Sword Art Online - Volume 5 - Phantom Bullet

by Reki Kawahara

  These should be some of the hundreds of battles that were going on and were chosen to be telecasted. Once the scene of a player being hit and blown to bits was shown, countless players who were gathered inside the dome would let out a deafening cheer.

  I thought about whether Sinon’s match would be telecasted as I took a few steps forward. I checked every single image from the top right corner, but as the cameras continued to move, I really couldn’t tell. I concentrated and tried to look for her aqua-blue hair.

  —As I was too concentrated, I was too shocked that my heart nearly stopped when my right ear suddenly heard a voice. That deep, hoarse and somewhat metallic voice seemed to enter my mind.

  “Are you, the real one?”

  “…?”

  I instinctively took a step back and looked back.

  Immediately, I thought that I saw a ghost.

  Of course, I wasn’t referring to a real ghost, but a «Ghost-type» monster mob that appeared in the 65th level of Aincrad at night in the Ancient Fore.

  The person in front of me wore a tattered dark grey mantle. The hood that was kept low was completely black, and only the eyes that were deep inside showed a little red light.

  Under the light of the dark waiting dome, the stranger in front of me really looked like a ghost-type monster in SAO. Thus, I instinctively wanted to back away and draw my light saber to battle. I couldn’t even control this instinct at all as my right hand jerked.

  I panted as I looked at the feet of that guy. At the end of the tattered mantle, I could see the tip of the somewhat dirty boots.

  He wasn’t a ghost, but a player. After checking this obvious fact, I released my slightly held breath.

  Looking closely, those red eyes weren’t some ghost lights, but the shine on the lens of a pair of black goggles that covered the entire face. This somewhat rookie-like response from me and the way that guy just approached me at such a close place in such a rude manner, so I asked coldly,

  “Real…what do you mean by that? Who are you?”

  However, the player who was dressed in the dark-grey mantle didn’t mention his name as he deliberately took a step closer to me even after I took a step back. This time, I didn’t take a step back, but took his stare head on at about 20cm away from him.

  That voice that seemed to have some form of sound effect within it and had some reverb overtones ringing in an interrupted manner,

  “I saw it, the match. A sword, you used it.”

  “Ah…ahhh. That’s not against the rules, right?”

  The damned AmuSphere really showed the wavering in my heart as my answer sounded somewhat hoarse. The dark-grey mantle guy seemed to have read my heart as he advanced a few more centimeters.

  Then, he said another thing with an even deeper voice. As the voice was rather soft, at this distance, I had to concentrate just to hear it.

  “Let me ask, you again. Are you, the real, one?”

  Before I could understand the meaning behind these words, my heart felt like it got hit by a thunderous-like premonition, and I could only remain rooted there.

  —I know this guy!

  That’s right. I definitely met him somewhere. I did once talk to him straight on like I am doing now.

  But where? After logging into GGO, I had only talked to the guy who was at where I appeared who wanted to buy my avatar, Sinon who brought me to buy the items and register, and her friend, three of them altogether. Thus, I couldn’t say that I met him in this world before.

  Was it in ALO? Did I meet this guy with a different avatar in ALFheim? I frantically searched the database of my mind to see if his verbal mannerisms and presence resembled someone. However, I really couldn’t think of another. I don’t remember someone like him who would stand in front of me and raise goosebumps in me with the cold air around him.

  Where…where exactly did I meet this guy…

  At this moment, the tattered mantle swayed, and a slender arm came out from inside. I got ready to back away, but after looking at it, I found that aside from a glove that was as tattered as his mantle, there was nothing else.

  That hand in the air was pointed at me, and opened a window before moving it in a lackluster manner. Right now, the matchup schedule that was going on in this third BoB preliminaries appeared on the window.

  That thin metal-like finger pressed on Group F, and in the end, the image of Group F expanded to show the entire screen. He pressed it once, and the center part of the matchup schedule became wider.

  My eyes were attracted by his finger.

  There were 2 names on it.

  On the left side was «Uemaru», and on the right side was «Kirito». On the name on the right, there was a light-glowing line extending out from it. The news that I beat Uemaru and entered the second round was already reported.

  His finger moved slightly, touched the word «Kirito» up and down, and then, it rang again—his voice.

  “This, name. That, sword skill…are, you real?”

  Immediately, I was shocked for the third time, and this was the strongest impact.

  My knees started to tremble, and I had to work hard not to let myself collapse.

  This grey-colored mantle player—I know him!

  The origin of the name «Kirito», and the sword skill I used to beat «Uemaru». This guy knows about them.

  In other words…I didn’t meet this guy in GGO or ALO.

  But in SAO, «Sword Art Online». I once met this guy in the main stage of that death game, the floating city Aincrad.

  This avatar hidden under the tattered mantle…no, the player who’s wearing the AmuSphere and playing this avatar was an «SAO survivor» like me.

  My heart was already pounding like crazy unknowingly. If it wasn’t for the fact that we’re inside the dark dome, he would have found out that my avatar’s face was all white already.

  Calm down. Calm down!! At this moment, my mind could only continue to repeat such words.

  Even when meeting an SAO survivor, I have no need to be panicking so much. When Aincrad was about to collapse, I became famous because of the report of my unique skill ‘Dual Blades» and how I openly took on the leader of the Knights of the Blood, Heathcliff. Also, the «Vorpal Strike» I just used on Uemaru was a rather common skill under the one-handed sword category. Those high-levelled players in Aincrad can guess from the footage of the match and the player’s name in the matchup schedule that I’m Kirito of the SAO clearing group. If it was me, if I find a player who I may know of at first, I might talk to him and chit-chat about the past or something.

  So I had no need to be scared at all. I shouldn’t be scared.

  But why am I so…

  The next moment—the thin and long arm removed the matchup schedule and kept his arm back into his mantle, and a part attracted my attention.

  There was a thin gap at the front side of the glove that looked like a tattered bandage, probably a little higher from the inside of the wrist. From there, I could see his pale skin.

  And on the kin, there was a squared tattoo about 5cm wide.

  It was a Western Coffin that was drawn in a manga style. The lid showed a mysterious smiling face, and the lid was slightly open. A white arm reached out from the darkness inside, waving at anyone it saw. At that other world, another guy used poisoned water to numb me and got ready to kill me. At that time, he had a similar tattoo too.

  That was the emblem of «Laughing Coffin».

  Once I recognized that image, it was really a miracle that I could stifle my shout or prevent myself from collapsing onto the floor, or even that I wasn’t forced to log out because of the abnormal brainwaves.

  The player under the tattered mantle stared at me, who didn’t react at all, and then whispered,

  “You, don’t know, what I’m asking?”

  I slowly and cautiously nodded my avatar’s head.

  “…Ahh. I don’t understand. What do you mean, by the real one.”

  “….”

  The grey mantl
e silently took a step back. The red eyes looked like they were blinking as they flickered.

  After what seemed like a long few seconds, the inorganic-like feeling seem to be amplified as the voice rang.

  “…Then, forget about it. Well, whether, your name, is a lie, a fake…or whether you’re, real.”

  He turned back and left the last words.

  —One day, I’ll kill you.

  These words made me feel that he wasn’t talking about killing within the game.

  The tattered mantle went away silently like a ghost—and then suddenly vanished.

  Right now, the surroundings weren’t like before where the player was still around.

  My thin and petite body started to sway, and after barely supporting myself, I collapsed like an avalanche and sat down on the box seat beside me. I then cuddled my thin legs and put my knees to my forehead.

  I closed my eyes, and inside my eyelids, I could see what was a clear little tattoo even though it was for about a fraction of a second.

  A laughing coffin. There was only one guild that used such an emblem in Aincrad.

  It was the killing guild «Laughing Coffin».

  During the two years clearing SAO, it could be said that there were a lot of orange players who went into economic constraints and started stealing money and equipment from other players. Normally though, they would gather together in bunches to one person and force them to hand over valuable items. At the most, they would just use some numbing poison.

  When someone attacks another person and causes the HP bar to be depleted, the player will really die in the real world, so no one would dare to do that. That’s because these 10,000 players were all heavy Net-gamers, and were all people who had nothing to do with crime in real life.

  However, this unwritten rule of «Not causing the HP to drop to zero» was broken by a strange player.

  This guy’s name was called «PoH». It was a really funny name for a character, but unexpectedly— or rather, it’s because of this that he had a certain charisma.

  The first attractive point about PoH was that he had an exotic-looking handsome appearance, and was a multilingual player who was well-versed in three languages. He may be a mixed-blood between a Japanese and a Western, and his Japanese, fluent English, and decent Spanish sounded just like a professional DJ singing rap, which would change the players around him. In the end, they went from being players to a real illegal organization that was cold and solid.

  And the second point was really simple. PoH’s own ability.

  He was a talented dagger user. A dagger in his hand was just like an extension of his arm. The blade didn’t even need an assist from the system and could crush monsters—or players. Especially at the end of the death game, once he got what’s called a horrifyingly large dagger «Mate Chopper», his ability was so great that even players in the clearing group feared him.

  The lawless followers who admired PoH were attracted to him in the opposite way people were attracted to Heathcliff of the Knights of Blood. Slowly, they expanded the boundaries in their heart.

  A year after the game started, on the New Year’s Eve in year 2023.

  PoH and company, who have grown to about 30 people, attacked a small guild that was having an outdoor party in the field at a viewing spot, and killed them all.

  The next day, there was the notification of «Laughing Coffin», a guild that wasn’t accepted by the system and was designated as «red», and ended up in the main information providers of Aincrad.

  However, the grey mantle player I just talked with shouldn’t be PoH himself. That unrestrained and occasionally interrupted manner of speech was completely different from PoH’s seemingly machine gun-like and extremely enthusiastic tone.

  However, there was really a guy in «Laughing Coffin» who did talk like that. I met that guy before, and I think we did fight before. He wasn’t just an ordinary member, but a rather high-ranking member. I could already remember so much, but why couldn’t I remember his face and name?

  No, I actually knew. The reason why I couldn’t think of it was because I personally refused to remember.

  «Laughing Coffin» was formed on the first day of 2024, and was eliminated on a certain summer night after August.

  Of course, it wasn’t automatically disbanded, but vanquished. It’s because the clearing group, the players on the frontlines formed about 50 members in a crusade as we used force to destroy them.

  Actually, we should have done that a long time ago, but we couldn’t find the base of Laughing Coffin, so it was delayed till after August.

  In Aincrad, players could buy houses or rooms, and whether it was on the streets or outside, we could accurately pinpoint the positions through the NPC real estate companies. The clearing group guessed that they would buy a larger house or a castle-like building that could allow 30 people to stay inside, so the information brokers accepted the clearing group’s request and checked through all the large houses from the first level on.

  But even though we found a few medium-to-small orange guild hideouts, we still couldn’t found the most important Laughing Coffin’s base after a few months.

  Actually, it’s no wonder we couldn’t find them. Laughing Coffin used a floor that we had long conquered—a tower area that wasn’t linked to the upper levels, which was a safe zone in a cave that would be easily forgotten once the designer installed there. The clearing players will basically only take part in clearing the mazes in high towers, and medium-class players would slip into mazes where there’re a lot of people. Of course, there would be players who would find that there were problems with the cave and enter in, but it’s not hard to imagine that they were killed easily by Laughing Coffin to prevent their whereabouts from being revealed.

  The reason the secret base of Laughing Coffin was revealed was because one of the members who may be unable to endure the guilt of killing exposed the secret to the clearing group. The clearing players then used this information to investigate and check that those guys were using that cave as a base before finally rallying a large-scale crusade. The leader of the squad was a member of the largest guild «Holy Dragon Alliance». Several strong players from the «Knights of the Blood» and other guilds joined in too. Of course, as a solo player, I was also invited to join the group.

  Our numbers and average level were a lot higher than Laughing Coffin, so we thought that if we sealed the entrance to the safe zone to their base, there would be a high chance that they would surrender without fighting. But— just like how there was someone who revealed the secret…

  Our thoroughly kept secret and battle strategy was known by them for some reason through some means. When we entered the maze, none of the Laughing Coffin members were waiting in the large room of the safe zone. Of course, they didn’t flee or hide in the alleys of the maze, but attacked us from behind.

  They prepared all sorts of traps, poisons, trick items and all sorts of means to ambush us in random ways. The clearing group was severely confused at the beginning, but the response to a sudden situation was the ability the clearing group needed the most, so we immediately readied ourselves again and started attacking back head.

  However— there was an unexpectedly difference between Laughing Coffin and the clearing group.

  That’s the guilt over killing someone. Once we realized that the berserk Laughing Coffin members wouldn’t surrender no matter how much their HP was worn out, we started to waver.

  Of course, we did discuss about this possibility before, and at that time, we made the decision that we had to go all out even if we have to make the enemy’s HP drop to zero. But including me, the members of the crusade couldn’t deal the final blow once the enemy’s HP was down to zero. One of the crusaders even threw his sword and knelt down on the ground.

  First, there were a few martyrs in the crusaders. Then, the similarly berserk crusaders killed several members of Laughing Coffin too.

  And what happened next was an ever bloody hell.

&n
bsp; Once the battle ended, there were 11 casualties on the crusaders’ side and 21 on Laughing Coffin’s side. Amongst them, I personally used my sword to kill two of them.

  But amongst the dead and the captured players, there was no sign of the name of the leader PoH.

  The twelve remaining enemy players who survived that battle were all locked inside the Dark Iron Palace prison. If that grey mantle player was really a survivor, I may have talked to him at a certain time after clearing up from the battle. I remembered his verbal mannerism, but couldn’t remember his face and name, all because I forced myself to forget about them all.

  No…

  No, maybe under that mantle…

  Is one of the two people I personally killed.

  Unexpectedly, I would have such an idea. Thus, I continued to keep my knees cuddled as I sat on the seat and hurriedly shook my head. I started to grit my teeth with all I got and tried to change my thinking.

  The dead can’t revive. In the SAO incident, whether it’s the people I loved or loathed, the 4,000 victims wouldn’t come back again. So that guy in the grey mantle must be one of the 12 Laughing Coffin members who survived. I should have known their names. I tried my best to endure the pain of searching through my memories as I tried to recall their information.

  But at this moment…

  I again noticed a new possibility, and panted.

  The metallic-like distorted voice that grey colored mantle guy let out was a rather deep whisper. What would it be like if he shouted with all he got…

  The roar from the voice file I heard a week ago rang deep inside my ears again.

  “…This, is real strength, real power! Foolish people, engrave the fear of this name in your hearts!”

  “This gun’s name and I : «Death Pistol» … «Death Gun»!!”

  It was completely similar. I can’t be mistaken. The voices would be the same.

  That guy—

  Was that grey mantle guy «Death Gun»?

  If that’s the case, my mission to dive into GGO, attract attention and become «Death Gun»’s target was quickly finished.