Phantom Bullet 1

by Reki Kawahara

  That was all it took to obliterate both the concrete cover and Ginrou’s avatar. He was as helpless as a sand sculpture hit by a tidal wave.

  “…”

  Sinon bit her lip and stood up. She lifted the Hecate II off the ground, folded its bipod, and wrapped the ammo belt around her body.

  At four and a half feet, the gun was nearly as long as Sinon was tall, since she was at just over five feet herself. It bit hard into her shoulder, but was still within her carrying capacity. The only reasons she could manage to keep the tiny H&K MP7 as a sidearm without going over the limit were her considerable Strength stat and the fact that the only Hecate ammo she had were the seven bullets in the magazine.

  Even by the naked eye, she could see the muzzle flashes of the gunfight happening nearly a mile away. Sinon silently sprinted as fast as she could go.

  At present, Dyne’s team was at a severe disadvantage. Against just the one man with the minigun, they could win by maintaining medium distance and keeping light on their feet. But with the others and their laser blasters at close enough proximity to negate their protective fields, they had no choice but to tackle the nearer enemy.

  Though she was part of the squadron, they would not complain if Sinon simply retreated to safety. She had a duty in their mission, and she did her part.

  And yet she ran straight for the battle. Not because she wanted to save her companions—it was that confident grin on the minigunner’s face that drove her forward.

  He had the strength and ability to laugh on the battlefield. He’d played long enough to earn himself a minigun, which was at least as rare as the Hecate, if not moreso. He had the patience to build up the frightful amount of strength necessary to wield it. And he had the willpower to react to Sinon’s sniping calmly and precisely.

  Only by fighting and killing such a foe could Sinon eliminate the other, weaker her—the young Shino Asada, who was always crying in a heap inside her mind.

  That was the only reason she continued to challenge this world of madness. If she ran away for safety now, she would be ruining everything she’d built so far.

  Sinon raced on through the dusty air, her feet carrying her as quickly across the dried earth as her stats allowed.

  She avoided the rocks and ruined walls that stuck out of the gravelly sand here and there, launching herself over obstacles if necessary, and in barely a minute, she was within proximity of the battle.

  It was a mad, direct dash, using every ounce of her Agility. She didn’t spare a single thought to hiding herself. The enemy probably knew she was approaching already.

  The area of trading fire had moved quite a bit since the battle began. Naturally, it was Dyne’s group that was being pushed. With the minigun’s commanding fire pinning the group, the enemy’s front troopers were able to close the distance. In order to stay out of the effective range of their lasers, Dyne and the others had to keep darting from cover to cover.

  She was close enough now that her direct sprint would no longer work. If she traveled in the open, the minigun would pulverize her with a hail of bullets. Worse, there were almost no more of the concrete walls the team had been using as cover in the direction they were fleeing. The only thing left was the half-collapsed building they’d used to approach as they staged the ambush. Once they ran in there, they’d be trapped like rats.

  Noticing all of these details at once, Sinon leaped straight for the shadow of the wall behind which Dyne and the others were hiding. As soon as she got closer, three pale, translucent red lines popped into being right in front of her.

  “Ugh!”

  She gritted her teeth and entered an evasive maneuver. Those were the bullet lines that showed the trajectories of the enemy attackers’ laser blasters.

  First she crouched as low as she could go to duck the first of the bullet lines. The next instant, a pale blue laser burned the air over her head. The second line was just before her eyes. She immediately launched off her right foot as hard as she could, floating through the air. The laser passed just below her stomach, leaving her vision pure white for an instant.

  The third bullet line intersected her airborne trajectory at a slightly higher point. She shrunk her head down as much as she could and avoided the hit, but the beam caught her light blue hair right at the tip, sending little sparking bits of light flying.

  Having successfully dodged all three laser blasts, Sinon landed back on the ground to see—

  —a terrifyingly thick red line the color of blood and over a foot across. It had to be the bullet line of the minigun. That deluge of bullets would be upon her in less than a second.

  Lashing her terrified body into action, she tensed the foot that just hit the ground and launched herself airborne again. Twisting in midair, she tilted herself backward like a high-jumper.

  The next moment, she felt a ferocious flow of energy storm just past the skin of her back. The white, gleaming swarm of bullets passed through her field of vision and tore huge chunks out of the already pockmarked ruined building behind them.

  Just before she could land flat on her back onto the sand, Sinon flipped over and stopped herself with hands and feet. At the same time, she tossed her body forward. After a few somersaults, she reached the shadow of the wall where Dyne and the others hid.

  The squadron leader stared at the sudden appearance of Sinon with open shock. No matter how charitably she interpreted the look, it was clearly not the shine of appreciation for unexpected reinforcement, but disbelief that anyone would rush to their death like this.

  Dyne quickly broke his gaze and looked down at the assault rifle in his hands. When he spoke, his voice was ragged and quiet.

  “…They hired a bodyguard.”

  “Bodyguard?”

  “Don’t you know him? That muscle-bound freak with the minigun is Behemoth. He makes his base on the north continent. Works as a so-called bodyguard for squadrons with more money than balls.”

  That’s a much more respectable play style than what you do, Sinon thought, but she didn’t share that opinion with him. She glanced over at the three other attackers, who were occasionally popping their heads out from cover and mounting weak attempts at counterfire, and spoke just loud enough for all of them to hear.

  “If we stay hidden here, we’ll be wiped out in no time. The minigun should be running out of ammo soon, and if we all attack at once, he might rethink that strafing fire. That’s the only chance we’ll have to get rid of him. You two with the SMGs from the left, Dyne and me from the right, and the M4 back here to cover us…”

  Dyne interrupted her hoarsely.

  “It won’t work. They’ve still got three blasters left. If we charge in, our fields won’t last…”

  “Automatic blaster fire isn’t as fast as live rounds. We can dodge half of them.”

  “We can’t!” he repeated, shaking his head. “The minigun will just tear us to shreds. I hate to say it, but we should give up. Better to log out now and give them the satisfaction of victory than suffer the consequences…”

  In a neutral zone, logging out didn’t happen immediately. The soulless avatar would sit in place for several minutes, open to any kind of attack. There was even the low possibility that weapons or armor would drop randomly once the avatar was dead.

  She’d always thought that Dyne’s orders to pull back came too soon, but she never expected this kind of cowardly capitulation. He was like a sulking child throwing a tantrum. Sinon stared straight at his face, the picture of a hardened soldier. He gritted his teeth and wailed.

  “What? Don’t get all serious about a stupid game! It’s the same thing, we’re either going to die here or die charging them…”

  “Then die!” she spit back at him. “Show me you at least have the guts to look down the barrel of a gun and die, even if it’s ‘just a stupid game’!”

  What was she doing yelling at this man who was nothing more than a mark, a future target to be eliminated? Her time with this squadron was obviously at its end.<
br />
  But despite all of that, she grabbed the lapel of Dyne’s camo jacket and yanked him up. At the same time, she hissed orders at the three wide-eyed members beside them.

  “Just distract the minigun for three seconds and I’ll pick him off with the Hecate.”

  “…Y-you got it,” stammered the attacker with the goggles and green hair. The other two nodded after his lead.

  “Good. We’ll split in two and charge from both directions at the same time.”

  Sinon shoved the sulking Dyne’s waist over to the far edge of their cover. She drew her MP7 sidearm and held out her fingers to count down.

  Three, two, one.

  “Go!!”

  They leaped as one into the sandy battlefield, where death waited a second away with automatic fire.

  Multiple bullet lines immediately crossed her path. She doubled over and slid to avoid them, looking up to catch sight of the enemy squadron.

  About sixty feet ahead and to the right, two laser blasters waited on the other side of a wall. Farther to the left was another. Behemoth, the minigunner, was in the middle and another ten yards behind, trying to get a bead on the two allies who’d darted left.

  Sinon ran to her right, pointing the MP7 at the blasters. A bullet circle appeared when she squeezed the trigger, but her heart rate was too high to control, and it pulsed and bounced over the attackers’ bodies.

  She fired anyway. The recoil on the SMG was almost nothing compared to the Hecate II. In no time at all, the twenty-round magazine of 4.6 mm bullets was empty.

  The two men with blasters panicked despite her wild firing and ducked back behind the wall. A few of the bullets hit them, not enough to take their HP down, but enough to buy her a few seconds of time.

  “Cover me, Dyne!” she shouted, crumpling to the ground and pulling the Hecate II off her back and into her arms. There was no time to set up the bipod. She had to balance its tremendous weight as she found the scope.

  The magnification was still set low, but Behemoth’s upper half filled the viewfinder. He was looking straight at her. Sinon didn’t have time to wait for the trajectory circle to shrink—she pulled the trigger.

  With a blast, her desperate shot ripped through the air right next to Behemoth’s head. He stumbled with the shock of its passing, the goggles flying off his face and crumbling into nothing.

  Missed!

  She bit her lip and tried to stand, but her gaze caught Behemoth’s through the scope. His face exposed, Behemoth’s gray eyes flashed threateningly. His lips still had that confident grin.

  An enormous red light swallowed Sinon’s entire body.

  Instantly she knew there was no way to avoid it. There was no time to stand out of her firing crouch and leap to either side.

  But she could at least face the gun head-on.

  Sinon got up and stared straight at Behemoth, intending to honor her challenge. Abruptly, a few lights sparkled on his giant frame.

  It was Dyne. He had his assault rifle in firing position with one knee on the ground, carefully taking his shot. Getting anything to hit him at this range and in this situation was an admirable display of skill, even if she didn’t think much of his personality. Sinon jumped hard to her right. Several dozen bullets passed through the space where her body had just been.

  “Dyne! Move to the ri—”

  Before she could finish that sentence, the two behind the wall opened fire on Dyne as he got back to his feet.

  They were too close. The beams burned through his protective field and then his body.

  He looked at Sinon for an instant, then turned to face forward.

  “Raaah!!”

  And charged straight ahead.

  A storm of lasers fired back at him. He dodged, weaved, and tore onward. But he couldn’t evade all of them.

  With his last few seconds, Dyne pulled a plasma grenade that hung from his belt like a good-luck charm and heaved it over the wall. With his HP down to zero, the avatar exploded into virtual shards, his back to Sinon.

  The next moment, a flash turned the entire world white.

  There was a tremendous shock, like some Norse god’s hammer striking the earth. Pale energy coursed through the ground, throwing up waves of sand. One of the attackers flew into the air, disintegrating before he even hit the ground.

  Nice one!

  With a silent cheer for the departed Dyne, Sinon squinted her eyes against the wave of sand and scanned the scene.

  One of the two allies who’d charged the minigunner on the left was already gone, but so was the other enemy blaster on that side. On the right flank, Dyne had engaged in a virtual suicide attack, taking one of the two enemies down with him and leaving the other stunned for a time.

  And there, hazy through the thick clouds of airborne dust, was a large silhouette making its way straight for her.

  At this point, it was essentially a one-on-one fight between Behemoth and Sinon. But a heavy machine gun vs. sniper rifle fight at this distance was completely one-sided.

  She had to find cover to protect herself from the minigun while she prepared to fire. But with a simple head-to-head situation, there was no way to hide or take it by surprise…

  No, wait.

  She held her breath. While the sand still hung heavy in the air from Dyne’s grenade, Behemoth wouldn’t be able to pinpoint her exact location. She couldn’t snipe him, either, of course, but she might able to move to the one spot in this area where his gun’s hail of fire couldn’t reach her.

  As soon as the idea occurred to her, she was off and running. The tattered remains of the large building loomed just behind the area where they were fighting.

  Once Sinon was through the entrance, the yellow sky could be seen clearly through the collapsed rear half of the building. She found what she wanted on the right-hand wall—stairs upward. She moved as quickly as she could without kicking over any of the detritus littering the ground and making noise.

  The metal staircase was missing the occasional step, but it wasn’t enough to stop her quick ascent. She practically kicked the wall of the landing to shift directions and continue upward.

  In less than twenty seconds she had reached the fifth floor, where the stairs stopped. There was a large window to her left.

  Here she could buy the few seconds necessary to take sniping position without drawing Behemoth’s attention. She pressed the stock of the Hecate against her shoulder and looked out the window.

  Immediately, her vision went red.

  On the ground over a dozen yards below, Behemoth already had the minigun pointed up as far as it could go, trained perfectly on Sinon. He read her like a book—her plan, her execution, everything.

  She didn’t have time to retreat or hide.

  He was too good. A real GGO player—a soldier.

  But that was the exact kind of opponent Sinon wanted. She would kill him. She had to.

  There was no hesitation. She put her right foot on the windowsill, not bothering to take firing position, and launched herself upward.

  A burning, brilliant stream of energy tore upward from the ground. A tremendous shock smashed through Sinon’s left knee. Her leg tore away, taking a massive chunk of her HP bar with it.

  But she was still alive. Sinon floated through the air over the minigun’s trajectory of fire. Straight over the head of Behemoth.

  He tilted backward, trying to catch up to the angle of her flight before his clip ran out. But he couldn’t get to her. The minigun was connected to the frame on his back and couldn’t point directly upward.

  As her body began to descend, Sinon pressed the Hecate’s stock to her shoulder and looked through the scope. All she saw was Behemoth’s burly features. At last, the smile was gone from his lips. His teeth were bared, and his eyes burned on the fuel of shock and anger.

  Sinon was barely conscious of the movement of her own mouth.

  As if taking over from him, she smiled. A fierce, cruel, cold smile.

  Falling a great height w
as hardly the ideal position for steady sniping, but she was too close to miss. When the tip of the barrel was just three feet from his head, the green bullet circle shrank into place in the center of his face.

  “The End,” she muttered, and pulled the trigger.

  A spear of light shot out of the fingertip of the goddess of the underworld, bearing the maximum amount of energy of any bullet in this world.

  It ripped a hole from his face through his trunk and buried itself deep in the gravelly earth.

  The next instant, an explosive shock wave erupted outward, and Behemoth’s body blew apart from the inside.

  4

  The moment she left the school gate, a cold, dry wind buffeted her cheeks.

  Shino Asada stopped still and adjusted her sand-yellow muffler.

  With over half of her face covered by the cloth and the other half by her plastic-rimmed glasses, Shino was ready to continue walking. Her heart itched steadily as she strode quickly down the leaf-strewn path.

  …Out of the 680 days of her high school education, 156 were finished.

  She was a quarter of the way done. In that sense, the length of her torture was astounding. But if she included middle school in the total, nearly 60 percent of the trial was in the past. It’ll end someday…It will end someday. She repeated it like a magic spell.

  Of course, even when she reached her high school graduation, she had no goals to achieve or career to seek. She just wanted to be free of the “high school” affiliation that she was largely forced to accept.

  Every day she visited that prison, listened to lifeless lectures from her teachers, and participated in gym and other activities with students who hadn’t evolved a bit since they were toddlers. Shino wondered what the point of all of it was. On very rare occasions, there was a teacher with a worthwhile lesson, or a fellow student with admirable qualities, but their existences were hardly necessary to Shino.

  Once, Shino told her grandparents—who were her legal guardians—that rather than go to high school, she would prefer to start working immediately, or go to an occupational school to prepare for a career. Her old-fashioned grandfather went red with rage, and her grandmother wept, saying that she needed to go to a good school and marry into a good family, or else they would be doing her father a disservice. Left without a choice, Shino studied hard and got into a fairly good municipal school in Tokyo. Upon starting there, she was surprised to find no real difference from the public middle school back home.