“I plan to request a meeting again after a little while. I think he might agree to see me this time.”
“Uh-huh,” Kazuto grunted, then turned to look out at the rain. After a few seconds, Shino decided to put on a facetiously unsatisfied face.
“Isn’t that normally the spot where you’d ask if I’m sure about that?”
“Er, oh, r-right. Umm…how do you feel about it, Sinon?”
She grinned, secretly satisfied that she’d managed to rattle the normally aloof young man. “I watched all the movies in that old action-flick collection you lent to me. The one I liked the most was where they twisted around the gun bullets to strike behind cover and stuff. I’ll have to use it as a practice model—I think I can probably pull it off in GGO.”
“Ah…okay. Well, great…Just go easy on us…” He grimaced, cheek twitching. She had to hold back her laughter.
The fear of guns that had tormented Shino for over five years wasn’t entirely gone yet. She’d learned to enjoy shoot-out movies, but the unexpected sight of guns on street corner posters or models in shop windows caused her heart to skip a beat in a nasty way. By this point, she’d started to rationalize it as a proper response to a deadly weapon and a sign of healthy caution. After all, there was no guarantee that she would never again encounter a criminal waving an actual gun in real life.
Besides, just the fact that she no longer fainted or vomited at mere images of guns was more than enough for Shino to feel like her life had been saved. She no longer felt like an outcast at school—she even had a few friends to eat lunch with. On the other hand, it wasn’t the easiest thing to deal with, the fact that she and the young man sitting across from her had started hanging out in the first place after he’d driven his motorcycle to the front gate of her school and waited for her there.
Meanwhile, Kazuto just smiled benignly across the table and said, “So I guess that means the Death Gun incident is finally over and done with…at last.”
“Yeah…I guess so,” she said, then fell silent. It felt like there was something in the back of her mind that refused to go away, but before she could figure out what it was, the kitchen door opened and the proprietor emerged with two steaming plates for the table.
The sight of gleaming brown kidney beans and thick chunks of bacon brought a violent growl to her stomach, which hadn’t had anything to do since digesting lunch. She automatically picked up the spoon, then came to her senses and put it back, waving her hand.
“Oh, I didn’t order any.”
The towering owner put on a mischievous leer. “Don’t worry, the meal’s free. It’s on Kirito.”
Kazuto’s mouth dropped open in exasperation, while Agil retreated gracefully behind the counter. Shino felt a chuckle rise in her throat, then grabbed the spoon again and waved it at Kazuto.
“Thanks for the grub.”
“…Well, that’s all right. I just got paid, so I’ve got some cash to burn.”
“Oh? What kind of job are you doing?”
“The one that involved three days of fasting. But we can talk about that after we clear up the main business here. Plus, we’ve got to eat this while it’s hot.”
He picked up the bottle on the table and squirted a dollop of mustard on the rim of the plate, then passed it to Shino. She followed his lead, then scooped up a spoonful of beans to her mouth.
The beans were boiled to a fluff on the inside. The soft, gentle sweetness filled her with a simple nostalgia, despite the food’s foreign origin. The thick pieces of bacon weren’t too oily, and they crumbled in her mouth.
“This is…really, really good,” she mumbled, while Kazuto stuffed his cheeks across the table. “Why are they called Boston baked beans? I wonder what they’re flavored with.”
“Umm…I forget what it’s called, but it’s some kind of by-product of refining sugar. What’s it called again, Agil?”
The owner looked up from polishing glasses and said, “Molasses.”
“Yeah, that’s it.”
“Ohhh…I thought American food was nothing but hamburgers and fried chicken,” she said, dropping down to a whisper for the latter part. Kazuto made a face.
“That’s a stereotype. In fact, all the VRMMO players I’ve met from over there are pretty cool, once you get to know them.”
“Yeah, that’s true. The other day I went on the international GGO server and talked with a girl from Seattle about sniping for almost three hours. Then again…I don’t know if I’ll ever see eye to eye with him…”
“Who?” Kazuto asked, already half-done with his plate of food.
“That’s what I was going to talk to you about today. You know they held the fourth Bullet of Bullets individual competition last week.”
“The BoB” was the name of the battle royale tournament to determine the greatest player in Gun Gale Online.
Kazuto nodded. “Yeah, we all watched the stream. Actually, I didn’t congratulate you yet…but I’m guessing you weren’t happy about the result. Congrats on coming in second, though.”
“Uh…thanks,” she said awkwardly, not expecting the compliment. To hide her embarrassment, she quickly went on. “Then you saw it on the stream. Subtilizer, the player who won first…That’s his second time being champion.”
Kazuto blinked several times, then looked up, consulting his memory.
“Now that you mention it…I think I remember you saying that while we were together in the third BoB. An American player who completely dominated the first tournament with just a knife and handgun…But didn’t he get shut out the second time because they split the servers into US and JP, so he was on the other side?”
“Supposedly, yes…He didn’t register for the second or third tournament. But somehow he either got around the IP block this time, or he had a connection with the game management…In either case, I was happy. I always wanted a chance to face the legendary Subtilizer.”
“Yeah, even on the feed I could tell you were really pumped,” he said with a smirk. She pouted.
“I-it wasn’t just me. All thirty people in the final…well, all twenty-nine aside from him were excited. A couple of them had fought him and lost in the first one. America might be ground zero for FPS games, but we were ready for the battle royale to show our pride in Japan, home of the Seed Nexus that GGO uses…And once we got the chance…”
“It ended up being a repeat of the first tournament, huh?”
Shino nodded, frowning. She scooped up the last piece of thick bacon and savored the rich, homemade flavor to reset her emotional compass, hoping to view her memories of the past week in a more objective light.
“Yes, that might have been the result…but in fact, it was even more of a blowout than the last one. This time, he started off the battle totally unarmed.”
“What…? Bare-handed?”
“Yes. Instead of a weapon, he had the Army Combative skill. He took his first target unawares and beat him with some hand-to-hand moves, then took his victim’s weapon and used it on the next one…over and over. He couldn’t reload the guns he picked up, so there were a few fights where he had to go back to fighting bare-handed. All you can say is that his talent for combat is on another level entirely,” she lamented.
Her companion crossed his arms and grunted. “On the other hand…Subtilizer plays an ultra-close-range build, right? Couldn’t anyone have taken him out at mid- or long-range? In fact, aren’t the majority of GGO players like that…?”
“You saw what happened when he beat me, right?”
“Yeah, I was watching from within ALO. On the screen, you were heading straight for the spot where Subtilizer was hiding three minutes earlier, so everyone was screaming, ‘Don’t go there!’ and ‘Sinon, behind you!’ and all that stuff.”
“Yes, that part,” she said, snorting to drive away the shock and humiliation of that moment before they could visit her again. As calmly as she could, she explained. “After the tournament, I talked to the other eleven people he beat hand to han
d, and they were all taken down the same way. He couldn’t have had more than the briefest of data on all of us, but the way he went from sneak attack to mortal blow before we could fire a single shot, it was like he knew ahead of time what we were going to do. I don’t know how things are on the American side, but on the JP server, there are barely even any knife fights, much less bare-handed combat…”
“…Well, from what I heard, there were a lot more players using lightswords after the third tournament,” he noted awkwardly. She scowled.
“It’s no surprise, after the show you put on with it. There were a lot of players practicing cutting bullets with lightswords right around the start of the year, but I don’t think anyone’s made the training stick.”
Despite her distant tone, Shino herself had bought a small lightsword in secret and attempted similar training against soldier mobs. After a month of painful work, she’d gotten good enough to get the first and maybe second bullet in a hail of assault-rifle fire, but the skill was useless unless you could fully stop a three-bullet burst in a proper battle. So she dismissed as a dream within a dream ever stopping a ten-bullet volley like Kirito, and she kept the lightsword hidden in her inventory as a good-luck charm.
But if only she’d taken it out and kept it at her waist, she might have been able to strike one blow on Subtilizer…Shino shook her head. She hadn’t had the presence of mind for that. She decided to change the topic.
“At any rate…Not a single JP player was able to even point their rifle at him, much less hit him with a bullet. Perhaps Subtilizer’s greatest skill isn’t his close combat but his predictive abilities in battle.”
“Hmm, I see…I just don’t know if that’s possible…A beginner is one thing, but these are veteran players, finalists of the BoB. Could you really predict their actions with one hundred percent certainty?” Kazuto wondered aloud.
She shrugged. “If over ten people lost the same way, you can’t claim it’s a fluke. But I suppose it’s possible that veterans are more predictable because they know the most efficient actions to take. There’s a general understanding of where to set up in what terrain and what exact routes to take to get around fastest.”
Just saying that aloud brought her a belated realization, and she gasped.
The moment at the very end of the final.
Shino had chosen the very top floor of a half-crumbled building as her sniping spot to take down the last remaining foe, Subtilizer. By her prediction, she should have had a good shot at him with her Hecate II from that particular window as he crossed the road below.
But her foe predicted that prediction, snuck into the building before her, and lay in wait close to her final sniping position. He just waited until she set up the rifle on its bipod and got into firing position…then pounced on her from behind like a feline hunter.
However, Shino had originally planned to use the second floor from the top. It still had enough altitude to give her a good view. The reason she changed her mind was because that floor was an archive. She was afraid it would distract her by reminding her of the old middle school library that had served as her sanctuary, so she spent a few precious seconds to rush up one more floor. It just so happened that the foe she was rushing to shoot was hiding in the shadows of that very floor…
In other words, Subtilizer predicted that Shino would snipe from the very top floor, not the archive floor below. But the reason she changed her spot wasn’t based on sniper-specific theory but a totally illogical personal rationale. He could predict the actions of Sinon the sniper, but he couldn’t know that Shino Asada loved books in the real world. So was it just a lucky guess that Subtilizer chose the top floor to hide? Or did he see the archive and somehow know that Shino would avoid it…?
If it was the latter, his prediction wasn’t based on data or experience. It would be beyond the scope of simple VRMMO player skill—the ability to read minds…
“—non. Hey, Sinon.”
Someone’s fingers pressed against the hand she held in midair, and she looked up with a start. There was Kazuto, looking at her with concern in his eyes.
“Oh…s-sorry. What were we talking about?”
“The patterns and strategies of veteran players or something.”
“Ah, r-right. So, um…yeah. I was just thinking, maybe a player who didn’t fit into a pattern and acted in ways that ran counter to theory could actually catch Subtilizer by surprise…”
Only once she had said that aloud did Shino realize that she’d hit on the precise reason that she’d called Kazuto here today. She picked up her glass of water, all the ice melted by now, and chugged it in a vain hope of snapping her mind out of its funk, but the chill clinging to her back did not want to leave.
It was the memory of what Subtilizer had whispered in the second before her HP gauge ran out, following the brief struggle in which he incapacitated her from behind. It was so quiet, and spoken in English, that she didn’t understand what he’d said at the moment, but hearing the memory now, she grasped its meaning.
“Your soul will be so sweet.”
It couldn’t mean much. Many players had their own little catchphrases they liked to say when they seized victory online. Just a bit of role-playing. That’s what she told herself.
Eager to move onward, she adopted a falsely cheery tone and said, “So, speaking of players who ignore common sense and do the improbable, the absurd, and the impossible, I can only think of one other. While it’s a bit early, I figured I would recruit him for the fifth BoB at the end of the year…”
She made a gun gesture with her hand and pointed it at Kazuto.
“…and that’s why I called you.”
“Wh-what…? Me?” he gasped, stunned.
She smiled and delivered her preprepared line: “I know you’ll have to convert your character back from ALO to GGO again, so I understand if you refuse, but on the other hand, I feel like you still owe me one. How’s that legendary weapon working out for you?”
“Urk!”
The golden longsword Excalibur that Kirito (Kazuto) used in ALfheim Online would have been lost in a bottomless hole if it weren’t for Shino. She’d happily presented him with the ultrarare weapon, which was utterly unique on the server, so she had the right to call in a favor. And Kazuto would no doubt salivate at the chance to face a worthy foe.
Sure enough, he cleared his throat and said, “Well, sure, I’d like to try fighting this Subtilizer…but I think a big reason for how far I got the last time was because nobody else was used to a guy with a sword. And from how you describe it, Subtilizer’s a vet in both close combat and guns. I don’t know if I stand a chance…”
“I don’t think I’ve ever heard you sound so weak-willed. Yes, he’s very tough, but he’s just another VRMMO player like the rest of us. You don’t have to act like it’s an amateur versus pro thing…”
“That’s the thing,” he said, leaning back in the old wooden chair and placing his hands behind his head. “Is Subtilizer really an amateur…? Is he really just a normal VRMMO player?”
“What’s that supposed to mean? What else would he be?”
“A professional. Someone who fights with guns not for play but for work. A soldier…or a special-ops police guy.”
“What?! Oh, come on,” she snorted, assuming he was joking, but Kazuto’s expression was deadly serious.
“I only know what I read in news articles…but from what I hear, certain militaries, police forces, and private security firms are already using full-dive tech for training. I think it’s quite possible that a real professional with skill in that arena could have entered the BoB to test himself.”
“…I suspect you might be…”
Overthinking this, she was going to say, but stopped. She recalled Subtilizer’s remarkably sharp instincts and the smoothness of his motions. He fought like a robot soldier, well beyond what she would expect from an amateur gamer.
But assuming he was a real soldier or policeman, would he really say somet
hing like “your soul will be so sweet” when he dispatched his target? In terms of professionals, that was less of a soldierly action and more like a straight-out killer…
She had to stop herself there. GGO and all other virtual worlds existed for the sole purpose of enjoyment. It didn’t matter what sort of person Subtilizer was in real life. She just had to hit him with her .50-caliber rifle next time, that was all.
“No matter who he is, all players come into GGO on equal conditions! I’m not going to lose multiple times to the same guy, so I’ll do whatever it takes to win next time!” she swore.
“And ‘whatever it takes’ happens to be…me?”
“You’re just one of the means, technically.”
He looked confused by that, so Shino grinned and explained. “I don’t feel too confident with just you for a close-range expert, so I called on someone else, too. Something like a control system—a set of brakes to keep you in line.”
“C-control system?” he repeated. The term set off something in his mind, and the chair rattled as he sat up straight. He pulled his ultrathin phone from a pocket and slid his finger across the screen. A moment later, he looked up and fixed Shino with a look. “Aha, I see.”
“…What do you see?” she asked. He set down his phone and slid it across the table to her. On the high-definition four-inch monitor was a map of the Okachimachi area, centered on the café. There was a blinking blue dot en route to them from the train station.
“What’s this blip?”
“Your next guest, Sinon. Only a hundred yards to go.”
As he said, the dot was heading right to the café. It crossed an intersection, entered the alley, and reached the center of the map.
Just then, the bell on the door clanged, and Shino looked up. There was a person folding an umbrella at the door. She swiped her chestnut-brown hair aside, looked at Shino, and smiled brightly enough to drive away the gloomy rain.
“Hiya, Shino-non!”
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