Accel World Vol 2 Prologue (1/2)

Prologue

Haruyuki just stared at the steel hole with six counterclockwise spirals with his pig avatar’s eyes.

There was nothing in the surrounding s.p.a.ce. White floor and walls. A huge room sealed with a white ceiling.

In the center of the room floated a steel-blue, large automatic pistol. The slide with hairlines, the grip carved with checker rings, all showing overwhelming weight and density, sent out a cold feeling, but of course it’s not real. The reason you wouldn’t be able to tell the maker or modeler’s name is, it is just a subst.i.tute Haruyuki made with randomly selected polygon gun parts.

But it can shoot. With that intention, it pointed between the eyes of Haruyuki’s avatar who stood just 20 meters away.

After referring to the book manuals to create this virtual reality training application, on his first dive, Haruyuki was very disappointed with the dull white room. He really wanted the setting to be the roof of a high rise building, and the pistol held by a dark suited hitman, but making that kind of scenario would be too much for a poor middle school student gamer.

If he asked his uppercla.s.sman and mentor for help, no matter what kind of set, it would be easily built. However, Haruyuki did not do that. He was afraid of her asking why he would do this kind of beginner training at this time. The result, was an eye irritatingly pure white room with just one brusque handgun floating, an ultra dull subst.i.tute.

But, after actually using it, it might be better this way.

Because there was nothing aside from himself other than the gun. This made him only have to concentrate on the gun muzzle.

The pink pig avatar squatted, extended both hands slightly, and Haruyuki earnestly stared at the black hole.

He lost the feeling of time. He could not remember how many minutes he had been in that position. This application’s specification is very simple. After diving and saying “Start”, with a five second countdown, the pistol will automatically aim at Haruyuki, and from that instant on, it will randomly fire within 30 minutes.

Of course, in the real world nothing could be done and he would die, but this is a virtual s.p.a.ce made within the Neuro Linker. At the instant he sees the handgun muzzle flare, if he reacts within the shortest time, he would be able to dodge it, since he already checked the bullet speed and distance.

However, the problem is the he has no idea when the gun muzzle will flare within the 30 minutes. Different from the virtual squash game, there is no information provided like reading the ball’s path and timing. The only thing he could do, was to open his eyes wide, and keep up his concentration.

However that is a difficult thing. He had no faith in his long term concentration. A month earlier when he started this training, after just two or three minutes he relaxed, and started playing «Senpai Alb.u.m» in his mind with a small idle smile, so he was shot without mercy by the unseen hitman.

But for Haruyuki, since this is a self made application, he perversely continued the training.

Since the opponent is just one immovable pistol. In that «Field» - veteran fighters use many fearsome skills to continually fight for 30 minutes of «Duel», compared to that, this can be said to be an easy thing. In Haruyuki’s plan, one month later the number of handguns would be increased to five. However, he is currently having a hard time with just one shot from the single gun.

No talent. He understood that from the start.

However, if training cannot help him improve, then that would mean the «Top» - next to that person, will be forever denied to him.

‘s.h.i.+t. s.h.i.+ttt. I have to become faster and stronger. For that person. To continue being that person’s partner.’

The haste in Haruyuki’s heart, became noise that made the avatar’s extremities tense.

Then, as if it was waiting for that - .

Click, with that metallic sound the trigger moved. The hammer hit the firing pin. At the same time the slide was blown back, orange flash blew from the muzzle.

“A...!!”

Haruyuki did a full jump to the right.

However his reaction was a bit slow, the bullet that flew in with a roar hit a point between his left cheek and ear.

He was blown away as if being hit by a huge hammer, bouncing many times on the white floor, and the intense pain that hit him made him scream.

“A... uaaaa...!!”

His two short hands holding his face, he continued screaming as he rolled on the floor.

This application, was installed with an illegal patch from the net, rendering the default pain absorber in the Neuro Linker useless. On top of that, if the gain for pain was set high enough, shock equal to being hit by a real gun would be applied to the diver.

“A... a...!!”

With tears falling, and full body convulsions, Haruyuki thrashed about on the floor. This is the third time he tasted this pain today. One month after the training started, he can no longer remember how many times total this had happened. However many times he got hit, he could not seem to get used to it. Putting it another way, he had already got used to the mid level pain quickly, so it’s mostly the upper limit of pain now.

However due to that harmful effect, eventually the Neuro Linker will detect the abnormality in Haruyuki’s brain waves and activate the safety, automatically canceling full dive. This is a hardware function, so it could not be easily cracked. This time too, he reached that threshold, and suddenly with a ‘Butsun’ sound effect, the white room disappeared from his eyes.

The feeling of weight changed its axis. From the deep darkness, stretching out radially, the view of reality appeared.