Chapter 12 (1/2)

SECT.12 - This Last Battle of Mine

Six women advanced through the wilderness of rock and pebble.

The past 1500 hours sun could be seen to the upper left of their view, so this meant their goal was to the west.

The surroundings were obstructed by rocks, and farthest they could see was about 40 metres.

The short Tanya, holding a Bizon with a suppressor without letting her guard down, advanced in such a location as the point man, in other words, a vanguard.

She constantly kept her finger on the trigger, and the Bullet Circle was displayed constantly. If she encountered an enemy, she could immediately target them with the circle; it was like using alaser sight.

Tanya, with her silver hair barely fluttering, peeked forward from the shade of a rock.

“The front is clear.”

After confirming that there were no enemies ahead, she called her comrades, who were behind her.

The point man’s task, generally speaking, was to stand in the vanguard, and report any enemies that they discovered. Of course, this was the most dangerous task, as it was a role that involved risking being the first one to be shot in an ambush.

Among the remaining five members, the machine gunner Sophie and the sniper Tohma, and likewise Rosa and Anna, had grouped up to form two-man cells, in other words, „two-in-one cells“.

The two groups had positioned themselves about 30 metres behind the point man, and spread out to the right and left to protect the team’s front, left and right flanks.

Behind the team’s centre,

“Alright. Advance 20 metres forward.”

Boss, who would sometimes climb on a rock and peek through her binoculars, gave an order.

Without a single arbitrary action, and with minimum conversation, the group gradually advanced.

The time was 15:19:20.

“Scan in 40 seconds.”

Boss’s voice reached even Tanya.

The previous time, she had watched the rear for Tanya, but this time it was the exact opposite.Boss was probably glancing at the satellite scan terminal behind her.

During the scan, they stopped moving and watched over their surroundings. Tanya stopped moving at the side of a rock that she had been next to, and a.s.sumed a half-rising posture.

At that moment, a pink rabbit jumped out of the rock in front of her.

Unluckily for Tanya, Boss’s announcement that reached her ears diverted her attention from the light footsteps that approached her.

The moment that LLENN, who was running swiftly like a bullet, jumped out from behind a rock,

“Ah——”

She saw the figure of an enemy at the right side of a rock about 20 metres ahead of her.

Green camouflage, with a black gun, whose name she did not know. Short, silver hair.

“Aah!”

At any rate, she was surprised, but——

But the other party also gave an expression of complete surprise.

‘Don’t stop!’

LLENN did not slow down her run speed. If she stopped, she would only be shot. Didn’t the fact that her speed was her best defence continue to be proven in all the battles thus far?

Bullet Lines pursued LLENN’s back and——

*Shukokokokokokokoko*, suppressed gunshots consecutively resounded. Bizon, which had low recoil, repeatedly swayed, and continued spitting out small, empty sh.e.l.ls to the right side one after another.

The fired bullets tried to overtake the sprinting LLENN, but,

“Ta!”

LLENN hid in the shadow of a rock before that could happen. The swarm of 9 mm bullets pierced the rock.

“Ene——”

‘Enemy spotted!’, before she could say this, Tanya leaped out of the rock's shade that she had hid in. Bullet Lines, and at almost the same moment, P90 bullets a.s.saulted that spot in full auto.

Raising a column of sand by hitting the rock.

LLENN, who shot as she leapt out from behind the rock that she had been hiding behind,

‘What, she dodged that!’

She aimed at the figure escaping to the left side of her field of vision, and discharged a full-power volley in full auto. She kept turning the P90’s muzzle to the left, and the situation became the exact opposite of the one before. She was the one pursuing her escaping opponent now.

And, the moment she saw that her escaping opponents muzzle was pointed at her, she also began a violent dash.

It was as if they were clas.h.i.+ng their Bullet Lines, just like in a fight with long swords.

With both of them flas.h.i.+ng red lines out of their muzzles, it seemed like they were swinging a sword toward their sideway-running opponent.

Or a dog fight, where two puppies were going in circles, trying to bite each other’s tail.

The boisterous gunshots of the P90, and the silent gunshots of the Bizon intersected in the open s.p.a.ce of pebbles that was about 20 metres in size in every direction.

Two hit effects s.h.i.+ned from Tanya’s back and shoulder. While the bullets that she fired all disappeared behind LLENN.

Both guns exhausted all the bullets in their magazines, and silence descended. At that moment,

“Ge-”

Both LLENN,

“K~”

And Tanya ran to the closest rock.

Immediately, with machine-like reflexes, the two pulled out a magazine from their respective large pouch, and began the reload that they wagered their lives on.

Tanya, with her large magazine, and the large gun itself, was late by a mere moment. Just as she inserted the magazine and began pulling the c.o.c.king lever to load a bullet into the gun.

“!”

A red Bullet Line came to her like a searchlight, Tanya perceived that she was targeted, and that she didn’t even have a tenth of a second to spare.

Tanya threw her beloved gun.

A moment after the Bizon that flew out of the rock shade was exposed to the Bullet Line, it was shot instead of her, and orange sparks scattered in various places of its black body.

While seeing her beloved gun blown away,

“One enemy! The gun is P90! Excessively quick!”

She reported to her comrades during the short gap that she had created.

At the same time, she extended her hand to the holster on her right waist, but the moment she finished her report and grasped the grip——

The small, pink figure jumped directly at her, and cut her body in half with a red line.

It was an incident that lasted merely 10 seconds from the beginning to the end.

The 15:20 satellite scan had yet to begin.

They had run around and fired close to 100 bullets in total,

“I did it……”

LLENN had decreased the number of members in the enemy team by one, but at the next moment, she felt a dull pain in her left shoulder, and saw the s.h.i.+ning hit effects before her eyes.

‘Run!’

Due to her almost instinct-like intuition, LLENN broke into a run.

She did not see the Bullet Lines, but she clearly heard the sound of sand crackling, and the extremely noisy gunshots of machine guns.

She sprinted back from where she came at full-speed, hid behind a large rock, and this time the rock was. .h.i.t. The sound was so violent that the attack of her opponent moments ago seemed like child’s play.

“Uhyaa! Uhyaa!”

Without the time to enjoy the fruits of her battle or to reload her empty magazine, LLENN immediately began escaping.

“How dare you!”

“Uraaa!”

Sophie and Rosa, the two machine gunners, pounded away like crazy.

Having climbed up atop a small rock, holding their stocks on the right side, and holding thecarrying handle on the top part of the guns, they fired in full-auto hip fire.

They understood that their comrade had made contact, and that she was defeated with no time for them to rush to her side, by looking at the hit point gauge at the top-left corner of their view.

And they found out about the number of enemies and gun used from the dying message she left behind.

They were on a rock, so they could see well. The small, pink figure was restlessly escaping along the shadow of the rocks.

The sniper Anna finished clambering up a larger rock. Standing atop it and holding her Dragunov, she peeked through the scope,

“Die.”

And fired at the pink back.

However, because of its speed, she could not match the timing,

“s.h.i.+t.”

She kept missing by a hair’s breadth.

“Waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah!”

While loudly shouting, and,

‘How many times has it been todaaaaaaaaaaaay!”

Shouting this in her mind, she continued running away from the hail of bullets.

Her surroundings once again lit up with red lines like a concert hall, and with the unending roar of bullets, the sand kicked up by their impact flew in her face and into her mouth.

“Peh!”

To survive, she had to put in some distance no matter what.

She did manage to defeat that first enemy with a mix of chance and luck, but if she was caught in that extreme firepower, there probably wouldn’t be a second time.

“Hiiiiiiii!”

While giving a scream that was close to being a cry, LLENN ran and ran, and finally, after who knows how many tens of seconds of running, the world became silent.

Tanya’s corpse, with a s.h.i.+ning 【Ｄｅａｄ】 tag, was lying in the shade of a rock.

In the BoB and SJ, the corpse would remain with the last expression the person had before they died, in other words, their hit points were completely depleted, and Tanya’s expression was a smile with closed eyes. What came to mind was the sense of accomplishment of completing a job.

*Pon*, while tapping her small shoulders,

“It’s because she got her revenge.”

Crouching with her huge build, Boss gave a short speech.

And then, she detached the holster with a pistol from Tanya’s waist. And then handed it over to Tohma, who was behind her,

“You or Sophie take it. It would be nice if you got the chance to fire 2-3 bullets at the enemy with it.”

“Roger.”

Once Tohma took it, Boss put down her large backpack on the pebbled ground,

“I’ll be the one that kills it in the end.”

And drew out a black barrel from inside.

After all that merciless running and running away at a full-speed sprint, she no longer knew how far she had travelled.

“Haah……”

LLENN finally took a breather. Running did not take one’s breath away, but it did result in extreme mental exhaustion.

LLENN hid in the shade of a large rock and stopped her small body.

First, she confirmed her own hit points, which she had not had the time to do while she ran. At any rate, she was sprinting at full-speed at a speed similar to a bicycle, so if she did not look forward, she would likely have crashed into a rock.

The hit on her shoulder seemed to have only been on the level of a light graze, as her hit pointgauge was still at seventy percent. Nevertheless, it was on a level where it was possible to die from 2 or 3 shots, even if they did not hit the vitals. And she had no healing items.

And, even though it had probably ended, she checked her satellite scan terminal. As expected, the scan was over, so she returned it to her chest pocket.

Next, she reloaded her now empty P90 magazine. Although unexpected, she had wasted a lot of bullets during her unrestrained shooting, and she had used up two magazines.

She immediately operated the storage, materialised the last one, and put it into her pouch.

Even adding all of them up,

“Six of them. Only 300 bullets, huh……”

That was all that LLENN could fire in SJ.

She did take one down, but if she had to use another 100 for the next one, she naturally would not have enough of them. With all that flashy shooting, there were probably more than just three people.

“If there are five of them, then 60 bullets per person……”

If she used more than that in the battle, she wouldn’t be able to do anything but resign. Though she did have two plasma grenades and a knife,

“Hmm, should I use them for suicide……”

Were her very pessimistic words.

To flush out LLENN, machine guns started roaring from afar.

“Uhya!”

The chills went through LLENN’s spine, causing her to jump and drop low to the ground.

This time, it was not continuous fire.

*Tatatatan*, *tatatatan*, bursts of about 5 bullets would repeat at one-second intervals.

“About 200 metres on the other side……”

While lying in the rocks' shade, LLENN remembered her training with M, and estimated the distance.

Just by knowing whether they were close or far affected her sense of security. It was a moment where she was really glad that she had undertaken that training.

She could not hear the sound of impact at all, thus she cautiously raised her body and head, and...

“Hm?”

Saw that the Bullet Line was high in the sky.

Probably several metres above her head. It seemed that the bullet that came flying, along with a sound, quickly erased the line in the sky.

It did not take long for her to realise that they were not aiming at her. ‘Are they aiming at M then?’, that probably wasn’t it either.

They were simply pounding away at places where they thought the enemy might be, without aiming.

Pitohui’s words flashed back in LLENN’s head.

“LLENN-chan, even if you are at a disadvantage in a battle against people, no matter how scared you are, don’t shoot randomly without purpose. Since that is like a drug that allows you to forget your anxiety, but only while shooting, you see, and it’s a waste of bullets, and it only exposes that you „are scared“ to the enemy that knows your position - the poorest of poor plans.”

With the unending gunshots from afar, and the faint sound of bullets flying overhead as a BGM(1),

“I might still be able to win this……”

LLENN chuckled as she muttered this.

‘I’m still scared, but my opponents are naturally scared as well!’

‘With one of their comrades taken down, they’re feeling uneasy!’

‘That’s why they’re pounding away even though they don’t know my position!’

With this self-serving conjecture, the moment that she thought she still had a chance of winning——

‘I still have 300 bullets as well! With 10 bullets per person, I can kill thirty of them!’

She completely changed to a positive att.i.tude. She quickly stood up, and took her P90,

“Alright…… They’re coming from the right.”

She began advancing in a half-run towards the machine guns that were flas.h.i.+ng Bullet Lines on her right.

It was a much more cheerful a.s.sault. It was as if the opponents’ fire and Bullet Lines were guiding her like the Pole star, or a lighthouse.

Nonetheless, she did not let her guard down, and weaved her way through the rocks by moving quickly, then hiding, then slowly peeking out, and once again moving quickly.

She even had breathing room to enjoy the tingling sensation of tension.

‘At this rate, I’ll take down all the survivors alone, and might become the hero, no, heroine of SJ!’

‘If I do, I’ll give the deserter M, and Pito, who gave that incomprehensible order, a shock or two!’

‘At a possible hero interview, no, heroine interview,

“Well, even though I was alone in the end, it was an easy victory, you know?”

I’ll say that.’

Having day-dreamed thus far, she was shot from the left without a sound.

The 1st bullet hit her left arm.

Her entire arm became numb, and lost its strength.

Immediately afterwards, the 2nd bullet hit her left waist.

Luckily, it hit the P90’s magazine pouch, making one of the magazines inside unusable.

While she was falling because the hit to her left waist broke her balance, the 3rd bullet grazed the nape of her neck.

“Gya!”

Giving a shriek at the dull pain in the upper left part of her body, LLENN nonetheless sped up. At the same time, she tried finding out where she was being shot from based on the sound——

‘I couldn’t hear it!’

She was astonished at this truth.

The moment she was shot was a quiet moment, exactly between the two intervals of the machine gun’s fire.

It was a moment where she could even hear her own footsteps.

And yet, she was suddenly hit with three consecutive attacks, and she did not hear any sounds at all.

She had even thought that, rather than being shot, she had been stabbed with a spear by someone nearby whom she did not notice, but this was not the case.

Looking at the upper left part of her body, she saw her upper arm flas.h.i.+ng in a red hit effect, and her hit point gauge decreasing further with a *guu* sound, until it stopped at around forty percent.

As for her left thigh, a large, diagonal hole had been opened in her pouch,

“Ugh……”

And from it she saw a largely destroyed magazine. The number of bullets that she could fire -minus 50.

However, if the impact was even slightly off, it probably wouldn’t have ended with just leg pain and damage. With her leg becoming numb, she would have tumbled, become an easy target, and be dead now.

“I-I am——”

While running away, LLENN muttered in a half tear-stained face.

“S-still lucky……”

“That guy has the devil’s own luck……”(2)

Boss expressed thus, seeing her pink prey disappearing from her field of vision.

The one who sniped LLENN from a rock shade roughly 100 metres away was her.

She nimbly aimed and fired at her opponent that had jumped out, but——

The 1st bullet hit her swinging left arm, preventing a hit to the heart, the 2nd bullet should have hit the waist, but she could not see the hit effect. It probably hit a piece of equipment and did not deal damage. The 3rd bullet only graze the nape of her neck.

Boss addressed the other four via the communication item,

“I failed in bringing the target down. It’s escaping further to the south. We’re switching to pursuit as planned. The opponent’s HP isn’t high, but don’t let your guard down. The pink colour surprisingly doesn’t stand out.”

‘Roger’, hearing this, Boss operated the selector on the back of her gun’s trigger, and set it to allow firing in full auto.

It was a gun, slightly shorter than the Dragunov, that could not be called beautiful even to flatter it.

Its length was about 90 cm. It had a scope and a long, twenty-round magazine equipped. It had the silhouette of an a.s.sault rifle. The atypical part about it was the thick cylinder covering its barrel.

This gun was also Russian-made, a silent sniper ≪VSS≫—— nicknamed ≪Vintorez≫.

It was a gun developed after investigating what was needed for special forces to snipe without a sound past a mid-range (about 400 metres).

There were two great characteristics.

The first aspect was a giant suppressor, which suppressed the sound of the gunpowder exploding, integrated into the tip of the short barrel. The actual barrel is very short, while the entire cylinder that looks like the barrel is the suppressor.

And the other aspect was that it exclusively used 9x33 mm rounds, which were „bullets designed specifically not to surpa.s.s the speed of sound“.

The impact of ordinary bullets that surpa.s.sed the speed of sound created a plosive sound. The impact wave of the so-called *bang* gunshot would be heard at almost the same time as the explosion of the gunpowder.

Even though a suppressor could suppress the sound of an explosion, it would still create a plosive sound. Therefore, it would be easy to realise that someone „was under fire“, but the Vintorez did not even have that, as the bullet speed was reduced to a subsonic level. It fired big, yet very silent, bullets.

Even if a comrade was taken down right next to someone, it would be impossible to know where they were being shot from and, in the first place, whether they were under fire at all—— that’s what Vintorez was.

Just like how they tricked LLENN now, they would intentionally fire their machine guns like mad without aiming, drawing the attention of their opponents, and,

“Heheh! Those guys are panicking!”

Would invite such negligence.

And when the enemy nonchalantly and carelessly drew near——

In an area with a clear field of vision for long-range attacks, they would snipe them with the 2Dragunovs.

In a narrow place with numerous opportunities for cover, they would take them down by having the quick-witted Tanya a.s.sault them with her submachine gun.

Or, just like in LLENN’s case, Boss would draw near unnoticed, and take the target down with her silent sniping. Alternatively, Tanya and Boss would make a combined attack. Sometimes attacking at the same time as a two man cell, sometimes attacking from the left and right in a pincer attack.

In this way, the girls had been reaping victories in the SJ’s battlefield thus far. Following Boss’s orders and instructions, in perfect team play.

When they had camped at the advantageous ruins, they drew in three teams as their opponents, and even managed to get them to fight each other at the same time.

In the end, teams that did not have cohesive cooperation, and used improvised formations, were no match for the girls.

‘The 2 core firepower machine guns can’t really be decoys——’

Such teams also did not notice the attackers until they were wiped out.

“So, let’s finish this! Sophie’s party, move to the west-southwest. Rosa’s party, cover them.”

The five began moving for the hunt’s mop-up.

The machine gunner and sniper ordered to provide cover aimed at the direction where their enemy was, and began repeatedly shooting. By scattering Bullet Lines and bullets in the area, they would restrict their opponent’s movement.

Meanwhile, the team ordered to move would advance. They would secure an advantageousposition, in this battlefield’s case, the top of a rock with a good view.

Tohma, who was the first to climb up a large rock, spotted the pink chibi running between rocks about 100 metres away.

“Spotted! Right under the sun, approximately a hundred!”

While a.s.suming a posture with her Dragunov, Tohma notified her comrade. At the same time, she began shooting.

The pink chibi that she had glimpsed plunged and hid behind a rock. it was about 2 metres-wide, thus Tohma aimed at the left and right of the rock with her scope, and *tan*, *tan*, fired at regular intervals. It was her suppressing fire to ensure that the opponent did not move from there. From behind, Sophie, who was several seconds late, climbed up while holding her PKM. Confirming the impact of Tohma’s Dragunov’s bullets,

“That rock?”

“Da!”

Sophie, who got a reply that was Russian for „Yes“,

“Lend me your shoulder!”

Raised the muzzle of her PKM. Tohma stopped firing with her Dragunov that no longer had that many bullets left, and brought it in front of her body with a sling.

With her now free hands, Tohma immediately grasped the PKM’s bipod from left and right, and placed the base of the barrel on her right shoulder. And then, she crouched.

This was a method to use a human when there was nowhere to set up the gun—— in other words, something for it to „lean against“, and when the bipod was too low in a p.r.o.ne posture.