Vol 2 Chapter 6 (1/2)

SECT.6 - b.o.o.by Trap

At exactly 13:00, they were enveloped in white light, and when they once again regained their vision,

“So this is…… a town, huh……”

LLENN found herself standing on a road in a town.

She looked around her surroundings at once. f.u.kaziroh was about 2 metres away, and, of course, was likewise looking around restlessly.

The start point was at least 1 km away from every other team, thus there was no possibility of a face-to-face encounter right away.

However, if their enemies had a powerful sniper that used 338 lapua magnum bullets, or an anti-materiel rifle that used 12.7 mm bullets, 1000 metres was still well within their effective range. So, if they were in a clear area, they would have had to drop to the ground immediately.

Confirming that they were surrounded by houses,

“For now, we’re safe!”

LLENN sent her instructions to f.u.kaziroh.

“Roger.”

Thanks to the convenient communication item that automatically adjusted the volume, the user’s voice, be it a whisper or a shout, would reach their partners’ ears being neither too silent nor too loud.

Although the mechanisms for it were unknown, this item did not have any limit to its connectivity range and could be used to communicate anywhere within SJ, even when inside a building or underground.

After confirming the safety of their surroundings, the next step was to confirm one’s whereabouts.

LLENN’s location was a foreign town.

Most of the buildings were unfamiliar, single-storeyed, though some were two-storeyed, low-cla.s.s residences, with simplistic designs and lined up emotionlessly. She had once seen such a residential area in a Hollywood movie.

The street-facing portion of each house was closed off with shutters like private stores. Further along the road were residences.

The lawns of each house were not very wide, as all the buildings were packed tightly together.

Of course, the stage was Earth after the last war, thus it was a ghost town with absolutely no signs of life.

The roofs and walls of the houses were damaged, and some of their gla.s.s windows were broken. There were several slanted utility poles with dangling cables, and the gra.s.s growing in the chasms on the rough pavement had withered.

LLENN looked up to the sky and saw that it was cloudy.

The gray, tinged slightly red by the characteristic sky of the world of GGO, was an eerie colour.

On rather clear days── under the eternal setting sun-like mad-red sky, LLENN’s pink was quite effective.

“Hmm……”

It seemed that the effectiveness of her camouflage was negligible here. She probably could not carry out an ambush.

And, this time, the wind was blowing. On the ground, it felt like a light breeze, though sometimes stronger, but the clouds in the sky were flowing and at quite a high speed. ‘Couldn’t it have been clear during the tournament’, LLENN thought.

The temperature felt in VR games could be adjusted to some extent to be able to enjoy the gamein any outfit. Hence, she did not feel freezing cold, but judging by the dreary sky and withered plants, it appeared that the setting for the season was winter. It seemed like snow would start falling at any moment.

“LLENN, come over here and look!”

Doing as f.u.kaziroh asked, LLENN came out from the side of a house,

“Oh? Ooh……”

There was an unfamiliar object there.

A wall.

Several hundred metres away from her position, she could see a towering rampart through the house roofs and openings.

It was around the height of a twenty-storey building, perhaps a little over 60 metres. She could not tell its width from her position.

It was cold gray, probably made out of concrete. Height-wise, the buildings in Tokyo were far taller, but the fact that the wall stretched out endlessly to both sides gave it a considerably intimidating aura.

“It looks like a dam.”

LLENN said,

“I see, so there’s water on the other side? We’d drown if it broke, huh.”

And f.u.kaziroh shared her impression.

Imagining a muddy stream descending on her mercilessly, LLENN said,

“f.u.ka…… don’t shoot grenades at that, okay.”

“Okay. But, I could knock it down with 1 punch, ya know?”

The rampart stretched straight ahead, then turned ninety degrees, and ran straight ahead again. The rest of it was blurry, so she could not make it out. It seemed to continue on for quite some distance.

The slightly strange thing was the design of the rampart. With the bend as the boundary, the left side consisted of vertical stripes. Conversely, the concrete on the right side was patterned with horizontal stripes.

“I get it…… that’s the field boundary.”

LLENN realised.

Both the BoB and SJ used special, 10-km-in-every-direction sized fields, and the management had put in great effort to mark the boundaries.

For example, during the third BoB, the field was an island. In the previous SJ, mysterious chasms and mountains restricted the players’ movements.

“I see. So, absolutely no one could possibly cross that, huh. The people of this world can’t fly, huh.”

f.u.kaziroh understood as well.

“The rampart probably encloses the field into a square, I think. And that’s one of its corners.”

“So…… we are at a corner of the map, huh. But, which one?”

All the maps in GGO so far had been set in the northern hemisphere, and this area was probably not an exception.

Knowing that it was currently 13:00, it would be possible to make a general a.s.sumption as to which directions were east, west, south and north by looking at the sun, but the thick clouds obstructed it.

‘Based on the angle, could it be the northeast of the map? Or southeast? Or the opposite?’

“I’ll confirm that now.”

LLENN took out a satellite scan terminal from her breast pocket, and pressed on one of the twoswitches.

Instantly, a map, with the terrain and structures reproduced as three-dimensional images, rose in front of them.

The special field for this tournament really was a s.p.a.ce surrounded by a square rampart.

a.s.suming that the top was north according to the rules of maps──

First, about 3 km-wide on the left side was a town. Mapwise, the town was vertically s.p.a.cious as it continued from north to south.

The road, at times wide, at times narrow, systematically extended in all directions, dividing the town into a grid-shape. The town looked like Karen and Miyu’s hometown.

A railway ran from south to north roughly at the centre of the town. Slightly to the north of the central part of the town was a small station with two roofless platforms.

There was a rather s.p.a.cious rotary in front of the station, but there was not a single multi-storeyed building there. Pretty much all of the buildings were single-storeyed.

Compared to the town from the previous tournament which was dotted with skysc.r.a.per ruins extending to the sky like a comb, this town felt quite different. It seems this town did not really get to prosper.

“GGO has vehicles, right? Can we ride the choo-choo train?”

f.u.kaziroh asked this question, not quite making it clear whether she was joking or being serious.

The previous SJ had trucks and hovercrafts, thus it wasn’t wrong to a.s.sume that there would be some this time as well, but LLENN did not know how to operate railroad vehicles.

Even if she did,

“So, where do we go?”

“To a bigger town….. Yeah, let’s go shopping for clo……”

“We can do that after we kill Pito-san.”

At a point near the very north-west of both the map and town was a single s.h.i.+ning dot. This dot, displayed on the map for only the first minute, denoted their own positions.

SJ used an unfriendly design in that one’s own position could only be checked during the scan. This system was tough on those who had no sense of direction.

We are currently here. In other words…… We’re at the edge of the northwestern part of themap.”

LLENN pointed at the three-dimensional image as she said that. f.u.kaziroh nodded.

“Hoh, I see. So── that means the vertical stripes are for the western wall and the horizontal stripes are for the north wall.”

“Right. Vertical is west! You got it! Also, there’s no one further to the north or west than us!”

“Okay okay! That means the enemies are either south or east! Alrighty! Which way do we go?”

“Wait wait wait.”

She had not looked over the rest of the map well. Calming down f.u.kaziroh, who was full of vigour, LLENN stared at the map.

After this, battles would be severe, and they might not even have the time to look at the terminal during scan time. So, she had to grasp the general terrain while she had the time.

The centre of the northern part of the map was a lightly hilly area.

This too was a common sight in her hometown of Hokkaido, an open land with one hill extending after another.

There were no graphics of trees, thus it was probably mostly a gra.s.sland. It seemed suitable for sheep and other such animals.

And it was certainly a place offering a good field of vision.

Standing at the top of a hill, one could probably see the valley and opposite slope clearly. The opposite was also true. It was a place where it was easy to find enemies, and be found by enemies.

“An area where you really need to keep an eye out for snipers…… We should avoid going there if possible.”

“Roger. They’d hit us from several hundred metres away, right? Yeesh.”

There was no one as hated as snipers in both the real world and GGO.

They were G.o.ds of death that could unleash their one-hit-certain-kill bullets at their enemies from a faraway place where weapons used by regular soldiers or players could not reach. And also, they had the terrifying ability to not create Bullet Lines if their positions were unknown.

The experience from the previous tournament of being sniped by Tohma, a Dragunov sniper rifle user and that team’s highly skilled sniper, had indelibly ingrained fear into LLENN’s body.

And M possessed enough skill to surpa.s.s Tohma, a player like that.

‘Please let Pito-san not be here not be here not be here……”

Reciting this in her mind, LLENN looked further down.

Below the hilly area on the map, in other words, to the south,

“What’s this? LLENN, do you know?”

“Nope……”

There was a round dome-shaped building.

“A baseball stadium, perhaps?”

“A baseball stadium, it seems.”

f.u.kaziroh’s and LLENN’s opinions were identical. Its appearance looked very much like thedomed baseball stadium in Sapporo. However──

“But… were baseball stadiums always this big?”

As LLENN said, it was excessively oversized. The circle taking up pretty much the centre of thefield was at least 2 km in diameter. Wouldn’t it be hundreds of metres high as well?

“Since it’s Earth in the future, I guess it’s okay for it to be this big? Baseball had a scale up too.”

f.u.kaziroh gave a completely senseless reason, but… well, deciding that it did not matter at the moment, LLENN stopped worrying.

They would not know what was inside without going there in person. Such a large area was probably not entirely closed off.

Under the dome, south from the centre of the map, the colours of greenery and soil stretched out. It seemed like a field(1) or forest that fell to ruin. It seemed mostly flat, thus it was also a place to be wary of snipers, even if the field of vision there was probably worse than that of the hilly areas.

And lastly the east side; where stretching from the north to the south, was a range of mountains.

Based on the graphics, the mountains at upper-right corner of the map, in other words, the northeast, were probably not so rugged. As they were depicted as being white, it seemed that they were gently-sloping snowy mountains. It was reminiscent of a skiing area.

“We can probably slide from here, huh. LLENN, have any tickets for the lift?”

“Unfortunately, no.”

“So we have no choice but to climb, huh……”

f.u.kaziroh said, probably joking like always, but LLENN seriously considered the possibility of there being skis for six hidden there. No, maybe snowmobiles.

On the other hand, the mountains in the bottom-right part of the map, in other words, the south-eastern sector, were all steep.

It seemed to be a rugged, rocky mountain range with plenty of trees, thus it was coloured in a blend of grey rocks and green trees. It probably wasn’t unclimbable, but it did seem like an areawhich would be difficult to navigate on foot.

A slanted highway ran from mountain to mountain, in other words, above the valley. There was a bridge about 2 km in length depicted on the map. It was a rather gigantic bridge. It might also be at least 100 metres above the valley

Judging from its appearance, it did not seem like a suspension bridge, but an arch bridge with a bow-like structure underneath. It seems impossible to support such a bridge for 2 km without piers, but this was a future Earth, and even more importantly, it was a game.

The highway itself turned into a tunnel once it reached the mountain, but the exit could not be seen on the opposite side, thus it was probably outside the field. Naturally, this tunnel should not be traversable. There was probably a barrier around the entrance.

“This bridge is crossable. But, we should avoid it.”

LLENN said as she pointed at it,

“Gotcha. Waste of money.”

f.u.kaziroh answered with a serious look.

On the right side, in other words, to the east of the dome in the middle of the map, there was a valley that gradually became narrower in-between the mountains.

There was a single large building there. The details couldn’t be identified from the map, but it was a rather large building.

And its surroundings were rich in green and blue. Based on the map, it was impossible to tell why this was the only area abundant with green while its surroundings consisted of gloomy wastelands.

Additionally, there were spots of blue among the greenery of the plants. Blue was a colour that denoted water, thus it seemed to be an area dotted with brooks, marshes, and ponds.

Rivers, wetlands and other such wet areas could be traversed normally if they were shallow, but if they were deep, it was necessary to put one’s items into one’s storage and swim through it.

Moreover, ones hit points slowly but continuously decreased just by going underwater, as if all the water in this world was poisonous. Thus, the theory in GGO is to avoid touching water as much as possible.

“What could this be……? Based on the greenery and water, it looks like a park…… Could that kinda large building over there be…… a school?”

LLENN whispered her thoughts.

Having finished looking over the whole map for the time being,

“Alright.”

LLENN raised her head.

“I can’t memorise the entirety of such complex and mysterious terrain! In ALO, we flew in the sky! There was no need for maps!”

f.u.kaziroh complained.

“Don’t worry. I did.”

After her lost child-like experience in the residential area during the previous tournament, the importance of a geographical sense had sunk into LLENN more than sufficiently. She did not neglect practicing to learn maps upon seeing them in both GGO and RL.

As a result of this, she had such a grasp on the terrain that she could even dash at full speed without looking at a map and she still would not get lost.

This time, M wasn’t an ally. She had to manage on her own somehow.

If she hadn’t played GGO and SJ, she probably wouldn’t have acquired this ability. But with this, n.o.body could tell her that 〝women can’t read maps〟.

“Besides, we can always just look at the map itself, so no worries. Just don’t lose sight of where you currently are. If you get lost by yourself, call me without going anywhere.

“Uugh, roger.”

LLENN looked at the wrist.w.a.tch on the inner side of her left wrist, and saw the digital numerals 13:03.

The first thing they had to do was to find a place where they could safely check the firstsatellite scan at 13:10.

Until then, there was no need to go unreasonably far. The possibility of the team they would end up clas.h.i.+ng with being Pitohui’s was, simply put, one out of twenty-nine. No, considering M’s prudence, the possibility should be much much lower.

‘We’d start by finding out Pitohui’s position via the first scan. If it’s close, great. If they’re right next to us, awesome. Either way, we’d go kill them with all we had. ‘

‘If they were far away, our goal would be to reach that place through any means necessary.’

‘I want to avoid making contact with other enemies as much as possible, but it would be counterproductive if this ended up coming back to bite us, thus we’ll bring down the enemies that we have to.’

“Alright! For now, let’s hide beside a large house. Follow me.”

Just like LLENN’s group, the partic.i.p.ating players all around the field were looking for a place to safely check the first scan.

Everyone remembered well that there were two teams in the previous SJ that recklessly charged out just as the tournament started, and ended up clas.h.i.+ng with each other.

This occurred in the northern forest that was also LLENN’s start point.

The two teams immediately engaged in battle and ended up losing half of their members, then, as a consequence of the resulting stubborn staredown between the remaining halves, they were attacked by MMTM from the side and were wiped out.

〝Make sure you don’t do anything reckless during the first 10 minutes〟── this was the established tactic in SJ.

Only a single man among the partic.i.p.ating players realised something.

He called his mates to a halt,

“Hey! Could it be…… that we can climb that somewhere?”

Said this, and aimed for the oblique-patterned rampart.

13:09:30.

Small wrist.w.a.tches on LLENN’s and f.u.kaziroh’s left wrists vibrated. This was the work of a.n.a.larm function that was set to go off 30 seconds before each scan.

Their current position was at the side of a house facing the large road.

LLENN was lying in the shadow of an upside down truck that had lost all of its tyres, while f.u.kaziroh was doing the same alongside the wall of a house about 10 metres away while keeping a lookout on the opposite side of the road.

It was a position that allowed them to easily notice anyone who nonchalantly tried to travel along it, but as could be expected, there were no such blockheaded teams.

LLENN took her eye away from the monocle that she had been using to keep a lookout on her environment, and,

“No signs of enemies here.”

“None here either. Boring.”

“Well then, look at the scan via the terminal screen. As planned, if anyone’s too close, we’re running away at full speed.”

“Roger. I only need to touch every single dot to see the names. Leave it to me. The alphabet is easy enough.”

The satellite scan was literally a surface scan from an artificial satellite.

Until the satellite flew away, surviving team leader positions would be indicated on the map as white dots, and the last position of the teams that were wiped out or had resigned would be indicated as gray dots.

The problematic part about it was that the direction the satellite would take, and the alt.i.tude of its...o...b..t, in other words, the time until it flew away, was different each time.

If a slow scan came from the opposite side of the map, they would have the advantage of being able to find their opponents first, and vice versa. This was entirely up to luck, thus it was impossible to tell how it would work out until the scan began.

As it was necessary to confirm the opponent’s name by touching the light dot, it would probably be hectic if it was a fast scan.

LLENN and f.u.kaziroh turned the terminal’s switch to the on position. A map appeared on its screen.

And then, as the clock struck 13:10, the first satellite scan began.

It began from the north. It was a teasingly slow scan from the map’s top to bottom and from the left to the right. Since this was the first scan, perhaps it was slow out of concern not to make theplayers rush?

‘Alright……”

LLENN touched every single dot that lit up. Looking for the PM4 tag.

The dot at the top-left corner was definitely them. LF. And, there were no other dots in the near vicinity.

LLENN sighed in relief. At least there was little chance for them to be attacked during the scan.

Out of the noteworthy teams, she saw that MMTM was located in the top-right corner, in other words, the north-east. They were directly to the east on the opposite side of the map from LLENN, in the snowy mountains near the north-eastern rampart corner.

And, as the scan steadily continued south, more and more dots lit up, but no matter which she touched, it was not PM4. She could not find them.

Finally, 30 dots lit up.

‘Where are they? Where where where?’

Feeling impatient, LLENN continued touching the dots, and found s.h.i.+NC in the south-western corner. Due south from their current position.

As she continued touching every single dot to the right of it,

“There!”

At the last moment, she finally found PM4. f.u.kaziroh seemed to have found them at almost simultaneously,

“〝4 P.M.〟, found ‘em! The one farthest to the bottom-right!”

As she heard her saying this.

“Wha……. What the h.e.l.l……”

It was understandable for LLENN to mutter this.

Pitohui’s team was in the south-eastern corner of the map.

In other words, the farthest place from LLENN’s team.

“Craaaaaaaaaaaap!”

The moment when LLENN yelled so loudly that it felt like it would be heard throughout the field,

“What a shame. LLENN-chan’s team is the farthest away.”

Pitohui, who was sitting on one of the rocks dotting the slope, muttered carefreely.

Behind her,

“…………”

M silently glared at the terminal.

At the same time,

“LLENN’s team is at the north-western end. At least 8 km to the north.”

Boss said with a complicated expression. The girls were on alert in a corner of the residential district.

“What do we do?”

Asked Rosa, who was a p.r.o.ne position with her PKM and could not see the scan as she was keeping watch over the wide road,

“Unfortunately, it seems we’ll have to go for a closer fight. For now, we’ll strike the closestteam to the north-east.”

Boss instantly made the decision to postpone their match with LLENN.

At the same time,

“Looks like they intentionally scattered the favourites to the four corners of the map.”

MMTM’s leader, who had been looking at the terminal screen, realised the sponsor’s goal.

They were looking at the terminal in the shelter of the large trees spa.r.s.ely growing on the gentle slope of a ski area-like snowy mountain.

A cross-patterned rampart ran along the mountain’s slope, like the Great Wall of China, behind them.

13:11.

“Why…… Aaaagh!”

‘Is there no G.o.d or Buddha in the world of GGO? Were they all destroyed along with the beautiful blue sky during the last war? Or did they abandon a world like this and move out?’

In response to LLENN, who lamented as she looked up at the cloudy sky,

“Young la.s.sie……, life does not just, go as ye pleases, like that.”(2)

f.u.kaziroh addressed her ineloquently.

“And yet ye have cometh this far, haven’t ye……? I’ve been watching, ye know? Am I wrong?”

“That’s right…… You’re right.”

‘In that case, there’s only one thing to do!’

LLENN forcibly put her feelings behind her, put away her terminal into her breast pocket, and rushed over to f.u.kaziroh at superhuman speed.

“Our goal is the south-east! Crush anyone who gets in the way of our charge one by one!”

LLENN and f.u.kaziroh ran through the town.

The closest team confirmed by the scan was about 1500 metres along the road to the south.

Luckily, it seemed that all the other teams went to the centre of the map from their startingpoints, thus this group was the only one on their route.

‘These guys are in the way! We’ll wipe them all out before the next scan. And then, we’re getting out of the town at once and heading for the dome!’

LLENN dashed.

Although in ruins, it was still a highway. It provided the perfect footing for LLENN’s sprint.

First, LLENN ran about 200 metres in an extreme dash, then crouched behind some cover.

“Alright, clear.”

And then gave instructions to f.u.kaziroh behind her.

She lowered her MGL-140s, keeping them at her sides so they would not get in the way, and ran after LLENN.

And once she caught up, LLENN once again made an extreme dash.

If LLENN encountered an enemy along the way, she would── not attack immediately.

There was no need for that. She would lie p.r.o.ne, roll into the shadow of a cover, and avoid being shot.

At that moment, if LLENN had not been discovered by the enemy, they would be in the palms of her team's hands. She would quietly call over f.u.kaziroh, and make the first move by attacking simultaneously.

Even if they were found, it wouldn’t change anything as long as they did not get hit. She would quickly retreat, reevaluate the situation, and still make an a.s.sault with f.u.kaziroh.

At any rate, 〝not knowing where your opponents are〟 was the scary, and most tense part of a battle.

Of course, the same applied to the other party.

The tension felt while awaiting contact with the enemy was completely different from tension felt during a gun battle. Since one could fire their guns at the enemy during battle, it actually felt good.

To make things worse, their current location was the downtown area which offered plenty of spots to hide.

‘Could they be hiding in the shade of that house? Could it be that they were being targeted from the window of that house?’