Sword Art Online Alternative – Gun Gale Online Chapter 6

“Let’s get’em!”

In front the rubble in the urban area around 200 metres away from LLENN,

“Hyahhaa!”

Were men pounding away with their machine guns with eloquent smiles.

Five in total.

All of them had quite rough-bodied avatars, though not to the extent of M.

And, the small arms in their hands were all rough as well.

“This is fuuuuuuuun!”

The man shouting this was pounding away with one of the most famous machine guns in the world, the FN MAG, in full auto.

With his bipod mounted on the pile of rubble, his target was, of course, the forest across the highway.

A heavy and low *dodododododododododododododo* sound resounded, pulling in dust from the surroundings with the shockwave of its muzzle. The 7.62 mm bullets in the ammunition beltextending from the left side of the gun were sucked up at a speed of 10 bullets or more per second and discharged forward, while the empty shells were ejected from the metal linksattached to the belt and dispersed to the gun’s right side. 

The muzzle kept spewing out red, red flame, and the tracers inserted at intervals of 1 every 5 bullets kept drawing orange lines. Several metres to the side was,

“Doryaaaaaaaaaaaa!”

Heatedly shouting, a man who was holding a ≪M240B≫, a model of the FN MAG adopted by the United States Armed Forces—— which was the same gun except for its appearance—— by itscarrying handle in his left hand, with the gun’s stock under his arms, attacked in rapid-fire while standing.

The remaining three men also used machine guns.

One with a 7.62 mm ≪M60E3≫ machine gun.

One with a 5.56 mm light machine gun, the Minimi.

And the last one with a ≪Negev≫, which was inspired by the Minimi and made by the Israel Military Industries, lying atop a pile of rubble while shooting.

The battle scene was being broadcast, so light blue circles, indicating the position of cameras in the air, were moving around them, looking for a cool angle.

Setting aside the hidden power of such opponents,

“Hyaa!”

To LLENN, who was being shot at, it did not change the fact that she was in a pinch.

The 5 machine guns kept incessantly firing bullets at her, so the surrounding area was in an awful condition.

In merely a minute, the trees near LLENN had become riddled with holes. Naturally, some of them were also destroyed.

LLENN ended up imagining ‘Even the large tree trunk I’m hiding behind, though I can’t see it, could be half gouged out, and in the meantime, they could be coming to kill me.’

“Uu……”

Shivers went down her spine.

While the rain of iron continued mercilessly, 

“M-san M-sa-an!”

LLENN sought help from her only comrade.

The satellite scan time should have already ended, so she thought ‘Even if he came to save me, no, even if coming here was unreasonable, he could do something,’ but…

“Stay where you are. Don’t move tactlessly.”

The answer from M was very cool yet cold.

“Guu……”

LLENN wanted to somehow run away from this bullet hailstorm area , but even if she moved,Bullet Lines conspicuously shone in the surroundings. She would be shot before she reached the next tree.

“Shiit!”

Swearing in an unfeminine manner, she curled herself up and sat motionlessly.

“Hm? What’s going on? Huh?”

Her surroundings had suddenly become quiet, so LLENN, who had curled herself up and was sitting on the ground grasping her knees, stood up. The silence was too abrupt, so, for a moment, she thought that she could have been shot and died. ‘Is this heaven, no, the waiting area that you are transported to after death?’

At her soliloquy,

“A team that was in the urban area finally came within the effective range of their guns. You did hear three gunshots from different guns, right? You’ve been saved.”

M’s calm, and just a tad glad, voice answered. Then,

“I’m coming to you now. Don’t shoot me by mistake.”

That phrase.

LLENN waited, shouting ‘fi-nally!’ in her mind.

Soon, the dark depths of the forest squirmed, and she recognised the large figure in camouflage clothes.

In the suddenly still world, M arrived at the shadow of a large tree 10 metres to the left of LLENN, and skillfully expanded his EBR’s bipod, then lay down on top of the soil.

While M was peeking through the M14 EBR’s scope in a prone posture,

“So……, what happened?”

Finally feeling relieved, LLENN asked, and finally, M answered.

“I didn’t dare to tell you about it, but at the time of the scan, there was another team aside from those machine gun guys. They were within range to participate in the battle. Moreover, they were in the south, in the central part of the urban area.”

“I see…… So those people hurriedly came, and attacked the people who were shooting at me, from behind.”

“Right. Those machine gun guys either saw the scan and thought that there was still some distance between them and were negligent, or were surprised that you, LLENN, were too close, or completely overlooked it from the start. Either way, they were careless.”

“Th-then! M-san, you understood that and decided to use me as a decoy?”

LLENN asked while showing her anger a bit, but… 

“Right.”

She had no words to reply with, due to how quickly he affirmed that.

M searched his pocket with a rummaging sound and,

“Take this.”

Threw something as he faced LLENN.

‘Basing on the size, a grenade?’, thought LLENN and put herself on guard, but since there was absolutely no reason for him to attack a comrade, she immediately reassessed it. He threw that something to her with splendid control, and she herself splendidly caught it with just her left hand.

It was a tiny monocle, in other words, a telescope(6) meant to be used with one eye. Some time ago, she had borrowed this from Pitohui and had used it. It was a convenient item that came with the ability to measure distance with a laser, and it should be considerably expensive to buy.

“You haven’t held one? Use it. For a while, observe the situation from here.”

“Th-thanks.”

LLENN transferred it to her right hand, and while having it in front of her dominant right eye, she sneakily and slowly peeked out from the shade of the tree.

No Bullet Lines could be seen in her vicinity, so at least for the moment, it seemed that there was no need to worry about being shot by the machine gun group.

If she was being targeted by an enemy on the other side—— in the case of not discovering the enemy, the initial Bullet Line would not be shown, so she could no longer do anything about it, but she believed that even they would probably defeat the enemy in their vicinity first. There should be another 5 minutes or more until the next satellite scan and the possibility of yet another enemy coming here was low.

“There were five machine gun bastards. Three are already dead.”

Just as M, who confirmed the situation through the scope of his M14 EBR, said, LLENN saw three men with 【Ｄｅａｄ】 tag shining over them beyond the lens. For a test, she pressed the buttonto measure the distance, and „197M“ was displayed.

In that vicinity, in front of the pile of rubble, were the surviving two. They were guarding against the enemy from their backs, thus they were currently exposing their whole bodies to LLENN and M.

“Those two, they are not looking at us at all. M-san, can’t we use this opportunity to shoot them?”

LLENN enquired. 200 metres should be a certain-hit distance for M’s M14 EBR. But instead, she wanted to shoot and kill them with her P90. To pay them back for the scary feeling moments ago.

“You can’t. Right now, we’re not attacking them from here. I’m even giving you an order, so don’t you dare shoot.”

‘Why’, LLENN wanted to ask, but refrained from doing so.

“They’re coming…… The main street on the left side. In the shadow of an upside down bus.”

LLENN pointed her lens to the left at the street M indicated. About 150 metres away from the group, a large bus was toppled over and smashed, and human figures squirmed at its side.

“Ooh!”

Excited, LLENN increased the magnification by operating the device with her fingers. It zoomedsmoothly like a video camera, and the device automatically focused, allowing her to recognise the details of those people.

The new enemy team comprised four people. Their black and dark brown camouflage matching clothes were like a team uniform. On their heads, they had similarly camouflage-patterned helmets. Additionally, they were wearing bank robber-like black ski masks, called ≪balaclava≫, and she could not see their faces at all.

The four currently moved in a vertical line, and the man in the vanguard, holding a black andslim rifle, was smoothly, as if his gun wasn’t shaking at all, advancing forward.

Judging from their appearance, the three following him from the back were holding the same guns, and maintaining a reasonable distance of about 2 metres. Only the last one of them occasionally turned around and watched their rear.

LLENN could not recognise the type of rifle, but as if reading her thoughts,

“≪FALs≫ huh. 7.62 mm. It’s the airborne troop short version.”

She heard M’s voice.

A FAL had a high accuracy rate semi auto fire, along with the power of 7.62 mm bullets, thus they were popular among players. The four men were holding the airborne troop version of that FAL. It was a model with a folding stock and a rather short barrel that made it easier to use.

The group of four with matching guns and matching masks and camouflage clothes continued moving from the shadow of the bus to the side of a pile of rubble, then to the shadow of another broken vehicle without pause.

Before they moved out from the corner of their cover, LLENN saw the man in the vanguard holding something out in front of him, and wondering what it was, she tried zooming in and realised that it was a small mirror attached to the tip of a pole.

‘I get it, they’re confirming what’s around the corner, LLENN admired. 

The destination of the four was, of course, the location where the two machine gun guys that were bewildered at the loss of their comrades, and hadn’t moved at all since then.

“The masked guys sure know what they’re doing. They’re cooperating.”

M revealed his impression of them, and, while peeking through the monocle, LLENN asked.

“That team only has four people?”

“No. There are more.”

“How? Do you see them? Where?”

“I haven’t found them, but they are advancing towards the position of those two guys by following one of the shortest paths while completely hiding themselves. Someone has to be giving them instructions from the top of a building. The other two are probably watching from the window of a building. They’re definitely carrying sniper rifles. They are also the guys who shot those three machine gun guys.”

‘Uhya’, uttered LLENN, and decreased the magnification.

In a situation when the position of the opponent was unknown, the Bullet Lines would not be shown. Snipers who could shoot all of a sudden and were capable of instantly killing someone in one bullet were disliked in both the real world and in GGO.

There were buildings of various sizes lined up on the other side of the pile of rubble, so there were just as many points suitable for sniping. LLENN tried observing carefully again, but saw neither the figures of the people, nor their guns.

“They’re not there.”

“They’re not in a place where you can find them easily. Exposing their guns and bodies as they shoot is the death of a sniper.”

A persuasive answer came from M. And then,

“Dividing their team with merely six members is a bold strategy. A team that can do so without hesitation is strong.”

Words of appraisal as well.

“Those two are going to be hit soon.”

At M’s words, LLENN, who had still been looking for the snipers, returned her field of vision to the two machine gun guys.

The four masked guys got within 50 metres range of the two machine gun guys, and continued approaching by treading through piles of rubble.

The two guys, who hadn’t noticed this at all, seemed to talking about something in a panic, but, of course, LLENN could not hear it.

“Let’s get out of here!”

“But, if we poke our heads out, we’ll be shot!”

‘Something like that?’, LLENN imagined.

As LLENN watched attentively, the four guys, who had approached the pile of rubble merely 20metres away before their targets, finished their preparations for an attack. With faint gestures, they suddenly spread out.

The one in the vanguard threw a grenade. It fell and exploded in a place slightly away from their two targets where it wouldn’t deal great damage, but that was sufficient. 

The two machine gun guys stood up in a panic and ran away. The remaining three attackers targeted their backs and began quickly and accurately firing at them with rhythmicallyresounding gunshots.

The two hadn’t managed to get far, so, without even being able to counterattack, they collapsed on the spot with gaudy, red hit effects flashing and ended up with the same fate as their comrades.

“Sigh……”

It was unclear whether LLENN’s sigh was mourning that the two characters were killed in action, or feeling sorry that they left SJ, or lamenting that she wanted to kill them herself.

In all VR games, including GGO, there were two types of „things that one can do“.

The first was—— what the character can do.

In other words, things that anyone could do automatically if their character obtained the required skill in exchange for experience points.

In GGO, there were things like high-power bomb production, gun part and knife production, increasing sniping accuracy rate, seeing details from afar with astounding eyesight—— and a variety of other abilities.

Skills also had levels, so either the success rate, speed or grade would increase in proportion to how much the skill was raised.

And, the other was——, things that the player could do in RL even without having the skill .

Naturally, it was possible for players to do what they could in RL even without taking the skill. Since the body would according to the nerve impulses detected by the AmuSphere.

For example, calligraphy. This didn’t exist in GGO, but characters that obtained a skill „writing characters beautifully“ could achieve magnificent handwriting by just trying to write as they always do.

On the other hand, players who were fond of handwriting in RL could do that even without taking the skill. Of course, such a person could not write better than they had learned in RL.

Naturally, what one could do with a skill could only be done in the game.

Basically, just because someone obtained a calligraphy skill, that doesn’t mean they would be able to write beautiful characters in the real world.

1. ^ According to wikipedia, “guerrilla rainstorm” (ゲリラ豪雨) is an expression which is used by Japanese media to describe short localized downpours of over 100 mm of rain per hour since 2006.

2. ^ Tracers are bullets that leave a visible trail of their trajectory, allowing the shooter to make aiming corrections.

3. ^ The same line in SECT.4 did not have “at least” (最低), in case anyone decides to compare them.

4. ^ Japanese for “All-Japan”

5. ^ “Re” from “renkei” (連携) in the original.

6. ^ Binoculars and monocles are counted as types of telescopes in Japanese.

Chapter end