Wish I could have taken her captive to show to you all.”
“Nah, one is more than enough,” Llenn said, laughing. She welcomed the trio, figuring she would hear how Fukaziroh won the fight later.
“Is this it? No Pitohui?” asked Boss. Llenn shook her head.
Tohma said, “I had barely any time left…”
Did Pito die, then? Was fighting against herself just too tough…? Llenn wondered.
“Keh! How dare she die before I could kill her!” Shirley swore, right at the moment her rival materialized.
Her sudden arrival was a surprise, but so was her appearance.
Pitohui was dressed in her underwear.
She wasn’t equipped with any of her gear, not even her usual navy-blue bodysuit. Her lithe, strong, tanned body was covered with only a black sports bra and boxer shorts, the minimum possible equipment in GGO. Even her feet were bare.
Presumably, she’d unequipped all her gear at once, clothing included.
“Why?” Llenn asked. It was the only word that came to mind.
“Eeeek! You look so sexy, Pito!” shrieked Fukaziroh.
Pitohui spun around, her ponytail swinging. “Hello, everyone! There you are! All together!”
“Pito! You’re almost late! But you made it in time! That’s good!”
“Thank you, Llenn. I have to admit: It was a close one! That should be all of us, I assume. Who’s not here? Clare, Rosa, Sophie, Tanya, and Anna?”
Llenn glanced at her wristwatch. It was 1:49:58. No time left.
And then there was Clarence.
“Huh? I made it?” she murmured, turning around. “Yahoo! Is this Heaven?”
“No, but congratulations all the same!”
“Whoa, all my hit points are back! Yesss! I’m so glad! Whew, I thought I was a gonerrrr!” Clarence wailed. She must have had some battle with herself.
Llenn was very curious to hear about everyone else’s experiences, but she wanted to know what had happened to Pitohui, who was calling up the menu to put her gear back on, most of all. Why would she be in her underwear?
“Pito, why did you strip?”
“Oh, that?” Pitohui replied, transforming back into her full getup like some kind of magical girl. “I was so jazzed about getting to fight myself that I went for a fistfight, rather than a gunfight.”
“Huh?”
“So both of us stripped down to our skivvies and had fun with our hands!”
“Oh…”
“Anyway, I managed to feint and pin her down, but it seemed like such a waste to kill her right away!”
“Oh…”
“So after I duct-taped her hands and feet, I had a moment to experience something truly precious: the chance to torture myself! But I went too easy on myself and nearly ran out of time. Whoopsie!”
That’s not a “whoopsie”… What’s wrong with these people? They’re all crazy, thought Llenn, who’d achieved victory by slashing her own throat.
“Well done, everyone. You have cleared the fifth ordeal,” said Suuzaburou, popping out of the grass to greet Llenn, Fukaziroh, Pitohui, Shirley, Clarence, Boss, and Tohma.
Every one of them felt either relieved at the victory or bittersweet at the thought of those they’d lost along the way.
But Fukaziroh just crouched down and screamed, “Oh, Suuzaburouuuuu! You’re aliiiiive!”
“Were we the first to beat it?” asked Boss.
“I still don’t know that yet,” replied the dog, which took the group off guard. “But one task I would like you to complete still remains. Once you finish it, this trial is truly over. The quest will be complete.”
“What? Six?! I thought you said it was the five ordeals, not six!” joked Clarence.
“It is not so taxing that I would call it an ordeal. It will be over very quickly,” noted Suuzaburou in his typically calm manner.
“I want you to kill me.”
No Comments Yet
Post a new comment
Register or Login