CHAPTER 10
Ten-Minute Massacre II (Start)
Ten minutes earlier, at 1:40 PM…
The same moment that Pitohui’s group had successfully lured their foes into the ravine trap and begun counting down to massacre, in fact.
“Let’s check the scan!” said Llenn, a tiny shrimp dressed in pink who was all dusty from falling down.
“You got it!” replied Fukaziroh, the other shrimp, dressed in a MultiCam camo shirt, matching shorts, and a green vest, with a huge grenade launcher in either hand, as they stood at the edge of a giant dome.
The dome, which was a mile and a quarter across and several hundred yards high, was just like any other mountain up close. Its walls were made of some mysterious white material with no seams whatsoever. They curved gently toward the reddish-brown sky.
There was what appeared to be a door every three hundred feet or so that would provide entry. They had to pray that as long as you could get in, you could also get out.
The girls had watched the one-thirty scan at the train station and taken the next ten minutes to travel to the dome. They hadn’t encountered any enemies along the way.
The area surrounding the dome was soft, empty earth that once supported grass but was now dried and dead. The visibility was good, and while there were no enemies in eyeshot, Llenn and Fukaziroh were staying vigilant. They were on their bellies, facing away from the dome. Llenn placed her Satellite Scan terminal on the ground in front of her and turned it on.
The fourth scan of SJ2 began.
This one started from the north and pushed its way south.
They tapped the lit dots for the surviving teams to check their names. The fearsome members of MMTM were still alive in the mountainous region to the northeast of the dome. The championship contenders were living up to their reputation.
Once the scan passed the dome, Llenn grunted. “Ugh…”
They were northwest of the dome’s circle on the map, right at the ten-o’clock position with north being up. But directly to the south, at the six-o’clock position, was Boss’s team: SHINC.
“But why are there so many…?”
And right under the dome, practically in the middle, were three more teams.
Llenn tapped them, but she didn’t recognize any of the names. They were about one or two thousand feet apart. By Squad Jam standards, that was very close, so they could well have been in combat, but it was impossible to tell from atop the dome.
“Gaaah! Stay out of our way!” she yelled. The quickest route to Pitohui was through this dome. Why did there have to be three whole teams inside?
“Guess I’m not the ‘lucky girl’ this time around,” she grumbled.
“Now, now,” Fukaziroh lectured. “You should know that we Japanese have a superstition about infusing spoken words with the power to make them come true.”
The seven dots in the southeast region of the map were in exactly the same locations as ten minutes ago. Pitohui’s team didn’t seem to have budged at all, either.
It wasn’t too much of a stretch to imagine the other teams leaving their leaders together and sneaking up the mountain in one big group.
Pito, M, good luck! Llenn prayed. Please don’t die until I can kill you.
“No new disqualified teams. Seventeen still left. There are a few in the west and the northeast, but aside from the squads in the dome, nobody seems likely to run into us!” Fukaziroh announced as soon as the scan was finished.
“Oh…thanks.” Llenn had been so distracted by Pitohui that she’d forgoten to count the dots. It was a good thing her partner was paying attention.
“…”
Llenn stayed on all fours, considering what to do for their next move. To help her organize her thoughts, she spoke them out loud to Fukaziroh. “In order to reach Pito, going through the dome is by far the quickest route, but there are three squads inside…”
“That’s right.”
“If we go around the dome, it’ll take longer. Plus, if we go around to the north, it’s likely we’ll run into MMTM, a tough enemy. On the south side, we’ll collide with SHINC.”
“That’s right.”
“Fuka… Could you grow some wings on your back right now? Then you could carry me and fly over the dome, right?”
“Sadly, that’s not possible. I’m not a fairy anymore.”
“So we’ll have to pick one of those three routes…”
“Not so fast. It’s too early to decide that, Llenn. Regardless of the final choice, we ought to see what’s going on inside this dome. We can still pick after that,” Fukaziroh advised.
Llenn’s face shot up. “Oh… Good point. Thanks,” she said, leaping to her feet and trotting to the door.
“It’s the women who get their men to say ‘If you didn’t have me around, you’d be helpless’ that get the most romantic attention,” Fukaziroh murmured, skipping after her.
They weren’t the only ones who weren’t sure what to do next after the 1:40 scan.
“Hrmm…”
Saki’s character, named Eva, aka Boss, was in the same boat.
Her team was on the south end of the massive dome, right outside one of the entrances, watching for hostiles as they waited.
“So what do we do now…?” grumbled the woman with the stern features and braids, her wide rear end planted in the dirt and thick arms folded.
“It’s so strange to see you worrying, Boss,” said Anna, the blond beauty checking the surrounding area through her Dragunov sniper rifle’s scope, about twenty yards away.
“But she looks cool. Like she should have a big bottle of sake next to her! Like a samurai!” said Tohma, her black-haired sniping partner, who was glancing sidelong, away from her binoculars.
“Well, whatever she chooses, we’ll follow!” exclaimed Tanya, the silver-haired, foxy-eyed woman with her Bizon held at the ready on the opposite side of their defensive circle.
“Okay, let’s be honest. She’s trying to figure out whether to go into the dome or not.”
“Meaning?” asked Sophie the dwarf, the shortest and squattest of the members. She and Rosa, the tough mama in prone firing position with her PKM machine gun, were on support at the moment.
Then they heard Boss’s voice through the communication items they all wore.
“If we go into the dome, we might end up facing the three teams loitering inside all at once.”
“Uh-huh,” murmured Sophie.
When the team captain (Saki, aka Boss) and vice-captain (Kana, aka Sophie) had a serious discussion, the other members had to be quiet and listen. That was the rule, both in real life and in the virtual world.
“If Llenn’s team or MMTM or possibly both go into the dome, it’s going to be total chaos for the next ten or twenty minutes. We’d win, of course, but we might suffer more than a little damage as a result.”
“Good point. Llenn and those guys are pretty tough.”
“But it’s not my style to run away from a fight. We haven’t fired a shot in over twenty minutes.”
“True. I’m stiffening up over here.”
“But there’s one concern on my mind. What if Llenn’s team goes around, rather than through, the dome? Around the north, we won’t contact them, and our fight will have to wait. If they go south, we’ll have the clash we’ve been waiting for…”
“But if we go into the dome, we won’t be able to come into contact for the next ten minutes.”
“That’s right. Especially since the inside of that dome is all—,” Boss started to gripe, then caught herself. “Argh! It’s a waste of time just going back and forth! We’re warriors! We’re going inside in search of combat!”
After most of a minute of deliberation, Boss decided to fight.
“Let’s go, ladies! It’s our first jungle battle!”
While the Amazons were busy roaring a big “Urrraaahh!” on the opposite side of the dome, Llenn and Fukaziroh were screaming on their own.
“Wh-what is thaaaat?!”
“Hya-eeeeee!!”
They were shrill and loud and probably overheard by any potential enemies in earshot.
Inside the dome, they headed through the sliding door, which opened quite easily, and proceeded down a long tunnel through the exterior structure of the dome to find…a southern paradise.
“It’s a jungle…!”
“It’s a jungle…!”
Unlike the cold, colorless world they’d been in moments before, this place was green and lush. Grass grew everywhere, as tall as a human being, and the ground was nearly invisible. Here and there were giant gnarled trees seventy feet tall, their trunks coated in moss. Their branches exploded with leaves, forming a canopy that blocked out the sky.
Which was, in fact, totally blue.
Since this was inside the dome, it was really just the ceiling and undoubtedly designed to look that way, but it was indistinguishable from the real thing. Llenn had spent dozens of hours in GGO by this point, and this was the very first time she’d ever seen blue sky here. The lost environment of Earth was still alive under this roof.
“Wow…,” Llenn marveled.
“This is incredible! It’s a completely different world under this dome! How awesome! It’s a greenhouse, right? Or maybe a nature park? What’s the deal?” Fukaziroh jabbered. She seemed to be feeling nostalgic for her old haunt of ALO, which was famous for its lush, natural setting.
It was fun just to drink in the sight, but they couldn’t allow themselves to be distracted. Llenn had to make up her mind right away. Were they going to charge through the mile or so of the dome, which housed three enemy squads, or would they take the detour around it?
The longer she pondered, the more valuable time trickled away. She wasn’t going to waste any more of it or suffer additional mistakes.
“I’ve decided!”
“Huh? Decided what?” asked Fukaziroh. She was the type of girl who suggested something and then, moments later, asked what they were talking about.
“Dargh! You were the one who said we should peek into the dome, then decide whether to charge through it or go around!”
“Oh! Yeah, that’s important!”
“So we’re gonna go through the jungle! Yeah, there are three teams in there, but the chances of getting one-hit killed are lower here than outside, where the visibility is good,” Llenn said, opening her game window. She pulled out a green camo poncho from her item storage.
It materialized out of thin air, and she wriggled her head through the collar. It enveloped her body all the way down to the ankles, so the only part of her that was pink now was her shoes.
“Llenn just disappeared! Wh-where did she go?” Fukaziroh joked, peering around from just ten feet away.
“Don’t worry,” Llenn said helpfully. “I’m right here.”
“Oh, there you are. But seriously, don’t go too far away, because I might lose sight of you, and that’d be kinda scary, okay?”
“Sure. But the same goes for the enemy. If they split off from one another, they could have a hard time connecting again.”
If the entire dome was jungle like this, visibility might be five yards at the worst and maybe fifty at best. That was unbelievably poor compared to anywhere outside. That meant that, for one thing, you couldn’t do teamwork like support fire with machine guns or sniper rifles while others charged up close. All three teams inside must have been struggling with this.
“But the bullets will still come, even if you can’t see,” Llenn warned. And it was true; thick grass was no match for the piercing power of a bullet. The unique part about fighting in a jungle was that it offered plenty of places to hide but very little protection from actual gunfire.
“I see. So if they just spray machine-gun fire horizontally, you’re still vulnerable? That’s scary. But at least you can see the lines.”
“Well, I’ve thought of a plan for us to get through this battlefield without getting split up—and one that will allow us to fight if we need to. If it all goes well… No, I’m sure it will!”
“Oh? What kind of plan?” asked Fukaziroh, leaning in closer despite the presence of their comm units. Llenn reacted in kind, putting her mouth next to Fuka’s ear.
When the plan had been relayed, Fukaziroh’s eyes went wide and blinked.
“Hya-hoo! I love it! It sounds fun!” she exclaimed, like a kid receiving an allowance. “But…won’t that be dangerous for you?” she followed up, switching to play the role of the parent concerned for her child.
And Llenn was the kid going off to live on her own for the very first time.
“I know.”
Three minutes earlier, back at the moment prior to the 1:40 scan, a man inside the dome’s jungle screamed.
“Shit! I hate this horrible place!”
He belonged to one of the three teams inside the dome. His camo was in a gray gradient pattern, both fatigues and helmet, and he wore a thick-looking protection vest around the torso. It was the team’s uniform style, designed to blend in well with the concrete jungle, but it was having the opposite effect in the regular old jungle.
The man was crouching amid the thick, tall grass, clutching a ZB-26 in his hands. It was a Czechoslovakian machine gun designed in 1926, as the name implied. Despite being a century old, it was known for having good stats and hardly ever breaking down; it was right at the top of the list of “recommended machine guns that are cheap and totally acceptable quality” in GGO.
“Where are you guys? Are you actually nearby?” he asked through the comm.
“Sure we are. Just stand up, and you’ll see. Don’t worry about it,” came the immediate answer. But crouched down where he was, all he could see were stalks of green grass. It was scary, feeling like you really were all alone in the overgrowth.
“This is a fresh green hell…”
From the moment they walked into the dome, it had been jungle, jungle, jungle.
It was completely flat and unchanging, hard to traverse, and had no good visual features for gauging distance traveled. At this point, they had no idea where they were anymore.
Without visibility or a grasp on their location, the team came to a stop, determining that it was dangerous just to wander around. Each member spread out to reduce the danger of being taken out by random bursts of fire, and from there, they awaited the next scan.
At last, the time had arrived. The leader said, “Scan’s coming up. All of you, check your screens.”
The man followed this order, pulling the Satellite Scan terminal out of his thigh pocket and turning it on. He watched the results from the scan come in.
Then he went pale. “E…e-e-en-en-en…”
He could see his position on the device’s screen—almost in the middle of the dome. They had traveled halfway through the jungle. Mentally, it felt like much farther, so maybe it was more accurate to say they’d wandered that far.
And he saw the enemy’s location. Frighteningly enough, their dot was just a few hundred yards from his own squad’s. Two of them, in fact, on either side.
“E-enemies! They’re close!”
“Don’t shout, dumbass!” shouted one of his teammates.
“What should we do, Leader?”
“Crap, I dunno, man… Dammit, they’re so close! Holy crap!” stammered their squad leader. He was not taking it well.
Oh boy… We might be screwed, thought the man with the ZB-26, feeling resignation sink in.
The regrets were numerous.
They shouldn’t have gone into the dome just because it looked interesting. They shouldn’t have headed into the jungle just because it was rare in a setting like GGO’s. They shouldn’t have determined the squad leader by a game of rock-paper-scissors, just because nobody wanted to nominate themselves for the job.
“Don’t shoot! Don’t shoot! Do not shoot!”
He was starting to hear things at last. This wasn’t through the comm but was a faint, actual voice. No enemy would say such a thing, so this was obviously just his ears playing a trick on him.
“Hear me out! You guys over there! I want to talk! Please don’t shoot!” continued the hallucination, getting louder and clearer. “Got that? Don’t shoot me! I’ve unequipped my guns! Please!”
The voice was close enough to sound fairly ordinary now. “Guys, I think I’m done. I’m hearing things. I’ve done too much gaming. I need to log off.”
The man waved his left hand to call up the window and looked for the LOGOUT button.
A warning said THE SECOND SQUAD JAM EVENT IS CURRENTLY ACTIVE. IF YOU LOG OUT OF GGO NOW, YOU WILL NOT BE ABLE TO REENTER THE EVENT. ARE YOU SURE YOU WANT TO LOG OUT?
“No, you idiot!”
He was about an inch away from pressing the YES button when one of his teammates rushed over and grabbed his arm to pull it away.
There were eighteen people gathered into one place in the jungle.
“This is the worst battleground I can imagine for a fight. I think we’re all in agreement that it was a mistake to come in here,” said one man while the other seventeen listened.
The eighteen were split into three groups.
One team wore gray camo. Another wore a pattern of red and brown, a rusty mix that would help them only in an autumn setting. The last team shared no clothing in common; their appearances were all over the place.
The man in rust-red camo carrying an AC-556F assault rifle continued his speech:
“At the last scan, we learned that the previous champion, LF; the runner-up team, SHINC; and third-place MMTM are all in the vicinity of the dome. They’re going to come in here—mark my words. That’s the way battle royale works: You attack the closest threat.”
He had no idea what exactly had brought Llenn to participate this time, so he was speaking only of the general strategy for the event. “We should team up and hit them back! There are seven teams in the southeast corner of the map, working together. Who says we can’t do the same thing? My team managed to take out another one last time by cleaning up the scraps, and then someone else did us in the same way. So it occurred to me—you ought to team up with other groups to survive in Squad Jam! In fact, one of the great aspects of this format is wondering how you should approach another squad to work together!”
The man who got blown up by the team consisting of Air Self-Defense Force members last time was passionate in his delivery. “There must be some cosmic reason that we got so close without firing and met up without any kind of combat first! Let’s work together! Let’s take down all those heavy hitters on our own!”
“Question for you, teacher!”
Two seconds after his plea was over, a character dressed in a black top and bottoms with a number of long, narrow pouches across his front raised his hand.
“Yeah, you! The handsome guy! What is it?” asked the leader of the rust-red team affably.
Indeed, the question-asker had a tremendously handsome avatar. “Don’t call me handsome. My name is Clarence. But everyone calls me Clay,” he protested. Even his voice was handsome, though.
He was the kind of character you would expect to do gangbusters in a VR game where the player is a male singer who gets to perform in front of screaming women all day long. Of course, there was no guarantee he would get the same avatar if he converted his character to such a game.
“Your question, Clay! Go right ahead!”
Clarence continued. “Let’s say that everything you just said works out, and we beat all the major contenders right here and now. Shall we assume that from the moment they’re out of the picture, our bloody battle resumes? Or to be blunt, is that when you turn and stick the barrel of your gun straight up the ass of the guy next to you?”
Geez, why did he have to put it that way? wondered everyone else. They didn’t say it out loud, but it was clear from their body language.
Whether in GGO or another VR game, there were certainly plenty of players who derived pleasure from killing their opponents in gruesome ways. A game is a game, of course, and if you were tough enough, you could do what you wanted.
But it was still a fact that people could think, What’s wrong with you as a person? and avoid you accordingly. Even Clarence’s own teammates in their random outfits didn’t seem to want anything to do with him.
Of course, the leader of the red-camo team had no choice but to answer the question posed to him. “You know, you might be handsome, but you’ve got issues… Anyway, it’s a good question. I bet everyone wants to know the answer.”
“And? Are we pro or anti shooting up the ass?”
“I want to say no. So I propose a gentleman’s agreement that if we eliminate all enemies outside our alliance, we wait until the next scan to aggress against one another. And if that scan happens to be close—say, within three minutes—we’ll wait until the scan after the next one. What do you say to that?”
The gentlemen replied, “Very well.”
“No objections here.”
“I agree. That’s for the best.”
“Three minutes seems appropriate. If we run without a second glance, we should be able to get out of firing range in that time.”
Each member had his thoughts, but none argued against it.
“What do you say, Clay?”
Clarence simply shrugged and said, “Roger that. I’m not a gentleman, but I can get my killing on at any time, so I’m fine with it. Thank you for the answer.”
“Great! Then the eighteen of us are partners! Let’s do what we can to survive this jungle! We’ll defeat our hardy foes with the power of numbers!” the leader shouted.
“But…what exactly is our plan? We’ve all been practicing teamwork within our own squads, but how are we supposed to do that with other groups?” said someone on the gray-camo team. The others nodded and murmured in agreement with the sentiment.
Within a team, each member had a clear role: who lays down covering fire with a machine gun, who sneaks around the side in the meantime, and so on. It would be very difficult to effectively work that way with a character you just met moments ago.
Another person raised his hand. “And the visibility is atrocious. We can barely work as individual teams. Did you consider that before you suggested a unified regiment?”
This, too, was a reasonable question. All eyes turned back to the leader of the red team. He grinned, as if this was what he’d been waiting for the entire time.
“Yes! I have an idea. I think we should use the trick that beat our team last Squad Jam. Listen closely, gang…”
When their undivided attention was on him, he said, “What do you think is the best way to know what another person is doing when visibility is bad?”
1:43 PM.
A little green gremlin crawled through the thick of the jungle.
It was Llenn in her camo poncho. When she moved in a crouched position, she was entirely hidden in the grass, and with the help of her camo, she was essentially invisible. The only hint of her presence was the faint sound of rustling grass.
Like the movement of an insect that shall not be named, crawling on the floor of a messy room.
“I’ve gone a hundred yards. No sign of hostiles,” she said, her voice traveling to Fukaziroh’s ear.
“Roger that. I’ll catch up now. Just guide me in the right direction,” replied her teammate.
Then Llenn engaged in something different. She turned back the way she came, readied her P90 at her shoulder underneath the poncho, placed her finger on the trigger—and aimed it at Fukaziroh.
It almost looked like she was aiming at her enemy through the jungle. Llenn saw the bullet circle it produced.
“Okay, I see it!” cried Fukaziroh. A few dozen seconds later, she came charging through the jungle, straight along the line, until she reached a spot where Llenn could see her.
“Good. Me next.” Llenn lowered her P90 and turned on her heel. This time, it was Fukaziroh who aimed her weapon. She pointed the MGL-140 barrel toward Llenn and brushed her finger against the trigger. It produced a red spray of a bullet line that stretched forward over the jungle grass.
“I see it,” Llenn said, looking up at the line reaching over her back, and started running.
As long as a bullet could maintain its velocity and keep flying, the bullet line would continue through obstacles. So Llenn’s idea was this: “A jungle’s just tall grass, so the bullet will keep going, and so will the line. If we use our bullet lines to shine at each other, we should be able to keep moving straight forward without losing track of each other!”
It was dangerous for her to be the lead person pushing ahead, but that was utterly familiar to her by this point. They tested out her idea and found that it was actually even more effective than she thought it would be.
They repeated this pattern, back and forth, and pushed through the jungle with impressive speed.
Then, at 1:44, Fukaziroh caught up to Llenn and was preparing to shine her bullet line forward at a distance of thirty feet, when they heard a gunshot.
“Get down!”
“Got it!”
Llenn and Fukaziroh hit the soft dirt of the jungle, listening to raw gunfire.
There was a quick drumroll of 5.56 mm automatic fire, ta-ta-ta-ta-ta-ta-ta-tam, and the heavier fire of a 7.62 mm gun, do-do-do-do-do-do-doom. On top of that was the woodpecker-fast rhythm of what sounded like a submachine gun with pistol rounds, ta-ra-ra-ra-ra-ra.
They couldn’t see any muzzle flashes, due to the thick jungle overgrowth, but Llenn could tell by the sound.
“Ahead to the left. About two or three hundred yards off. Not quite the direction we’re heading.” She looked upward, watching carefully. “Can’t see any bullet lines. The gunfire isn’t coming this way.”
“Okay! It must be those three teams! They’re all fighting! I hope they eliminate one another! Make it easier on us!” Fukaziroh said, not bothering to hide how she really felt.
Llenn agreed with her. She listened to the sounds of continuous battle for another five seconds. “Something’s…strange.”
It just wasn’t quite right. There was something about the way the guns were firing. She couldn’t tell what it was yet, though.
“It’s weird… Something’s weird, Fuka!”
“What is?”
“The guns I’m hearing—,” she started to say, right as she figured out the answer.
And with it, the enemy’s strategy.
“Oh, I get it! I know what it is! It’s a trap!”
Right at that moment, most of the audience in the pub was watching Pitohui’s battle.
“I wanna see more of Llenn kicking ass.”
“Yeah. I hope she shows up soon,” said a pair of creeps obsessed with young girls—or perhaps just some fellows who enjoyed watching cute little girls. Apparently, their wish came true, because one of the screens abruptly cut to a scene full of greenery.
“Yes! Here we go! Is it gonna be Llenn?” they cheered. Others nearby began to murmur to their friends, noting that the previous champion was about to get into the thick of things.
On the screen, a number of people were shooting in the midst of a dense jungle setting.
There were two members each from three different teams, six in all, lined up in a row. They were all firing right into the jungle undergrowth. Dozens of leaves and blades of grass flew into the air from the bullets, the muzzle exhaust hanging thick in the air.
The audience already knew that the three teams were working together, because they’d seen the footage of them talking it out. So it was clear that they must have made contact with some other squad by now. However, usually a battle prompted images from both sides of the combat, and it was just the one source at the moment.
The only things in the four frames caught by four cameras were alternate angles of the six shooting into the greenery. That meant they were firing one-sided at an unseen enemy, and yet, it didn’t look like they were wasting ammo out of fear.
“Wait… Who the hell are they fighting?” the audience started to wonder.
“Oh, I bet I know. One of those invisible aliens who came to Earth to hunt humans and prove their worth as heroes.”
“You mean like that old movie?!”
“Who knows—maybe it was just a normal monster? Wasn’t there a boss monster that had optical camo or something?”
“Have you ever heard of a monster spawning in the middle of a battle royale tournament?”
“I just mean inside this dome! It’s not like there’s ever been a jungle in GGO before—it could happen! Maybe it’s a message saying, ‘Hey, watch out—this area has traps!’”
“Actually, now that you mention it…”
While most of the audience prattled on about nonsense, there was one sharp-eyed observer in their midst who figured out the trick.
“No, it’s not that… No monsters. They’re not fighting anyone. They’re just shooting.”
“Huh? Why? Target practice…?”
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