CHAPTER 3
Alone in the Mist
As the flash of the teleportation effect faded, Llenn opened her eyes.
“Hmm?”
And it was still white all around.
In fact, it was a very light gray, or perhaps a milky white. It wasn’t bright, but it was so uniform that she couldn’t really see anything.
“Huh?”
For a moment, she thought the teleportation had failed. But that didn’t happen in the VR world, so this was something else at play.
Without panicking or fretting, Llenn worked to understand the situation. She spun around in a full circle to see if anything different turned up.
“It’s all white…”
There was nothing but white in all directions, as far as the eye could see. She looked up, too—still white.
Looking down, she saw her pink legs and a concrete surface. It was a bit hazy, but the substance was white concrete, a fairly common texture in GGO.
A few seconds later, understanding arrived.
“Ohhh, it’s mist…”
She was surrounded by a very dense mist. That was why she couldn’t see anything but her own feet.
Since the ground was white concrete itself, there was actually no way for her to tell exactly how far her visibility went.
If the waiting room was dark and mysterious, she’d been taken somewhere white and mysterious instead.
Maybe she could at least tell the directions. She looked up at the compass, which was always displayed directly overhead within the player’s field of view.
“Awww, darn…”
But it wasn’t working. The display was covered with a pale-red filter that blocked it out.
Depending on the map you were in, you might experience this effect elsewhere in GGO: The compass was unusable here.
There were various reasons the administrators gave for this—the damaged magnetic field was having an anomaly, magnetic waves put off by certain enemies were jamming the compass, and so on.
In short: It doesn’t work here because we say so, now shut up.
“Hey, Llenn, where are you right now? You’re too small for me to see you.”
“Fuka?”
Her voice was only coming into Llenn’s left ear—meaning it was through the comm. Because Llenn had the comm set to feed into her left ear. Explanation over. Also, you can use it in the right ear, or both, if you want.
Her teammates should have been teleported close by, so if she wasn’t hearing the voice in her right ear, meaning it wasn’t coming from the physical space nearby, that was a little strange.
“How can I tell you where I am? It’s all mist around me. I can’t see a thing to describe to you.”
“Oh, me too. What about the others? M, Pito, Clare, Shirl, in that order,” Fukaziroh instructed.
M’s voice came back, also through the comm: “I’m also in very thick mist. I can’t see where I am at all.”
Then Pitohui: “Can’t see a damn thing.”
Then Clarence: “Same! It’s like clouds. Geez, this is scary! By the way, what’s the difference between mist and clouds?”
Lastly, Shirley: “Mist and clouds are basically the same thing. The only difference is whether it’s touching the ground or up in the sky. It’s rather spectacular mist, though. You couldn’t even drive in this.”
“Oh, I see. But even if it were totally clear, you probably shouldn’t be driving anyway, Shirley,” said Clarence.
“Forget about that right now,” said Shirley, who could do just about anything…well, except drive a car.
“What do we do? Where are you guys…?” Llenn fretted. It appeared that she was somewhat distant from her teammates, but which direction should she go to find them?
It was better not to move about too recklessly, she decided. Especially because she was so fast and small.
“Wait,” said M, his voice uncharacteristically concerned. “I’ll ask each of you in turn. What’s the ground beneath your feet like? Pito?”
“It’s dark, damp earth.”
“Shirley?”
“Hard, packed snow. Why, are you not standing in snow?”
“Clarence?”
“Huh? What are you guys talking about? I’m standing on dry, brown dirt! There’s no snow at all!”
“Fuka?”
“I’m in a place with train tracks laid over gravel. It’s one of those switchyards. The kind we saw at the start of SJ3. They’re reusing their map data, lazy bastards.”
“Llenn?”
“It’s plain white concrete! Like a garage…or a road!”
This is crazy, Llenn thought but did not say aloud.
Everyone was standing on a different surface. If they had all been teleported to the same location, that shouldn’t have been possible.
Which meant there was only one explanation.
“Do you mean…?”
If the information was correct, then the answer had to be, too, no matter how difficult it was to believe. Llenn spoke her conclusion out loud.
“We’ve all been teleported to different places?”
“That’s right,” M said with great finality. “We ended up in separate places. Or should I say, we were sent to them.”
Sent? she wondered, right as the clock hit 1:03.
At that very moment, as though designed to arrive the second the mystery was solved, a message appeared.
Large black letters appeared against the white mist, an effect that only the player present could see.
The message was as follows.
Announcing more special rules!
I’ve scattered all team members at the start of the game! First things first: Good luck getting back together.
We have 180 players, after all, so you’ll find enemies fairly close at hand. Be careful.
Only the team leaders, as the rules have always been, are kept at least two-thirds of a mile separate from any others.
Also, the mist will slowly clear up over time—very slowly.
But it will be totally clear by two o’clock, after an entire hour. So don’t worry.
Your compass will be totally useless until then, however.
Also, you won’t be able to see your teammates’ hit points. The only indicator you will receive is an X mark over their name if they die.
On top of that! From the first Satellite Scan at 1:10 until the mist totally clears at two o’clock, your ability to use your comms will be interrupted. Until you actually meet up in person, you will no longer be able to contact your distant teammates.
Better figure out a plan now while you can still talk, huh?
“Huh?”
Llenn’s jaw dropped—as did over a hundred other players’ at the same time.
That goddamn sponsor was messing with the rules again, making life harder for everyone else. And without any warning ahead of time. Screw you, pal!
In GGO and other games, it was possible sometimes to get teleported somewhere in the game and find that you were separated from the rest of your party. It happened in the quest the other day.
And that certainly wasn’t uncommon with misty areas like this one.
It was a trick that made enemy encounters thrilling and created a general sense of dread for players to enjoy.
The mist was something needed to make the most out of the rules, so useful items like night-vision goggles, infrared displays, and thermal goggles were certain to be useless here.
Still, you’d never guess that such a situation would arise in a team battle-royale event. With the added bonus of a disabled compass and the inability to communicate with your companions until you found one another.
M said, “I had a feeling it was something like this. Everyone, crouch down and make as little noise as possible. If you can use white camo, put it on now. Especially Llenn.”
“G-got it…”
Llenn sat as quickly as a dog seeing its favorite treat in its owner’s hand and brought up her inventory with a swipe of her left hand. She selected a snowy camo poncho of faded white with bits of gray smudging, materialized it, and put it on.
Her usual clothes stood out against anything but reddened desert sand, so she made sure to keep a stock of ponchos in various colors.
You want me to stop wearing pink? You might as well ask me to die!
The little pink frog crawling along the ground turned into a spotted white-and-gray frog. Shirley, meanwhile, did the same thing as soon as she’d confirmed her location. Those were sniper instincts at work.
“There’s a good chance you have an enemy lurking within a hundred yards,” M warned. Since it was through the comm, everyone could hear it clearly, even if he was muttering so quietly you wouldn’t be able to hear him from two feet away. “Stay on highest alert. Rely on your ears. Make as little noise as possible from this point on.”
Well, that made sense. You had up to 180 players, now spread out across a map exactly a hundred square kilometers in size.
The biggest official event in Gun Gale Online, the solo battle-royale event called the Bullet of Bullets, featured a map the same size with only thirty players. So this was an extremely chaotic adaptation of that format. What now?
Llenn’s mind was awash with various thoughts, but she didn’t say any of them out loud so as not to interrupt M’s warnings.
“There’s no use getting mad about these rules. We just have to do our best, no matter the circumstances. The first step is getting everyone back together. Whichever teams reunite safely are going to have a major advantage; they’ll be able to use their second loadouts, too. Make sure you all have your Satellite Scanners out, and hide the screen when you look at it.”
Llenn did as he said. You had to hide the screen to keep the light from being visible at a distance. She used her right hand to cover the screen of the Satellite Scanner, a smartphone-like device, in her left hand. It displayed a map.
In previous Squad Jams, it would show a detailed terrain map, only indicating your own location at the start.
“Huh?”
There was a map here. But she couldn’t see it.
It was completely white, to the point that she almost thought the screen was bugged-out. Like it was bought brand-new and had a piece of white printer paper stuck to the front.
And because she was the team leader, she would have normally expected to see her location on the map as a glowing white dot. She squinted, examining the screen closely, and after much effort, spotted something. There was a darker white dot, slightly different than the shade of the screen.
But since she couldn’t see any details on the screen, she couldn’t tell where she actually was. She could spread and pinch her fingers to zoom the map in and out, but the only thing it showed was a white dot on a white screen.
“I can’t tell,” she murmured to herself.
Her teammates had the same result. “This is no good,” Fukaziroh muttered into her ear.
“I’m just guessing,” Pitohui said to the group, “that we aren’t going to be able to see the entire map until the mist is clear. There’s a white dot for the leader’s position on your screen, right, Llenn? Can you zoom in as far as you can?”
“Got it.”
She did as she was asked and zoomed in farther than she’d done on her own. Her fingers repeated the pinch-out motion several times until it stopped working.
“I’m at max zoom. Nothing’s any different,” she reported. The screen was still all white.
“Now, be mindful of your surroundings and move a little bit. Like twenty yards, that’s all.”
“A-all right…”
Without understanding what this was accomplishing, Llenn rose to a crouch and quickly zipped forward over the ground. She was scuttling, like a certain flat, blackish, shiny insect that wasn’t found in Hokkaido and whose name you would not want to think about.
The white ground underneath her scrolled past, until a broken white line appeared, marking the boundary between lanes. She was indeed on a very wide road, an expressway, perhaps.
“Oh!”
There was a change in the map. While it previously looked like a blank sheet of paper, there was now actual map there. It was a line of detail that looked like a road. You could even see the lane divider.
“Can you see anything? Any change in the display?”
“I can see that I’m on a big road, by eyesight and by the map!”
“I had a feeling. Okay, Llenn, thank you. Stay there and watch out. Listen up, everyone. This map will only show you the places you’ve seen for yourself. You’ll only be able to see what’s right in front of you while the mist is thick, so it’s not going to tell you much for now.”
Oh, I get it now! Llenn thought, mentally smacking her knee with recognition, since she was now lying down on the ground again.
It worked the same way that mapping did during regular play. For example, when you entered a new cave or underground city area, the system would automatically fill in the map area you had seen for yourself, but nothing else. Or in other words, “auto-mapping.”
In tabletop RPGs and old-school games that only had 3D graphics, players would use graph paper to chart out the details manually, from what she heard. It seemed kind of fun, actually.
But she never expected to have to do mapping in Squad Jam. All the other events had shown her the entire map from the start of the game. The only exception was the cruise ship in SJ3, the secret final map.
“So,” Clarence said, “does that mean it’s better at the start to run around all over in the mist?”
“In terms of mapping, yes. But like we said earlier, it’s really ineffective to wander around while the mist is thick, and more importantly, it increases the chances of running into an enemy,” noted Miss Pitohui wisely. Clarence the student murmured with recognition, her question answered.
What happens once we meet up with teammates? Llenn wondered.
As if reading her mind, Pitohui went on, “And I’m guessing that the moment you meet up with a teammate, your map info will be combined. Out in the wilderness, you can always exchange map data with people coming from the other direction, right?”
Yes, I see, I see, Llenn thought.
“Hey, guys…if you think about it…we’re just like gorillas…,” said Fukaziroh, her voice ponderous with hidden meaning. “Get it? Because we’re—”
“Gorillas in the mist, yeah,” said Llenn, cutting her off. None of the others said a word, but for a while afterward, Clarence could be heard giggling to herself.
Llenn checked the watch she kept on the inside of her left wrist.
It was after 1:06. Less than four minutes until the first Satellite Scan.
In Squad Jam, the first ten minutes were generally more of a strategy time where you didn’t go anywhere, but that time was coming to an end.
What should we do? Llenn wondered.
Once the Satellite Scan started, it would display the leader’s position and team name. That would tell her the distance between herself and the other team leaders.
And based on the placement of the other dots, she would probably know where on the overall map she was.
In other words, if there were no dots to the west or south of her, she would know that she was in the southwest corner of the map.
But what to do after that point?
It would be possible to find SHINC’s location and head in that direction. But there was no way she could do that without running into any other player as she went. On top of that, the compass didn’t work for now, which meant that even though she’d know the leader’s location, she would have to move bit by bit, drawing the map and correcting her direction.
Should they prioritize reuniting the team and have everyone come toward her?
No, that wouldn’t work right away. None of them knew where they were yet.
They’d just have to move around until the map showed signs of change, and that would give them a good idea of where they were. Maybe they would slowly but surely come together, but it would raise the chances of enemy encounters along the way, and more importantly, it was likely that the hour would pass first.
It hurt that they wouldn’t be able to use their comms, too. If they could just talk, there would be many different ways to get together, even if they started far away. And it would be much less lonely.
That stupid crappy writer just had to put together an obnoxious trial like this. If she ever ran across him, she’d put a bullet in his brain, or his ass, or both.
“I’m going to give each of you a plan to follow,” said M, bypassing the team leader.
Llenn wasn’t going to protest. If anything, M was more of a leader than she was.
I’m just a decoy leader, because I’m so tiny and cute and fast and small and adorable.
“Fuka.”
“Yeah?”
“Just hide. If there’s a freight car like in SJ3, that would be perfect. Once you’ve found a safe location, you don’t need to move from there at all. Ignore the fighting. If you happen to spot someone, just slip past them, as long as it’s not a teammate or SHINC. If you’re lucky enough to meet one of us, you can offer support if you want, but there’s no need to go anywhere if you’re not safe.”
“Had a feelin’ you’d say exactly that. Gotcha! I’m good at playing hide-and-seek.”
Uh-huh, agreed Llenn. Fukaziroh’s grenade launchers could send devastating destruction to a distant (visible) enemy. Since there was no way to see into the distance now, it was pointless for her to try to fight.
She was only holding her pistol for show. She could fire thousands of shots without hitting anyone. Unless the gun misfired or something—maybe then it might actually hit someone by accident.
All that aside, it was best for Fukaziroh to stay still and hide. She could take a nice safe nap for the whole hour until the mist was gone.
“Shirley.”
“Yeah.”
“You were on snow? Take out your skis and zip around. When you spot a player, take them out in one shot and run. Just don’t accidentally shoot an ally. All right?”
“I’ve already got them on. And yes, I will do that…but does Pitohui really count as an ally?” Shirley replied teasingly.
“Do whatever you like,” M replied.
“Roger that,” Shirley said. She had to be smirking to herself. Flashing those white teeth amid the fog, Llenn thought but did not say aloud.
“Clarence.”
“Heigh-ho!”
“If you’re on dry dirt, it’s probably wasteland. You’re going to have trouble hiding. Move as slowly as you can while the mist is thick. You can shoot any enemies you see, but get away from there as fast as you can. Once it’s clear farther than the AR-57’s firing range, try to get into a different biome and then hide.”
“Okay! I’ll just enjoy myself, then. It’s not like I’m carrying anyone else’s stuff. If I die, big whoop!”
“Lastly, Llenn.”
So M didn’t have any comments for Pitohui. Probably because he didn’t need to give her advice. She was a demon, and she’d be fine on her own. If anything, any enemies around Pito should run for it now. They might still have a chance of survival. Or maybe not.
“Present!” Llenn replied, waiting for her orders. It was now 1:09:20.
“Switch to the Vorpal Bunnies until the mist starts to clear. The protective plate in your backup magazine pack will protect your back. Stay in place and watch the scan, and once the results disappear, just start running around, real fast. With your speed and size, you’re not likely to get hit by anyone who actually sees you in the mist. If you can get in any sneak attacks, do it. If not, just run away. If you do attack, do it only once and then run. Don’t turn back.”
“Roger!”
Three seconds until the Satellite Scan. Llenn perfectly understood her orders.
She would use her speed and her Vorpal Bunnies and run around as fast as she could, watching out for obstacles. If she saw an enemy in the mist, she’d shoot them, if she could. But she didn’t have to. Only if she could hit them, guaranteed. And then run away.
Until the mist cleared and she could use the effective range of her P90, which was about two hundred yards, she’d fight with her pistols.
M didn’t specify this, but she was certain she should also be doing this for mapping purposes. The more information, the better.
“It’s time. Best of luck, everyone. Just survive—and we’ll meet up again later,” M said, right as the clock hit 1:10:00.
The first Satellite Scan was beginning.
The Satellite Scan was explained as the work of a man-made satellite scanning the surface from space and sending the data down.
Based on the satellite’s angle of inclination—the directions it came and went—the spot where the scan began was different every time. So was the speed with which the process happened and how soon it ended.
This one started from the north, going straight to the south, slowly lighting up little white dots. Llenn used the inward-pinch maneuver to zoom out as far as possible—meaning the entire map was (supposedly) visible.
She tapped the dots as soon as they appeared, checking the names they revealed.
Where’s SHINC? Where’s LPFM? Where on the map am I?
“Hrrg!” She issued a muffled yelp.
In the northwest part of the map—at least, based on the placement of the dots—she spotted the name MMTM.
And then to the east—making it the northeast corner—was the name SHINC.
“Guys!”
It was most definitely SHINC. Not some other tag that was confusingly similar.
If the four-corner theory held true, then she would be on the lower left corner, the southwest, or the lower right, the southeast.
“Please let it be the lower right, where I’m closer. Please, God of Gun Gale!” prayed Llenn, the only time she ever did such a thing. On the few occasions that Llenn actually prayed, it was to the God of Gun Gale, but she didn’t know if it actually existed.
She did touch the dots that popped up near the center, but her heart wasn’t in it. Some she recognized, some she did not.
When the scan finally got to the bottom, all the way to the south, she made another muffled yelp.
“Hrrg!”
There was no God of Gun Gale. She stopped believing. At least for now.
The dot labeled LPFM, indicating her location, was in the left-left corner, all the way to the southwest. The opposite corner from SHINC. As far away as she could possibly be.
“Ugh…”
She thought back on SJ2, the game on the day that she swore to kill Pitohui in order to save Elza’s life. At the start of that game, too, they were on the diagonal corner, as distant as could be. She cursed the world then.
“Argh! Dammit! Fine, I’ll do it!”
She chose to believe in herself, not in God.
As was the case in SJ2, she couldn’t just sit in the corner and rot at the start. Squad Jam had just begun. She had a battle ahead of her that would probably last for two hours.
And being a battle, there was just one thing to do…
To believe in herself and fight.
Llenn placed the Satellite Scanner back in her shirt pocket and waved her left hand. She chose to alter her equipment and hit the ACCEPT button.
“See you later, P-chan.”
The P90 resting on the concrete surface next to her vanished, as did the magazine pouches on either side of her waist.
“Let’s go, Vor-chan.”
They were replaced by a new accumulation of light that coalesced into two pink automatic pistols: the AM.45 Version Llenn, aka Vorpal Bunny.
Two black nylon holsters for the pistols appeared on her thighs, and a backpack holding plenty of backup ammunition hung over her shoulders. The white camo poncho automatically bulged outward to cover them.
She stood up, holding a Vorpal Bunny in each hand, and caught the rear sight on the right gun against the rear sight on the left, pulling the slide backward. Then she repeated it on the other side.
Cha-chik, cha-chik! Two satisfying metal clicks sounded in the mist, indicating that there was a .45 ACP bullet in each Vorpal Bunny’s chamber.
Two pistol icons appeared in the bottom right corner of Llenn’s vision, with the number 6 next to each, detailing the size of the magazine.
In her backpack she had another forty, giving her 240 bullets in total. There would be ammunition refills, too, so she should be able to shoot as much as she wanted, really.
“There we go!”
Llenn prepared to stand up, ready to go—and immediately heard a gunshot.
It was the sound of the firing itself and of a bullet creating a passing shock wave. After that, extremely clear through the mist, was a red bullet line.
“Eep!”
She flattened herself to the ground as bullet lines and their bullets passed over her head from right to left, like a broom being swept over her. They were high-pitched, high-speed shots, probably from a 5.56 mm rifle.
If she’d been even half a second quicker to stand, she would have been shot, that much was certain. If she was even of average player height, it would have hit her, too.
The fact that Llenn was tiny just barely saved her life.
She could see muzzle flashes lighting up through the thick mist. That was where the bullet lines were coming from.
Though she couldn’t see them through the mist, a person was clearly there. They were ahead and on her left, about twenty to thirty yards away.
Dammit! Hey, you! You’re as good as dead!
She took full advantage of her maxed-out agility to perform an ultra-high-speed forward crawl. This was a maneuver that only Llenn could perform.
Scuttling like the Insect-That-Shall-Not-Be-Named, she moved outside the enemy’s visual range, she hoped. If they were right-handed, she would be moving toward their left.
During this time, the enemy fired in bursts, a few shots of automatic fire at a time in a repeated pattern. They weren’t moving as they shot.
The shots kept coming endlessly.
Clearly, this player was using a magazine with an extreme number of bullets. Or maybe it was a machine gun with a belt-link feeder. Either way, it was bad news.
Though the enemy couldn’t have seen Llenn at all, they must have heard the loud and proud click of her loading the Vorpal Bunnies. In other words, Llenn screwed up. She could easily have done it in a much quieter way.
When you make a mistake, you have to clean up your mess! she scolded herself, crawling forward like a soldier on fast-forward for about four seconds. Finally, she saw something in the mist that wasn’t just road surface.
In the midst of the world of white, it looked like a fuzzy black stick at first, but eventually grew sharper, until it was clearly an enemy player.
An unfamiliar man wearing dark-green camouflage fatigues.
It wasn’t a teammate or a member of SHINC—so it was someone she was allowed to kill.
He was using a 5.56 mm assault rifle, the M4A1. It had a hundred-round drum magazine like two barrels laid side by side. That was how he was firing so steadily for so long.
He was still firing in bursts, in fact, and the expression she could see on his face was clearly of fear. It was a rictus of terror, in fact.
Sure, it’s scary. You’re all alone in the mist, and then you hear the sound of a gun being loaded nearby, Llenn thought, carefully getting to her feet once she was completely behind her foe.
With a quick look around to see if there was anyone else sneaking up or sending a bullet line her way, Llenn concluded that she was good to go.
She slipped closer and pressed the Vorpal Bunnies upward against the back of his neck, just below the helmet. He had just finished shooting his hundred rounds, and the world was suddenly silent.
The touch of cold metal elicited a single sound from his throat that sounded surprisingly loud in the silence.
“Huh?”
The pair of gunshots sounded as one.
Llenn took off running.
All the shooting was sure to bring people over. She sprinted without hesitation, just as M instructed.
She didn’t confirm the DEAD tag over the enemy she shot, but he’d taken two .45-caliber pistol bullets to the brain, so he couldn’t be alive. He just couldn’t.
Llenn ran, not knowing where she was going. She knew she was in the southwest corner of the vast map, but she didn’t have a working compass to tell her the direction.
Ugh! Let the cards fall where they may!
There was no point to pondering a better plan if it got her killed. She decided to follow the center divider on the road beneath her boots. It was a flat, straight road.
If she ran up on the boundary of the map, then so be it. But then she could travel along that boundary. Once she’d done a certain amount of mapping, she’d be able to confirm her location and route on the second scan in eight minutes.
That was something only a team leader could do, and it was the best plan she could think of for now.
But I’m scared!
Running through such thick fog was basically like running with your eyes closed. Maybe it was slightly clearer than before, but she still couldn’t see anything more than the ground in front of her feet for a few yards.
If there were any cars stopped in the road, she wouldn’t be able to avoid them. She’d slam right into them, even if she hit the brakes.
But there was almost no way to die instantly from an impact. As long as you didn’t do what she’d done during the playtest and try to kill yourself by slamming your head into a sturdy wall.
It’s scary! But don’t be scared! I’m the hardest to shoot when I’m running! It’s the safest way to be!
Llenn did not stop. The thick soles of her combat boots pounded the concrete, producing only the smallest sound possible.
The next moment, about thirteen feet to her right, another black stick floated up, took the outline of a person, then passed by without a sound.
The encounter lasted all but an instant, but Llenn was able to summon the image crisply in her head.
It was a man wearing a Japanese Imperial Army uniform, perhaps an officer’s coat.
He was one of the New Soldiers (NSS), a historical reenactment cosplay team that role-played as soldiers from the past who’d been sent to the future. He was carrying a Type 100 submachine gun, a historical relic.
Momentarily running across a person dressed from a different era in thick mist was kind of a ghostly experience. It was creepy. She felt like it was something out of an Akira Kurosawa film.
It wasn’t clear if he had seen Llenn, too. She got the feeling he was pointing in a different direction. If he had spotted her, he might shoot at her—but after several seconds, she didn’t hear any gunshots behind her. Maybe it was thanks to her camo poncho.
“I’m saved,” she murmured, and continued on her way.
For better or for worse, the wide road went on and on. For now, there wasn’t a single vehicle on the road.
Where was the road going? Was it going anywhere?
Llenn didn’t have the answers, but that wasn’t going to stop her. She glanced at her watch as she ran: one fifteen PM.
Then she looked ahead—thought she saw something dark—and slammed into it.
“Eek!”
“Eek!”
A pair of shrieks overlapped.
Llenn heard the shriek as she shrieked and, with all the momentum of her travel, rolled and tumbled down the road.
She knew only two things.
She had hit someone, lost her balance, and then slowed as she fell to the ground. And based on the voice, the other person was female.
Llenn was used to tumbling in GGO; like always, she drew her arms in, tucked her head and legs, and waited for her body to stop rolling.
After six and a half rotations, she came to a stop, skidding on her backpack.
“Hpp!”
She bounced like a spring, popping back up to her feet. That wasn’t enough spinning to make her see birdies, no sir.
The person she ran into was already lost in the mist, without a trace of a silhouette.
What now? Llenn fretted.
She’d been in the process of looking up from her wristwatch, so all she’d been able to make out as they approached each other was a green lower half. She didn’t get a good view of whomever she’d run into.
The scream made it clear it was a woman, but she had no idea if it was a teammate, or someone from SHINC, or someone else entirely.
It sounded kind of like a crisp, clear soprano voice, so it probably wasn’t someone familiar like Fukaziroh, and it wasn’t a lower-pitched voice like Pitohui’s or Boss’s—but there was no guarantee it wasn’t Shirley, Clarence, or one of the other SHINC girls.
What should I do? What’s the right answer?
If it was a friend, she should say something. If it was a foe, she should shoot or run.
If it was a friend, they would say something. If it was a foe, they would shoot.
What should I do, what should I do, what should I—?
Within a fraction of a second of indecision, she heard the voice speak through the mist.
“Hey, Llenn.”
Ah!
Once again, she was required to make a split-second judgment. Her head spun even harder than before.
The other girl knew who she was.
Well, if she’d seen her when they collided, she could have easily recognized Llenn based on her being the tiniest player in Squad Jam and with pink boots and fatigues peeking out from under the poncho.
And just to be clear, there was only one tiny shrimp wearing all pink in Squad Jam. There could only be one.
Also, the voice did not sound familiar. It didn’t seem to be a teammate or member of SHINC. It was much more likely this was someone else.
However, it was a voice she had heard before on multiple occasions. And recently.
Who is it? And what should I do?
To run, to fight, or to speak—that is the question, Llenn Hamletted. It was a three-choice question.
She could probably get away if she ran. The mist was just as thick for both of them.
But in GGO, especially in Squad Jam, you ought to eliminate your enemies.
She ought to charge and fire her Vorpal Bunnies into the mist in the direction of the voice.
But no, that would just get her shot. And if the other girl had a rifle, Llenn would lose. Maybe she could shoot once, taking the enemy by surprise, and utilize a scuttling-insect maneuver to swing around behind her and boom!
Llenn did neither of these things.
“What’s up?” she replied.
The other person had spoken to her, and she recognized the voice. These facts alone demanded a response. But she didn’t forget to flop to the ground as she did so.
“I’m heading over there. If you shoot, I’ll shoot, too.”
“I’m not going to shoot! As long as you don’t!”
“Good idea. I don’t want a mutual KO right at the start.”
So they both had the same idea.
In order to identify the other person, they’d need to be just a few yards apart in the mist. If they launched into a full attack at that distance, there was a very high chance that both would die and be out of Squad Jam.
Even still, Llenn waited with the Vorpal Bunnies in her hands. She was lying down, her arms pointed forward, elbows slightly bent, with the guns held at a slight inward angle.
But she didn’t put her fingers on the triggers. Producing bullet lines would be an indication to the other girl that she intended to shoot.
Eventually, a dark figure appeared out of the white mist, her details becoming clearer, like a video of something melting, played in reverse.
It was a beautiful woman who looked to be about twenty years old.
She had pale skin, short red hair, and a beanie on top. Resting over her cheekbones was a pair of smartglasses that would display information before your eyes, in the style of fashionable sports shades.
She wore tiger-stripe camo pants, with a simple black hoodie and a tactical chest rig, also in tiger-stripe pattern.
Around her neck and shoulders hung an RPD, a Soviet light machine gun, with a shortened barrel and a drum magazine attached. Holstered on her right hip was an American military issue 9 mm automatic handgun, the M17.
“Oh…”
Llenn knew who it was. Belatedly, she realized that that’s whose voice she’d been hearing.
Her name was Vivi.
The sole woman on ZEMAL, who joined them before SJ4.
She’d known Fukaziroh back in ALO—they were on opposing fairy races, so they’d been enemies.
In SJ4, she led ZEMAL to push LPFM to the brink, nearly wiping them out. But on Pitohui’s suggestion, she let them go, for the sake of the bet with Fire.
During the recent Five Ordeals quest, they temporarily worked together to defeat Mecha-Dragon, and they even spoke a little at the pub afterward. She’d killed the dog and didn’t get the true ending, and had waited for them to show up.
The fact that she was here now proved she wasn’t ZEMAL’s leader. That wasn’t a surprise, however. She’d led an excellent roving squad in SJ4, too.
“Good day to you, Llenn.”
When she saw that Vivi’s RPD wasn’t pointed at her, Llenn lowered her Vorpal Bunnies.
She could just open fire on her, and in some sense, maybe she should. Vivi was a brilliant leader and adviser, someone who had taken ZEMAL from laughingstock all the way to champions in SJ4.
Killing her right now might’ve been Llenn’s best and only chance to execute an action that would be necessary to win SJ5.
“Hello…”
But Llenn did not shoot her.
She must have had a reason for saying hello. Llenn wanted to know what it was and if she could make use of it.
Vivi approached to within six feet and crouched. Llenn lifted herself up off the ground and into a hunched-over position. It would be easier to run this way than on her hands and feet.
They hadn’t produced any gunshots here, so no other enemies who may be in the area should have noticed them, but vigilance was still key.
Vivi was crouched on Llenn’s left up ahead. She wasn’t facing Llenn directly. Then she pointed at her own eyes with index and middle fingers, and pointed ahead of her.
Aha. She wants us to watch each other’s back, Llenn understood. She nodded broadly enough to be noticeable through her large poncho hood and did as directed. She kept her eyes peeled for signs of movement, with Vivi’s pretty face framed on her left.
Vivi went into her inventory, then waved her arm to send the window to Llenn. They were just close enough to be able to trade items directly.
The little black window was visible only to Llenn. It said: Connect comm? Y/N
Interesting. This would allow them to communicate with a minimum of vocalization. She hit Y without thinking twice and heard Vivi’s voice loud and clear in her left ear, despite it being only a soft murmur.
“Crazy rules, huh? That sponsor is a real handful, isn’t he?”
“Seriously.”
“I have a goal in mind. I want my team to have their fun shooting, and then I can guide them to victory.”
“I see. Sounds tough,” Llenn replied casually.
But they might actually do it, she thought, her heart pounding. Should I actually go ahead and kill Vivi…? Or would murdering her now after our little truce leave a bad aftertaste? Still, my teammates will probably say, ‘Good job’…especially Pitohui. Fukaziroh would definitely prioritize winning the game over being a good person, so she’d probably do it. But even still, I just don’t—Arrrrgh…
Llenn’s mind wandered back and forth, bouncing between options like an indecisive young teen.
“So do you want to team up until two o’clock?” Vivi suggested.
It was 1:17.
“Uh-huh… Well, two’s better than one in this situation, and a team’s better than two. The more eyes, the better off we’ll be. But…”
Llenn checked her watch while remaining focused on the surroundings. She understood exactly what Vivi was thinking. This was precisely what you needed to survive the first hour of SJ5.
But there was something Llenn needed to confirm. She didn’t have the time to feel out what the other girl was plotting. She’d just have to ask directly.
“For reasons I’m not sure of, I have a bounty of a hundred million credits on my head. Where’s my guarantee that you won’t shoot me in the back of the head at exactly two o’clock?”
“There isn’t one. Just as there’s no guarantee you won’t shoot me at one fifty-nine,” Vivi replied, which was a more likable answer than playing coy.
“Got it. One more question. We have an agreement to meet up with our friends in SHINC and fight alongside them. The special rules make that impossible for now, but they’re basically teammates, and I’m trying to go northeast to find them. Assuming I can tell the direction.”
“Sure thing. I’ll treat them as allies, just like our own teammates. Until two o’clock. But…”
“But what?”
“If our teammates located elsewhere are shooting one another without knowing about us, there’s no blaming each other.”
“…Got it. No hard feelings.”
With all of that cleared up, Llenn asked Vivi a simple logistical question. “ZEMAL’s leader was in the bottom right of the map, the southeast, right? Are you sure you don’t need to head that way?”
“I’m all right. I gave the others their orders ahead of time. Nobody move, except for the leader. Stay hidden for the entire hour. And to the leader, I said, ‘Good luck!’”
“I see.”
Just like Fukaziroh. A team with immense firepower needed to restrain itself within heavy mist. Hiding was the best option.
Except for whoever was the leader and had their location given away on the map. Good luck to them.
“So I can spend some time helping you find your friends, if you want. If we can thin out the numbers of enemies in the meantime, even better,” Vivi said.
Llenn checked her wristwatch. It was 1:19. Sixty seconds until the scan.
There was no time to make up her mind.
“Agreed on all counts. Let’s go with that. It’ll be nice working with you,” Llenn replied.
Vivi’s pretty face wore a mature smile. “Same to you, Llenn.”
“Just one more question I’ve always wanted to ask.”
“What is it?”
“What kind of relationship did you have with my friend Fukaziroh in the world of fairies?”
It was 1:19:50 now.
“It would take all night to explain that to you,” Vivi said.
“Let’s watch the scan, then.”
“Agreed.”
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