Sword Art Online Alternative – Gun Gale Online - Volume 9 - Chapter 13

CHAPTER 13 

Retreat I 

Boss was looking at a large man in green fatigues carrying a backpack and M14 EBR on his back. 

And he was lying on the ground, aiming her own team’s gun, the PTRD-41. 

The long barrel was extending from a fan-shaped shield constructed of three panels on each side. 

“Why are you here?” 

Without looking in her direction, M replied, “I’m borrowing this.” 

The next instant, a bullet struck his shield and bounced away. 

The shot took a nasty angle right toward Boss, and she had to hit the ground flat. “Hya!” 

However, that had given M what he wanted. “Over there, huh?” 

The PTRD-41 roared. 

A tremendous amount of propulsive gas burst from the front end of the muzzle and the brakes to the sides, along with a sound that resembled the detonation of a bomb. The force kicked up a cloud of dust around M. 

A massive bullet, 14.5 mm in diameter, weighing two ounces, rocketed off at the stunning speed of Mach 3. 

M was now using the very gun that SHINC had acquired to destroy his shield—from behind that shield, no less. 

“……” 

Boss could only watch, her cheek pressed against the ground. 

“Tsk! That shield is cheating, man!” snapped a player dressed in bright-green camo with a mask and sunglasses. He pulled back from the window. 

He was inside a building about four hundred meters away from M and Boss’s location. He’d been sniping with his sound-suppressed M110A1, but now he scooped up the rifle and rolled to his left. That was the quickest way of moving since he aimed right-handed. 

It was a quick and assured maneuver. In an instant, he was hiding behind a thick layer of concrete. 

The bullet came rocketing toward him and gouged a huge hole in the building, chipping loose a chunk of it that struck the man directly on the head. 

“Gah!” 

The impact instantly caused him to lose 40 percent of his health. If he’d been a split second later in his dodge, the bullet would have broken through the wall and still had enough power to split his skull. 

His outfit and mask were covered in dust now. “Tsk! That gun is cheating, too! Yeesh!” 

Picking up his weapon, he bolted out of the room. As he ran down the hall, he stuck an emergency med kit against his skin and muttered, “He knew I was going to grab the rifle and pivot to the left… What a brilliant player. Gotta watch out for him.” 

Then he turned his attention to his comms and addressed his similarly dressed teammates. “I couldn’t get the kill shot. Let’s all meet up. You too, Leader. These guys aren’t going to be as easy to beat as I thought. Tell the Humvee guys, too. We need to set up a perimeter and close in on them! This is getting fun!” 

The booming sound echoed off the tall buildings. Once the dust had finally settled, M peered through his scope and muttered, “Looks like I let him get away.” 

There was a large hole in the concrete wall, but if the player behind it were dead, there would be a faintly visible DEAD tag floating in the air. 

“Nyah-nyah, you suck!” taunted Pitohui. 

Boss sat up and saw a woman dressed in black pressed against the corner on the other side of the intersection, holding a KTR-09 with a drum magazine in one hand and two sections of a shield in the other. 

It was the very player Boss had been in a shoot-out with just minutes earlier. 

Boss tinkered with her inventory and brought out the backpack and Vintorez, then said, “If you bring that gun over here, I promise not to turn it on you.” 

“You only want me to bring it to you?” M asked considerately. “If we carry it together, we can run at full speed.” 

“I can work with that, I guess!” replied Boss with a grin. It was more than she could have requested. 

“Hey, you two, why don’t you just get married already?” taunted Pitohui, like a kid in the schoolyard. 

Boss did not hesitate to use her final emergency med kit. Her health would be back to full in another three minutes. 

Pitohui crossed the intersection, using the shield to protect herself, and guarded M’s position in the middle while he folded up his portable barrier sections. 

During the smoke screen, M must have spread them out and scooped up the PTRD-41, then set it down and aimed it, all going by nothing but intuition. 

Boss had been entirely unaware of their approach. They could have shot her dead without her ever knowing they were there. 

That was lucky… 

Now that she’d acknowledged her own mistake, Boss kept her Vintorez scope to her eye, watching the south until Pitohui and M made it over to her. 

“Ya-ha! Things are getting pretty crazy!” 

“No kidding!” 

Pitohui, Boss, and M took off running to the west. 

They split the weight of the PTRD-41 by having Boss carry the barrel end and M the stock. This way, they could at least move at M’s maximum running speed. 

Pitohui took up the rear position, lugging the shield in her left hand and running backward so she could watch for any enemies that might be in hot pursuit. 

Through her comm, Boss told the rest of the team, “I’m with Pitohui and M. We’re stuck in the same boat. Meet up with Tanya, then tell me your location.” 

The others chimed in, delighted to know that she was safe. 

As they ran, Pitohui asked, “Is the leader of the allied team a tall, skinny guy named Fire?” 

“You know him?” Boss wasn’t particularly surprised. She figured that he was probably a reasonably well-known player. And he had a very distinctive look. 

“So I was right. And who’s in those six teams?” 

There was zero chance of SHINC going back to that alliance, so Boss decided to spill the beans. 

“There’s Fire’s team; they all wear tracksuits. There’s one squad in bright-green camo; I’ve never seen them before. A third is equipped with tough-looking chest protectors. All three of those groups have masks and sunglasses. Of the remaining teams, one is RGB, the optical gun team. The other two are newcomers I don’t know, unfortunately. Based on how things were at the lake, the latter three were likely recruited after the Squad Jam started.” 

“Mm-hmm. Who’s driving the Humvee?” 

“The team with the chest protectors.” 

“Uh-huh. Including the guy with the Minigun. That’s a pain in the ass,” remarked Pitohui. 

Boss recalled how the two had looked earlier and decided to speak her mind to them. “I can’t believe you took turret fire at that distance and survived… I thought it was instant death.” 

“Oh, I cut ’em all down with my lightsword.” 

“Well, that’s incredible,” said Boss flatly, not bothering to retort with a joke of her own. “Sophie died on our side to allow us to escape.” 

“And that helped us survive. When you talk to her later, make sure she knows we’re grateful.” 

“Got it. Man, that combination of Minigun and Humvee really was a pain in the ass. And with a sharpshooting sniper, too. Plus, they outnumber us…” 

They ran for their lives, knowing they might get shot at any moment. 

“That’s true. They’re probably setting up a perimeter around us now. They’d only need half of their six teams to do it.” 

“What’s your plan?” 

“You feel like running with us?” 

Boss thought about it for two seconds. “I can’t see any other way. Once we’ve taken Fire out of the picture and we’re the only two teams left, then we can finish this.” 

“Sounds good to me.” 

Eventually, Boss got the excited signal from the rest of her squadmates, who’d met up with Llenn. 

“We see you! Over here!” 

The entire stretch of action from the moment LPFM challenged SHINC until M stopped firing had been tremendous content for the audience in the pub. They cheered, screamed, jeered, and otherwise watched with great interest. 

The direct combat was over for now, so the on-screen feed switched to a hazy aerial angle that could capture entire squads at once. 

One of the big screens featured Fire’s team sitting on the frozen lake. There wasn’t a single member of the unusual camo or chest protector squads, making it clear that they had all shipped off to the ruined city, leaders included. 

RGB continued plugging away at the never-ending swarm of monsters with their optical guns. They were shining in the spotlight. 

The other large monitor displayed the ruins in the northwest sector. 

Though it was hard to tell because of the rubble of all sizes littering the streets, LPFM and SHINC were bunched up together. A little pink blur stood out against the world of gray. 

Thus began another famous Squad Jam bar round of predictions. They were like drunken dads at a baseball stadium yelling whatever came to mind for anyone to hear. 

“Both the Amazons and Llenn’s squad have taken a lot of damage. I don’t think they can win.” 

“The allied team this time is just plain tough… Is that it? The favorite’s just gonna win, no surprises?” 

“Nah, that just tells you how crappy the previous united squads were. Of course, if I were in charge, they’d be doing even better by now!” 

“Those masked guys are terrific, even on an individual level. And their hardware is impressive.” 

“Anyone can win if they get a Humvee with a Minigun on it!” 

“Are you sure about that? Their front tires are flat.” 

“They’ve got spare tires in the back, right? Or they could switch them out with one of the other Humvees.” 

“Oh yeah, I guess that’s true.” 

“Technicals reign supreme in urban combat. You can bet on it. The pink pip-squeak and her friends don’t stand a chance.” 

The crowd’s opinions were varied, but they all seemed to agree that the scales were heavily tilted. 

Incidentally, a “technical” was a lighter vehicle equipped with weaponry, even something as simple as an unarmored pickup truck with a heavy machine gun in the bed. The mobility from the engine’s power alone was a huge advantage. With armor that could deflect anything short of antitank rounds, plus the Minigun on top, the Humvee was nearly unstoppable. 

“They’re cheating! Cheat, cheater, cheatest!” 

“You just want to accuse someone of cheating…” 

“Yeah! I like saying that word.” 

“What’s that supposed to mean? And cheatest isn’t a word…” 

A man who’d been watching since SJ1 said exhaustedly, “There are three Humvees in total, right? They can use those to chase their opponents around the city and pick off the rest with snipers. There’s no escape from the northwest sector of the map. They’re trapped. My poor Llenn—she’s done for…” 

A man with a shaved head clapped the dejected one on the shoulder. “I agree with you, man.” 

“You finally admit that she’s my Llenn?” 

“Not that part!” 

It was 1:48. 

Llenn’s group was hiding in a corner of the ruined city. 

They had changed positions once, to avoid spawning monsters that would appear if you were camped at a spot for five minutes, and were discussing their tactics in the meantime. 

Those present were the remaining five members of SHINC after Sophie’s death, Llenn, Pitohui, and M. 

Fukaziroh had been unaccounted for since she switched off her comm. That was concerning, but her hit points were recovering without incident, so they knew she was still alive. 

Hey, it’s Fuka. She’ll manage on her own. 

Llenn wasn’t worried at all. 

Shirley and Clarence’s situation was similar. They’d remained unharmed throughout; their hit points hadn’t once dropped, wherever they were now. 

Llenn’s group was currently at a major intersection. It had two lanes going in each direction, so it was quite spacious, a good 150 feet to each side. There was plenty of sturdy protective cover, too, between building walls and toppled trucks. 

There was also a tall structure that had fallen entirely onto its side. How it had wound up like that while still intact was a mystery best ignored. The important thing was that it was a big help to them. 

The sides of the building formed a sixty-foot wall that protected them from the south and east. So only the west- and northbound roads of the intersection were open to movement and visibility. 

This meant that Llenn and the others didn’t have to worry about snipers from the east or south. That made it a good defensive position to take. 

The group stayed low and kept their gazes on the perimeter. If any enemies approached, they would withdraw at full speed to the west, of course. Anna and Tohma kept their eyes to their Dragunov scopes, and Rosa had her PKM machine gun at the ready for support, too. 

M set down the PTRD-41 so he could hold his M14 EBR while he kept to Tohma’s side. The shield was all folded up in his backpack now. There was a large hole in the center of the thing through which you could see the plates. 

Clouds covered the sky over the city, and the wind passed through the buildings, gusting and softening here and there. 

“And that’s the situation. We got chased out by Fire’s allied group,” Boss explained. 

“Damn that man!” swore Llenn without thinking. 

Nearby, Pitohui shouted, “Aw, crap!” 

“Hmm?” asked Llenn, confused. 

“You know him, too? What is this Fire guy’s deal?” Boss pressed. 

She figured that if both Pitohui and Llenn knew about him, he must be a pretty famous player, so she only asked in order to learn more about her opponent. 

But Llenn got flustered and stammered, “Um! Well, uh… That is, you see…,” causing Boss to sense that there was something more here. So did the others in SHINC. 

Arrrgh! 

Llenn regretted her slip of the tongue but came to realize that Pitohui’s surprise had been intentionally exaggerated to draw attention. 

Grrr, Llenn thought, grinding her teeth. 

“Look, you might as well tell them, right? They know you in real life, after all,” Pitohui stated breezily. Now Llenn had no reason to refuse. 

Over the next twenty seconds, Pitohui explained about Llenn and Fire and how they’d staked a marriage on the outcome of SJ4. 

The teenage girls playing SHINC launched screams of excitement, which were noticeably lower pitched than if this had been the real world. 

The people watching this discussion from the aerial camera could only guess at what in the world they were talking about. 

“I see. So you want to fight at full strength… Very well,” Fire said into his comm. 

He was standing on the frozen lake, surrounded by his teammates in dark-blue tracksuits as well as the gray camo squad, the one in desert camo, and RGB. 

Like earlier, no one aside from RGB had their weapons out. They were, for the moment, unarmed. And none of the unique camo or sci-fi armored guys were around. All the Humvees were off in other places, too. 

Fire was giving the twelve not at the lake their orders. His voice was devoid of pleasure, sadness, or delight. 

“Sorry for placing all those restrictions on you before. Go ahead and enjoy the battle now. You may remove all of them from the game, including the little girl in pink.” 

“So you see, there’s a lot of complicated stuff going on this time. But trust me when I say that Llenn was reeeeally looking forward to fighting you!” Pitohui concluded. She gave Boss and the others a wink that was so overdone that you could practically hear it. 

“…” 

At first, Boss didn’t know what to say. The rest of SHINC was much the same. 

However, she then broke into a sudden howl of “Lleeeeeeeenn!” and came hurtling over to squeeze Llenn’s tiny hands in her giant mitts. Boss’s grip was so hard that it could have shattered the pink-dressed girl’s bones. 

“Hyeep?” 

“We’ll keep you safe, Llenn! We’ll make sure nothing ever happens to you!” 

“Hwaeh?” 

Apparently, some mental switch inside Boss—more specifically, inside her player, Saki—had been flipped, activating the part of her that read plenty of romance manga. The burly gorilla woman leaned in close, her eyes sparkling and wet. 

“Don’t you dare let yourself be locked into an unwanted marriage! You can’t do that!” 

“Well, nothing’s been decided yet, so—” 

“We’ll do whatever it takes to protect you!” 

“Um…but if anything happens, the best thing is for you to pretend you don’t—” 

“I’ll lay down my life to protect youuuu! Think of me as your shieeeeeeld!” 

Hang on a second. What about our fight? Our big duel! 

Boss cast a ferocious glare at the rest of her team. “Hey! You prim little ladies heard that! From this point on, we’ll fight and die to protect our princess from being forced into an unhappy marriage!” 

What? Why is she convinced I’ll get married? 

“Raaaah!” 

Why are they all shouting? That’s scary! She’s good at working them up. 

“Oh my!” 

And stop smirking gleefully over there, Pito. I see you. 

Boss’s newfound passion showed no signs of letting up. “Hey, M! Build a box with your shield! Then put Llenn inside, wrap it up with duct tape, and we’ll carry it! If we get surrounded, we’ll throw it far away so that Llenn can escape!” 

What am I, some precious treasure? Let me fight! And don’t hurl me! I’ll die on impact! Someone get me out of this! Llenn thought, exasperated. 

“Now, now, Evacchi. Calm yourself. Let’s just chill. Coooool down,” placated Pitohui, the very cause of this state of affairs. “First of all, we need to think about how we’re going to survive. Even as we speak, the circle around us is shrinking.” 

“Yes. That’s true,” Boss remarked. 

Even the way she snaps back to being normal is scary. 

M interjected, “I hate to interrupt your excitement, but it’s time for the scan. Everyone keep an eye out. Leaders, watch your screens.” 

Whoops, already that time. 

Llenn had once again missed the vibration of her watch that was supposed to alert her thirty seconds before the scan. She rolled her sleeve up and looked at the inside of her left wrist again. 

“Huh?” 

There was no watch there. 

At some point in the fighting, it had gotten knocked off her arm. Well, no wonder she hadn’t felt anything. 

Dang. I’ve been wearing it forever… 

The watch itself was cheap, but Llenn couldn’t help but feel saddened to lose something that had been with her through it all since the first Squad Jam. She hoped that this wasn’t an omen of things to come. 

1:50 PM. 

The scan started from the east. 

Llenn, Boss, Pitohui, and M watched their screens, keeping themselves low. 

“MMTM’s still at the edge of the airport. We’ve knocked them down to two,” announced Llenn as the results rolled in. 

“Got it! Good to know!” Boss replied. 

Since it was just a pair who remained, Pitohui wondered aloud, “What if they’re making a baby now?” 

“No dirty jokes, Pito!” 

The scan proceeded to the west. 

“On the lake! Aha, only four teams now! WEEI, PORL, SATOH, and RGB!” 

That told Llenn all she needed to know. All twelve members of the other two teams were probably nearby now. 

“My suspicion,” Boss began, “Is that WEEI is Fire’s team. Based on the last scan, I feel like their dot was close to where he was sitting. That’s just my guess, though.” 

“Got it! Good to know!” Llenn repeated. 

The scan continued westward. ZEMAL was in the crater area, and they ignored that part. They were probably building their own home there—a house made of ammo magazines. 

On went the scan. Llenn’s group focused on their own location and that of the enemy. 

“Aha! WNGL and V2HG!” 

They were in the ruined city after all. Llenn memorized the names of the enemy teams that were moving in for the kill. 

As usual, it was tough to say the abbreviated tags in Squad Jam. She decided on “Double-N” and “V-Two.” 

The two squads were in practically the same location. Going by shogi board rules, they would be near the northeast corner of Sector 8-2. 

Next to appear was SHINC and LPFM’s own location, making it clear to the other survivors that they were working together now. 

They were in the north-central part of Sector 9-1. Barely more than half a mile from the enemy. 

“They’re close,” Boss grunted. Once the scan was over, the enemy squads would come charging in, all in formation. But just as the process was about to finish, another dot lit up. 

“Oh! That’s close, too!” Llenn exclaimed. Yes, another group was still around. It was the champions of SJ2, the hardy armored soldiers T-S. They were in the lower right part of 10-1. 

In other words, Llenn’s group, the pair of enemy teams, and T-S all formed a neat little triangle on the map. 

“Farther off than I expected, but that’s all right,” said Pitohui. 

Boss figured out what she meant at once. “Aha, you want to drag them into this fight.” 

“Yep! We didn’t have anywhere to run but west, so having one other team in that direction adds an uncertain variable to the enemy’s calculations.” 

“But they could choose to attack us, too.” 

“Absolutely. But that, too,” Pitohui said, straightening up with her KTR-09 in hand, “is part of the game, isn’t it? C’mon, gang, let’s enjoy this!” 

Boss and Llenn traded their scanners for their guns. 

“What’s the plan, M?” asked Pitohui, kicking the large man’s leg. 

While they discussed, the pair of enemy squads, WNGL and V2HG, could either move in or stay put and conduct their own meeting. There was no way to know which they would do. 

As usual, M aired his thoughts. “It’s a passive strategy, but it wouldn’t be bad to set up here for now. The Humvees are a pain to deal with, but they can only get to us from the west here, and they can’t approach without us spotting them. T-S will see them as well. And there’s rubble, so we can take cover from snipers.” 

Ah yes. That’s not bad, Llenn thought. If it could protect them from the menacing Humvee, Minigun, and snipers on top of that, it was a good plan. 

“However,” M went on, “we might be able to hold this position for a long while, but we’ll never win that way. What if they send more against us? T-S could flee or join the allied team, too. And monsters will pop up in five minutes. We could probably have Pito kill the scout with her photon sword.” 

Uh-huh. Good point, Llenn agreed silently. 

“Makes sense,” Boss appended. “We just need to make sure we don’t shoot the first one.” Like the squad leader she was, she had a plan of her own to suggest. “What if we keep everyone safe here and send Tanya west to scout? She can find out what T-S is doing and where the Humvee is.” 

“Not bad,” admitted M. 

Llenn was going to offer to go, too, but held herself back. Running point was a job that could be deadly. It was clear that Boss was volunteering her own scout to spare Llenn that danger. 

“All right. In that case—” 

M was about to say something like Let’s go with that. 

But he couldn’t finish, because Pitohui shouted over him. 

“Launcher!” 

GGO players had fast verbal warnings for their teammates in various situations. 

For example, “Sniper!” plus a direction, if it was known, was a quick one used when a long-range shooter was detected. Yes, even when a player got shot and died. 

“Launcher!” was the call for a grenade launcher. It warned teammates to watch for a projectile coming in at an angle from above. 

“Ah!” 

Llenn and everyone else looked upward. They saw the bullet line. 

Straddling the collapsed building to the east was a large, curved red line. It extended down to a spot on the ground about thirty-five meters from where they were holed up, and it grew shorter and shorter as it vanished from the top down. That was because the projectile was flying toward them. 

They heard a faint pomp in the distance from the launcher being fired. 

Boom! 

The grenade exploded on the road just as they threw themselves flat. 

Fortunately, it was just a regular grenade, not one of the expensive plasma variety. It sprayed shrapnel for five meters in every direction, but no one got hit. 

That told them something. There was an enemy grenadier on the other side of the collapsed building firing at them. 

Either this new opponent had been where the scanner had indicated, and they’d used the Humvee to zip over, or the grenadier had already been in place there as a precaution. Regardless, Llenn and the others were in the enemy’s range. 

“Split up! Watch for the next one!” Pitohui commanded, and the entire group did its best to scatter. If that had been a plasma grenade, they would all have died. 

They went separate ways around the spacious intersection, keeping their eyes on the sky. But of course, that wasn’t the only source of danger, so they had to constantly look back down and up again, back and forth. 

“How were they able to fire so accurately at us…? How did they know we were still here?” Boss wondered out loud. 

The scan only showed one’s location to within a few dozen meters. And there was still the possibility that their whole group had kept moving to the west after the scan passed over them. 

But that grenade had very clearly been a pinpoint attack on them. 

“Next one!” shouted M. The line of the second grenade had a very different trajectory. A gust of wind had likely knocked the projectile off course. 

Everyone froze, and there was an explosion over fifty meters to the west of the group—another normal grenade. 

“If we had Fuka with us, we could shoot back,” Pitohui said. She pulled her M870 Breacher off of her hip as a means of shooting down any projectiles that she might not be able to avoid. 

Llenn, too, lamented Fukaziroh’s absence. If she were here, she could calculate where the enemy was on the other side of the building, based on the angle of their lines, and fight back with her MGL-140 grenade launchers. 

It might not be a surefire strategy since the enemy could avoid incoming fire, too, but it would have been better than being attacked in a completely one-sided manner. 

“So are they shooting at us because they know we don’t have a launcher…? Can they actually see who’s here?” Boss pondered. 

“A spotter?” Rosa muttered. 

Blam! 

Anna answered the question with a shot from her Dragunov. 

She pointed the scope-attached sniper rifle to the sky south of them and began firing. After several rounds, she yelled, “Drone! To the south! Very high up!” 

Of course! Llenn and the others realized. 

Drones were a recent, rare, and expensive addition to the game. If M had one, there was no reason the enemy couldn’t as well. 

“Dammit, they had surveillance on us! No fair!” Pitohui moaned. She was probably kidding. 

Anna and Tohma fired their rifles at the distant target, but after ten attempts between them, none had landed. 

Rosa pointed her PKM machine gun in the same direction but decided against firing. The drone was a tiny speck of a target against a cloudy gray sky. It darted from side to side like a UFO. Shooting down something like that was impossible. 

“Launcher!” warned Tanya when she spotted another line. Those in its vicinity scattered again. The grenade landed in nearly the center of the intersection. Rosa was only just quick enough to get out of the way in time. 

“Hya!” 

A split second longer to duck behind rubble, and she would have died. If she’d decided to shoot at the drone earlier, the explosive would have hit her before she could even move for cover. 

It was a good thing the enemy’s grenade launcher was a single-fire model. If it were a consecutive-shooting launcher like Fukaziroh’s, and pumped six projectiles in their direction at once, half of the group could be dead by now. 

Even so, Pitohui said, “This is bad. Should we retreat to the west?” and M had to answer in the affirmative. Staying here meant suffering through this bombardment. 

“It’s the only option. There are others aside from the launcher to the east.” 

“What if we hide in the fallen building?” asked Llenn. “At least there we’re protected from attack.” 

“They’re watching us right now. All it means is that they’ll surround the place and trap us like rats,” replied M. 

“Hmmm…” 

Llenn understood that running west also meant traveling on the road, where the Humvees had high mobility. They might run into T-S, too. 

“In any case, if the drone’s watching us, then it doesn’t matter which way we go; they’ve got us purrfectly pinned!” said Tanya, whose cutesy choice of words seemed to suggest she was trying to soften the situation a bit. It was hard to tell if she was successful. 

“Yeah… I’m guessing they’re not overdoing the grenades because they want to keep us trapped here,” guessed Boss. 

Hrmm. Isn’t there some other option, other option, other option…? wondered Llenn, unable to give up. 

“That’s it!” she blurted out. An idea had come to her. “What about M’s drone? Can we use that to knock out the enemy drone?” 

“You mean…collide with it?” he asked, just to be sure. The drones had no weapons. 

“Yeah!” Llenn replied energetically. 

Naturally, she hadn’t forgotten that it had cost M 110,000 yen to purchase. 

But M wasn’t the kind of man who would quibble about waste. He waved his hand to bring up his inventory screen. Soon there was a lattice of lights taking form in physical space. 

“Launcher!” Anna warned. Llenn and Pitohui were closest to the line, so they darted out of the way. 

The grenade landed and exploded between the two of them. When the smoke cleared, M was there with his drone in hand. “The problem is, I don’t know if I can get it to hit the other one…” 

That was uncharacteristically unconfident for M, but it was based on an understanding of his own skill. He had practiced using the drone for reconnaissance, but he’d never tried engaging in an “aerial battle” by ramming it against another target. 

Ding-ding. 

Just then, a bicycle bell rang. 

“Huh?” 

Everyone thought it must have been their imagination. It wasn’t the sort of sound you’d hear in the midst of battle. 

And yet, when Llenn turned north, she saw a pretty blond girl riding on what was indeed a bicycle. 

Ding-ding. 

“An aerial drone battle, huh…? Would that be my role, then?” the girl said in a highly affected voice. 

Llenn’s face split into a huge smile. “Fuka!” she cried. 

Fukaziroh lifted the edge of her helmet and smirked. 

“Kept ya waitin’, huh?”