Vol 3 Chapter 8 (1/2)

Chapter 8

SECT.17 - Return of the Demon

The sound of the explosion from the plasma grenade that would put them out of their misery,

”Wha?”

Reached M from outside the window.

Even with his eyes closed, he knew what the hit point gauges at the top left showed. His own was…green. And, Pitohui's… was also green.

The moment M opened his eyes, he saw,

”Whoa whoa, what're you doing? A lovers’ suicide? Are we in Sonezaki?(1) Or Roppongi?(2) We’re not! This is GGO!”

The avatar of the woman he loved, glaring at him as she said that.

Pitohui had raised the top half of her body from the bed, her right arm pointing straight out the window.

M understood.

That, having regained consciousness, Pitohui threw the plasma grenade outside the open window, and it exploded on the ground.

”Aah!”

When M opened his eyes and tears of joy began flowing down, his face,

”You dumba.s.s!”

Was a.s.saulted by Pitohui's right hand, which had formed a fist.

”Augh!”

His left cheek was punched.

”You dummy!”

”Gefuh!”

His right cheek received a backhand blow.

”You idiot!”

”Gah!”

His chest received a strike from the heel of her palm, or the firm part below the palm, in other words.

His huge body was easily blown back and he collapsed, shaking the floor.

”And here I was having a nice dream!”

Having suddenly leapt up from the bed, Pitohui stood up in front of M. Then,

”Why you why you!”

She used her foot to press on M's nether region with extreme force,

”Gaugaugagagagagagah!”

And, as if struck by electricity, his large limbs began flailing noisily.

”Gaugagaaaagagagagagaga!”

”Don't ya just up an' decide to kill me!”

”Gagagagagagagaga!”

This situation… was fortunately not broadcast either.

Several seconds later──

Having suddenly removed her leg from M, Pitohui lifted her beloved KTR-09, left beside the bed, with her right hand,

”It's just the two of us, huh. What about the enemy?”

And requested a status update.

”MMTM, down the stairs. They'll be rus.h.i.+ng up here very soon.”

Quickly standing up with a serious look, M nimbly drew his HK45 from his right thigh. On his burly figure, there was no sign of him having been in agony just moments ago.

”Welp, guess we'll just ma.s.sacre them!”

Giving a broad grin, Pitohui turned her left hand toward her waist. She opened the cover of the pouch there, and her hand went inside.

M asked a question.

”You said 〝And here I was having a nice dream〟──about what?”

While pulling out the contents of her pouch, Pitohui answered.

”A dream of going wild in the death game that Sword Art Online had become, with sword in hand, together with my merry buddies from the beta period!”

A pale light illuminated her fiendish smile.

The MMTM members, who went up to the second floor fluidly like a stream, rushed into the guest room to their immediate left, in other words, the western side of the building.

The tall man had brought the bed from this room, thus they had concluded that the remaining PM4 members were there.

However, there was no one inside the s.p.a.cious guest room.

As Jake kept watch on the east side with his machine gun in the corridor, MMTM rushed into the next room──

'Clear!'

And confirmed that no one was there. The room was a mess from the leader's grenade attack, but there were no corpses there. Nor were there any places to hide. An MG3 machine gun that had lost its owner stood there in silence.

In that case──

With simple hand signs, the leader gave an order.

〝Opposite side, eastern room, we're goin' in.〟

The situation was broadcast to the bar.

Keeping their posture low, the six men crossed the centre of the approximately 2 metre-wide corridor, doing their best to avoid their footsteps making any sound.

GGO players avoided walking along the walls as much as possible, .

The reason for that was ricochet. When an enemy bullet hit the wall obliquely, its angle would drop, and it would come at them mostly along the wall.

MMTM crossed the centre of the corridor in a line. They were prepared for the man in the lead to be shot if the enemy jumped out and fired at them.

But his body would become a s.h.i.+eld that would protect the others. And the man behind him would bring down the enemy.

There were only two rooms left.

M and that woman… were in one of the two.

Without a sound or a word, the six men advanced through the corridor.

Avoiding the hole in front of the stairs where a man had fallen down, they s.h.i.+fted the direction of their muzzles bit by bit.

In the lead was the not-chicken G36K wielder, Kenta, boasting the highest speed on the team.

Following him was Lax, the sungla.s.ses man with the same gun.

Bold, the dark-skinned ARX160 man.

The muscular Samon, holding a SCAR-L.

Then, it was the turn of the leader, a handsome man wielding an STM-556 switched to its short barrel.

The slender Jake, having taken some distance from them, was the rearguard──the valuable man keeping watch on their rear.

There were roughly 7 metres from the stairs to the door that served as the entrance to the room on their right-hand side.

In fights taking place inside buildings, alongside ricochet, one absolutely had to watch out for〝Wall piercingKabenuki〟.

As the name implied, it referred to bullets piercing through cover, such as walls and doors, and flying at them. In other words, a sudden attack from an unseen enemy.

In GGO, it was possible to sense enemies beyond the wall through items like sonar sensors, which used sound to determine the position of the enemy, or skills with a similar effect. Even more simply, a 〝gut feeling〟 that the enemy was around there.

Be that as it may, even if you knew their position, kabenuki would be impossible if the attack could not reach its target. Whether or not it was possible varied based on the gun caliber, as well as the type and thickness of the cover.

Rifle bullets had an awful lot of penetration, thus walls in a simple wooden house could easily be pierced. Exactly like how, just moments ago, Jake was able to bring down the enemy on the second floor by shooting through the floorboards.

However, at the moment, to MMTM's left and right were large logs, about 70 cm-wide.

Shooting through them with anything other than an anti-materiel rifle, even though not completely impossible, would still be quite difficult. And even if the bullets were to somehow pierce, they would lose a large amount of power, the remainder of which would be greatly insufficient to kill.

In that sense, in this corridor, it would be enough to be cautious of attacks from the front and back, as well as the windows. It was relatively safe.

Or it should have been safe.

The moment Kenta was three steps away from the door──

Vehement gunshots resounded in the corridor, and the leader saw.

How Samon, who was walking in front of him, had hit effects light up in succession on his right side.

”Gyafu!”

His large body twisted to the right, and as more light spouted, his SCAR-L's enhanced plastic stock was torn to pieces. Once the bullets finished destroying the stock, they again a.s.sailed its owner.

His hit points began decreasing at an alarming rate. Having seen such situations many times over, he knew what it meant. This momentum indicated instant death.

”Right! From the window!”

The leader broke the silence to shout to his comrades, but even he was unable to understand.

He understood that the attack was coming from the room, but──

'How could so many bullets pierce the ma.s.sive logs, and yet attack without losing their power?'

'Could it be that these logs were only here for the sake of appearance, like in a movie set? Can kabenuki work on them?'

”Why yooou!”

Bold, who had been walking ahead of the dying Samon, unleashed a semi-auto rapid fire on the wall with his ARX160, causing wood chips to scatter.

They clearly did not pierce the wall,

”Stop!”

And just as the leader gave this order, the enemy's shooting also stopped. Samon, who seemed to have been shot in the abdomen,

”Grud!”

Cursed as he collapsed and fell to the floor, the emblem on his left shoulder depicting a skull holding a knife in its mouth hitting the floor first. A 【Ｄｅａｄ】 marker lit up.

Since it had come to this, they had to break in as soon as possible and kill the two inside.

As if having having foreseen the leader's thoughts, a large hole opened up in the door in front of Kenta.

Seeing several holes open with one attack, it was undoubtedly caused by a shotgun. An attack from inside. And it was three consecutive attacks.

”Tch!”

If he had been just one, no, half a step ahead, Kenta would have been turned into beehive just like the door, but he, along with his G36K, managed to pull back. It was already too dangerous to stand in front.

At that moment, MMTM's fluid movements suddenly came to a halt.

Having stopped shooting, Bold drew closer to the edge of the wall and, from the side, brought his face closer to the place where the bullets that shot his comrades came from.

And, he informed his comrades of what he had found with a whisper.

”There's a hole!”

'So that's it, they got us good!'

MMTM's leader was astonished at the exceedingly simple, and effective, trick──, no trap.

PM4 had, naturally, predicted that they would pa.s.s through here, thus while the mask- and goggle-wearing men bought time, the enemy had secretly made holes where a log met another log.

He did not know how yet, though. It did not seem like they had the leeway to open holes with bullets, thus perhaps there was a powerful electric drill inside. The plasma grenade explosion outside just moments ago could have been done to camouflage the noise from that work.

Bold, who found the hole, pressed his back against the wall next to it and, without delay, inserted the muzzle of his own gun, the ARX160. This way, even if the enemy fired, the only thing that would be hit would be the gun. Then, he began rhythmically firing the gun in semi-auto──

When, after 2 shots, it stopped.

”Gah……?”

His face… froze with an expression of anguish and confusion.

Then, the leader - and the others, aside from Kenta, who was in the lead and keeping an eye on the door - saw.

How, leaning against the wall, Bold, or specifically, his right eye, began s.h.i.+ning a bluish-white.

Then, the light increased in intensity and formed the shape of a rod, slowly piercing his eye. Having projected about 3 cm out of his eye, it stopped there.

”Gaaaaaaaaaah.”

Bold began trembling as his right eye s.h.i.+ned blue. His hand let go of the gun, and, still having its muzzle inserted into the hole, the ARX160 became a part of the wall.

In the upper left corner of the leader's view, Bold's hit points were decreasing with terrifying momentum.

'Aah……, s.h.i.+t…… So that's what it was!'

He was a bit too late to realise it. This time, he did not have the leeway to commend his enemy; he just cursed himself.

He had forgotten about a weapon that could easily pierce the 70 cm-wide logs, and the head of a person standing beyond them.

Because there was no way he would use such a thing, it fell outside of his memory.

Although, a newbie player, whose name he had never heard, had run wild with one during the previous, third BoB tournament.

It was an ultra powerful and ultra-close range weapon that did not exist in the real world.

A weapon that produced a blade of light about 1 metre in length and cut up anything it touched.

The sword of the gun world── a photon sword.

Bold turned into a corpse and his feet lost their strength.

At the same time, the photon sword was pulled out of him, and the ghost-like bluish-white light disappeared from the corridor. Then, the corpse tumbled down.

The next moment, a bluish-white circle was drawn on the wall.

An instant, one-stroke sketch of a circle, about 1.5 metres in diameter, appeared on the log wall. And it was right in front of the aforementioned vanguard, Kenta──

”Dodge!”

The leader's shout and the moment the wall attacked Kenta coincided. With extreme force from inside the room, the round logs were blown away──

”Fubeh!”

After sending Kenta flying, they sandwiched him against the wall on the other side of the corridor.

And from the resulting hole in the wall suddenly came… a very ordinary hand grenade. It fell atop the head of Kenta, trapped between the wall and circle, and exploded there.

Kenta's upper body, from the chest up, was blown to pieces, and a red polygon light shone inside the corridor. The logs cut in a circular shape separated on the spot and crumbled down.

Several fragments from the hand grenade a.s.saulted the closest man, Lax. The blast blew the sungla.s.ses off his face.

”Why yooou!”

Undaunted by the damage, he unleashed a semi-auto rapid fire with his G36K placed firmly against his right shoulder. Pa.s.sing through the newly-created hole, his bullets went into the room.

The leader followed suit right away by beginning to fire, aiming his beloved gun at the hole located about 3 metres diagonally forward while moving sideways towards the front of the hole.

At this rate, they had no choice but to approach the hole while shooting intermittently, then rush into the room at once to bring them down. Compare to being attacked unilaterally, it was better to rush forward and fight in a place where they could at least see their enemy, and defeat them.

From the hole, at a low position, something came rolling out into the corridor.

It was a black, round, large, spherical ma.s.s that looked like a smallish watermelon.

It was a gigantic plasma grenade, commonly known as a 〝Giga-nade〟.

As proof that its activation switch has been pressed, a part of it was giving off flickering light.

”Hih!” ”Bah──!”

Lax's and the leader's stiff voices were magnificently synchronised. They stopped shooting.

'Is the enemy an idiot! Do they want to die with us!'

The leader questioned the sanity of his opponents. Who would have thought that, in such a confined s.p.a.ce, they would use strong-even-in-normal-circ.u.mstances plasma grenades… three times stronger version, the Giga-nade.

They did not know how many seconds were set on the timer, but when it exploded, it would, naturally, not only take them out due to being in close vicinity, but also not leave the one who threw the grenade, hiding beyond the hole, unscathed.

And then he understood.

'Aah…… knowing her…… she'd do it.’

'Knowing that crazed woman, knowing Pitohui──'

'If it were to kill an enemy standing before her, she was entirely unwary of dying herself. In the past, when I had just began playing GGO, I had seen such conduct… many times over.'

'She's prepared to die and take us with her! That s.h.i.+thead!'

The leader, despite thinking that it was pointless, attempted to dodge. At that very moment, he saw.

How Lax, whose feet were right next to the fallen Giga-nade, threw away his gun and covered the Giga-nade.

〝If it covered a hand grenade, the person's body would become a s.h.i.+eld, protecting his comrades in the area despite dying himself.〟

Such an act overflowing with self-sacrifice repeated itself time and time again in RL battlefields at all times and places. And even in GGO's world.

However, that was the case for ordinary hand grenades that launched fragments with the blast.

But if one were to ask how effective this would be on high-power plasma grenades, and the even more destructive Giga-nades──

The answer would probably be 'negligible'.