Sword Art Online Alternative – Gun Gale Online - Volume 7 - Chapter 4

CHAPTER 4 
The Special Rules Go Into Effect 
“Huh? Hey, knock it off,” Clarence said with a grin as she turned around, assuming it was a teammate’s prank. “Huh?” 
She then saw that Pitohui, Llenn, Fukaziroh, and M were ten feet away from her and all looking quite shocked about something. Of course, Shirley was in front of her. 
“Who is it, then?” 
Clarence’s eyes drifted down to her own foot… 
…and she screamed like a little girl. 
“Eeeek!” 
It was a large, thick hand, reaching up from the forest floor. 
The hand was brown, sturdy, covered in rough scales, and clearly inhuman. For one thing, it was gigantic. 
And it had Clarence by the ankle of her boot. 
“Aaaaah!” she yelped, stuck to the ground as if she’d been sewn in place. 
“A monster!” Pitohui shouted, swinging the KTR-09 to face it. 
“No. Stop. Wait. Don’t shoot me!” Clarence blurted, shaking her head rapidly. Pitohui promptly decided to hold off— 
“Taaa!” 
—allowing a small pink girl to leap in from the side instead. 
Llenn zoomed over to Clarence, positively sliding, and bounded toward the arm with her combat knife, Kni-chan, at the ready. 

Shunk! Llenn cleanly severed the arm. 
“Whoa!” Clarence toppled backward, the hand still clinging to her foot. “Aaagh! Gross! Someone pry it off of me!” 
Shirley rushed over, despite her shock, and helped remove the appendage from her partner’s leg—when the ground split open. 
The dirt where Clarence had just been standing, where the hand had sprouted, bulged upward and apart as something emerged. 
It was a monster standing about five feet tall. This was a completely new and unfamiliar creature none of them had seen in any area of GGO. 
The monster was bipedal, but its legs were very short, and its arms were much larger and thicker. Its right arm had been severed, now a stump, and glowed green. Its head was not particularly humanoid—it was pointier at the end—and featured round eyes and ears. A large shell covered its back down to its rear end, brown and mottled and filthy from the dirt and muck, which made it even creepier. 
“I guess you’d call this an armadillo-person,” Pitohui said, summarizing. Her KTR-09 was pointed at the thing, but she held her fire. 
The men in the bar could see the armadillo-person appearing in their midst on the monitor, too. 
Other teams in other places had their own different kinds of monsters to contend with, eliciting plenty of shocked reactions from the players. 
But moments earlier, at 12:05, the audience had already been given an opportunity to read about the special rules. 
I’ll announce the special rules early for those of you watching from the bar! Starting five minutes into the event, a bunch of monsters are going to appear on the map. Be careful you don’t get killed by them! Now as for the population patterns and rules for the beasts… 
“They didn’t say anything about monsters!” Clarence fumed, finally free of the creature’s grip. 
“These are clearly part of the special rules they mentioned,” chided Shirley, who tossed the hand aside. It disintegrated into tiny pieces and vanished in midair. The two of them hurriedly stepped back to stay out of Pitohui’s line of fire. 
“Llenn, can you kill it with the knife? I’d rather not have to shoot it!” said M. 
“G-got it!” Llenn understood why Pitohui hadn’t fired. Unloading a bunch of bullets would tell any nearby teams where to find them. 
She used her left hand to prevent P-chan from swinging in the sling and examined the enemy closely, looking for a weak spot where she could land a killing blow with just the knife in her other hand. 
The monster’s name and hit point bar weren’t visible. From what she could tell, a shell protected its back, so that would be a dangerous place to attack. Even a real-life armadillo’s hide was so tough, it could reflect a pistol bullet back at you. 
That meant she could aim only for its limbs or belly. Earlier, she’d cut its wrist quite easily, so the monster’s skin couldn’t be that tough. 
How much force could she muster with only her right arm? If the armadillo-person struck her, would the resulting damage be too much? Should she aim for the legs? They were too short and low to hit, though. In that case… 
An instant’s consideration led Llenn to leap and swing her black knife. When she made full use of her agility, the speed made her weapon appear only as a blur, an afterimage. 
Llenn’s initial target was its arm, to reduce the monster’s offensive power. The armadillo-person’s left arm fell off, severed at the joint where it met the torso. Before the limb even hit the ground, her knife had slashed straight across the creature’s squat neck. 
The two-part swing was so quick, most people might have only seen one motion. 
The system determined that she’d inflicted an adequate amount of damage and performed the usual sequence of events that happened when playing GGO normally. 
Bshak! 
There was a sound like a combination of something dry splitting apart and something wet hitting the ground, and the armadillo-person burst into green polygonal pieces, crumbling into nothing. 
When playing ordinary GGO, this was where she would gain experience points, but nothing of the sort happened in Squad Jam. To Llenn’s eyes, nothing else changed. 
She checked Clarence’s damage in the team readout to her upper left. By glancing into the corner of her vision intentionally, she could see health bars for each of her teammates. They were all green—apparently, the grab hadn’t counted as inflicting damage. That was a relief. 
“Why are there monsters in Squad Jam?! Oh, wait… That’s a special rule, huh…?” Llenn exclaimed, realizing the situation halfway through. Her mind worked faster than Clarence’s. 
Does that mean that Pitohui had sensed something approaching from underground? She’s as much of a monster as ever! she thought. 
With her knife in hand, Llenn continued focusing on her surroundings. M and Pitohui already had their guns and attention pointed beneath their feet. 
Suddenly, there was a sound like a drum being beaten, a rhythmic ta-ta-ta-ta-tak. From some distant place in the forest, very faintly. It came from the west. 
Llenn instantly knew exactly what it was. And it wasn’t a drum. 
“Someone’s shooting…a few hundred yards away.” 
Ta-ta-tak! 
The gunfire stopped. 
“Must be our forest neighbors. I’m guessing monsters attacked them, too,” said Fukaziroh. 
Based on the location, it had to be the closest team, located at least two-thirds of a mile away at the start of the game. The monster must not have been that bad, since a brief bit of shooting had taken care of it. 
“At least they’re being reasonable,” noted M. 
Pitohui had switched the KTR-09 to her left hand so she could hold a silver tube in her right. That was the Muramasa F9 lightsword. She didn’t have the blade deployed yet. 
With a sharp expression on her face, she gazed toward their unseen opponents on the other side of the forest. Llenn felt like something was off about her. 
Based on the sound of their gunfire, the enemy wasn’t nearby. They wouldn’t be an imminent threat in any way. Why was Pitohui on edge like this? 
More gunfire sounded, answering her question. 
Ta-ta-ta-ta-tak! Another burst of automatic fire from the same spot. 
Ta-ta-ta-tak! Dun-dun-dun-dun! Ta-ta-ta-dun-dak-dak-dak-daboom-dun-dun-dun-dut-tak-tak-tak-tak! A louder clattering followed it, with some deep drumbeats mixed in. 
“What’s going on?” Fukaziroh darted to hide behind a nearby tree. Llenn ducked, keeping her eyes on the ground. 
M crouched and called to Shirley and Clarence, “Watch the sides and rear.” 
Shirley could have refused but instead followed his order. She and Clarence watched the north and east—unlikely as it would be for their enemy to be coming from either direction—for enemies, guns at the ready. 
Ta-ta-tak! Ta-ta-ta-ta-ta-ta-ta-tak! Dut-dut-dut-tak-tak! Kablam! 
The gunfire from the west kept coming. The final booming noise sounded like it came from a hand grenade. 
“They’re having one hell of a battle,” noted Llenn, thinking back on SJ1. At the start of that one, some teams who hadn’t thought about consequences launched into battle right in the middle of the woods, going all out from the very start. 
But as this was the fourth installment of this event, it was hard to imagine anyone doing that. SHINC had fallen into a battle at the very start of SJ3, but unlike this situation, they had been in a wasteland full of stone towers. They had made a strategic choice based on a strong hunch that they would win. 
Ta-ta-ta-ta-tak! Ta-ta-ta-ta-tak! 
“Pito, M, something’s off. I’ve been hearing gunshots from the same position this whole time. It’s one team. Why are they shooting so much?” she asked, unable to figure it out herself. 
“I don’t know.” M wasn’t ashamed to admit his ignorance. “Pito?” 
It was 12:07. Pitohui checked to see that they had three minutes until the scan arrived, then answered the question the rest of her team was struggling to solve. 
“It was that horrible author who came up with the special rule to have monsters appear, right?” 
“Well, yeah…,” said Llenn. 
“We just saw one. Llenn beat it. Haven’t seen any since.” 
“Uh-huh.” 
“Don’t you find that strange? If you were going to stir things up to make Squad Jam more exciting by adding monsters, wouldn’t you do more than that?” 
“Huh? Well…I suppose so.” 
“But even with the ammo-refueling bonus, throwing an endless stream of monsters out so you couldn’t end up fighting any other teams would seem to be contrary to the point of a game like Squad Jam, and everyone would hate you for it.” 
“Sounds accurate.” 
“You need to balance the presence of monsters according to rules that both the audience and players can accept, or the event will get a bad reputation. So if you’re the kind of chickenshit jerk who’s sadistic but also afraid of criticism, you’d need to think carefully.” 
“Mm-hmm.” 
“I tried imagining myself as a little sadist. What kind of sneaky rule could I hide behind at the end and say, Look, this is just how it works, so it’s not my fault, all right? It’s still technically Squad Jam, isn’t it?” 
“Seems like you found a new skill, Pito…” 
“Thanks. So here’s what I think…” 
Llenn waited with bated breath. Fukaziroh and the others were completely silent, making it clear they were fully focused on her, even as they watched their perimeter. 
“My rules would be this: A monster appears if you stay still. If you beat that monster, you get attacked by more.” 
“So you’re saying…that armadillo-person earlier was…?” 
“That’s right, Llenn. The first one was a scout. A point man. Recon. My guess is that if you stay in one place, a single scout will appear. Let’s say you don’t move for five minutes. If you attack it, that sends a warning signal to the area. Resulting in…” 
“An attack by a whole horde of monsters…” 
Ta-ta-tak, ta-ta-ta-ta-tak! Ta-ta-ta-ta-ta-ta-tak! Boom-boom- boom-boom! 
The distant gunshots were almost like screams. A shiver ran down Llenn’s spine. 
If Pitohui’s suspicions were correct, then somewhere a few hundred yards to the west, a swarm of monsters was attacking whichever team had started there. And because they were spending time fighting in the same spot, more and more monsters would appear… 
“In other words, it makes any attempt to stake out a position for longer than five minutes impossible…,” Shirley spat with disgust. The inability to maintain a long-term position hurt snipers the most. 
“Then how come we’re safe?” asked Clarence. 
“Probably coincidence. We didn’t use guns—and GGO is the world of guns. I bet shooting summons more of them.” 
“Hmmm…” 
The typical GGO player would absolutely have opened fire, it was true. Llenn squeezed the knife in her hand. M had told her to use the knife so nobody heard gunshots—smart thinking on his part. 
Thank you, Kni-chan. She slid the knife back into its sheath. 
There was another person on the team feeling gratitude toward her own knife. 
That was a good piece of advice. If any of them pop up, I’ll kill them with my ken-nata. 
It was none other than Shirley. 
But the audience in the bar already knew all of this. 
They’d had the rules laid out for them on screen at 12:05. 
I’ll announce the special rules early for those of you watching from the bar! Starting five minutes into the event, a bunch of monsters are going to appear on the map. Be careful you don’t get killed by them! Now as for the population patterns and rules for the beasts… 
If a player remains in the same location for over five minutes, a scout monster will generate. 
The aggression and strength of a scout monster starts low, but it will eventually strike. If the player moves quickly, the scout won’t give chase. 
However, if the player shoots the scout dead, a local alarm will sound, causing monsters to flood the area. The same rules apply to those monsters. 
Those are the rules! 
In other words, if you don’t sit around on your lazy butts and stay on the move, this is an impediment you can easily manage. 
Squad Jam is a team battle royale, so do your best and don’t worry too much about the monsters. 
Now get out there and fight! 
It was 12:09:30. 
The wristwatches on the arms of Llenn and the others vibrated, warning them that the scan was incoming, but it also meant they would have spent ten minutes in the same location. 
“Hey, if we stay here, won’t the next scout monster show up soon?” Fukaziroh realized. 
“That’s probably right. Everyone, prepare to move. Llenn, point. Pito, follow. Fukaziroh and I will go together. Last two are the rear guard. I’ll be the one to watch the scan.” 
There was a series of affirmatives from the group. Shirley scowled, but she’d already given up on leaving their side. 
Just before they hit ten minutes, Llenn asked, “Which way are we going?” 
Ta-ta-ta-ta-ta-tak! Tak, tak! 
M pointed a heavy hand in the direction of the frantic gunfire. 
“West. Let’s put that poor team out of their misery.” 
 
The team adjacent to Llenn’s, farther west in the forest, was ZAT. 
“No way! Why? Why?! Why are there monsters in Squad Jam? This can’t be happening!” Thane, ever the commentator, screamed into his mic. 
As he shouted, he fired wildly with his Type 89 rifle in three-round-burst mode, where each pull of the trigger fired three quick shots. At the same time, he yelled, “I’ve never seen a Squad Jam like this before! How mysterious!” copying the rhythm of an idol singer in a recent TV commercial for ice cream. It was an oddly confident move, given he was under assault by a wave of monsters. 
His companions were desperately fighting in the middle of the forest. Pitohui was entirely correct about what was happening to them. 
They’d waited in place right after the competition began, which was normally the safest strategy, only for a monster to come falling out of the trees. When they shot it in a panic, the relief that followed was fleeting. 
“Now there are more of them! It’s a mystery! Why? Whyyy?!” Thane yammered, too busy talking to actually think of the answer. 
They formed a defensive circle in the forest, blasting and blasting again at the monsters that continued to bubble forth from a three-hundred-and-sixty-degree radius. They burrowed up out of the ground, popped out of tree hollows, and fell from behind the leaves. 
The monsters had varied appearances, but all seemed to have designs based on real animals, such as monkeys, armadillos, and cheetahs. There was even one with split colors like a panda. 
None of them had ever been seen in GGO before, and their weaknesses and strengths were unknown, but Benjamin, who used an A4 fixed-stock model of HK MP5, the most popular submachine gun in GGO, shouted, “Shoot them, Thane! They’re weak once they get close!” 
Sure enough, even three easy shots to the torso from the 9 mm Parabellum pistol was sufficient to easily dispatch the creatures. 
It took more rounds to defeat an enemy that was farther away, so it seemed safe to say that damage falloff increased with greater distance (and vice versa) and was more extreme with these monsters than in ordinary play against other players and the game’s standard enemies. 
ZAT shot and shot and shot some more at their foes. They kept the monsters thoroughly at bay, never letting them approach closer than thirty feet. 
“It’s good to have everyone here fighting! Oh, right! There’s that special rule this time that we get max refills at thirty minutes! Got nothin’ to lose, then!” Thane announced, shifting the Type 89’s select switch from “3” to “Re.” 
The rifle was made for the Japan Self-Defense Force, so naturally, the indicators on the switch were in Japanese. The “A” setting was for Anzen, or safety on. “Ta” was for Tansha, or single fire, one bullet for each pull. And “Re” was short for Rensha, or consecutive fire. People liked to say that the combination of A-Ta-Re was intentionally chosen because it sounded like “hit the target.” 
He opened the bipod, with which every SDF gun came equipped, and set it down on the forest floor. 
“Prone firing position for stability! Forty-three percent increased accuracy according to company tests! Individual results may vary! All models depicted are eighteen years or older!” Thane chattered as if he were reading aloud the fine print in a commercial. He began spraying bullets with the Type 89’s full auto mode. 
His 5.56 mm bullets hit a monster resembling a freakish mix between a horse and sheep, which was sticking its head out from behind a tree. It soon burst into polygonal shards. 
As Thane switched out for a new thirty-round magazine, he said, “I’ve been thinking, do you suppose those monster designs were rejected models for GGO that they’re reusing here? I can’t imagine they’re spending enough money on this to develop completely new designs.” 
That was accurate, in fact. These half-baked, uninspiring monster designs were all rejected entries from a design competition during the planning stages of GGO. 
The time was now 12:12. 
ZAT sprayed bullets for seven minutes without worrying about ammo whatsoever. They didn’t budge an inch during that time, but the game’s rules didn’t seem sadistic enough that it would send even more scout monsters for not moving. 
Eventually, new foes stopped appearing. After half a minute or so, Thane stood up and pumped his arms into the air. “Looks like they’re not coming after us anymore! We did it! We survived the special rules of Squad Jam! What a brilliant moment! What glory! This is where we really start to shine!” 
In one hand was the Type 89 rifle, smoke rising from its overheated barrel. “Yesss! You held out, partner! When this is all over, I’m gonna oil and polish you and take you to bed with me!” 
It sounded perverted at first, but there were more than a few GGO players who did things like this. Some people literally rented beds in the virtual space and went to sleep within the game while holding their guns. 
Their trial behind them, the members of ZAT loosened up, pulled more ammunition out of their virtual storage to refill their stock, and got busy switching out magazines. 

But weren’t they forgetting something? 
“Fire.” 
“Shit.” 
Shirley swore, but she did as M ordered and pulled the trigger. 
The high-spec R93 Tactical 2 sniper rifle was the first weapon fired by Team LPFM. 
It unleashed a 7.62 mm bullet equipped with explosives and a detonator that sped between trees and crossed a distance of a quarter mile in 0.6 seconds. 
“Oh, my sweet baby, my beautiful darling, how I love you,” Thane said, kissing the stock of his Type 89 as the bullet hit his torso. 
It exploded there, separating him into Part A, his upper half, and Part B, his lower half, ensuring that he would be doing the rest of his commentating from the waiting area and the common-area pub. 
“Go.” 
“Got it!” 
Llenn took off running. 
She’d been sneaking closer up to that point, until she was only two hundred yards to ZAT’s position in the forest. Then she ran at top speed, in such a way that she didn’t crash into any trees. 
M backed her up with some sharp M14 EBR fire. The first shot split Casa’s head; he was too slow to hit the dirt. The second struck Koenig in the face as he dived for cover. He lost half his hit points. 
“Sniper! Enemy fire! Real enemies this time!” screamed Yamada from where he lay behind a tree. 
“Dammit! The scan already passed!” Frost swore, realizing their huge mistake. 
While M’s quick and steady shooting kept them pinned in place, Llenn was setting a new world record for forest sprinting. “Sorry!” she blurted out as she plunged into their midst without slowing. 
An opponent lying flat on the ground is nothing but target practice. Llenn zipped around the cramped quarters, letting loose. 
Pa-pa-pap! 
“Glergh!” 
Pa-pa-pap! 
“Aaaagh!” 
Shunk. 
“Not the knife!” 
She shot two of them dead, and as Koenig was in the middle of administering an emergency med kit, she sliced his neck and his hand next to it. 
Benjamin succeeded in getting away because he abandoned the rest of his team at the first sign of danger—until he ran right into Pitohui, who’d circled around the other side. 
“Hiii!” 
“H…hi…,” he repeated, just before a photon sword sent his head and body in separate directions. 
12:13. 
Now that ZAT was lying around them with floating tags reading DEAD hovering overhead, Llenn’s team finally had a chance to hold a strategy meeting. 
The entire group formed a circle several yards in diameter, their backs to one another. They spoke without being face-to-face. This was to avoid being ripe targets for a single grenade blast. 
First, M reported, “What I saw on the first scan was SHINC in the northeast at the airport, MMTM in the northwest, and ZEMAL in the southwest.” 
Good! I can see them if we go to the airport! I can fight them! In her heart, Llenn pumped her fist. At least SHINC wasn’t in the northwest corner, which would be the absolute opposite side of the map. Of course, their teams wouldn’t be dueling anytime soon. They needed to survive until then. 
Speaking of which, where did Fire’s team go? she wondered. But of course, she didn’t even know their team name, so it was impossible to be sure. Over half the teams in SJ4 were unfamiliar, so she couldn’t even begin to guess. 
I hope he’s already dead somewhere, she thought. 
M continued, “There were three teams in the forest. One of them is gone, right here. The other team, which is a new one, was close to the farthest southern bridge. They must have decided it was worth the risk to rush to the bridge when they first got a glimpse of the map.” 
Ahhh, Llenn reflected internally. Their own team was in the very corner of the map, so they couldn’t have gotten that far in ten minutes. Llenn might have made it, but slow-footed M wouldn’t be able to keep up. 
However, if they had been placed within a mile or so of a bridge, they might have assumed a little risk or hedged a bet that no enemy teams would be on the move in the first ten minutes and rushed ahead. 
Pitohui said, “That team will be doing their best to cross the bridge right now. Maybe they’ve already made it. If they were on the move, they probably haven’t fought any monsters.” 
“So does that mean we’re the only ones in the forest now?” Fukaziroh asked. 
M nodded. “Based on the features of the map, I can’t imagine any teams are looking to rush over here.” 
Of course not, Llenn agreed. Only the most eccentric of teams would actually want to go somewhere as difficult to enter and leave as this. She wanted out of here, herself. 
M continued, “I didn’t get a chance to say this because of the monster attack, but this is what I was thinking before the scan came in: We should move south or east to proceed along an edge of the map, and then we should cross a bridge or go directly to the wetlands. Afterward, Shirley and Clarence will be free to do as they please.” 
Wasting no time, Shirley promptly said, “No objections here. Shall we go already?” 
Clarence was a bit calmer. “Hey, take it easy. M’s not done talking. And I’m sure I know what he was about to say next. ‘But there’s nothing wrong with staying here’!” 
“That’s right,” M agreed. 
Llenn thought she understood what they meant. If they were the only ones in the forest area now, they had the option of simply not leaving for the moment. If they kept on the move, they could both prevent monster attacks and avoid encountering enemy squads. As time passed, more and more opponents would drop out until it was perfectly safe to cross the river. That was a valid strategy. 
If some enemy came looking for a fight them or wanted to claim their hiding space for themselves, LPFM could be sneaky and ambush them somewhere along the bridge or wait until they reached the forest, then strike with full force. 
“Hmm. It’s not a bad strategy, but that will mean that me, Rightony, and Leftania won’t get a chance to shine. Oops, forget about me. What I mean is, Pito won’t get a chance to rage. Or Llenn, and so on, and so on,” said Fukaziroh, hastily covering her true opinion. 
“It’s not a bad plan,” Pitohui agreed. “If we’re aiming to win, I endorse it.” 
“But you’re not?” Shirley asked, surprised. 
“Of course we are! But the thing is, more important—” 
“More important than that?” 
“I want to make sure Llenn gets a rematch with SHINC, so I vote that we go north. Not that it’s up to a vote.” 
Pito… Llenn found herself softening at this unexpected gesture. Then she paused and tensed. Wait, is she plotting something? 
“Pito, are you plotting something?” pried Fukaziroh, reading her friend’s mind. 
“Oh, no. No. I’ve never plotted anything in my life.” 
“That’s amazing!” 
At 12:17, M stood up. “Monsters are going to show up in one minute. I’m making the decision for us,” he said. “Llenn. Run south.” 
 
12:20. 
The players still alive in the game all watched for the second scan. 
By this point, they’d figured out the general rules: Monsters show up one at a time if you stay in the same place for five minutes. If you kill it with a gun, it summons a great horde for a while, so the best option is to ignore it and keep moving. 
This obstacle could be avoided by not staying in any one place for more than four minutes, a guideline all teams were now following. The ones that wanted to lie in wait to set up ambushes fumed: 
“That stupid damn sponsor just had to do this to us!” 
“Get out here so we can shoot you!” 
However, that was something they learned because they’d survived. Seven unfortunate squads had been wiped out either by monsters surrounding them or by other teams ambushing them during a monster attack, like ZAT. That was a major factor in the early departures. 
Adding in those who had bounced out due to normal combat, this left twenty-one surviving squads at the twenty-minute mark. 
The results of the scan told twenty of those teams something: The leading contender to win, LPFM, was located as far to the right side of the map as possible. They’d been a bit above and to the left ten minutes ago—meaning they’d moved northwest—but had now pulled back as far as they could. 
Many of those players assumed, They’ve chosen to hide out in the woods, then. They mocked the lack of fighting spirit reflected in such a strategy. 
The players on a few teams who knew Llenn better than that, though, realized, Oh, this is a trap. You can’t rely on the locational information at this point in the game at all. 
“There’s no way Llenn’s team is gonna castle up. You people are idiots.” One of the watchers in the pub snorted at those who mocked the team for choosing to “hide.” 
“What’d you call me?!” 
A fight nearly broke out. The man’s reference to “castle” came from the chess strategy of sealing the king behind other pieces for defensive purposes. Fighting in a bar was like something out of an American movie, but there was no way to inflict damage while in the city of SBC Glocken. It just meant they’d be pounding one another with no effect whatsoever, so they gave up and settled on nasty comments instead. 
“Hey, Mr. I’m-So-Much-Smarter-Than-Everyone-Else, maybe you could share the gift of your immense knowledge with us idiots. We couldn’t help but notice that little light shining in the very corner of the map.” 
The first man snorted again and said, “That little pink one can run three miles in ten minutes if she wants to. She could get to the bridge before the next scan. It’s a trap they’re setting up by leaving their leader in that spot.” 
Llenn stood all by her lonesome. 
Three minutes earlier, M had told her to hurry to the edge of the map, so she’d sprinted through the forest and found herself here. 
In the southeast corner of the game arena, the boundary that prevented players from going any farther was a barbed wire fence. Metal constructs as thick as telephone poles were embedded into the ground at short intervals, holding up thick snarls of barbed wire with huge points, up to a height of thirty feet. There was more forest beyond that point, but Llenn wasn’t going to try trekking any farther. 
She was curious why there would be barbed wire here, though. By using her time before the scan to investigate, she found that a number of signs had fallen to the ground, presumably from a position stuck to the outside of the fence. They were rusted and dirty but still legible and written in English. 
BIOHAZARD! HEAVY CONTAMINATION AREA! ENTER AT RISK TO YOUR OWN LIFE!—CDC 
IF YOU ENTER, YOU WILL NOT BE GRANTED EXIT! YOU WILL BE SHOT WITHOUT WARNING!—USDOD 
YOUR FAMILY INSIDE THIS BORDER IS NO LONGER YOUR FAMILY. 
THEY DO NOT REMEMBER YOU. FORGET ABOUT THEM. 
The messages were quite menacing. 
Ugh, so this is some off-limits area after an incident of some kind? And we have to fight here?! Llenn griped. It was only a VR game, but she had a very bad feeling about this. She hadn’t felt alone or scared moments ago, but now she was keenly aware of her solitude. Without realizing it, she clutched P-chan tighter. 
Then it was time for the scan. She waited in place, not pulling out her Satellite Scan terminal. 
“All right. Wait there until it’s done,” M told her through the comm. 
Okay. Get ready to run again, she told herself, preparing for action. She placed the P90 and magazine pouch in her inventory, leaving just the knife at her waist, her lightest and most mobile state. A few dozen seconds passed. 
“Scan’s over. Do as we planned.” 
“Roger that!” 
Llenn’s boots rocketed her forward along the forest floor. 
She ran and ran, directly north through the trees. 
Normally, it would be difficult to maintain a steady direction in the woods, but this time, she could cheat. She was simply running alongside the eastern barrier of the play area. 
M and the rest of the team were supposedly at the northern edge of the forest area, rushing toward the bridge in a much shorter trip. M was skilled at navigation, so he would be fine, but she was much more worried about Fukaziroh. 
The team was supposed to meet up there, then proceed to the airport after the 12:30 scan. 
Earlier, M had said, “We’ll head for the northern bridge, but we’ll wait until we get to the location to decide whether to risk using it or to try crossing the water and swamp instead.” He then clarified, “There might be highly mobile vehicles hidden around there. This seems to be an especially disadvantageous part of the map, so we can hope there might be a convenient measure like that to balance it out.” 
That made sense to the group. Crossing the river and swamp would be easy with a hovercraft or propeller boat, and if they found a car, they could cross the bridge in a blink. In an event where you had to walk everywhere, the effect of a high-speed vehicle capable of going up to sixty miles an hour was huge. Llenn had experienced that for herself. 
In SJ1, MMTM’s hovercrafts and SHINC’s truck had been a major headache. 
In SJ2, MMTM had found those damned Humvees, and T-S had the bicycles. 
In SJ3, they’d found their own truck, which made life easier. 
So they knew they were heading for the northern end of the forest, but first came the strategic choice of sending Llenn away to place the leader’s dot in a different location on the map. That left the rest of them free to move in secret, allowing them to search for vehicles. 
Of course, setting up a misleading leader’s mark was a common trick in Squad Jam. Some of their opponents wouldn’t be fooled by this, but M was thorough and cautious. He wanted every possible defense. 
Shirley didn’t object to the plan, either because she didn’t have a better one or because she was going north anyway—or maybe it was both. “That’s fine. We’ll go with you until we cross the water to solid ground. And after that, we’re going to split off,” she grumbled, scowling. 
At any rate, the river and swamp are too dangerous to deal with. Much safer than crossing with just two people, Llenn thought as she ran. Despite her temper, Shirley’s a coolheaded player, and she can swallow her pride to survive. Let’s hope she winds up having to work with us the whole time. 
She continued running through the trees, heading due north without stopping. 
Through her earpiece, she heard M say, “Twenty-one remaining teams as of the second scan. None moved any closer to the forest. The closest group is a new competitor named DOOM. They were in the middle of the residential area. It’s not clear if they’ll fight us if we try to cross the river, but as long as we’re in the forest, I don’t see them attempting to pursue us. Prioritize meeting up.” 
“Got it! I’m praying you find something!” she said, still running. 
It feels like all I do in Squad Jam is run, she mused. 
12:25. 
“Yahoo! We reached the road!” cheered Clarence, who was running point—the lead position tasked with detecting danger. M’s group had reached the foot of the northern bridge, where a road emerged from the forest. 
Because GGO was developed in and based on America, this road was a spacious two-lane street with wide shoulders, paved with concrete rather than asphalt. It was about sixty-five feet across. 
Clarence and Pitohui eyed the scene warily, and once they confirmed it was safe, they motioned for their teammates to follow. After that, the group split up to search for transportation. 
Pitohui and M ventured out to where the forest met the swampy edges of the river. It was a large area, as the river split into scattered tributaries. They could see a bridge with low railings extending straight into the distance. 
The swampy stretch was packed with reedy grass that swayed in the wind. The river itself was placid and still, reflecting the sky like a mirror. 
Thick supports held up the large bridge. The whole thing looked sturdy. This was a design that actually existed in reality, so it had probably been modeled after a bridge from an area that experienced plenty of flooding. The railings were made of chalky-white metal pipes, rising to about waist height. The bridge itself was around thirty feet above the water. 
Despite a careful examination, they didn’t find anything like a boat that could ferry them across the water. 
“It’s getting cloudy.” 
“Yeah.” 
By leaving the forest, they discovered some clouds in the sky that hadn’t been there when the event started. The red sky was steadily turning gray, patch by patch. 
“I found it! I found it, everyone!” 
At 12:28, three minutes after their desperate search started, Fukaziroh struck gold in the forest on the other side of the road. They rushed to join her. 
“Ooh! Amazing! This is awesome!” roared Clarence. 
They had a means of transportation. On a branching path, hidden in the greenery of the forest, was a trailer truck covered by an enormous tarp. 
It was a vehicle for cargo shipping, with a “tractor,” the front car containing the driver’s cab and engine, and a “trailer,” the cargo container the tractor pulled behind it. It was American-sized, meaning it was much larger than its Japanese equivalents. It felt like standing next to a train car. There were six huge tires along the sides. 
They worked together to remove the tarp, which was the size of a huge theater curtain, revealing the trailer’s cargo. 
The bed was flat, a thick steel slab resting atop the vehicle’s frame, with large metal enclosures, called fences, arranged along the edges. Resting on their sides inside were dozens of thick, supporting metal beams about sixty feet tall, like telephone poles. If she’d been there, Llenn would have recognized them as the supports for the fence along the barrier. 
They were piled up on top of one another, then tied down over the sides with wire rope. From road surface to tip, the cargo pile rose to a height of thirteen feet. 
“You think we can use these for something?” Clarence wondered. 
“Swing them around and pulverize the enemy,” Fukaziroh responded. 
Clarence shrugged. “So I guess they’re nothing more than useless luggage… We’d go faster if we dumped them, right? Can we do that?” 
“I doubt it,” said M. “We can cut the wire, but we can’t tip the trailer over to roll them out.” 
He placed on the ground the backpack containing his shield and climbed up to the driver’s seat on the left side of the cab. Given his size, trying to get him and the gigantic backpack in at the same time would be impossible. 
M checked to see if someone had booby-trapped the truck, carefully opening the door and sliding into the cab. He turned the key still in the engine, and the truck flared to life with a sound like a monster roaring. Black smoke began pouring from the two exhaust pipes jutting toward the sky. 
This was a future Earth, but there was a key-ignition diesel engine still running? There was no point in getting up in arms over that. That was just how GGO rolled. 
“Okay, it’s drivable, and there should be enough fuel to get us to the airport.” 
“Whoo! Give us a ride! Let’s go, go, go! I have my license, too, so I can drive you if you need me to. But you look like you want to handle this,” jabbered Fukaziroh. She tried slipping into the passenger seat on the right side, but M stopped her. 
“Everyone in the bed. Ride at the very end so you can jump off as quickly as possible. Pito, get my bag.” 
“What? The women have to ride outside?” Fukaziroh grumbled. He had a point, though. The forward-facing cab would be the easiest spot to attack while they were on the road. 
“Ohhh wellll, what are ya gonna do? Everyone on board! Let’s get outta here! So long to this stuffy forest! Oops, I feel like we’re forgetting someone… Must be my mind playing tricks on me…” 
“Don’t you dare! Wait for me to get on!” 
A small pink object hurtled toward the truck. It was Llenn, who had intersected with the road and used it to speed faster through the forest. At Clarence’s beckoning, she stepped back into the trees again, pulling her P90 out of her inventory, before she hopped in the truck. 
The team was back together again. They’d found the vehicle they wanted, which gave them the means to rush past the gauntlet of the bridge. The team’s women piled onto the spot at the foot of the bed where the tips of all the metal poles formed a huge circle. 
But then Pitohui asked, “What about the scan, M?” It was already less than thirty seconds until 12:30. 
“…” 
M thought in silence for several seconds. Should they start driving over the bridge and make good use of the time that other teams might be using watching the scan? Or wait a few dozen seconds (or even just a handful) to delay crossing, depending on what the scan told them? 
He chose the more careful option. “I’ll watch the scan.” 
That delay of a few dozen seconds would launch them into a ferocious battle atop the bridge.