Chapter 6 (1/2)
SECT.6 - The Beginning of the Battle
“Wha?”
What LLENN discovered were obviously humans.
From the outskirts of the forest she was currently in, she saw an urban area astride a wide highway—— and on that large road, she saw men walking in a line, hiding behind the pile of rubble. They were far away and thus small, so she could not see them well, but there were large, black rods in their hands. It probably wasn’t possible that those were not guns.
LLENN hid at the side of a large tree nearby, with only her right eye peeking out.
“Er, M-san…… Enemy detected……”
“There’s 30 seconds until the scan. Explain as best as you can.”
“Huh? E-err, on the other side of a highway! Inside the city! Probably 200 metres or more away! Err, err——”
“Calm down. How many do you see? What about the guns?”
“At least five of them! Don’t know about the guns! But, they’re not small! They’re on the other side of some rubble, ah, all of them stopped now!”
“They plan to look at the scan. They’ll notice you.”
“W-www-what should I do? Shoot them? Ff-fire at them?”
With her voice full of impatience, LLENN repeated.
“First, calm down. You can’t take them on with your P90 at that range. At any rate, you’ll be discovered. The scan is starting now. Wait there.”
“Hyaa.”
While giving a small shriek, LLENN looked at the watch on her left wrist. For certain, 14:10.
“Even though I discovered them fi-irst!”
LLENN unintentionally blurted. What bad luck.
The scan should have begun, but LLENN, who wasn’t operating a terminal, could not see it. 10 seconds that felt like forever pa.s.sed,
“Confirmed. There’s a team at the boundary of the urban area and highway. The distance is a little over 200 metres.”
M’s overly calm voice reached her ears.
“A-anyone else?”
At LLENN’s question,
“It’s fine. At the moment, there isn’t anyone within range who can come here to fight immediately.”
M answered. *Whew*, the moment that she sighed in relief following the great news, translucent red lines soundlessly extended towards the forest she was in.
It looked like a laser beam meant for alignment, but this was actually a Bullet Line.
It was a „In a moment, bullets will come flying here“ kind of considerate notice in GGO. They numbered over a hundred.
They can be clearly seen even at night, or if it was raining, or if the player was in a fog. The scene of the red lines piercing the forest and jumping was like a flashy concert venue.
“Hyaa! M-san! I’m being targeted!”
While shrieking, LLENN drew her head back and at the same moment, *byun!* a sound similar to the las.h.i.+ng of a whip hit the tree she had hid behind. In various places, the sound of trees being shot joined in.
Late by one tempo, a heavy and low *dododododododo* and a light *tatatatatatatatatan* rhythmthat was far louder than before resounded.
Even though they did not see LLENN’s body, the location she was hiding in had been exposed by the scan. Naturally, the bullets would gather there, and thus the surrounding 30 metres or so were a.s.saulted by a hail of bullets like a guerrilla rainstorm(1).
The soil flew up from the ground, while the leaves of the fern fluttered about. Occasionally, anorange, bright line, differing from the Bullet Lines, ran horizontally. It was the light of a tracer(2) that s.h.i.+ned to make it easier for the shooter to grasp the trajectory of their bullets.
Her vision perceived - red lines and the ground and tree trunks popping like popcorn. Her hearing perceived - a *chun* sound of bullets flying, a *bis.h.i.+bas.h.i.+* sound of trees being pierced and the sound of gunfire completely mixed together.
“Hyaa! M-SA-AN! I’m under heavy fire! It’s scary! HE-ELP!”
What came to LLENN’s left ear after she called for help without moving from her current position was,
“Yeah. The opponent is using a machine gun huh.”
A voice of calm a.n.a.lysis.
“Whaaa?”
“A 7.62 mm cla.s.s general-purpose machine gun. Judging from the sound of rapid fire, it’s probably an ≪FN MAG≫. Two or more of them. There’s also a high-speed rapid-fire sound, lightly resounding, so a 5.56 mm is also mixed in. A ≪Minimi≫ from the same FN Herstal company?”
“Hey! Aren’t you going to help me?”
“Since you’re fine right now, it’s safe for you to hide there. Keep still.”
“Let’s get’em!”
In front the rubble in the urban area around 200 metres away from LLENN,
“Hyahhaa!”
Were men pounding away with their machine guns with eloquent smiles.
Five in total.
All of them had quite rough-bodied avatars, though not to the extent of M.
And, the small arms in their hands were all rough as well.
“This is fuuuuuuuun!”
The man shouting this was pounding away with one of the most famous machine guns in the world, the FN MAG, in full auto.
With his bipod mounted on the pile of rubble, his target was, of course, the forest across the highway.
A heavy and low *dodododododododododododododo* sound resounded, pulling in dust from the surroundings with the shockwave of its muzzle. The 7.62 mm bullets in the ammunition beltextending from the left side of the gun were sucked up at a speed of 10 bullets or more per second and discharged forward, while the empty sh.e.l.ls were ejected from the metal linksattached to the belt and dispersed to the gun’s right side.
The muzzle kept spewing out red, red flame, and the tracers inserted at intervals of 1 every 5 bullets kept drawing orange lines. Several metres to the side was,
“Doryaaaaaaaaaaaa!”
Heatedly shouting, a man who was holding a ≪M240B≫, a model of the FN MAG adopted by the United States Armed Forces—— which was the same gun except for its appearance—— by itscarrying handle in his left hand, with the gun’s stock under his arms, attacked in rapid-fire while standing.
The remaining three men also used machine guns.
One with a 7.62 mm ≪M60E3≫ machine gun.
One with a 5.56 mm light machine gun, the Minimi.
And the last one with a ≪Negev≫, which was inspired by the Minimi and made by the Israel Military Industries, lying atop a pile of rubble while shooting.
The battle scene was being broadcast, so light blue circles, indicating the position of cameras in the air, were moving around them, looking for a cool angle.
The team that was currently broadcast, and raised excitement in the bar were the five men who,
『Let’s survive at least 15 minutes! (3)』
Made such a rather pitiable vow the previous night.
On the list, they were named ≪ZEMAL≫. Neither LLENN, M, nor any other player was aware that this was the abbreviation of ≪Zen-nihon(4) Machine Gun Lovers≫.
They were men who could not stop loving machine guns.
They were players scattered throughout j.a.pan who had met each other by chance and hit off well in-game. As for why the merely five-man team called themselves All-j.a.pan, they included residents from Hokkaido and Okinawa, and that was the entire reason for the name.
„Loving machine guns too much is cool“ was their common preference.
This was why the guns they used absolutely had to be machine guns.
They did not use anything else, and if they did, they would be excommunicated. They did not even have a pistol side arm. As for optical guns and the like, they were a company of guys who thought „What is that, is it tasty?“.
A considerably high strength value was needed to handle heavy guns, so what they mainly raised went without saying. Machine guns were expensive guns, thus one had to put in steady labour or, depending on the person, invest real money to obtain them; that’s how pa.s.sionate they had to be.
And, although they enjoyed GGO together, they had one characteristic.
The characteristic of „being excessively weak in battles against other people“.
A machine gun was a powerful weapon that was capable of unleas.h.i.+ng a large hail of bullets. Basically, it used ammunition attached to a belt, and thus it was capable of continuously firing 100 bullets or more without break.
If they used their guns to keep firing bullets around the area where the enemy was located and suppress them, then used an a.s.sault rifle or submachine gun to shoot them in the backs in the meantime, they would have had a considerable advantage in battle, but…
“Uooooo!” “This feeels gooooood!” “Hyahaaaaa!” “Doryaa!” “Di~e!”
Currently, all five of them, who were pounding away as they pleased, did not even know the „c“ from cooperation(5).
That was because they believed that it was enough to shoot with their machine guns with all their strength. If they could feel the extending sound and vibration, it was enough for them.
They did not desire to go through the trouble of studying tactics, collecting information about their opponents and working cooperatively. They even had the defiant view that „Pounding away is our tactic.“
That was why, until now, they had not seriously taken part in a battle against people. They had only pounded away at monster opponents to earn experience points and credits. They had encountered other teams on their way to and from farming, but…
“They’re all equipped with live-ammunition machine guns. They’re not coming back from a farming session. Let’s pa.s.s.”
They arbitrarily judged, „Those guys are good at battles against people“ about their opponents, and have never even attacked anyone.
They had also partic.i.p.ated in the individual BoB tournament, but even when they were lucky and broke through the first match by bulldozing with sheer firepower, they could not go any further and had never partic.i.p.ated in the main tournament.
And then came this SJ.
They entered this tournament, where they could pound away with their machine guns as a team, in high spirits, thinking that this was a tournament made for them, and the game started,
“This close on the first scan, huh!”
“Yeah, lucky!”
“Thank you, G.o.d of machine guns!”
And all they had done was pound away.
Setting aside the hidden power of such opponents,
“Hyaa!”
To LLENN, who was being shot at, it did not change the fact that she was in a pinch.
The 5 machine guns kept incessantly firing bullets at her, so the surrounding area was in an awful condition.
In merely a minute, the trees near LLENN had become riddled with holes. Naturally, some of them were also destroyed.
LLENN ended up imagining ‘Even the large tree trunk I’m hiding behind, though I can’t see it, could be half gouged out, and in the meantime, they could be coming to kill me.’
“Uu……”
s.h.i.+vers went down her spine.
While the rain of iron continued mercilessly,
“M-san M-sa-an!”
LLENN sought help from her only comrade.
The satellite scan time should have already ended, so she thought ‘Even if he came to save me, no, even if coming here was unreasonable, he could do something,’ but…
“Stay where you are. Don’t move tactlessly.”
The answer from M was very cool yet cold.
“Guu……”
LLENN wanted to somehow run away from this bullet hailstorm area , but even if she moved,Bullet Lines conspicuously shone in the surroundings. She would be shot before she reached the next tree.
“s.h.i.+t!”
Swearing in an unfeminine manner, she curled herself up and sat motionlessly.
Speaking of M, at that time——
Behind LLENN, he had moved closer by about 100 metres. While using a thick tree as a cover, he cautiously peeked out, and in his field vision, he saw the Bullet Lines of the guns aiming at LLENN from the other side of some forest trees. He understood that the forest was crawling with red lines.
Occasionally, he changed direction to avoid the Bullet Lines, and even though some had come close to his position, he had not needed to dodge them yet.
Without care for the bullets that came flying the moment the Bullet Lines disappeared, he lurked motionlessly in the shadow of a tree, while placing priority on keeping watch on the west side where enemies could approach them.
M looked at the wrist watch on the inner part of his left arm. 3 minutes had pa.s.sed since the scanat 14:10.
“It should be soon……”
The communication item picked up M’s mutter,
“What should be soon?”
Expecting an order, a voice came from LLENN, but M replied without delay.
“Nothing. Stay where you are.”
“Reloading!”
Shouted one of the Zen-nihon Machine Gun Lovers, the guy who had been shooting with the M240B while standing, as he crouched. What he took out from the long and narrow backpack that he carried on his back was a bag with spare ammunition belts and spare gun barrels.
A machine gun was a gun that could shoot in rapid-fire, but nevertheless, it wasn’t like it could shoot endlessly.
Because of the frequent shots, the barrel would suffer from heating, and its capability would suddenly decrease. For that reason, after shooting for some time, it was absolutely necessary to exchange gun barrels, and this was reproduced even in GGO.
A gun’s durability is determined by each of its parts, and the first effect to realistically arise after continuing to shoot in rapid-fire was the barrel. If one were to continuing pounding away without minding this, the gun’s accuracy would fall below practical levels and, finally, the gun would no longer be able to function.
“Roger!” “Aye!” “Leave it to us.” “Gotcha!”
The surrounding comrades answered. They had almost no tactical cooperation, yet as expected of the men who exceedingly loved machine guns, only in times like this would they stand firm.
The man pulled the loading lever and took down the belt, confirming that the top cover with no remaining bullets was open.
Next, by pressing the b.u.t.ton on the left side of the gun, the carrying handle that was attached to the belt twisted to the left with a jerk. With just this, the lock on the barrel was released and it came off to the front.
The moment it was unfastened, he equipped a new barrel, then equipped a new ammunition beltto the gun, and finished his reload in merely a few seconds.
“Aww yeaah! I’m pounding away!”
The man, who once again stood up and pointed his muzzle at the forest where LLENN probably was, with a smile——
Without even firing a single bullet, tumbled down from his spot.
On the back of the neck of the man who had collapsed head-first, at the point where the spinal cord ran, was the trace of a bright red light indicating where he was shot. *Pikon*, on top of his body, a 【Ｄｅａｄ】 marker appeared.
In other words, deaths.h.i.+bou.
“Hm? ——Whaa?”
The man pounding away with his minimi noticed that his comrade had died. Their guns were roaring too much, so they could not hear the gun shots of their enemy at all.
“Oii! Guys! Hold fire!”
The man stopped firing and shouted out loud. Since this was inside a game, his voice reached his comrades.
“What’s wrong?” “Huh?” “What’s ‘rong?”
In the world that suddenly became quiet, they looked around restlessly, and discovered their comrade who was killed in action.
“W-what’s wrong? Did something happen?”
“Well, I don’t know that……”
“Don’t tell me, suicide?”
“H-he’s not that stupid, don’t you think!”
“Did he get shot from the forest?”
“During such a barrage?”
On the back of the FN MAG user who had said that, a red hit effect was induced. He escaped instant death, but his hit point gauge mercilessly decreased. It crossed the safe green zone and immediately went into yellow.
“Nuaaaa”
In agony because of the dull pain that arose in his back, the man bent his back, and shortly thereafter, the next bullet came flying and hit the back of his head. A blow to the vitals had the power of bringing instant death, so his hit points, which had decreased to about a third, were instantly wiped out.
The number of corpses with the 【Ｄｅａｄ】 tag increased by one, and hearing the sound of the two bullets echoing from the buildings——,
Realisation finally dawned on them, and all of the Zen-nihon Machine Gun Lovers understood the situation completely.
The man using the M60E3 faced his remaining comrades and shouted:
“A sniper! He’s shooting from behind!”
Those were his last words in SJ.
His comrades saw. How a bullet hit his brow as he was turning, and he died instantly with just 1 bullet.