Sword Art Online - Volume 5 - Phantom Bullet

by Reki Kawahara

  “Now then, what kind of player are you?”

  After being asked, I immediately thought about it. Due to converting from the other world, the tendency of the character’s abilities would have been brought over.

  “Umm, main focus is strength and then speed… I guess?”

  “A strength-agility type huh. Then, probably the type who carries a heavy assault rifle or a large diameter machine gun for the main arm and a handgun for a sidearm would be good… but, you just converted right? Then, money is…”

  “Oh… right”

  In a flash, I shook my right hand and brought out my window. Even if my abilities were transferred by the convert, it couldn’t transfer over items and money. Therefore, the amount of money shown at the bottom of the storage column was—

  “Um… 1000 credits.”

  “… So the initial amount.”

  When our gazes met, I was met with a troubled smile.

  “Yeah…”

  Her expression returning, the girl touched her thin lips with her fingertip and inclined her head.

  “…With that amount of money, you probably can’t buy anything more than a small ray gun… for a live ammunition gun, a second hand revolver… what to do… umm, if it’s okay…”

  Guessing what she was trying to say, I hurriedly shook my head. No matter what MMO, a newbie who receives too much help from a veteran cannot be praised. I didn’t come to this game to have fun but, even so, as a gamer, there is a line that I cannot cross.

  “No, it’s okay. You don’t have to do that. Um… is there somewhere where I can make some money fast? If I’m not mistaken, I heard that there was a casino in this game…”

  The girl, as expected, showed a smile that was slightly amazed.

  “For such places like that, it would be better if you have an excess amount of money. That said, around here, there are both small and big ones. If I remember correctly, in this store…”

  Pivoting her head, she pointed to the inside of the shop.

  “There’s a similar kind of gambling game. Look.”

  Looking closer, it was a large walled off area that, in terms of game machines, was an excessively large substitute.

  It was roughly 3 meters wide and 20 meters long. Laid out on metal tiles, surrounded by a waist high fence, an NPC dressed with a gunman butt strap was standing the furthest inside. At the front, instead of a fence, there was a metal closure bar where I could see a square cashier-like pillar.

  Behind the gunman, who would sometimes draw his handgun from the holster on his hip twirl it around with the end of his finger, on the brick wall with countless bullet holes etched into it, at the top, there was a pink neon sign with the word “Untouchable”.

  “…This is?”

  After I asked, the girl, while shifting her finger, explained it to me.

  “It’s a game where you enter the gate in front of you and while avoiding the gunfire of the NPC inside, you try to see how close you can approach. The highest score until now is, look over there.”

  Where her index finger was extended and pointing to, in the inner part of the fence on the floor, there was a thin, red, luminescent line. It slightly exceeded two-thirds of the entire area.

  “Wow, how much can you receive?”

  “Um, it costs 500 credits to play and you get a 1000 if you break through ten meters, and 2000 for fifteen meters. And if you can somehow touch the gunman, you get all of the money that players have poured in up until now.”

  “All, all of it!?”

  “Look, the sign indicates that there is a carry over. 1, 10, around 300,000 huh.”

  “That … that’s an incredible amount of money.”

  “But it’s impossible.”

  The girl immediately replied and shrugged her shoulders.

  “That gunman, once you cross the eight meter line, will respond with cheating quick draws. Even though it’s a revolver, with an unreasonable high speed reload, it does a 3-round burst fire. By the time you can see the prediction line, it’s already too late.”

  “Prediction line…”

  At that time, the girl pulled my sleeve and with a small voice, whispered.

  “Look, there is someone who will increase the sum again.”

  Returning my eyes from the gunman to the entrance, a three-person group of guys were approaching it.

  In that group, one person, the guy who was wearing a military jacket apparently intended for use in cold areas with a gray on white camouflage, stood in front of the gate while psyching himself up. He pushed on the top portion of the cashier panel with the palm of his right hand, and with just that, the fare was paid and exceptionally lively fanfare resounded. All at once, from here and there, a gallery of around 10 people gathered.

  The NPC gunman shouted a “Let’s knock this bastard’s ass up to the moon!”—like slang, and brought his right hand to the holster holding his gun. In front of the cold camouflaged male, a green hologram indicating a large number {3} materialized, with a sound effect accompanying the decrease to 2, 1 and at the same time as it reached 0, the metal bar at the gate opened.

  “Nuuuuuooooooorrrryyaaaaaaaaaaaaa!”

  The cold district guy, while raising a war cry, dashed a few steps or so I thought, and spread out both legs and did an emergency stop. He opened his eyes completely, and suddenly, bent his upper body to the right, raised his left hand and right foot in a strange posture.

  ‘What kind of dance is that?’, is what I thought and at that moment, bullets, shining brightly red, passed through the space ten centimeters to the left of the cold district guy’s head, under the left armpit, and under the left knee. The NPC gunman had pulled his gun from his holster and fired three shots in a row. It was a splendid evasion but it was like the cold district guy seemed to understand the course that the bullet traveled through.

  “…Just now, that was the trajectory…?”

  I whispered, turning my head and the girl with the water colored hair nodded, and replied with the same low voice.

  “That’s right. Evasion by means of «Trajectory Perception».”

  The cold district guy ferociously dashed again right as the firing line disappeared and again, halted immediately. This time, he spread both legs wide and bent his upper body ninety degrees.

  Immediately, along with a high-pitched growl, two bullets passed above his head and one below his crotch. Forward again and then halting. It was like a game of «Red Light/Green Light»

  The cold district guy showed quick movements, and all at once, he had advanced seven meters. At that moment, I thought, ‘another three meters and he can get back twice the amount he used to play.’

  Up until now, the NPC, who has been rapidly firing three shots steadily in the same interval, unloaded the bullets with a lag between the first two bullets and the third bullet. The cold district guy avoided the bullet that flew late with a jump but, with the landing, he destroyed his balance and one hand approached the ground. When he tried to stand up in a rush, it was already too late. The gunman’s right hand flashed and the emitted firing line scattered orange colored sparks on the guy’s white vest.

  A miserable fanfare played. The gunman shouted out abusive victory words and the pool money display in the background, accompanied by a small metallic sound, rose by five-hundred credits. The cold district guy dropped his shoulders, and dejectedly walked out of the gate.

  “…so?”

  The girl next to me, while slightly smiling under her scarf, shrugged her shoulders.

  “Because you definitely can’t move in a straight line, you can only move largely to the left and right and whatever you try, that is the limit.”

  “Hmm…I see. When you can see the perception line, it’s already too late.”

  While I was muttering, I was moving my legs forward and approaching the gate.

  “Wait… wait a sec, you…”

  To the girl with wide eyes trying to stop me, I returned a light smile and pushed my right hand on the cas
hier.

  I hear a sound like an old style register a lively sound reverberated.

  Perhaps because of the appearance of another fool or perhaps due to my own appearance, the audience and the three man group grew astir. The girl with the scarf put both hands on her hips and was shaking her head slightly with a fed up expression.

  At the same time as the gunman’s abusive voice that was different from earlier, the countdown started right in front of my eyes.

  I lowered my waist and took the posture for a full power dash. The number decreased and the moment the metal bar opened, I kicked off and jumped onto the floor.

  While advancing a few steps, the gunman quickly raised his right hand and from the tip of the tightly held gun, three red lines extended. They were pointing at my head, the right side of my chest, and my left leg.

  – The moment I felt this, with all of my strength, I jumped forward to the right. Immediately after, an orange firing line passed through to the left of my body. Right away, I kicked off the panel with my right leg and returned to the center.

  Of course, inside a VRMMO game, this was my first time confronting a gun.

  However, in ALO and SAO, there are many monsters that attack from long range with bows and arrows, venom, and magic. There is one way to avoid the trajectory of those attacks and that is to read the shooting line from the enemy’s eyes. Probably due to the developer Kayaba Akihiro’s fixation on details, the behavior of the monsters in VRMMO’s based on the cardinal system were all given the characteristic of pointing their sight at the targeted point without any deviation.

  The NPC who was pointing his gun at me at this moment was also probably not exempt from this rule.

  I stared at nothing but the gunman’s eyes, not even looking at the red trajectory perception line or even at the black muzzle. From the lifeless, twitching movements, I grasped the hint of the trajectory that the bullet will fly, and at the same time, just barely moving to the left or the right, and possibly up or down, and avoiding the soundless indicated perception line itself. In fact, when the bullet passed through, I was already entering the stance before the next dash.

  When I had avoided two sets of three-burst attacks, it seemed that I had passed the ten meter mark and a short sound effect sounded. However, that sound nearly didn’t reach me.

  The gunman released the cylinder that had become empty after shooting six bullets and at the same time as he hurled the empty cartridge behind his back, with his left hand, he fully loaded the gun with six bullets. The entire series of operations took half a second – truly a cheating-like quick work – to pull off before again being pointed towards me.

  The next attack was not the clear cut three-shot rapid-fire up until now. More than half of it due to intuition, I avoided the irregular rhythm of two, one and then three bullets and moved five meters. Again, there was a short fanfare. At the same time was the gunman’s lightning fast half second reload.

  The remaining distance was five meters and I was already in front of the enemy. It might have been my imagination but I could clearly see the bearded face distort into a loathsome expression.

  Under the ten gallon hat, the black eyes quivered a little and moved down to the same level as my chest. Deciding that avoiding to the left or right was impossible, I threw my body down, sliding on the metal tile. I passed under the six firing lines that were released like a machine gun and reached two and a half meters remaining.

  With this, the enemy had no more bullets again. Even if there was a half second gap to reload once more, it was enough for a touchdown.

  While rising, what I thought was that I saw the gunman’s eyes broadly grinning. At least, that was what I felt.

  On reflex, I changed the intention of my last dash and jumped up with all of my might.

  Without any reload, six laser beams from the revolver passed through the space where I was standing just before.

  While screaming ‘What the hell was that!’ inside my mouth, I spun a complete rotation and landed in front of the gunman.

  Here, I wanted to shout out something cool but, before any further trump cards is used, like a beam coming from his eyes, I should decide the match, so I quickly leapt at the leather wearing opponent’s chest.

  After a moment of silence as if the sounds in the shop had disappeared.

  “YOU ACTUALLY….!!!”

  Along with that grandiose shout, the gunman collapsed onto the floor onto his knees holding his head with both hands. At the same time, there was a storm of disorderly fanfare.

  A collapsing sound resounded, and raising my head to it, the brick wall behind the gunman collapsed as if it exploded from within. Without losing any time for surprise, a rain of all of the goods roughly flowed out from inside. It sprang back up at my feet and as a good sound came from it, it disappeared.

  Underneath the neon sign, the digital numbers of the carry-over sum hectically decreased and before long, it became zero and at the same time, the money colored waterfall also stopped. A noticeably noisy sound echoed from inside the shop as the game was reset and the gunman, too, rose up and started to spin his hand gun around his fingertip. As usual, he started to yell out provocative slang but after the cheatingly extreme display of 12 rapid-fire shots earlier, it was doubtful if anyone who decides to challenge him will appear.

  “…fuu”

  I let out a breath and escaped the game lane from the exit on the left side.

  At that moment, from the audience of people that had multiplied at some point, a swirl of commotion sprang forth. Voices saying things like ‘what was that earlier’, ‘who is that person’ mingled together.

  From the edge of the crowd of people, the girl with the water colored hair, half-jogging, rushed over to me and with both eyes unintentionally wide open like a cat, stared at me. After a few seconds, a jumbled and cracked voice flowed out from her lips.

  “… You, what kind of reflexes do you have…? That last moment, in front of my eyes … you avoided the laser beams from two meters away … even though, at that range, there’s already nearly no time lag between the bullet path prediction line and the actual fire…”

  “Uh, ummm … that’s because … “

  I hesitated for a short moment as to how to answer and in the end, said.

  “That’s because, this bullet avoiding game is a game to predict the bullet path prediction line isn’t it?”

  “Pre…Predict the prediction line!?”

  The girl’s cute scream traveled through the air inside the shop. All of the audience also opened their mouths and fell silent.

  ……………………………

  After a few minutes, finally, at the point when the crowd had broken up into small groups, I was twisting my neck here and there to see the rifles inside the showcases.

  “Umm … even though the caliber is smaller than the submachine gun, why is this assault rifle bigger?”

  I tried the simple question on the kindhearted girl standing next to me, but it seemed like she still hadn’t cooled down from the lingering effects of the shock, and like a cat that saw something it doesn’t usually see, she was staring at me with eyes mixed with wary and curiosity.

  “… You don’t even know something like that and you have such an unthinkable evasion skill… you said you converted right? What kind of game were you in before?”

  “Uh, umm… I was always in a fantasy type game… “

  “I see… well, whatever. If you’re entering the BoB preliminaries, there’s an opportunity to show me how you actually fight. Now, what was it, the reason the assault rifle has a small caliber? That started from America’s M16, with the high-speed small diameter bullet design concept based on accuracy and an emphasis on penetrating power…”

  At that point, abruptly closing her mouth, the girl frowned as if she felt bitterness from her own words. But that strange reaction also disappeared in a moment and right away, a more temperate smile took its place.

  “… That kind of thing doesn’
t matter does it. Now, let’s hurry up and finish your shopping.”

  “Ri…Right. Let’s go.”

  While I was doubtfully nodding, she turned her sight from me and started to slowly walk in front of a large showcase.

  “Having earned more than 300K, I think you can buy a pretty good one but… because it comes down to what the person likes and is committed to in the end, the first thing is to know that.”

  “Committed to…?”

  I followed after the girl and looked around at all of the gleaming black guns but, no ‘ping’ would come. That was natural, as in terms of my knowledge about guns, it ended at ‘for handguns, there are revolvers and automatics’.

  While groaning, before I knew it, we had reached the end of the display cases that were lined up inside the shop without any gaps. Since it’s come to this, I’ll leave it up to the girl to decide –— is what I thought when something strange entered my field of vision.

  In the corner of a long showcase, something that was clearly different from a gun, a few metal, tube-like objects were lined up.

  They were three centimeters in diameter and around twenty-five centimeters long. On one side, a metal fixture like a mountaineering carabiner hung down, on the other side was slightly thicker and in the center, there was a black hole like some kind of discharge opening.

  “Umm… what is this?”

  Hearing me, the girl gave a fleeting glance and shrugged as if there was a kink in her shoulders.

  “Ah… that is a ‘Kouken‘.”

  “Ko-Kouken?”

  “Sword of light, written as ‘kouken’. The actual name is «Photon Sword» but everyone usually calls it ‘Laser Blade’ or ‘Light Saber’ or ‘Beam Sabre‘.”

  “Sw-Sword!? In this world, there is a sword?”

  I rushed up to the showcase. Now that she mentions it, it strongly resembles the weapon in a old science fiction movie that the knights who protect the order of the universe wielded.

  “There is but, in all practicality, there’s no one who uses it.”