Sword Art Online Alternative – Gun Gale Online Vol 2 Chapter 6

The special field for this tournament really was a space surrounded by a square rampart.

Assuming 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 spacious 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 spacious 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 skyscraper 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?” 

Fukaziroh 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 assume 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 shining 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. Fukaziroh 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 Fukaziroh, 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.

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!”

Fukaziroh 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, nobody 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 wristwatch 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 clashing 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.”

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 prone 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.

13:11.

“Why…… Aaaagh!”

‘Is there no God 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 lassie……, life does not just, go as ye pleases, like that.”(2)

Fukaziroh 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 Fukaziroh at superhuman speed.

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

Once one began having such doubts, there would be no end to them. And, it would result in being unable to move forward any further.

‘Hey hey where are you? I’ll find you!’

Concealing her fear with confidence, LLENN continued advancing, relying on her eyes and speed.

As time, which felt like walking on a tightrope over pincushions, continued ticking, and she had travelled about half the distance to the target, about 800 metres, it happened.

“There!”

Luck was on LLENN’s side.

Just as she stopped at the corner of a crossroad to look around, and peeked around it, she found the enemy team 150 metres away.

They had taken up position at the crossroad. The four people that she could see were lying on the ground behind broken vehicles and garbage cans, with their assault rifles ready, and were trying to ambush anyone that came into the alley.

At the current moment when there were still plenty of teams remaining, such defensive behaviour was reasonable. Bringing down an enemy caught in their web rather than carelessly moving around.

Actually, if LLENN had crossed the road, she would have been discovered and attacked. Whether she would have been hit is a different question.

“Found them. Come here slowly.”

Reporting this, LLENN retreated slowly. Of course, in a posture that allowed her to immediately return fire with her P90 if she saw anything moving.

She regrouped with Fukaziroh── they kept a safe distance of 10 metres so as not to be seen by them from their ambush spot and avoid a wipe-out by grenades and full-auto rapid-fire as they gradually approached their enemies.

The time was nearly 13:16. She wanted to wipe them out before the next scan.

Not even 4 minutes remained, but it was normal for gun battles to be quick to start and quick to end, thus they would probably make it if things went according to plan.

Pointing at a one-storey house across a narrow road, LLENN,

“That house over there! Turn left at the road behind it, and you’ll find the enemy camp at the intersection of the wide road about 50 metres away.”

“Roger. Hohho~, this is exciting. The grenade fairy will beat the crud out of those ambush fairy bastards.”

LLENN heard Fukaziroh’s excited voice.

At this point, she did not need to explain the plan.

LLENN stealthily approached the target from the other side of the house, and Fukaziroh prepared to fire from a somewhat safe spot. Upon LLENN’s order, she would hit them hard with hergrenades. It was a combination that they had used many times over against monsters.

It would be impossible to drastically miss the targets at this range, thus the 6 grenades fired in succession should explode in their surroundings. Taking advantage of the chaos, LLENN would snipe them with her P90, as tens of metres was a good distance for her to be sufficiently accurate.

If the number of enemies decreased, or they started running away, she would assault them and bring them down.

Of course, there was the danger of being shot by desperate opponents. If a random bullet managed to hit her brain stem or spinal cord, she could suffer instant death due to the heavydamage.

But, one could not win a gunfight by avoiding it because of the danger. It wasn’t wise to confuse recklessness and boldness, but there was no chance of winning without attacking.

“Okay, leave it to me.”

Keeping an eye on her surroundings, LLENN waited in the back for Fukaziroh to slowly approach the house and reach a firing position at the street corner. This was in consideration of the small possibility that the enemy team had split up or another team had arrived at lightning speed.

However, that was not the case,

“Just a bit more.”

Fukaziroh continued tiptoeing along the wall, and just as she was about to reach the perfect spot,

“Hm?”

And the moment LLENN raised her head at the curious sound, a grenade exploded at Fukaziroh’s feet.

“Uhya!”

Fukaziroh, who had fallen on the ground with her backpack, was missing the legs below her shins.

A red hit effect gleamed dazzlingly below her her black tights. Due to the power of the explosion, both of her feet had been torn off.

LLENN could see the hit point gauge that belong to her, and another than belonged to her partner, in the upper-left corner of her vision.

LLENN’s was of course still in green, but Fukaziroh’s decreased with a *gūn* sound, and stopped after dropping by three quarters.

Although she had lost her legs, LLENN was impressed at Fukaziroh’s sturdiness, as she survived such a degree of damage, but she had no time to be immersed in her feelings.

“So~rry!”

LLENN went into an extreme dash to the apologising Fukaziroh.

She had two options.

One was to leave Fukaziroh, who was unable to move, behind, run away at full speed, and continue SJ2 all by herself.

The other was to do everything she could to save the girl who wielded excellent supporting firepower.

LLENN chose the latter. There was no hesitation.

In VR games, a character’s state of having their fingers or limbs torn off wasn’t a permanent status. After about 2 minutes, they would return to normal. If it wasn’t like that, it would become entirely impossible to play after losing one’s legs due to bad luck.

However, the enemy team, about 50 metres away on the other side,

“Woow! The trap sprung!”

Who cheered like that, would definitely not continue with their ambush for 2 minutes or more.

They should be taking the opportunity to come out of their encampment and head to where they had confirmed a threat, although it was possible that not every one of them would come.

Watching out for other traps, LLENN rushed over to Fukaziroh, and pulled open the door the to the entranceway of a nearby house.

Having looked inside and confirmed that there were no traps in there,

“Sorryyyyy!”

She grabbed the apologetic Fukaziroh’s backpack with her hands,

“Taah!”

And dragged her body into the house using all her strength, while shouting. And then, she closed the door with the highest level of agility.

During that very short moment, she noticed that red markers, indicating the position of camerasthat were prowling for battle to broadcast, had been overlooking them.

As the curtains were closed, it was dark in the house, and all she could confirm was that there seemed to be a kitchen and living room inside.

Even so, LLENN continued forcibly dragging Fukaziroh until they reached the centre of the room. The cameras did not follow them inside.

And several seconds later, she heard numerous footsteps. They came from outside, and there was no need to question who they belonged to.

Based on the frequency of the footsteps, there were at least three people there, though it seemed there were more.

“I’m sorry! Leave me and run away!”

Fukaziroh, sitting with her footless legs thrown out in front, said with a twisted expression, but,

“If you die.”

LLENN only gave such a reply.

Soon,

“Not here! They’re not dead!”

“So they ran away?”

She could even hear the tense voices of the men while indoors. It seemed that the house was a cheap structure. Because of that, it was considerably helpful to LLENN.

“No, they should have completely fallen for the trap! There’s no way they can walk!”

She could not see them, but she understood. That the men had surrounded the house a short distance away. With their guns at the ready and aiming their weapons in the same direction as their glances.

“Did they carry their mate across the street and run away?”

“Nope, didn’t see them!”

“Like they’d have the time for that!”

“Well then──”

“Yeah, can’t think of anything else!”

‘So they’ve realised it, huh.’

Strangely feeling calm, LLENN thought.

“They’re inside the house!”

There was quite some excitement in the bar.

The situation was perfectly clear to the audience watching the broadcast.

The team that included the previous champion LLENN had been thoroughly caught in a simplebooby trap, and were confined in a small house.

The cameras commanding a view of the house from the sky were relaying the desperate situation the two were in.

A single worn-out house. Surrounding it were six men that had rushed there from their ambush position.

Their weapons were 4 matching 5.56 mm 《M16A3》assault rifles.

An 《UZI》submachine gun that used 9 mm pistol bullets.

And, a 12-gauge pump-action shotgun 《Ithaca M37》.

“Oi oi, the favourite is going to lose here? No way!”

Someone shouted at the broadcast screen. He spoke on behalf of the entire audience.

The six men were about 3 metres apart from each other, and surrounded the house in a fan shape. They did not deploy any of their team to the other side. Because there was the possibility that glass- and wall-piercing bullets could hit their allies.

“Those guys aren’t dumb. Were they one of those debuting repechaged teams? It would be a most spectacular victory(3) if they succeed here.”

“Battles are heartless. There’s a fundamental limit to what two people can do. If they were a six-man team, the other four would now be shooting at them.”

“So they’re done for already……”

“No, there’s no way my LLENN-chan would lose like this, don’t you think?”

“Uh huh, since when has she been yours?”

It was hard to tell whether or not the audience was tense, but on the large monitor screen in front of them──

The six men readied their guns. And completed the preparations for firing a volley. 

The man who seemed like the leader and wielded the UZI, raised his left arm high. And, the moment that he swung it down, fire spouted from the six muzzles, and the gunfire resounded through the speakers,

“Aah!”

Quelling the scream-like commotion in the audience.

They saw.

How before the bullets could tear through the glass, it burst open from inside, and a pink object jumped out from it.
 

On screen, the pink lump turned into a human figure. And then, it extended its right hand, and the pink object held in it spouted fire.

The mid-air discharge hit the head of the man who had been pounding away with his UZI held at his waist, and created numerous red hit effects.

The man’s face and head got hit by 5 5.7 mm bullets, and collapsed to the right.

He continued firing even while falling, but soon stopped as he ran out of bullets, and a 【Ｄｅａｄ】marker lit up over his body with a *pikon* sound.

“That’s two!”

A count had begun in the bar.

The pink chibi, no, the previous champion LLENN, was rampaging at a speed that could barely be caught by the eyes of humans.

After slaughtering the second man with her shooting that was barely different from stabbing, she immediately fixed her aim on the man in her immediate vicinity, and discharged while using the second man’s body as cover.

After about 0.5 seconds of firing, hit effects began shining from the man’s chest, face and head.

“That’s three!”

The players in the bar,

“Huh?” “Wha?” “Oh?”

Saw that LLENN did not shoot.

The pink chibi closed the distance so quickly that it could be called godspeed, then slid on her legs. She slipped under the man’s muzzle, and then between his legs, to the opposite side.

‘Why didn’t she shoot? Is she going to shoot now?’

The audience’s doubt was cleared up right away.

Because the M16A3 separated from its owner’s hands, and fell down.

The tall man made an expression that was similar to the one made by the person in 『Munch’s Scream』(5), however, rather than covering his ears, he covered his groin instead.

“Huh?” “Uugh” “Geh!”

The bar’s audience finally understood what had happened after the view quickly zoomed up.

Wasn’t that a bright red hit effect shining on his groin under his hands?’

And then, the camera went slightly down, and there they saw LLENN supporting herself with her P90 in her left hand, and a black knife held in a backhand grip in her right hand.

LLENN had pulled out her knife as she passed through, and using that force, she made a vertical cut.

The moment they realised what the exceedingly fast action that they could not see was,

“…………”

All the men in the bar had their eyes opened wide in terror and the chills went down their spine. There were even some who covered their groins.

No matter how far GGO went, it was still a VR game, so although it had some sensations, they were all fake. Naturally, the pain was quite different from the real world equivalent.

For example, even if the player was shot, they would only feel that spot becoming numb. It was often compared to the pain felt when an acupressure point was pressed by needles or fingers.

However──

There probably were no practitioners in either world who would tap a man’s most vital area with fingers or needles

Nobody knew what the tall man on the screen was feeling now.

There was a safety device in the AmuSphere, thus it should not be unendurably painful, but even so, it should be uncharted territory.

Based on his expression, he was probably experiencing such a sensation for the first time in his life. No, being forced to experience it.

LLENN sprung up behind the man who was pressing on his shining groin with his hands, and thrust her knife at his defenceless nape.

The knife with a 20 cm-long blade pierced through the man’s neck, and its tip peeked out on the other side.

She immediately pulled it out, and returned it behind her waist, then took the P90 that was hanging by its sling into her right hand──

Finishing all of this in a moment as if the video was on fast-forward, LLENN broke into a dash towards her next target.

After LLENN disappeared off-screen, the man collapsed forward. As he fell down like a pole, he hit his head, but he probably did not feel pain. As the 【Ｄｅａｄ】marker lit up,

“That’s… four.”

Someone in the now-quiet bar somehow managed to utter this.

The man had gone through the trouble of readying his weapon on his left shoulder again, but sticking his muzzle out from the corner of the house was an absolute mistake. This was quite clear to the audience in the bar based on the point of view of the video.

As if being dragged into hell, his muzzle was seized, and he was pulled, breaking his posture,

“So that’s five……”

And in front of him was the muzzle of the P90.

*Barara*, dry rapid fire sounds resounded. It was impossible to tell whether the man saw that light, or closed his eyes in terror, from the screen.

Knocking down the man with a 【Ｄｅａｄ】marker who had been shot throughout his face, thepink slaughter machine jumped out.

The next moment, a heavy gunshot resounded, and several bullets bounced away from the surface of the paved road in front of the house.

The last man’s weapon was an M37 shotgun.

The bullets it used, called 《double O-buck》, were buckshots for deer hunting, and the gun could simultaneously fire 9 lead balls, each 8 mm in diameter. These, as well as large 《slugs》, were standard practice for shotguns in battles against people.

As he used buckshots, the gun scattered a group of shots, but the first group all ended up missing LLENN.

The M37-wielding man, *jakon!*, made a pumping action, shooting a shotshell downward, and loading the next round. He turned towards the pink chibi rushing away to the side and fixed his aim on her──

But the moment he shot, she was no longer there.

Having crossed the approximately 5 metre wide road in an instant, LLENN hid away in the shadow of a house on the other side. At a speed that could even be called a warp. The buckshots that were fired tore open numerous holes in the wall of the house.

*Jakon!*

Another pumping sound.

*Kon*, *korokorokoro*

And the dry sound of a shotshell falling and rolling on the ground.

“Yeah, that was awesome. ──But neither of them are yours.”

Chapter end