Vol 2 Chapter 2 (1/2)

SECT.2 - The Second Squad Jam

On the 17th of February, 2 days after the girls' gathering with Saki and the others, Karen went back to her home in Hokkaido.

Having returned home, where the intense cold had just begun and thus it was minus 20 degrees Celsius or lower outside, but far warmer indoors compared to Tokyo, Karen...

Shocked her parents with her short hair. It seemed that her elder sister had not informed them of her new hairstyle at all.

She was a.s.saulted with questions on the reasons for this change, but by no means...

“As a result of a murder game, I killed a lot of people with my gun, and in the end, beheaded someone with a knife, and then I felt that something…… burdening me had been cut away like this, so I cut my hair.”

Could she say that. There was just no way she could say that.

And she did not have a broken heart. Although she had deceived her elder sister like this, it was still awfully hard for her.

Like she had told Saki, she did not bring her AmuSphere with her, and thus she could not playGGO.

Although she remained connected with her notebook with its software, so she could readmessages, she had received no particular contact from either Pitohui or M. Those two were on her mind, but she could not bring herself to proactively ask them herself.

She did receive a message of complaint full of exclamation marks :

『The end-of-term tests are hard! I want to chat at Karen-san’s home again! I want to eat sweets! And, I want to play GGO! I want to shoot with a gun!』

From Boss-Eva, in other words, Saki’s character.

Karen had given her cell-phone’s mail address, but it was just like Saki to use GGO’s messagefunction to send her messages.

1 week later, on Tuesday, 24th of February.

“Yahou! Kohi! Welcome to Hokkaido! It’s certainly colder than Tokyo, right? Wha?”

Karen’s high school bosom friend, s.h.i.+nohara Miyu, came over to Karen’s family home after the end of her spring vacation abroad.

Miyu was Karen’s game sempai, who had taught her about VR games from scratch last summer. If it wasn’t for Miyu, the Karen as she is right now, and LLENN, would not exist.

“Ye~p! A short cut suits you, nice, nice! Can I take a picture? You don’t mind right? Right, turn back! Now the front! Nice nice! Now, how about you try undressing a bit?”

Having only seen the short-haired Karen in pictures until today, and now seeing her in person, Miyu was very cheerful. She began taking pictures left and right with her smartphone.

Without taking anything off, Karen replied,

“You’ve changed quite a bit again yourself, Miyu. You look great.”

“I know right? Everything suits me well.”

Miyu, who frequently changes her hairstyle based on her mood, currently had her shoulder-length hair wavy, and dyed in a brown brighter than ever, and was wearing red-framed gla.s.ses instead ofcontact lenses.

Although, naturally, Miyu was shorter than Karen, she was actually at least 165 cm tall, a considerable stature for a female(1). She actively partic.i.p.ated in the tennis club in middle school, thus her reflexes were quite considerable as well.

Attending a local Hokkaido university, Miyu was a heavy virtual gamer who had not had a day without games as long as she had a Net connection.

The game that she was always playing was 《ALfheim Online》. Abbreviated as ALO.

It was a game where one became a fairy with transparent wings on their backs, and could literally fly about in a vivid and beautiful fantasy world, and fight against monsters and other fairy races with swords or magic.

ALO was the first VR game that Karen had chosen, and tried to play with Miyu. But it was also a game where the initial character creation gave her an avatar that looked like an overly tall beauty, and thus the shock made her hate it.

Incidentally, in VR games, the player’s real gender and the gender of the avatar were unquestionably the same, except in the case of minor system errors, thus a female player could not become a male.

In ALO, Miyu became a wind fairy race 《Sylph》 beauty who flew about the world with thecharacter name 〝フカ次郎f.u.kajirou〟 （Ｆｕｋａｚｉｒｏｈ）. (2)

For some reason, she used an unusual masculine(3) name, f.u.kaziroh. It came from the name of her dog at her family home.

And as for why she named herself thus, when Miyu was very young, a friend of hers was willing to give her a puppy that was birthed by their dog, thus Miyu had sought permission to keep the puppy, but her parents would refuse time and time again, so she was always 〝not allowedf.u.ka〟 to have one. The dog was a male, and she used to keep a Java sparrow named 〝s.h.i.+nohara Tarou〟, so she loved it like her second son.(4)

The dog f.u.kaziroh was greatly loved by Miyu, and they grew together, until f.u.kaziroh expended its life span. Miyu took over his name in VR games.

Karen did not want her parents to hear about VR game-related topics at home, thus she and Miyu went out.

They went to a familiar karaoke box(5) that they frequently visited in their high school years, and chatted endlessly about SJ excitedly.

Miyu had watched the video of LLENN’s victory in SJ, thus,

“Wow! It was like a battle among fierce G.o.ds! So much killing! Amazing! You sure put those lessons to good use! Awesome!”

She was engulfed in great excitement. She asked about the details of the battle in a thorough manner.

Emphasising the details about the shady Pitohui and M, and without keeping any secrets, Karen told her everything from meeting them to the incident during SJ, and even the fact that they appeared to be in a good relations.h.i.+p in RL too, and Miyu,

“Hmm, well, there are lots of weirdos in VR game worlds. As long as your real name and address aren’t exposed, doncha worry!”

Gave her these rea.s.suring words.

For the time being, Karen felt relieved that there was no need to worry.

As for Miyu, her progress in ALO was quite impressive: her well-developed f.u.kaziroh possessed a powerful sword, and she was becoming equally(6) strong. Coupled with her weird name, she was quite the celebrity in ALO.

“Of course, greatness is comparative. Sometimes, some unbelievable guys show up. Like, just recently, there was a fellow who wagered an eleven-hit combo OSSOriginal Sword Skill and invited people to duel them for it; that power was out of this world.”

ALO’s battles, where characters could fly around and not only use swords, but magic as well, were outside Karen’s understanding, but the 〝greatness is comparative〟part alone was quite familiar to her.

Speaking of f.u.kaziroh, the guild that she belonged to had just recently come into possession of a cabin, which served as their base of operations, using the Yrd (the currency in ALO) they had earned. She could safely store her items there, thus if she felt like it, she could now transfer── and convert her character to a different game.

Using the same ID, one could change VR games with their avatar, and in such a case the relative developed strength of the avatar would be transferred over. Miyu was the one who taught Karen about this conversion system. However, items and money could not be taken along. It was necessary to have a place where the player could keep their items, or a person that they could trust them with.

Having met this requirement, Miyu could visit GGO whenever she felt like that, but,

“Well, for the time being, I’ll probably stick with ALO! Kohi, you don’t have any intention of leaving GGO either, right? LLENN-chan is very small and cute, right!”

‘That’s right She is cute I won’t hand my daughter over to anyone!’

After firmly nodding with a paternal mental state, Karen changed the topic to Kanzaki Elsa.

Miyu was a big fan of Kanzaki Elsa ever since her debut, and she had been anxious to go to herlive concert in Tokyo, and was still anxious to do so.

The last live performance coincided with SJ, and as she could not get her hands on any ticketsfor it, Karen decided to partic.i.p.ate in the SJ.

“Hmm, I wonder when the next live performance is going to be held? It seems that Elsa is currently offline. She hasn’t made any blog updates at all, even though she’s abroad. They have a small office there right? There’s been no particular news from the staff either. Well, it can’t be helped, so let’s sing ourselves!”

Although Karen did not quite understand what〝can’t be helped〟──

The two earnestly and energetically sang Kanzaki Elsa’s songs for as long as their time and throats allowed.

Karen leisurely spent her spring vacation free of Tokyo’s congestion and the stench of gunpowder of GGO, having a good time with Miyu and her other high school girlfriends.

Before long, March began.

On Wednesday, the 4th of the month, with the university’s new academic year and Hokkaido’s Spring, still being far away.

After lunch, Karen received a message from GGO on her notebook, which was connected to theInternet at her family home.

‘What could it be?’, opening it with this thought, she found out that it was news from Zaskar, the management organisation, sent to all the players.

And the contents were quite surprising.

The message reported.

That a second Squad Jam would be held.

The Second Squad Jam.

Nicknamed ＳＪ２. Ess Jay Two, if that is how it should be read.

It would be held exactly 1 month later, on Sat.u.r.day, 4th of April, 2026. Starting at 1300.

It would be another private cooperation hosted tournament; however, the sponsor will not be the author that sponsored the previous tournament, but rather a different person who remained anonymous.

The basic rules would mostly be the same as the previous SJ; however, there were minute adjustments, thus going through the rule book via the attached link was required.

The winner's prizes were still under consideration, but they would be announced before the registration deadline.

The tournament was currently accepting applicants.

The registration deadline was the noon of the 1st of April. If over thirty teams partic.i.p.ated, theteam versus team preliminaries were planned to be held the day before, starting at 2000.

However, the 〝leaders of the teams that took the top four places in the previous tournament, and their current teams〟 will be seeded and automatically exempt from these preliminaries.

And, the teams that this exemption applies to: the fourth ranked Self-Defense Force (?) pro team. The third-ranked skull emblem team. The runner-ups, Saki’s attached high school rhythmic gymnastics club’s team.

And herself.

The winner, LLENN.

What a surprise.

A second Squad Jam, will actually be held. And moreover, it’s going to take place next month.

Karen opened her mouth wide as she looked at the screen, and then an electronic sound *bakyū* was emitted, notifying her that she received a new message. However, as expected, or perhaps shockingly, the default ringtone for this game was a gunshot. Although it could be changed.

‘Who could it be?’

‘It can’t be… Pito-san? Another order to partic.i.p.ate? In that case, what do I do? Should I partic.i.p.ate or refuse? Even if I do partic.i.p.ate, what do I do about that incident in SJ? Listen? Ask? Or ignore it?

As Karen’s heart beat fast, she opened the message, and found out that it was from Saki.

The t.i.tle was:

『Have you seen the official message? SJ2 is going to be held!』

‘Yeah, I saw it.’

Answering in her mind, she read the contents of the letter.

『Of course partic.i.p.ating we all are! An anastrophe(7) ! Hence we are going to train for it! Ourtests are over too! And spring break is almost here! Exemption from the preliminaries is really helpful! Karen-san, if you happen to change your mind and decide to partic.i.p.ate, I, and the others, too would all be very happy! I want to see LLENN’s gallant figure filled with fighting spirit again! I want to fight! I want to shoot! I want us to kill each other again! P.S. I want to eat sweets as well! Please invite us over again!』

Well, the message was full of boisterous sentences of fighting and killing. Saki and the others' enthusiasm was conveyed well.

However,

“I guess I don’t have to partic.i.p.ate……”

Her own enthusiasm was not present at all.

And in the first place, she had no one to form a team with.

It was not impossible for her to contact Pitohui and M herself and form a team with them, but, naturally, she did not feel like doing it.

If, on the other hand, they contacted her…… well, she would think about it when the time comes.

‘Currently, I’m not proactively considering to partic.i.p.ate in SJ2.’

Having concluded thus, Karen threw her thoughts on SJ2 to the back of her mind.

And so, over 10 days later.

As her spring vacation continued, and having enjoyed her time with Miyu to the fullest, Karen returned to Tokyo by plane on Sunday, the 15th of March.

She had various reasons for returning, like preparing for the new term, seeing the never before seen Tokyo’s spring and sakura, but the most important reason was,

“I haven’t used a gun for a long time……”

After such an awfully long time, she now wanted to play GGO. She wanted to become the chibi LLENN.

She took a flight in the morning, so early that she surprised her parents, thus she arrived before 10 o’clock.

Mentally deciding to dive as soon as possible once she returned to her room, she dragged hercarrying case along, and with light steps, arrived in front of her apartment complex.

As Karen held out her keycard at the entrance of the high-rise tower apartment complex, and went through the automatic door after giving a light bow to the familiar, resident guard...

“…………”

There was a person, watching her with binoculars.

In a multi-storey car park 200 metres away from the apartment complex, and separated by a main street. A high-cla.s.s, German-made SUV (sport utility vehicle), with smoked gla.s.s for its rear seat windows, was parked close to the wall.

Therefore, unless one approached it very closely, the large binoculars that were mounted inside the car would probably go unnoticed.

The man inside moved the orientation of the camera platform mounted on the windowpane via suction pads. The objective lens of the binoculars on top of it moved as well. And, it was fixed on a new target across the smoked gla.s.s. A room on the fifteenth floor of the apartment complex. Those movements lacked any hesitation.

2 minutes later, the curtains of the room were opened from inside. Next, the gla.s.s door opened, and the room’s owner appeared. A 183 cm-tall, high-statured woman.

Possibly having finished its role in ventilation, the gla.s.s door was closed after about 3 minutes. And then, although it was still morning, the ma.s.sive curtains were once again closed.

The person inside moved his eyes away from the binoculars, immediately opened his notebook, and launched a single program.

The logo that came up ── was【Ｇｕｎ　Ｇａｌｅ　Ｏｎｌｉｎｅ】.

The person lay down on the rear seat, and quickly equipped an AmuSphere on his head. And then,

“ Link Start.”

He dived into GGO from the car.

“Found it! Oji-san, I’m buying this! Buying it now! Buying it right now!”

Having come to GGO for the first time in a while, the small child LLENN dressed in a dark brownrobe saw the thing that she had been looking for.

“Yay! Yay! Yay! Yaaaaay!”

Her great joy was already like that of a child.

Hopping from one small back alley gunshop to the next, the item that she decided to purchase as soon as she laid eyes on it in the third shop, was a strange-looking submachine gun.

That’s right, it was the Belgian FN Herstal-made P90. A gun that was completely identical to her former partner that she had lost by protecting herself in the SJ.

Naturally, she requested a custom job on it on the spot. She had it dyed in dusky pink, the same as her uniform and equipment.

She could no longer tell the difference, but this gun was the second generation P-chan.

‘Should its name be 〝P-chan II?〟? Or, should it be 〝P-chan the Second〟?’

Since the name was unwieldy, LLENN considered calling it just P-chan, equipped the sling that she had used for her initial gun on it, hung it on her shoulder underneath the robe, handling it with care, and stepped out to an SF world with gaudy, s.h.i.+ning neon signs on tall buildings.

Seeing as she was the winner of SJ, she feared that she ended up becoming instantly famous, and would be greeted by strangers as she walked through town── but such a thing did not happen.

It could have been because she was hiding her appearance and face with her robe as always, but thus far, she had only surprised people with her small size. The scale of the SJ and BoB really was different.

‘But it’s for the best.’

With this thought, LLENN cheerfully walked along the street.

As buying a P90 was sufficient for her for today, she thought that she would refrain from any battles, and return to RL after some adequate shooting practice. Her goal was a large mall with a wide shooting range.

“Shooting with P-chan is fun! 900 bullets every minute! Empty sh.e.l.ls come descending! Ah, that wonderful sound!”

She began singing an impromptu questionable song to herself because there were no othercharacters around.

In this merry state, she absolutely could not notice.

That an avatar, which had the appearance of a feeble looking youth, had been tailing her continuously since she left the store.

16th of March. Monday.

Although it was a weekday for the public, it was still a day off for Karen who had a long spring vacation from university. The sky outside was heavily cloudy.

Having cleaned her room for the first time in a while, and unpacked her luggage sent to her from her family home,

“…………Nothing else to do.”

Karen ended up running out of things to do. It was the afternoon.

As for diving into GGO,

“I really should pa.s.s on it……”

She restrained herself.

After all, yesterday she thought that she would 〝only have shooting practice〟, but while firing at the shooting range, she developed an itchy desire to go wild, and went monster hunting with the thought 〝just a simple field won’t hurt〟, but ended up engrossed for nearly 4 hours.

Deciding not to play games, Karen considered studying for university, reading a book, listening to music, or a combination to kill time, but…

“I guess I’ll go for a walk.”

Going against all those options, Karen set out for a walk in the neighbourhood despite the bad weather. Deciding to take the opportunity to go shopping as well, she brought a folded shopping bag along.

She closed the curtains to her room, turned off the lights, descended to the first floor byelevator, then went out through the entrance, and,

“To the park, I guess.”

Turned towards the lush green park in the neighbourhood.

As it was day time, and there was high pedestrian traffic, and as Karen was not being at all vigilant, she did not notice.

That a man had been tailing her ever since she left her apartment complex.

After a walk nearly an hour long, and dropping by the supermarket to restock on food, Karen was on her way back.

She was walking through a narrow alley.

When returning from the nearby station, this was the shortest route home that she frequently used; to her right was the wall of an apartment, to her left a small factory.

Of course, she would absolutely not pa.s.s through here if it was night, but it was still 1500 at the moment. She had long legs as she was tall, thus, as a result, she was walking at a brisk pace.

A young woman with two children riding on an electric bicycle came her way, thus Karen avoided them. The woman nodded in thanks, and pa.s.sed by.

When she let them pa.s.s, she noticed for the first time.

That a man was standing about 10 metres behind her. And that he was looking at her.

Karen did not even think that there could be a person behind her, and walking in the same direction as her, thus she was considerably surprised, and fixedly stared at the man.

‘He looks like an actor, huh.’

Karen’s first thoughts were words of praise.

The man was around 175 cm-tall. His high stature was not outstanding (and he was shorter than her), but for a j.a.panese man, he was probably a tall person.

And, he had a wonderful const.i.tution. His jeans-clad legs were long, his chest, with a leatherjacket on top of a white T-s.h.i.+rt, was burly, and his body was lean like an athlete’s.

His face was so neat that it could be called beautiful. His eyes were slightly sharp, but not to the extent that they would look scary.

As for his age, Karen thought he might be in the later half of his twenties. His hair was black and, although she did not know if it was natural, it was slightly wavy and of shoulder-length.

‘Oops, I shouldn’t stare.’

Karen took her eyes off the man, and faced forward.

Even if he was an ikemen with a nice physique, staring at others was still a breach of manners. Once again, she began walking with her long legs to return to her apartment complex.

4 minutes later,

“…………”

Karen once again noticed. That the man was still 10 metres behind her.

The high-rise apartment complex would soon be in sight. When she stopped at a pedestrian crossing to cross the road, the aforementioned man entered her field of vision, and thus she noticed that he had been constantly tailing her since then.

‘This is kinda scary……’

Karen’s vigilance mode went up a notch.

Even if she was taller than most men, Karen was still a young woman, thus it was natural for her to be cautious around unfamiliar men.

She had taken several complex turns from the alley where she first laid eyes on him, thus it was natural to think that 〝being tailed〟 was more likely than going in the same direction by chance.

If it was at night, she would have definitely taken action to deal with this problem. For example, taking a taxi or calling someone with her mobile phone and talking to them while walking. But then, if it was night, there was no way that she would be walking through a place like this.

Since it was daytime, and she was walking along a main street which naturally had pedestrian traffic, and on top of that, her apartment complex was close by, Karen calmed down, and began crossing the road when the traffic lights turned green.

Once she was across, Karen turned left, and thus, after moving away from the crosswalk a bit, she moved her eyes without turning her face.

The man crossed the road and──

‘Uugh, he’s following me……’

He turned to the left as well. There was no mistake about it anymore. This man was tailing Karen.

‘Where did he start following me? Could it be from the supermarket? Or before that, all the way from the park?’

As things have come this far, she did not know the answer to her questions, but a.s.suming that she was followed the whole time, she had was a bad feeling about this. The man’s nice appearance turned from a plus to a big minus.

‘I need to get back quickly.’

Karen began walking the last 100 metres or so to her apartment complex in order to escape. Suppressing her desire to break into a run, she feigned being calm as best as she could.

There were plenty of cars moving along the main street, and there were also pedestrians and cyclists pa.s.sing by, thus she probably would not be attacked here, but even so, s.h.i.+vers went down her spine.

If this was within GGO, it would be a situation where she would want to turn around and draw out a knife, but if she did that in RL, she would immediately be arrested.

The apartment complex’s entrance required IC keycards that only residents had. There was a resident female concierge and a male guard past the first door.

If Karen pa.s.sed through it, and the man pursuing her managed to pa.s.s through as well, she could probably manage by shouting.

Just as she thought of this and sighed in relief, Karen was struck by a different possibility, as if additional electrical signals activated within her brain.

‘Could it be that my address will be exposed if I entered the apartment complex like this?’

a.s.suming that the man came across Karen somewhere and was tailing her, if she held out her keyand entered the apartment complex, would she not be exposed as a resident here?

What if the man’s goal of following Karen was to discover her residence?

‘Oh, that woman is huge, but cute. Where could she be living, I wonder? I know, I’ll tail her and find out. When I do, I’ll be able to wait in front of the entranceway and follow her every day, uhehe──’

Having thought of this, she became scared and her imagination forcefully shut down.

The entrance to the apartment complex was right over there.

‘Should I continue walking like this, or should I pa.s.s through the front so that he wouldn’t discern my residence. That’s the question.’

‘But where should I go after pa.s.sing through? Should I kill time at some shop? But what if he stands guard the whole time? What if the other party is a thoroughly persistent stalkeroverflowing with zeal?’

‘Uhyaa what-what do I do what do I do what do──’