Vol 2 Chapter 4 (1/2)
SJ2 Preparations
Karen had a one-sided conversation with Miyu, who had called to talk about Kanzaki Elsa’s mini live performance to be held in town around mid-April.
Karen wanted to kill a character operated by an insane female manager, whom she knew nothing about, to save her.
And to do that, Karen needed Miyu’s help. She needed her to convert to GGO and partic.i.p.ate in SJ2.
Having poured her heart out,
“I know that this is an unreasonable request. But, I have no one else to turn to. P-please──, I beg you!”
And, Miyu answered Karen’s plea.
“Fu…… This spring, f.u.kaziroh will go really wild in GGO…… I’ll have to go easy so I don't accidentally end up killing this Pitohui myself in overenthusiasm.”
LLENN was waiting at the starting point in GGO for the moment f.u.kaziroh converted.
The starting point in this game was located in a corner of the capital, Glocken.
It was hard to tell whether this world, with its buildings on sparkling metal ground stretching outward to soar in the sky, and gaudy neon s.h.i.+ning under the always red, out-of-order sky, was magnificent or crazy.
The conversion system allowed transferring to a different VR game under the same ID, but when this happens, the avatar’s appearance was determined as a 〝thing that’s specific to the game〟.
Some time ago, having wandered between numerous games in search of a chibi avatar, she was able to obtain her current LLENN. What appearance would f.u.kaziroh, who was a beautiful fairy with long hair in ALO, take on in GGO?
Having concealed her body with a brown robe, LLENN antic.i.p.ated with her heart pounding in excitement, until particles of light began to a.s.semble, and slowly formed the shape of a human.
“Ooh!”
For the first time, LLENN saw how a new character was born in this world. The particles finally a.s.sembled into a shape with colour,
“O── o? Ooo!”
In front of the sparkly-eyed LLENN, a single character formed.
The character, who raised her head and blinked,
“Yo! Kohi! ──Whoops, LLENN!”
Was definitely f.u.kaziroh.
Her self in the world of GGO,
“What is it? Does my face look weird?”
Was a blonde beauty──
“No! You’re cute!”
Who did not lose to LLENN in shortness.
LLENN and f.u.kaziroh began their strategy meeting in a private room of a rundown bar.
There were a lot of preparations that had to be made in order to fight in SJ2 and defeat the formidable Pitohui.
First, they checked f.u.kaziroh’s stats in GGO.
During the conversion, the character’s strength was 〝relatively〟 transferred over.
In other words, a character that mainly trained in physical strength in the previous game would receive a new character with a high strength value even in the new game.
For example, if LLENN converted to another game, she would of course get a character with high agility. Even if she looked like a sumo wrestler appearance-wise.
In GGO, and most other VR games, a management window would appear in the air via a specific motion using the left hand. Although it was basically only visible to the user, it was possible to make it visible to others by facing them and pressing 〝send〟.
Looking at the character status screen that f.u.kaziroh brought out,
“Wh── what…… is this……?”
LLENN was astounded.
Strength, Agility, Vitality (Endurance), Dexterity, Sensibility, and Luck.
Among these six stats that GGO characters had, LLENN was better only in Agility and Dexterity. f.u.kaziroh was far better in the rest of the stats.
Her Strength and Vitality were especially high. With these, she could carry a considerably heavy gun and a large amount of equipment, and she had a tough body that could withstand a lot of punishment.
She had a delicate-looking girl’s body, yet her Strength and Vitality might be equal to M’s. It was as if she was a cyborg.
“Well, I guess this’ll do.”
f.u.kaziroh said very naturally while toying with her long, golden hair in front of her face. She was completely unsurprised.
‘Just how much does Miyu play VR games? Has she sunk in hours, tens of hours── no, hundreds of hours on them?
LLENN now felt alarmed. But at the same time,
“She’s! Reliable!”
She could not hold back her inner thoughts.
‘I’m the one who asked for help, so by all means, allow me to help. I’ll leave an item box at a certain place in town.’
Of course, it wasn’t an actual box, they would just receive data by going there and touching the item. She also got the pa.s.sword to open it. The reason for not transferring the items directly was probably to avoid leaving records of their transaction.
Having dived into GGO once again, LLENN,
“Forty three people called me in this short time! Not bad! Though, this game really does have very few female chars, huh! It’s possible to get a reverse harem here!”
Went to the designated location together with f.u.kaziroh, who had to dress in a robe because her excessive beauty made her stand out. Indeed, they found a present from M behind a trash can in a back alley.
f.u.kaziroh touched it, entered the pa.s.sword, and a certain amount of credits entered her completely empty wallet.
Seeing that, LLENN,
“WHA!”
And f.u.kaziroh too,
Were both so surprised at the displayed number that they jumped up in astonishment.
“LLENN…… you're sure that this isn’t a mistake, right……?”
“Probably……”
“And afterwards, I won’t be told to sell my organs or go on a tuna boat(2), right……?”
“Probably……”
There was a short message from M, along with the enormous amount of monetary aid.
『This should do for now. Let me know if you need more.』
Having read the letter, f.u.kaziroh faced LLENN with an expression that was the very embodiment of seriousness, and said.
“I wanna marry this guy right now. Give me his email now.”
It was an awfully ugly object.
Its overall length was around 70 cm. About the same as a rather long submachine gun. As it had astock for holding against the shoulder, the gun was probably a gun. As for the colour, it was mostly desert tan, a soil-like shade of brown. Though the grip and some other parts were black.
Nevertheless, it was actually an unattractive gun.
The most unsightly part of it was the protuberance in its centre.
Its revolver-like rotating cylinder protruded like the stomach of an obese middle-aged person. Its excessively large and short barrel was nothing more than another bad part of its appearance.
‘The gun looks like a crossbreed between a revolver and submachine gun that had a mistake insize adjustment and thus ended up growing a belly.’
LLENN had such an impression about it.
“LLENN, you don’t know about it either? But, it does look good, right! I’m set on it! What kind of gun is it?”
“Ehm……”
Even though she was asked what kind of gun it was, LLENN did not know anything about it other than the fact that it was 〝awfully unsightly〟, as this was the first time she had seen it after all.
LLENN read the displayed tag. 《MGL-140》. That was probably its name.
Even if she knew its name, she could not say anything else about it. For example, what kind of gun it was and what kind of bullets it used.
At that point, having greeted another customer, the shop a.s.sistant came in front of the two girls.
He was a young man who wore jeans and a T-s.h.i.+rt, as well as an American Marine Corps camouflage-patterned ap.r.o.n on top.
He wasn’t a computer-controlled NPC (Non-Player Character) like the shop a.s.sistants working at the huge mall. It was a player character, who was doing business in GGO to earn money.
“Miss, that is a continuous-fire grenade launcher! It’s the first time I've see one too. It seems that they have just recently been implemented, and then someone discovered them in some ruins, thus yesterday, we got 2 of them at our store!”
The shop a.s.sistant said in a cheerful, merchant-like tone, and gave an invigorating smile.
“A grenade launcher. Ah, so that’s it, huh……”
LLENN realised. Even though she knew about them, this was the first time she saw the actual thing.
“What’s a…… grenade?”
As f.u.kaziroh, who did not even know about them, asked this question, the shop a.s.sistant politely answered.
“In j.a.panaese, grenade means high-explosive projectileryūdan. You can just think of it as 〝a sh.e.l.l packed with gunpowder that explodes〟. A hand grenade is a hand-held high-explosive projectileshuryūdan. It’s literally a bomb thrown by hand.”
“Hmmhmm.”
As the shop a.s.sistant’s explanation was polite, and he was clearly more well-informed than LLENN, she kept quiet.
“A grenade launcher is a gun that can discharge grenades farther than by hand. Using the power of gunpowder, it can send 40 mm-diameter grenades flying up to 400 metres away.”
“Ho! This gun’s not just cute, but superb too!”
“That’s right! The way the grenades fly in a parabola is fun right! Normally, they’re single-shot── in other words, you can only load in 1 grenade at a time, and then need to remove the empty sh.e.l.l and load in a new one after firing, but this gun is different. It has a rotating cylinder. You can load in 6 grenades into it, and fire 2 per second just by pulling the trigger. In other words, you can fire all 6 of them in 3 seconds!”
“Hoho. A hail of bombs, huh!”
“Right! The explosion of a single grenade can scatter fragments in a 5 metre radius, and then multiply it by 6. This is undoubtedly one of the strongest grenade launchers in GGO at this moment.”
“Nice nice!”
“And there’s a large variety of 40 mm grenades; rather than just the exploding kind, there are tons of them that you can try, like ones that create a smokescreen, thermite incendiary grenades that burn people to a crisp with super-high temperatures, or flares that s.h.i.+ne as they descend by parachute!”
“Even nicer!”
“Moreover, there are 《plasma grenades》 , which don’t exist in RL, in GGO! Oh the pleasant feeling when you fire those, and blow away your opponents with super-high power!”
“Hyahaa!”
At the end of the high-spirited talk that sounded like a sale on the way to the station,
“Mister! I’m buying it! Sell it!”
f.u.kaziroh shouted as she jumped around in excitement, but the shop a.s.sistant toned down a bit.
“But, it is expensive, you know? Have you…… seen its price?”
‘Come to think of it, I still haven’t looked at it.’
When LLENN looked at the price tag,
“Guh── hah!”
She felt like vomiting blood.