CHAPTER 11
Save This Battle for Me
It was 1:27.
“Pitooo!”
Llenn rushed to Pitohui’s side.
“Yeah! C’mon!” said Pitohui, holding out her arms in a seated position, ready for a warm embrace.
“Uh-oh!” Llenn came to a stop before she entered the hug.
“Tsk!” Pitohui sulked. Her foot was regenerating now with a shining light. Her bodysuit, boot, and the thin dagger stuck to the outside of her boot all came back.
She hopped up to her feet and said, “All right, let’s run!”
“Yeah!”
They started heading to the northwest, in the direction of M and Fukaziroh. Not long after they started, a thought occurred to Llenn.
“That explosion that took out the enemy…,” she said. “What was it? He didn’t actually shoot his own vehicle somehow, did he?”
In GGO, as in real life, it was quite easy to duck down behind cover, then pop your head back up and accidentally shoot the thing you were hiding behind. The sights were on the top of the gun, so you could easily think you were aiming over it, but not have the muzzle fully clearing the obstacle.
Llenn couldn’t imagine any other likely answer, but Pitohui didn’t hasten to a conclusion. “That might be it, but I don’t know the truth. I suppose we can check out the footage after this is all done and compare our theories to the real answer.”
“That’s true. Well, at least we’re still alive! That’s great!”
“Just don’t forget, MMTM still has two survivors out there.”
“Gotcha!”
As they ran, M drove the trike back toward them. He swung around them, watching out for enemies on the horizon, then ran parallel.
“Hey, ladies! Want a ride? Forget that, there’s no space for you! Just keep running, just keep running!” Fukaziroh catcalled.
M eased up on the acceleration and eventually came to a complete stop. He got off first, and then Fukaziroh jumped off the seat.
“Pito, take over driving. I’ll ride on the back seat.”
“Wait, what? Llenn can run on her own, but what about me?” Fukaziroh protested.
“I’ll make you a seat now,” said M, turning the trike’s key.
The body of the trike between the two front wheels popped open a small lid. M pushed it forward, exposing a front trunk that was about big enough to hold a helmet.
“Ooh! There’s a hidden chamber there! This property’s looking like more and more of a deal!” Fukaziroh exclaimed.
Meanwhile, M placed significant pressure on the lid, until it went crack! and broke right off the hinges. He tossed the loose lid aside.
When she saw the space that it left there, Fukaziroh mumbled, “I bet you could fit three Llenns in there.”
“No, you couldn’t! I’m not that small!”
“Oh. Yeah, I guess you’re right.”
“But maybe two…”
“Hang on.”
One trike and one very small human in pink ran along the blacktop.
“Hya-haaa! Faster, Llenn, faster!”
“This is as fast as I can go!”
“No, you can do better! Are you going for the gold medal or not?! Have you forgotten the oath we made that fateful summer’s day?!”
“I have no idea what you’re talking about!”
The trike was currently a triple-seater, in wild violation of road safety laws.
Sitting in the front—with her butt jammed into the front trunk—was Fukaziroh. Sitting in the driver’s seat and happily piloting was Pitohui. And in the back was M, with his huge backpack jutting out over empty space.
The trike’s speedometer gave a readout of 28 for miles per hour.
So it was impressive that Llenn was keeping pace with them. Her legs were speeding so fast that they were a blur; you couldn’t see them clearly.
Somehow, LPFM survived their battle with MMTM. Their next destination was the northwest corner of the airport. Now that they had only one trike, combat in a wide-open zone posed greater challenges. As a result, M suggested they cross the airport with haste and get into the ruined city in the northwest part of the map. The ruins would be better for fighting up close or at midrange. And that was the best possible environment for their current team makeup.
After lots of running and lots of fighting, the vast expanse of the airport was coming to an end. They had maybe half a mile to go to the edge. Llenn started to see the chain-link fence along the highway up ahead.
Bzzt, bzzt, bzzt.
The wristwatch on Llenn’s left hand vibrated. It was set to go off thirty seconds before each scan, meaning it was now 1:29:30.
From the rear seat, M craned his neck to look behind them and said, “Scan’s coming up. Pito, point us away from the west and stop the trike. Llenn, hide behind it. Fuka, hop off quickly and keep an eye on the surroundings.”
“Okeydoke.”
“Roger that!”
“You got it.”
Pitohui slowed the vehicle. They were turning their back to the west because that meant M’s backpack covered the largest part of their profile from potential snipers on the highway. But if a bullet hit his head? Well, that’d be the end of that.
Before she turned the handlebars all the way, Pitohui noticed something. “Hmm? Wait, M, what about that? The hole up there on the left.”
M glanced over and saw a large hole in the runway about a quarter of a mile ahead on the left. It was a huge black hole about a hundred feet across. There were chunks of material all around it, giving the flat artificial runway a little touch of natural chaos.
“That works.”
“Okay, then,” said Pitohui, steering the trike that way.
“Wait for me!” yelped Llenn, trying to keep up.
By the time she caught up with them, the three were already off the trike and hiding in the hole.
If they were in there, then traps weren’t an issue, she decided and slid in feetfirst. Only when she went over the edge did she find out that it was actually quite a deep hole, and she was going to land in the deepest part.
“Oof!”
It was shaped like a gentle mortar, more than ten feet deep at the center. Beneath the thick asphalt was hard, dark earth. It was the perfect bunker for them to hide inside.
As she got up, Llenn asked, “What is this hole from?”
“Dunno. This is supposed to be America. Maybe Paul Bunyan caused it by pulling out weeds.”
“Fuka, you have detailed knowledge of the most random things,” said Pitohui. The subject of Paul Bunyan, the legendary figure from North American folklore, was not something most Japanese people knew about.
Though no one here was aware of how this hole came to be, it had actually been created about an hour earlier, when SHINC’s booby trap blew up the airstairs truck.
It turned 1:30.
The third full refill of ammo happened, and the ninth Satellite Scan began.
The scan approached the map from the south.
“I wonder…if Boss’s group…is still in the alliance…”
Contrary to the sinking feeling in Llenn’s heart, the scan rose upward rapidly over the map.
The first ones she spotted were ZEMAL. They were set up in the crater area. It was as if they lived there.
Atop the frozen lake was the alliance. There were…six dots.
“Huh?”
Llenn tapped the blips over and over but didn’t find the name SHINC.
In the southeast part of the airport were the two remaining members of MMTM. That made it clear they weren’t coming back on the trike to pursue them, to Llenn’s relief.
Eventually, the scan swept up to their own location. It indicated that LPFM was in the northwest part of the airport. And then…
“Ah!”
About two-thirds of a mile directly to the west, just inside the city ruins across the highway, was one more illuminated dot.
“……”
With trembling fingers, Llenn touched it.
“What?!”
SHINC.
She read the five letters three times. Each time, they remained unchanged. Boss and the gang were there. Close—very close.
“It’s them!” she shouted. She was celebrating as if she’d spotted her own teammates.
As the scan proceeded, it showed that T-S was still alive about five miles away on the train tracks in the city, but that wasn’t anything Llenn fretted over, so they could buzz off, for all she cared.
“Whoo-hoo! SHINC’s so close! What’s up with that?” Fukaziroh asked. But no one had an answer for her.
The next moment, there was a sharp cracking noise in the distance, and a light rose into the western sky.
As they all watched, a yellow flare rose high into the air against the clouded-over, reddish-gray sky. Then it descended on a little parachute, buffeted back and forth by the wind.
“Well, well, well. That must be the location of the sweet little Amazons,” said Pitohui, smirking. She gave herself one more emergency med kit, just to get her HP back up to full.
“I suppose they’re saying, ‘Here we are. Come and get us,’” suggested M.
“That’s right! That has to be it!” Llenn exclaimed, ready to sing, her fists trembling in excitement.
“Oh, I’m not so sure,” said Fukaziroh gleefully. “They could have tied up Boss in a bag, braids and all, keeping her prisoner so she can’t commit suicide or resign, and everyone in the alliance aside from the leaders is there so that we get surrounded by thirty people and killed in an instant.”
It was hard to tell if she was saying that for effect or if she really was looking forward to it happening. Probably a bit of both.
“Ugh!”
Llenn let her trembling arms dangle with disappointment. It wasn’t completely out of the question; in fact, it seemed fairly possible; in fact, it was getting more likely in her mind by the second.
“Then let’s figure it out for sure. We’ll send a scout,” said M, waving his hand to call up the menu.
What he produced was a white mass about the size of an A4 book; it was two inches thick. He tossed it into the air, and four arms immediately slid free from the corners, deploying propellers that began to spin.
It was the drone he’d used during the playtest on the sixteenth—the one that would cost 110,000 yen in real money. An ultraconvenient luxury that would allow them to survey the area from the air.
Not only was it expensive, it had to be piloted manually, and its battery time was extremely short by design. This was an item that had very limited practical use. You couldn’t just leave it floating up in the air all the time for your own convenience. If you could, it would destroy GGO’s competitive balance, so there was no use hoping for a buffed version.
After sending the drone aloft, M then equipped a pair of goggles that looked like scuba snorkeling eyewear. This was a new one.
“Ooh, VR goggles! Using VR goggles in a full-dive VR world! That’s real creativity, M!” exclaimed Fukaziroh. It was hard to tell if she was praising him or insulting him. Probably a bit of both. At any rate, this would allow him to see what the flying drone was seeing as if his head were attached to it.
Pitohui took the tablet controller he’d used in the playtest, and she set it so Llenn and Fukaziroh could see the screen, too.
M had little controller grips in either hand. In response to his moving the thumb stick with his left hand, the drone issued the buzzing sound that was its namesake and rose higher into the air.
The device went horizontal, then zoomed over the highway and toward the ruins. The footage from the sky gave a very clear picture of the fallen city.
“There,” he said and pushed the stick to lower its altitude. But not too far—just in case it put the drone into easy shooting range. With the other stick, he zoomed in with the camera.
What he witnessed was a grid of city streets, with dilapidated buildings either standing or fallen between them. Six women were using the bed of a toppled truck as a stand to stick out.
That, of course, was SHINC, Boss included. There were no other players visible in the area. Anna had a pair of binoculars, and she noticed the drone, pointing and gesturing toward it.
The next moment, all six sprang into motion.
Sophie and Rosa were on the sides. The two heavyset members did forward splits while holding their arms up in elegant circles over their heads.
Behind them, Anna and Tohma lifted their outer legs in a brilliant example of a ballet leg extension. They raised their Dragunov sniper rifles like batons.
In the very back center, the gorilla-statured woman with her hair in braids, Boss, lifted one leg high behind her, then raised her opposite arm in a perfect ballerina arabesque, which she held without budging an inch.
And in front of them all, the last member, Tanya, came running from the end of the truck and jumped before the other five. She did a somersault to a backflip with a twist, then rotated forward again and threw her arms out as she landed.
This impromptu bit of beautiful acrobatic posing from the menacing, battle-hardy women was met with cheers of admiration from LPFM.
“Ooh, amazing!”
“That’s very impressive.”
“Yes, very well done.”
But the last member of the group screeched, “Ah-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha!”
“What is it, Llenn? Did you eat laughing shrooms?”
“Wah-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha! No! This is happy laughter! I’m happy!” Llenn insisted with tears in her eyes. From the hole in the asphalt, she shouted with all the breath in her lungs, “I’m going to do it! This time, I’ll go over to you, so we can fight for good! Just you wait!”
“You know they can’t hear you, right?” said Fukaziroh reasonably.
M added, “Then let’s go introduce ourselves,” and pulled on the left controller stick. The drone zoomed closer and closer to SHINC as they posed, until it was thirty feet in the air above them.
Their smiles were quite apparent from this distance as they held their stances.
“And spin!”
M tilted the stick quickly, causing the image on the screen to rotate as the drone did a turn. He let go of the stick, and it froze again.
Then SHINC released their poses and stood naturally. Boss gave them an especially freakish smile and reached out with her right hand, which had no gun in it. She pointed her index finger at the camera on the drone, then flipped it upward, mimicking the recoil of a gun firing. Bang!
“Awww! Ya shot me!” said Fukaziroh.
The drone retreated and rose into the air. SHINC jumped off the truck and quickly scampered away to hide among the ruins.
Pitohui said, “I suppose the battle is on, then. If those girls were camping at a spot where they could see the highway, they’d be able to snipe us with their antitank rifle. How very sporting of them not to do such a thing.”
As M flew the drone back before its battery drained all the way, he said, “Indeed. They would have had the advantage. It’d make it hard for us to even approach their location.”
“They’re true samurai. I trust you have no lingering regrets, Llenn?”
“None!” she said, turning to Fukaziroh with a huge smile. “I’m going out to kill them for a bit!” she announced as casually as if she were merely going to the convenience store.
“Wait a second. You’re not going alone. Are we a team or not?” demanded Fukaziroh.
But M muttered, “No, that’s a good tactic.”
The drone returned to the hole in the ground. Soon after, the pink pip-squeak was the first to leave, followed by the three others. A man watched it all happen through his binoculars.
He wore sunglasses, a face mask, and bright-green camo gear.
And he was watching from within a ruined yellow school bus abandoned on the highway. He was hidden firmly, flat on his stomach in the rear of the bus, with a little space near a broken window and the rear door for observation and sniping. Even his camouflage was perfect, making it clear that he was an experienced player.
“LPFM are on the move. Four targets. They’re crossing the highway to make contact with SHINC,” he murmured into his comm.
Into his ear returned the response. “Good. We’ll head there once they’ve crossed over.”
“Roger that. I could shoot them all the moment they cross the road, though. What should I do?” the man asked. He lowered the binoculars and fingered the gun resting on a bipod next to him.
The weapon was a Heckler & Koch M110A1 automatic sniper rifle, painted in the same camo pattern as his uniform. It was a 7.62 mm caliber gun. Specifically, 7.62 × 51 mm NATO.
This armament had a particularly tricky history. It started off as a German sniper rifle known as the G26, which was built with the body of the HK417 assault rifle. The M110A1 was an improved build of the G26 that was sold to the American army and given a new name.
The Americans already had a gun called the M110 that they’d been using, but while it looked almost the same, it was from a completely different company. The presence or absence of the A1 at the end made a huge difference in which weapon you were talking about. It could be very confusing.
In GGO, the M110A1 was introduced as one of the top-level automatic sniper rifles, very high quality and very expensive.
As the masked man said, if Llenn’s group started to cross the highway about thirteen hundred feet away, he could easily take them out with a merciless burst of automatic shooting.
From his earpiece came the reply. “No, that’s fine. Let SHINC be their opponent. That was our deal, technically. I’ll have the scout keep an eye on them, too. If SHINC loses, take them out at once. And if they win—take them out at once.”
“Got it. What if either of them spots me and attacks?” the masked man asked.
The distant man replied in a clinical manner, neither pleased nor annoyed. “If that happens, then the deal doesn’t matter anymore. We’ll escort both teams out of the game together.”
“Got it.”
Llenn crossed the highway.
She ran at the speed of which only she was capable, sidestepping and zigzagging all the way.
Her destination was the ruined city before her eyes. To the battlefield where SHINC waited.
Moments earlier, M said, “First we’ll have Llenn charge in. Look for SHINC, then start fighting however you like when you find them. But don’t forget: We have to stick firm to the hit-and-run strategy. Don’t push too hard trying to finish the enemy on your own. And do not stop under any circumstances. Always stay on the move; always keep the battlefield in flux.”
“Mm-hmm.”
“We’ll approach using the gunshots as a guide. In the open streets, Fuka’s grenade launchers will provide effective backup. Pitohui will be Fuka’s support. I’ll stay back farther and look for an ideal sniping position.”
Llenn figured it out. “I got it! So it’s the same as in SJ1, right?”
“That’s right. SHINC works as a six-person team, which means your ability to act alone at high speed in their midst will be most effective.”
“Gotcha!” she replied with gusto.
Fukaziroh asked, “But, Mr. M, what if they see that coming and react to take advantage of it?”
“Then that’s what happens. Let us pray. But I do have this strategy…”
I don’t mind people praying, if that’s what it takes for me to battle with the gang! Llenn sang to herself as she crossed the highway and charged toward the abandoned city.
There was only one thought on her mind.
This battle is mine!
“Llenn’s charging us. Keep your eye on the surroundings, everyone!” Boss warned her team as she stared through the binoculars. Her smile was both delightful and diabolical.
SHINC was in a defensive circle within the ruins. In the center of a crossroads where hundred-foot-wide streets intersected, in fact.
Tall buildings still stood on the corners of the intersection, meaning there was no way to snipe at them or shoot grenades from a longer distance unless you climbed those buildings.
Wide roads led north, south, east, and west. By a pile of rubble stacked on the east side was Rosa, PKM machine gun at the ready. On the opposite side was her combo partner, Anna, with a Dragunov sniper rifle.
On the south side, Tohma’s PTRD-41 antitank rifle was steadied against the ground in firing position. Her Dragunov was also at her side, where she could grab it to fire if needed.
Sophie was near Tohma as well, ready to pick up and carry the antitank rifle should they need to move it.
There was no rubble near them, so they had a number of gray ponchos arranged over themselves for camouflage. There was even one over the long barrel of the PTRD-41, though it would easily get shaken off if it actually fired a single shot.
Tanya was hunched on the northwest corner, alternating checks on the north and west directions, where they were least likely to see any enemies. The “secret weapon” they’d found in the ruins was waiting right next to her.
Boss waited in the center of the intersection, inside a van with popped tires, on the lookout.
Based on studying previous Squad Jams, Boss was absolutely certain of one thing: Llenn was going to come charging at them alone.
As they waited in the city, she would employ a high-speed hit-and-run tactic, and while they were occupied chasing her and otherwise being stirred up, the others would come to blast them with grenades and snipe them.
And Llenn would happily accept that role.
So Boss made a decision: She would not split up the team’s strength. She would not be distracted and pushed out of her comfort zone. And that meant that if she glimpsed Llenn or if Llenn poked at them, she would not react at once.
So when Tohma caught sight of a pink blur on the street to the south through her scope and called out, “It’s Llenn!” the only reply Boss made was “Don’t shoot.”
Once the target was out of sight, she followed that up with, “Okay, now follow her.”
Llenn ran and ran at top speed.
Over three minutes had passed since she ran into the city and proceeded up and down the wide-open streets, left and right. She was sprinting, so the actual distance she covered was considerable. She even passed by the truck they saw from the drone.
In the meantime, between watching out for snipers from the windows or the inside of cars and looking for booby-trap wires in the street, Llenn’s mind was as tense as possible. The mental strain of paying so much attention was tremendous.
She wanted to slow down a bit and relax, to conserve some mental energy for the actual gunfight, but that wasn’t an option.
Stop, and you’ll be a target. The best defense is staying in motion.
Llenn continued running.
Running was her entire strategy.
Tanya stayed in pursuit of Llenn.
After Tohma spotted Llenn, Tanya rushed after her. She saw Llenn turn at a distant intersection about three hundred yards ahead.
Llenn turned left, so Tanya rushed to that corner. She glanced around the side of the building and caught a glimpse of pink, and as soon as she saw Llenn make another turn, she rushed after that corner again.
Since Llenn was faster than her, Tanya was only keeping up with the help of the “secret weapon.”
The only thing that could enable her to move faster was a vehicle. But an engine would make noise that drew attention. Being surrounded by building walls meant significantly more echo, so it wouldn’t take very long to blow her cover.
Tanya’s secret weapon did not make extra noise, however. It used no fuel. It had no batteries.
It did require a whole lot of pedaling, though.
“Raaaaah!”
Tanya’s vehicle was a bicycle. In the ruins, she’d found a single rusty mountain bike that was still rideable, and she’d brought it with her.
As Risa Kusunoki in real life, a girl with excellent athletic ability, Tanya’s high agility allowed her to ride faster than Llenn could run, provided she pedaled as hard as she could. She could afford to wait for Llenn to turn a corner and still catch up in time.
Even when Tanya had a clear view of Llenn’s back before turning, she did not take any shots.
A big part of that was the fact that the 9 mm Parabellum bullets her Bizon fired were not meant for this kind of distance. But mainly, it was because her purpose was to follow Llenn, not attack.
Tanya’s duty was to figure out where Llenn was going and estimate when she would appear near the squad’s location. She was very frustrated about how she was Llenn’s first victim in SJ1, but she sacrificed her own ambition for the sake of the team.
It was true that when a character with very high agility raced across the map at high speed, there was a direction where caution fell to the wayside.
That direction was the rear. When you were fast enough, you didn’t care as much about the rear. There was so much visual information to the front and sides that it took all of your concentration to parse everything.
Boss had ordered Tanya to follow her because she had a hunch that Llenn wasn’t going to look back the direction she’d come, or turn around on her heels and reverse directions. That hunch was correct; for over a minute, Llenn had failed to notice Tanya following her. The high-speed runner with a trailing bicyclist stayed in formation without fail. They turned here and there in unerring unison, like a pen tracing a path through a maze on paper.
Then, at last, Tanya got the chance she was waiting for.
Llenn turned left at a corner and saw a building had fallen and blocked the road, leaving a right turn as her only option. In the intersection beyond that, she would run into the rest of SHINC, having just shifted positions enough to avoid a monster swarm.
This was one of the “trap points” they’d chosen ahead of time. The buildings around the corner were on the shorter side. Though the ruined city was like a maze, Tanya had great confidence in her mental map. In the several minutes between their ride in the masked team’s Humvee and the Satellite Scan, she had plenty of time to ride around on the bike and memorize the map.
As the pursuing wolf, Tanya never slowed down on the pedals. Through the comm, she warned her team, “Rabbit’s entering the net from the north. I repeat, the rabbit has entered the net from the north.”
Boss replied, “Roger. Rosa, Anna, and Tohma, point your claws accordingly. I’ll watch the rear and sky.”
That meant the three of them would have their guns facing north, set up with ponchos or in special hiding positions that would keep them out of view.
Please, please, be in time, Tanya prayed.
Then Boss gave her the good news. “Positions have been changed. The net is cast. I don’t see any drones overhead.”
If they were being watched from above, the whole thing would be ruined, so they were very cautious of M’s drone. So far, it hadn’t made a second appearance.
“Yes! I’ll watch the exit!”
Tanya hopped off the bike and grabbed her Bizon. With a quick swipe of the menu, she put the sling back in her inventory so that it didn’t catch on anything while firing.
Next, she pressed the stock against her shoulder to steady it for shooting at any moment, then began to run on her own two feet this time.
If Llenn turned back to escape in this direction, Tanya would gun down her prey without mercy.
“Who would you bet on? SHINC or Llenn?”
“SHINC.”
“Me too.”
“Amazons, of course.”
“At this point, poor Llenn doesn’t stand a chance.”
The odds were extremely low for SHINC in the bar, meaning everyone expected them to win. If you bet on Llenn here, and she won, the payout would be a jackpot.
On the screen, she was still running. There was a silencer on her P90’s muzzle, presumably for urban battle. The gun was in both hands in front of her body, and she ran like an arrow shot from a bow.
Thanks to the collapsed building ahead, she would eventually be unable to turn left or continue straight. When she was forced to turn right, to the south, SHINC would be lying in wait just two hundred yards ahead at the next intersection.
The road was straight. Crumbling, dilapidated buildings about five stories tall lined the street, but they had no open doors or windows to run inside for shelter.
If Llenn came down the street, she would be facing SHINC and take fire from machine guns, sniper rifles, and an antitank rifle. No matter how fast Llenn was, she couldn’t escape all of that at once.
“It would be one thing if all of LPFM was there, but Llenn alone is asking for trouble.”
“Exactly. Why would she use such a desperate strategy?”
“Maybe she’s okay with losing, as long as it’s to SHINC?”
“I didn’t think she was the type to do that…”
“It’s too reckless. M’s gotten sloppy, I think.”
But while the viewers’ opinions were given freely and without consequence, Llenn continued on her way.
“Good luck, li’l pinky!”
“Don’t give up!”
One group was aggressively in her corner. Nobody in the pub realized it was actually Team DOOM.
On the screen, Llenn ran and ran. The corner was just 150 yards away.
Once she leaped around it, she’d meet a hail of gunfire from SHINC. There would be no escape.
Seventy yards.
The pub was silent now.
Ready to watch the little pink pip-squeak, who had won SJ1, come in second in SJ2, and won SJ3, get shot full of holes.
Thirty yards.
“Good-bye, Llenn.”
Ten yards…
She jumped.
On the screen, three things happened at the same time.
Llenn leaped out into the street.
SHINC saw her and opened fire.
And—in the midpoint between them, directly in the center of the street, a plasma grenade exploded.
The pale-blue discharge created a sphere that gouged out the ground, shook the air, and deflected upward all the bullets shot at it.
That included Rosa’s PKM, Anna’s Dragunov, and Tohma’s PTRD-41.
Protected behind its shield, Llenn spoke to the rest of her team.
“Thanks, Fuka! SHINC’s in the center of the intersection!”
“No thanks needed! Let’s get ’em!”
“Everyone, run! Grenades incoming!” Boss screamed. Each member of SHINC got up as quickly as she could and retreated toward the entrance of a ruined building.
The building had previously been a multiuse mall of some kind, and the first floor was wide open, with broken windows that made it possible to leap inside from just about anywhere.
After the five of them vanished, bullet lines arced down into the center of the intersection from the southeast, with two plasma grenades erasing them and landing in succession. They blew everything in the intersection to bits, like an act of very aggressive cleaning.
A blast of wind carried dust through the entrance to the building, rattling SHINC.
“Gaaah! Why?!” Boss gasped, taken aback. “The drone wasn’t flying around. How did they know we were here?”
“Huh? What? An attack?”
“It’s the grenadier girl… How did they know SHINC’s location?”
The men who’d expected to see Llenn die had their jaws slack in shock. Nobody recognized how LPFM had known.
I can’t believe that really worked! Llenn thought, her heart leaping, and she plunged through the cloud of dust caused by the explosions.
Fukaziroh wasn’t going to be shooting any more grenades, so Llenn bolted straight through without mercy. There was just one thing for her to do: use the dust clouds as cover to zip around to wherever SHINC was in the vicinity of the intersection, and shoot them dead with her P90—or die trying.
The strategy was as follows.
The idea that M came up with before sending Llenn out on her mad dash was a truly bizarre one.
He expanded the map’s zooming function over the city ruins, right to the place where was Llenn was running now. Then he pointed at a spot on the wrecks and told her to go in here, then run around all over at top speed and narrate her directions over the comm as she went.
For example…
“I turned right at the first corner.
“Left after that.
“Went left at the second intersection.”
And so on.
Llenn was skeptical. She could do it, but why?
M replied, “Based on your actions, I’ll surmise SHINC’s ambush location. To maximize mobility, I bet they’ll be hiding out at an intersection rather than inside buildings. And they aren’t going to shoot until they’re certain they have a sure kill. The more you travel, the more I can narrow it down by saying, ‘You didn’t get shot here and here, so therefore, it’s likely they’re over here.’ Once I can tell where they’re lying in wait, I’ll have Fuka shoot a plasma grenade to block their bullets, right as you’re about to come into view.”
Llenn decided to go along with the plan. It was the kind of thing that would be impossible if you didn’t have full trust in Fukaziroh’s ability to shoot her grenade launchers exactly where she aimed.
And it was also the kind of thing that would be impossible if you didn’t have full trust in M’s stalkerish ability to move around naturally while predicting his target’s future location.
Do it! Do it! Do it!
Llenn raced through the dust clouds, psyching herself up for the moment, when—bshk!
“Ouch!”
She was shot through the left shoulder from behind. As she didn’t have much toughness when it came to getting attacked, that cost a tenth of her health.
For an instant, she was torn between charging ahead and dropping to the ground, and then the choice was made for her when she tripped over a rock and fell.
“Blrbf!”
As the dust from the first explosion slowly cleared, bright-red bullet lines extended over her head like searchlights. Bullets came whipping through the air, following the lines. She did not hear any gunshots.
It’s Tanya! She was behind me! Following me!
A shiver ran up Llenn’s back. She now realized she’d been so confident charging forward that it had nearly cost her life.
Tanya had been firing at full auto at a target she couldn’t see, which meant the bullet that hit her was just a lucky shot. But Llenn’s luck was that it was only the shoulder.
Continuing to charge forward while Tanya had an open shot from behind wasn’t an option. Llenn thanked the rock that had tripped her.
“Tanya’s behind me! I’ll turn back and get her first! You guys get Boss and the rest!”
“Got it! Good luck!” said Fukaziroh in her ear as Llenn turned back in the direction she believed the bullet lines had come from and fired the P90.
“Llenn’s coming this way!”
The corner of the building behind which Tanya was hiding chipped and scraped away as bullets gouged its surface. She could hardly hear the gunshots behind the sound of the contact, so it was definitely Llenn’s P90.
“Okay, she’s all yours!” said Boss.
Tanya nimbly hopped back several times. Llenn didn’t want to get shot in the back, so she’d surely come for her first. Now it was Tanya’s role to pull back as far as possible, to lead Llenn away from the rest of the team.
A whirlwind that billowed up between the buildings blew the dust clouds away.
Tanya and Llenn exchanged their magazines at the same time.
A fifty-three-round 9 mm Parabellum helical-feed cylinder magazine and a fifty-round 5.7 mm stick magazine fit inside the Bizon and P90, respectively.
Through the dissipating dust, Llenn clearly saw the outline of the building’s corner. Around the corner to the left, from her perspective, she should find Tanya—lying in wait for her.
Llenn barely held back her urge to jump around the corner and fire wildly. Instead, she stopped ten feet away, kept her gun aimed at the space in front of it, and called out, “Hey, how are you? I’m glad we’re finally getting to fight!”
“So am I! On behalf of my squad, I’m very thankful!” came Tanya’s voice around the corner.
Llenn couldn’t see her, but she could tell that Tanya was waiting with her gun out, like her, at about the same spot on the other side of the corner.
She didn’t launch herself around the edge. This was only the first opponent from SHINC. She wasn’t looking for a mutual death here.
Instead, Llenn quietly called to her trusty friends for assistance.
“Eighty yards north, twenty yards west from initial shot. Calling in one plasma. Over and out.”
Fukaziroh heeded Llenn’s order by adjusting the aim of her MGL-140. She was sitting on the roof of a ten-story multiuse building about three hundred yards away, with the grenade launcher propped between her legs, splayed out in front of her. It was Fukaziroh’s own inimitable style of bombardment.
She couldn’t see the spot she’d struck just moments ago, but the pillar of smoke was visible, so she knew exactly where she was firing. All she had to do was adjust accordingly.
Pomp!
With a cute, hollow sound, a single, blue-tipped grenade flew out.
“It’s awaaay!”
Llenn heard her call out, “Hiiit!”
“Now!”
With exact timing and unerring accuracy, the plasma grenade landed on target and literally obliterated everything within a thirty-foot radius.
Its target was the top of the building where Llenn and Tanya were facing off. The building was already falling apart, and this was certainly going to finish it off.
A huge hole was opened on the roof of the five-story building, and the shock of the blast left it unable to stand on its own; the structure crumbled inward. A tremendous, earth-shaking rumbling ensued.
“Nice shot! Thanks!” said Llenn to her crack-shot partner as she rapidly backed away to avoid being caught in the demolition. If that bombardment had been twenty yards off, she could have easily gotten blown up.
“Thank you for using the Fukaziroh Grenade Service! Have a nice day!”
“Hyaaa!”
Tanya was startled by the explosion, but she was more startled by the falling debris and collapse of the building. If she hadn’t made full use of her agility to withdraw, she’d have been flattened by a piece of rubble about the size of a human being.
The building collapsed with a spectacular crash. The world was dyed a deeper gray shade than before as another dust cloud enveloped Tanya where she retreated, about a hundred feet away behind the street.
Thankfully, GGO was a virtual world. In a real environment, she’d be in agony, choking on airborne particles. But vision still worked the same way—and Tanya couldn’t see a thing.
But it’s the same for Llenn, too!
She decided not to make any mistakes by moving. Instead, she lowered herself down. Even in this situation, a bullet line shone as clear as a laser, so she watched carefully for one coming through the dust and was just as careful not to touch the Bizon’s trigger to make one of her own.
After twenty seconds of clattering and crumbling, the sound of the building collapsing finally faded. There couldn’t be anything left to fall apart. There were a few last individual sounds of objects dropping, and then all was silent.
Then it was broken again by the return of the wind, now that the building’s collapse increased the ventilation of the area. It helped the dust cloud clear faster.
Once the floating debris was gone, it would be time to fight Llenn.
Tanya prepared herself to charge for a close-range battle. There was no building between them now. Llenn couldn’t call in any more grenades, surely. It would blow her up, too.
But at that point, a doubt crept in amid Tanya’s determination. What if Llenn ran away?
What would she do if Llenn used the dust as an opportunity to scamper off to safety?
If the cloud cleared and the only thing left was Tanya herself, baring her fangs in anticipation of combat, she’d look pretty stupid. It wouldn’t be odd for Llenn to do that; she often fought in utterly unorthodox ways.
The dust thinned out to the point that the side of the far building became visible. In another five seconds, everything would be clear again.
Prrrrrraaaaaaaaaa!
There was a rattle of high-pitched, high-speed gunfire, and Tanya instantly dropped to the ground.
It was the sound of a P90 firing, a sound she heard from very close by in SJ1. She would never mistake it.
Ah-ha-ha-ha! Tanya smirked to herself upon learning that Llenn hadn’t run away.
Then she realized Llenn was shooting in a different direction—not at Tanya at all. However she made this mistake, Llenn was shooting completely the wrong way.
Tanya started to run through the clearing dust. Her destination was the P90 that was the source of the rattling. She didn’t need to see it to know. Her target was in the direction of the sound.
At full auto, the P90 fell silent in exactly 3.4 seconds.
But she already knew where it was. It was directly in front of her, about sixty feet away.
Tanya lifted the Bizon, and at the moment that her finger touched the trigger, a final gust of wind completely swept the cloud away.
“Ah…”
She saw the P90, pinched in between pieces of rubble.
It was fixed in place with another piece of rubble placed on top, over Llenn’s hat—and a string pulled on the trigger.
Uh-oh. Oh no, this is bad, Tanya thought.
And then she heard the sound of a knife whistling through empty air behind her.
Got her!
Llenn charged, her short hair waving in the open as she swiped sideways at the back of Tanya’s neck.
She should have been able to finish her off in one clean hit.
“Kyah!”
But the damage mark only appeared on the side of Tanya’s head as she squealed in an oddly adorable way.
Risa Kusunoki’s natural reflexes, the sharpness of her senses in hearing the sound of the approaching object, and Tanya’s high agility stat together saved her life. It was a light cut to her head that cost her about 10 percent of her hit points.
I didn’t finish her! That’s bad!
Llenn didn’t have a next move in mind.
Her plan had been to set up the P90 without the silencer and to pull the trigger with a string to make it fire at random. Once Tanya approached, drawn by the sound, she would sneak up from behind with the knife and end her.
The scheme had worked beautifully, except for Tanya dodging at the last possible moment.
Even though Llenn went to the trouble of taking off her cute pink boots so she could sneak more quietly. Her socks were pink, too.
But while Tanya exhibited tremendous reflexes in the heat of the moment, so did Llenn.
She went for a body blow against Tanya when the other girl ducked. If Tanya fired at her, Llenn would be helpless with just her knife.
Despite her tiny size, the moment was enough to knock over Tanya, whose reflexes were a bit dulled from the pain of her head. Once the other girl was knocked onto her back, Llenn straddled her stomach.
She plunged the knife downward, right for the enemy’s silver eyes, trying to stab her right there.
“Shaaa!”
Swish!
Without hesitation or mercy, Llenn added her right hand to the left to increase the force of the downward stab.
Clank!
It met a gun.
Tanya pushed the Bizon up to defend herself. She held it sideways in both hands, using it like a metal bat in an attempt to block Llenn’s knife.
Swish, clank! Swish, clank! Swish, clank!
Llenn stabbed again, trying to get the knife in somewhere, but Tanya blocked it with the Bizon three more times. They were so quick that the exchange took less than two seconds.
On the fourth stab of the knife, Tanya pushed up with the Bizon—not to block it but to knock the knife away.
That was the trap.
“Naaa!”
Llenn only pretended to stab, pulling her arms and knife inward partway down. That left Tanya’s Bizon nowhere to go but farther upward.
“Taaa!”
And Llenn used her left hand to punch it from below in an uppercut.
“Ouch!”
Her fist glowed with damage, losing about 5 percent of her health. In the real world, she would have broken some fingers for sure.
But Tanya did not let go of the Bizon, preventing her beloved gun from getting jarred loose. It left her arms fully extended, however, and that gave Llenn room to slip her whole body through, like a cat.
They were in full contact. It might as well be a lover’s embrace.
“Gotcha!” Llenn swung the knife in her right hand at the left side of Tanya’s neck.
“Fnya!” Tanya shrieked and used her final gasp to stop the attack.
“Glergh!”
She used all her strength to pull the Bizon back toward her body—meaning against Llenn’s back. Tiny little Llenn was trapped between Tanya’s arms and the firm rod of metal connecting them.
“Hrrg!” Her knife fell short, just an inch away from bare skin. “Aaargh! Let goooo!”
Llenn raged and struggled, but her upper half was completely trapped on Tanya’s chest, including her arms.
“Why would I do that?!” Tanya squeezed without mercy. She had the height and the strength to outclass Llenn.
“Urrrggghhh!” The smaller woman writhed but could not break free from her prison.
They were completely locked in an immobile embrace among the ruined buildings.
“Wha—?! Hey! I can’t! Mo—! Erk! Muhagk!” Llenn gasped, losing her grip on language.
“You’re…not…going…anywhere!” Tanya smirked ferociously.
The only thing Llenn could move was her neck, which she lifted as far back as she could, until Tanya’s face was right in front of hers. Their lips were close. They did not kiss.
“Hrrg! Hey, I don’t have time to roll around here hugging you!” Llenn complained.
“If I let go, my life will be in danger, so we’ll just have to stay like this! Until death do us part!”
“No thanks!”
Flop. Flop, flop, flop.
Llenn tried kicking her legs, but Tanya was a full five or six inches taller, so it was pointless. All she did was stir up a bunch of empty virtual air.
“Ugh…”
There was nothing Llenn could do now. She was trapped.
Nothing, that is, except call for help.
“I’m captured here! Help me!”
Through the comm, she heard Pitohui’s calm and collected voice reply, “Gosh, we’re pretty swamped over here, too. Can’t you do something on your own?”
A few dozen seconds earlier, shortly after Fukaziroh’s initial grenade launch, Pitohui and M were on the move.
They ran down a major street through the ruined city. Their destination was SHINC’s ambush point.
M had a shield panel in each hand, blocking attacks from directly ahead. Obviously, that meant he couldn’t hold a gun.
Pitohui had M’s M14 EBR steadied against her shoulder as she followed him. What about her KTR-09? It was stuck into the open zipper of the backpack holding the rest of M’s shield. That way, she could pull it out and fire it if needed.
“I was hoping we’d have a car, but oh well. Run, M, run!”
“Grrr…”
M was slower than Pitohui, so he was pumping his legs as fast as he could.
Fukaziroh’s second attack exploded on SHINC’s hiding spot, but that certainly couldn’t have blown them all up. If anything, it was better that it didn’t.
Pitohui told Fukaziroh, “All right, don’t shoot for a while. Give us a chance to shine.”
“Enjoy yourselves!”
M was running up on an intersection. If they turned right, SHINC would be ahead of them in about a thousand feet.
“There we go! Keep forging ahead! Do not fear death!” she declared with the most brilliant of smiles.
“Grrr!” M would do anything Pitohui told him to do. He plunged toward the intersection where a shooter might be waiting for him at any time.
And then he got shot at like hell.
While watching out for their rear, SHINC emerged from the building they were hiding in, spotted M coming through the intersection, and unleashed a curtain of hellfire from machine guns and sniper rifles.
Rosa fired her PKM in short bursts, and in between them, Anna’s and Tohma’s Dragunovs delivered carefully aimed sniper shots. If M had been a split second late to hunch down, he’d have been blasted to pieces.
Ka-ka-ka-ka-kang! His thick arms held up against the hail of bullets drumming on his shields.
“Haaah!”
As soon as the machine guns paused and the bullet lines were gone, Pitohui jumped up and fired the M14 EBR over his shoulder. She had to duck back down again just as quickly, so she didn’t actually see what happened.
“I think I hit ’em!”
“Gah!”
A bullet passed through Anna’s left hand, and the Dragunov fell to the ground.
Rosa raised the firing frequency of the PKM to keep Pitohui from peeking out from the shield again. The machine gun’s curtain of lead surrounded the two shields.
Tohma kept her scope locked on the target, determined to pick off Pitohui the next time she tried to pop up. She shouted, “The two of us will hold them down! Everyone else, flank them!”
“We can’t! It’s too far!” said Boss, who was flat on the street, firing her Vintorez. Holding down an enemy with covering fire so you could get to their sides or rear was a cornerstone of infantry combat, but in this case, it would mean running an entire city block. That would take too long to work. If the two of them were able to ride it out and break free, the whole idea was ruined.
“C’mon, Sophie! I’ll shoot!” Boss commanded. Despite the imminent danger, Sophie stood up and rushed to Boss’s position. Boss clutched the gigantic PTRD-41 her teammate was carrying.
She didn’t have the sniping aim of Tohma or Anna, but she was still sharp enough to use the Vintorez. She hunched onto the ground, placing the scope over the sight line to the distant target, and zeroed in on the shield standing in the road.
Through the lens, she saw the bullet circle contract, and just as she was about to place it over the shield—Pitohui leaped out from behind it.
“Hngf!”
“You’re aiming too hard!”
Pitohui bounced high and far to the right of M’s shield position.
She didn’t get shot. SHINC’s gunners were aiming too closely at the shield itself. Pitohui knew that because of their bullet lines, of course.
Before the other team could react, Pitohui fired the M14 EBR standing up, right at Boss.
“Rrgh!”
It was Sophie who got shot through the stomach.
She leaped sideways in front of the bullet line pointing at Boss, and got shot. In fact, she dived specifically to get hit.
While Sophie was still in the air, Boss’s aim at the shield was complete, and she pulled the trigger at the moment the circle was at its smallest.
There was a phenomenal blast of sound, and the antitank rifle’s projectile took off at a height of one foot off the ground.
It struck M’s shield.
As Pitohui leaped into a nearby building whose exterior glass windows were broken, out of the corner of her eye, she caught sight of the left of M’s two shield panels getting blown away. There was a metallic scream loud enough to hurt the ears, and the fairly heavy panel simply flew off out of her range of vision to the left as easily as a piece of paper in the wind.
At the same time, M’s thick left arm was bent at an impossible angle, and red damage light shone from his shoulder. In real life, his arm would be broken, dislocated, or both.
What’s more, if it weren’t massive, muscular M, that arm could easily have been ripped off and cast away with the shield, wherever it landed. His body itself got pushed backward, and he managed to fall to the right, keeping his hold on the remaining protective piece.
“Rrgh…”
With the other shield in front of him, M twisted his body so he could face SHINC’s direction. Barely in time, he held up the barrier diagonally to block the shots coming for him.
Upon seeing M defending himself from a withering hail of PKM and Dragunov bullets with nothing but one arm and the backpack, Pitohui exclaimed, “Uh-oh, that’s not good!”
She reached into the pouch she kept around her back. “At this rate, they’re going to shoot my gun!”
Then she grabbed a cylinder and threw it as hard as she could with just the motion of her arm. The spray-can-like smoke grenade flew through the air and began to belch out its contents.
Within moments, the street was full of smoke as black as Pitohui’s soul.
A thick cloud blocked the view.
“Smoke, huh…?”
Boss finished reloading the PTRD-41.
If you fired it while it was secured on the bipod, the gun’s characteristic auto-discharge function powered by its own recoil would not work properly. Moving the large, heavy bolt to load the next bullet had to be done manually.
But she couldn’t do it as well as Tohma, and by the time she had the scope on M’s shield again, there was black smoke blocking her vision. She decided not to waste the bullet, and checked on her teammates’ HP instead.
Anna was at 80 percent, still green. Only her hand was harmed, making it a light wound.
Sophie was at 10 percent. She was in grave condition, firmly in the red zone. But if anything, it might be considered lucky that she was still alive after being shot through the core with a 7.62 mm bullet. Her gauge was already blinking, meaning she’d used her med kit and was in the slow process of healing.
And Tanya was at 90 percent. She’d been speaking through the comm now and then, but out of context, her statements were very hard to parse. What was happening with her?
With the smoke for cover, M crawled forward with one arm toward Pitohui’s building to the side. He’d lost one shield, taken damage on his left arm, and suffered a few shots to his elbow and feet when they became exposed. His health was at about 60 percent now.
“Hi, darling. Good job out there. Can you stand up?” Pitohui said kindly. But when she reached out and pulled him upright, she grabbed the injured left arm instead.
“Gaaah!”
“Oops, sorry.”
“Hrrg…”
As soon as he was on his feet, M used a med kit on himself.
Pitohui checked her watch. 1:38.
At that very moment, Llenn called out, “I’m captured here! Help me!”
Now really wasn’t the time, so Pitohui replied, “Gosh, we’re pretty swamped over here, too. Can’t you do something on your own?”
That’s so messed up! Llenn thought. Pitohui didn’t consider her plea for help in the least.
“Boss, I’ve got Llenn! Near the dead end to the north! Can you make it?” Tanya said right near her ear.
Tanya’s next statement was “Okay. Got it,” so Llenn’s initial assumption was that they wouldn’t be coming right away. There was still a chance.
She decided to hit up Fukaziroh for help again.
“Fuka! Tanya’s caught me! Help!”
“Huhhh? What happened?” exclaimed Fukaziroh, who couldn’t see the situation, of course.
Llenn had no choice but to explain, even though Tanya could hear her. “We were grappling, and she caught me in a lock. I can’t get myself loose!”
“Ahhh, how very passionate. Look, there’s nothing wrong with girls having a little fun.”
“Yes, there is! If anyone else from SHINC comes along, I’m an easy target. I don’t want to embarrass myself by dying like this!”
“Ah, I see. Where’s your location?”
“Very close to the last spot! About a hundred feet north!”
“Got it. Any other last words?”
“Yeah—don’t shoot me!”
“Darn.”
And so Llenn just barely avoided the ignoble death from above by grenade.
Oof, there’s nothin’ I can do…
Fukaziroh stared at the rising smoke in the distance.
She couldn’t provide backup bombardment for Llenn.
Pitohui turned down her bombardment offer; that order hadn’t been rescinded yet.
Fukaziroh was left all alone on the rooftop with nothing to do.
This is so boring. I’m so bored. Can I fix some tea or something?
She shook her head and looked at the scene around her. “Hmm?”
There was a Humvee. It was on the southern edge of the city, at the corner of the street. About 450 yards away. It wasn’t moving.
She’d looked around for the sake of security when she came up here, and there was no car like that at the time. She would have reported it to Pitohui, so she was certain it was new.
That left two possibilities.
Number one: As time progressed, it popped into existence as a usable item.
Number two: An enemy had driven it here. It was far enough away that she couldn’t tell with the naked eye if anyone was inside it.
Either way, I guess I’ll blow it up. I’m bored.
It was barely at the edge of her range of accuracy, but she had the extra advantage of being atop the building. The occasional gusts of wind would be bothersome, but they were calm for the moment. Even if she missed, she could just use all six of the pack. They would come back, anyway.
To ease her boredom, Fukaziroh lifted Leftania, which was full of normal grenades. She rested the edge of the launcher on the rooftop handrail and placed her finger on the trigger.
When the bullet circle appeared, she moved it over to the distant Humvee, got it right on top—and then it shifted away.
Hmm? Was that the wind? she wondered.
At that very moment, a bullet hit her chest and penetrated through to the back.
“Gahk!”
Llenn heard Fukaziroh scream. In the corner of her vision, the hit point bar for her teammate was dropping fast.
“Fuka? What happened? Fuka?” she called, momentarily forgetting her own predicament.
“I’ve been…shot… Hyaaa!”
“Fuka?”
“Llenn, this is ba—”
Boom!
A tremendous explosion drowned out Fukaziroh’s voice. Her hit points dropped further.
That wasn’t an insta-kill, was it? Llenn thought with terror. But the decrease did stop, leaving Fukaziroh with less than 20 percent. She was in the red zone.
It wasn’t clear exactly what had happened, but it was clear what Llenn should do now.
“Tanya!”
“Whuh?”
The other woman faltered under the sudden glare.
“Enemies! We gotta run away!”
“Huh? Huh?”
“Just let go of me! I won’t slice you! We’re all going to get killed by another team coming to scoop us up! Hurry!”
“……”
Faltering from Llenn’s intensity, Tanya’s grip loosened, and Llenn wriggled out of her Bizon trap like a desperate cat. She had the opportunity to slash at Tanya’s neck, but she did not. She returned the knife to her waist.
With a quick movement of her left hand, Llenn returned her boots to her feet from inventory. Then she ran back to the P90 and hat and picked them up.
“Run away, Pito! I think another enemy’s coming up from the south!” she said as she plopped her cap back on her head. There was no response.
Instead, as if to answer the obvious question, she saw Pitohui’s and M’s hit points dropping at a precipitous rate.
“Boss! Llenn says enemies are coming!” Tanya said to her teammate.
Boss’s answer was “Yeah…I know…”
Boss watched it happen.
As the smoke cleared, in the distance down the long, straight road, a Humvee approached at blazing speed and came to a rapid stop just fifty yards or so from the building where Pitohui and M were sheltering.
And from the bulletproof roof turret of the vehicle, they began to fire.
Vraaaaaaaaa!
A bright flash emitted from the edge of the turret, accompanied by a sound like a deep, snarling buzzer.
The flashing was, of course, the muzzle of the gun firing, but it did not let up. It did not flicker. It was constantly alight.
Continuous sound and continuous muzzle flashing. An endless stream of orange tracer lights led to the first floor of the building.
“That’s an M134 Minigun…,” Boss murmured.
Even in the gun-packed world of GGO, there was nothing else that could shoot with that kind of mad abandon.
The M134 was a Gatling gun, a ring of identical barrels that spun at high speed on a motorized system, loading and firing all the while.
With the aid of the motor, the firing speed of the Minigun could reach up to four thousand rounds per minute. That was sixty-six rounds per second. If you didn’t know much about ranged weapons, you might assume that was wrong by an entire digit. It was an unfathomable amount of firepower.
The M134 was called the “Minigun” because it was a scaled-down 7.62 mm version of an aircraft armament called the M61A1 Vulcan, but the barrels and motor alone made it nearly forty pounds, so it was one of the heaviest weapons in GGO.
In practical terms, it was basically impossible to use while held in the real world, but you saw big macho guys shooting them from the waist in action movies. That was possible in GGO, too. The game’s developers probably knew that people would want to do it after seeing it in movies. Therefore, it was a weapon only for extreme enthusiasts, because it required maximum strength just to be able to use in that clumsy way.
It was so heavy that it was hard to walk while carrying—but set up in the turret of an armored Humvee was a different story altogether.
With the mobility of tires, the protection of armored body and glass, and the firepower to shoot dozens of times a second, this was a strength the average character couldn’t possibly hope to counteract.
But Boss didn’t think that was unfair.
If you could bring the weapon into the game, you could use it. And one of the core concepts of finding vehicles in GGO and Squad Jam was “finders keepers, losers weepers.”
But seeing Pitohui and M under a hail of fire in the building, and probably being turned into mincemeat, Boss felt a bit more conflicted now.
It was obvious the other guys were from the allied team—one of those masked groups lounging around atop the ice, with their weapons tucked away in their virtual inventory. They must have seen that SHINC was struggling with LPFM and come to help. It might be the proper choice when considering team play.
But Boss spat, “Dammit… Mind your own business.”
She didn’t want anyone’s help, even if her own team was going to die. It was no longer a fair and proper fight. How could she possibly apologize to Llenn’s side?
The roaring of the Minigun came to a stop.
The actual firing was only for three seconds at most, but that meant nearly two hundred 7.62 mm rounds fired into the building. Dust billowed out from the interior. Pitohui and M were almost surely dead by now.
“I’m going to go have a word with them!” Boss said, getting to her feet.
Just then, she heard Tanya cry, “Boss! Llenn says enemies are coming!”
Then the Humvee’s turret slowly rotated so that the Minigun was facing them. Bullet lines extended toward her own chest.
“Yeah…I know…”
The muzzle of the Minigun flashed.
To be continued…
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