CHAPTER 3
Guided by Dogs
—The First Ordeal—
Llenn closed her eyes in the moment of teleportation as light flooded around her.
“And now…”
She opened them to see…
“A city…”
It was a downtown ruin map.
This was fairly common terrain in GGO. It wasn’t a skyscraper downtown area, nor rows of apartment buildings, but rather a fairly prosperous commercial district.
Since GGO was an American-made game, the area was designed in a similarly American style. You could find something like it in any typical Hollywood flick.
The ground was flat around her; a wide, four-lane concrete road. There wasn’t a single car around. The vertical hanging traffic lights made it look very American.
On either side of the street, lined with parking spots, were stores. They were of solid concrete and steel girder make, so the structures were still there, but their exteriors were faded and tattered. Still, it was easy enough to identify them as electronics stores, bookstores, supermarkets, and the like.
Llenn pointed her P90 at the sky and spun around. From this, she gleaned that she was in the center of an intersection along with her teammates. They all had their guns at the ready.
Next, she looked up.
The midday sky was clear, with the sun at its zenith, but the atmosphere gave everything a dull, reddish tinge. A number of cloud trails sat low and unmoving. The air was still.
The presence or absence of wind was a major factor in GGO battles. The main reason for this was its effect on bullets, of course, but the sound was also crisper downwind and vice versa. On the other hand, gales could also obscure enemy footprints—and a clear cloud of dust and smoke more quickly.
The quest was already in progress. A little clock readout in the upper left of Llenn’s view said 12:00:30.
Were the enemies going to jump out at them? She looked around warily.
Behind her, MGL-140s hanging from each shoulder, Fukaziroh commented, “So what are we doin’ first in this quest? Blowing up all the houses that are falling down in this city? Yep, I can do that.”
She wasn’t concerned in the slightest.
Then a voice said, “Hello, everyone.”
All twelve squad members heard it; it did not belong to any of them. It was a boy’s voice—and a young one at that.
“Hyeep?”
Llenn spun around, feeling a chill run down her spine. The voice had come from behind her.
Then she saw who had spoken.
It was a dog.
The other eleven turned around in surprise, too, just slightly slower than Llenn, and looked down.
A single dog stood in the midst of the twelve teammates and immediately captured everyone’s attention.
“A doggy…?”
Llenn was shocked to see this black dog standing on all fours between them. Its height (measured to the shoulders) was about ten inches, just short enough to stay in the small dog category. It was entirely black, with longer hair and a pointed snout and ears—a spitz type.
“It’s so cyute!” squealed someone, drawing the attention of the band, before hastily composing herself. “Er! I mean… It is cute…right?”
It was Shirley. She hadn’t been able to stop the animal lover inside her from bursting out, so now she felt very self-conscious.
“Whoa! What’s with this little guy?!” Fukaziroh exclaimed, approaching it and going down on a knee.
“Is it a monster? Look out, Fuka!” Llenn warned.
“No, it’s fine!” reassured Pitohui. When Llenn stared back skeptically, she explained, “When has any GGO monster taken the appearance of a normal dog?”
“Oh. Good point,” Llenn admitted.
The animal-type monsters in GGO always had some kind of special tweak to their designs—usually grotesque. Not a single one looked the same way as it did in real life. These were creatures that had evolved in a future Earth setting.
“Meaning?” she asked.
Pitohui replied, “Let’s hear it straight from the dog’s mouth.”
“Once again—hello, everyone,” the canine announced. Its pointed muzzle swung up and down as it spoke in a voice like a boy’s. “I am here to lead you.”
With that, everything clicked for Llenn. Aha, so this dog is our guide for the quest.
The pooch was going to tell them everything, from what they should do to where they should go next. That was why it had appeared in their midst. If it had shown up on the horizon, someone would have shouted “Monster!” and probably shot it to death.
That made their first order of business clear as day: They needed to hear him (or her) out.
But no sooner had this thought occurred to Llenn than Fukaziroh squished the dog’s face in her hands. “Awww, you’re so cute! Wubby-wubby-wubby!”
“Mmf, ah, hey, uh, mwuh…” The spitz was quite bothered.
“Hey, Fuka! How are we supposed to tell?!”
“No, it’s fine. I can tell.”
“Tell what?”
“This dog is a schipperke.”
“Who said anything about its breed?” Llenn commented, annoyed.
Shirley said coolly, “The schipperke is a Belgian dog. It’s a spitz type, originally for herding sheep. A fairly rare breed. You don’t see them in Japan.”
“That wasn’t a request for more detail…”
What was with these dog girls…? Not that Llenn had any problem with mutts. But clearly that wasn’t the right thing to be focusing on in this situation. Right? Or was she in the wrong?
“Who’s a good boy?!” Fukaziroh cooed, finally letting go.
“Mwah…! Excuse me,” it barked. Then it went back to the script. “I am here to lead you. I will be guiding you through the Five Ordeals. Please keep up.”
“Yeah! Thanks, pal!” raved Fukaziroh, who was even more intense than ever. “Wow, I can’t believe I’m talking to a dog! This rules!”
Such was the fate of a pooch lover. Llenn decided it was best to ignore her.
“First, please decide my name,” the canine said.
Instantly utilizing her naming instincts, Llenn blurted out, “Suu-chan!”
“No, none of that! Vetoed!” Fukaziroh snapped. Llenn puffed out her cheeks.
“Then what should it be?”
“Fukazaburou.”
“Absolutely not.”
“He’s Fukaziroh’s little brother, Fukazaburou.”
“Yeah, I get what you were going for!”
Fukaziroh picked up the little dog and hugged it to her chest. “He’s my brother from a different father! We’ve been separated all our life! That’s why his name is Saburou!”
“Uh… I guess…”
Llenn was vividly reminded of something she’d seen as Karen.
It was after she’d met Miyu in high school and had gone over to visit her house for the very first time. There’d been an old part–Shiba Inu mutt there.
That was the real Fukaziroh.
Ever since she was a little girl, Miyu had begged for a dog, but her parents refused every time, using the word fuka, for not allowed. But eventually, at long last, they relented and let her have a dog.
They brought it over to Miyu’s room from a friend’s house, back when it was still small enough to fit in a sink. She treated that pup like it was a real little brother.
Throughout her elementary and middle school years, Miyu and Fukaziroh were inseparable.
When Karen first met Miyu’s pet in early high school, its hips were already weakening, so Miyu doted upon the elderly hound.
Dusk or dawn, rain or shine, and no matter how exhausted she might be after tennis club, Miyu diligently put a support harness on Fukaziroh whenever he needed to go potty outside.
In her second year of high school, Fukaziroh was bedridden, so Miyu regularly helped to turn his body over so he didn’t get bedsores.
Then, in the summer of her third year of high school, Fukaziroh finally left for doggy heaven—and Miyu was so broken up that she barely ate anything for a week.
“Don’t mind me… I’m just working on a new weight loss program…,” she sniffled.
“Shut up and eat. Are you trying to mummify yourself, at your young age? Open up!”
Karen had gotten takeout curry and had practically forced it into her friend’s mouth.
The first time she heard Miyu’s avatar name in ALO, the corners of her eyes brimmed with tears. “Oooh…”
So Llenn just smiled and said, “All right, Fuka… I get it. The dog’s name can be—”
“Let’s combine your ideas and divide by two. Suuzaburou it is!” Pitohui butted in.
“Thank you for the name. I am Suuzaburou,” said the canine—Suuzaburou.
With a little bing, a tag appeared over the dog’s black head reading SUUZABUROU. It was the kind of indicator that appeared over teammates, important items, and NPCs.
If you had the “display nametags” option on, they would remain visible even when out of sight.
“Hrmm.”
“Hrmm.”
Both the little shrimps scowled at having lost the right to name the dog, but there was no changing it from here.
“And now, I will guide you to your first ordeal. The first thing you need to know is that your ammo and overheating resistance are unlimited,” explained Suuzaburou. Llenn’s P90 glowed briefly, along with all the other guns.
“Mmm?”
She waved her left hand to check the status screen. To her surprise, the remaining ammunition for both the P90 and the Vorpal Bunnies displayed as the infinity symbol. The number per magazine was still fifty, so the readout in the corner of her view was the same as ever, but it suggested that she could reload as much as she wanted.
“So basically, if I put in fresh magazines, I can shoot as long as I want?” Llenn asked.
“Seems that way. My lightsword energy is infinite, too,” Pitohui pointed out.
Rosa, who carried the PKM machine gun, added, “Same for the barrel’s heat parameter. I can shoot hundreds of bullets like this.”
When guns were shot too much, they overheated—especially along the barrel—to the point where they got too hot to touch, then bulged and warped. Naturally, that affected their precision and caused jams and such. Heat management was especially important with sniper rifles and machine guns, but now it was a nonfactor.
“That’s so convenient!” Llenn exclaimed.
“Er…actually, no…” Boss sighed heavily.
Llenn looked around and saw that not only Boss, but all of SHINC, plus Pitohui and Fukaziroh, wore expressions that were downright funereal.
“Look, Llenn,” Fukaziroh started. She’d never seen this kind of despondency on her face. “This means you can shoot forever.”
“Exactly! It’s so convenient! Things will be so much easier!”
“It means that there’ll be so many enemies, we’ll have to make use of unlimited ammo.”
“Oh…”
Llenn was finally coming around to understand the point of the first ordeal.
“Exactly. There will be enemies. Good luck, everyone,” said Suuzaburou.
Now it was very clear why their starting point was a big fat intersection.
“Urgh…”
A literal swarm of enemies was appearing from the road to the east. Though they were about a thousand feet away, they were materializing out of thin air to fill the entire road.
Llenn promptly pulled out her monocular and put it to her eye. They were all small opponents, from the starting-area creatures based on pigs, crocodiles, and insects, to nonbiological monsters like robots designed to look like tin-plated toys.
These were extremely weak foes. They had no ranged weapons and low durability; a few shots from an optical gun, or one or two real bullets, would take them down. A sufficiently powerful character could even punch them to death. The real problem was their numbers.
“A ton of small enemies! East!” Llenn announced.
“No, they’re coming from everywhere,” Fukaziroh replied.
Llenn rotated on the spot and murmured, “Oh…”
It wasn’t just from the east. Similar swarms of monsters had spawned down the road in all four cardinal directions. While they weren’t yet moving, they formed a short wall that blocked the path in every direction.
Suuzaburou informed, “You may choose whichever direction you like. Once you have traveled exactly one thousand meters—one kilometer—you will leave the city. There is a distance readout that you can all see. If you break through the enemy blockade and reach the proper distance, the ordeal is over. There is no time limit, but the faster you clear this challenge, the better your advantage in the next.”
There was a pong, and everyone saw a readout that said 1,000 METERS in the upper-right corner of their vision.
Tanya asked the spitz, “Does that mean that once we’ve picked a direction, we have to leave that way?”
“Correct. If you change directions or go off the road, it will not count as one kilometer.”
“What a nasty scenario!”
“I agree.”
Boss snorted and opined, “The game designer is a real creep.”
“I agree. I’m quite ashamed,” apologized Suuzaburou, for some reason.
“Stop it!” Fukaziroh interjected. “Don’t pick on Suuzaburou!” Not that anyone was ganging up on him.
“All right, everyone, let’s bust through this. But we’re changing the formation,” said Pitohui, smoothly transitioning into tactical mode. “We’ll put Rosa in the center, so she has a clear line of fire, and have everyone else form a steady inverted V behind her. Boss, you’re still the rear guard.”
In other words, it would be a wedge formation, with the heaviest firepower concentrated at the front to carve the way forward. No one protested.
“Fuka, you’re in the rear center.”
“You got it. I’m gonna blast the hell out of ’em!”
“M! Put away your gun and shield. Reload Fuka’s grenades, nothing else!”
“Got it.”
M’s gun and backpack promptly vanished, and he moved behind Fukaziroh. His job would be reloading Rightony or Leftonia immediately after she emptied either of them. They were copying the strategy of the Glock 18Cs in the mall battle in SJ4, which had been a major pain. Stuffed into Fukaziroh’s backpack were all the grenades M could need.
“Shirley, when it gets to close combat, use my 870. I’ll give you all the shells I’ve got.”
“Don’t give me orders!” Shirley retorted. Then she admitted, “This is only until we get through here!”
After all, if they didn’t survive this first ordeal, she wouldn’t get a good opportunity to take out Pitohui by surprise. And there was no doubt that her single-shot bolt-action R93 Tactical 2 rifle was the weapon least suited to a swarm of enemies.
Pitohui walked closer, sending over the items directly from her inventory menu with a wave of her left hand. Shirley waved back to accept the offer, and the long rifle on her back was joined by a shoulder bag, which she hung along her left side.
It was full of twelve-gauge shotgun shells. The 8 mm lead bullets were double-aught buck, with nine pellets per shell. Though they were technically for shooting deer (buck being a male deer), they were useful in battle, too. And they were in infinite supply, of course. During the ordeal, this magic bag would never empty.
Pitohui pulled the shortened M870 Breacher shotgun from the holster on her left hip and handed it over. “Here. You know how to use it?”
Shirley didn’t respond. The Remington M870 was the most famous pump-action shotgun in the world. She’d used it herself to go hunting before she got her rifle permit.
The woman accepted the M870 Breacher, pushed the lever in front of the trigger, and pulled the forend. Shirley already knew it was loaded, so she returned the forend and made sure the safety was off.
Then she stuck a finger into the tube magazine below the barrel, pushing against the shells to check how many were in there based on the spring tension. There were two inside.
She did all this naturally, a sure sign that she was familiar with handling a shotgun. Ignoring the knowing leer on Pitohui’s face, she thought, Great, she can tell I’m a hunter… Can’t be too careful around her… How about if I gun you down in a way no huntress ever would…?
She stuck the M870 Breacher into her belt, where her jacket was rolled up to expose it.
“Okay! Let’s go!” Pitohui roared.
“Raaah!” SHINC joined in.
“Ready!”
“Let’s do it!”
“Uh-huh,” followed Llenn, Fukaziroh, and M.
“I’m right behind ya!” chimed in Clarence. Shirley said nothing.
With her teammates locked in and ready, Pitohui asked, “So which direction are we going?”
“Pitooo, you’re supposed to decide that for us!” Llenn snapped.
“I just thought, maybe someone here likes fortune-telling.”
“In that case, I’ll go!” shouted the blond sniper in sunglasses, raising her hand.
“You’re up, Anna!”
“I checked out this morning’s online news! Today is my lucky day! And my lucky color is blue!”
“C’mon, we’re not looking for a color.”
“Not so fast, Fukaziroh. Look at the blue sign to the north!”
In the distance to the north, beyond the wall of enemies, rested a large blue store billboard. It was too far away to make out what it said.
But there wasn’t a hint of blue in any of the other cardinal directions.
“Then that’s it!” Fukaziroh roared, holding up Rightony. “Our path is decided! C’mon, let’s go, Suuzaburou!”
Llenn found it obnoxious that she addressed the dog rather than her teammates. But Fuka did not waste any time; she unloaded six grenades in a row. Her aim was true, and the six projectiles landed behind the wall of monsters three hundred meters away, sending up glittering fragments of their remains into the air.
“That’s it! Charge!” Pitohui called out with glee. The group hurried forward.
Although their enemies were ludicrous in number, if they didn’t overcome them, not only would there be no victory here, but they would also fail the entire quest. It was only the first ordeal of five, after all.
Rosa led the fast-moving wedge formation. “Rrraaaahh!”
Dakka-dakka-dakka-dakka-dakka. Keeping the PKM machine gun firm against her powerful waist, she fired as she walked. The lines of light created by the tracer rounds zipped off into the distance.
Her teammates opened fire at the same time, making a tremendous clatter. Not only were all their firearms blasting away, but their subsequent gunshots echoed off the buildings on either side, overlapping into cacophony.
A thousand feet away, the enemies were shattered, blown to pieces by the squad’s bullets. But as far as Llenn could tell, their numbers weren’t diminishing in the slightest.
“Ugh, there are so many of them…”
After the front row went down, more and more appeared behind them. How many of these things were there anyway?
Their opponents neither moved nor showed signs of approaching. But to reach the distance of one kilometer, they had no choice but to bust through that blockade.
Was it even possible to break through?
“C’mon, Llenn, don’t give up before we’ve even started!” chided Pitohui, firing her KTR-09 rhythmically nearby.
“Ugh!” Llenn shot her P90 as she walked, keeping the gun held against her shoulder. The mass of targets was way too far away, but at least some of those bullets were bound to hit their mark.
Her finger was clamped firmly on the trigger. Her firearm was at full auto. That was fifteen shots per second. Orange fire exploded from the muzzle, and empty cartridges burst rapidly from the bottom of the gun as P-chan roared endlessly.
Computer enemies burst into shards wherever she pointed her gun, along with wherever her bullet circle landed.
Click.
When the remaining ammo hit zero, Llenn used the Quick Reload skill to switch to a fresh magazine. With blinding speed, she pulled the empty one out of the gun, then grabbed the next from her left-side pouch.
“Oh!”
Something caught her attention. Resting on both her hips were three-part pouches for her long P90 magazines. She could tell from the way the fabric buckled inward when the pouches were empty, but that wasn’t happening now. There were still magazines inside. Now they had become magic pouches that would never go empty.
So this is the power of infinite ammo… If only it were always like this, she thought. But that would make the game too easy.
“Take this!”
Fukaziroh’s next volley began. Six adorable little puffs of air, followed by six devastating blasts. They landed right on the wall of enemies, tearing open a huge hole—that once again filled itself right away.
The twelve players spread out into a wide reverse V on the four-lane road.
In the center was Rosa, shooting the PKM. At her side was Tohma, helping to exchange the ammo magazines. When it seemed like she was about to run out of bullets, Tohma pulled a fresh box from Rosa’s backpack and attached it to the machine gun.
Pitohui and Llenn took up the left flank. So did Tanya and Clarence. They seemed to be enjoying their shooting.
On the right side were the other SHINC members, Sophie and Anna. And on the end, as if to say she was begrudgingly working with them for now, stood Shirley.
Every one of them was blasting at the enemies up ahead as quickly as they could.
Sophie’s new GM-94 fired rapidly as she worked her off hand back and forth along the action. Unfortunately, she had to reload grenades every three shots, which was annoying.
Anna and Shirley, the snipers, weren’t even looking through their scopes. They each had their long guns propped against their elbow, turning the rifles on their flat sides so they could quickly fire while maintaining aim on the wall of targets.
Following behind the group in the middle was Fukaziroh.
“Let’s see what you got! You hungry for barbecue? Come and taste this smoke,” she said, gloating and firing her grenades in rhythm with the haiku.
Meanwhile, M was the MGL-140 reloader.
“You’re up!”
“Got it.”
Fukaziroh handed him the spent weapon. He undid the lock, twisted the gun, and dumped the empty grenade cartridges out. Then he twisted the tube to recharge the spring, stuck in six more grenades from Fukaziroh’s pack, and twisted it back into place. Despite his big, fat fingers, M flew through the tedious process.
Knowing that it was safest to be situated directly behind them, Suuzaburou trotted along, a little black dot. It was like the group was taking him out on a walk.
As she’d been ordered, Boss commanded the rear with her Vintorez, checking through the scope now and then to make sure the enemy wasn’t changing tactics.
The wall of foes was completely still. They appeared to be about five hundred meters away, half the distance the squad needed to cross.
For now.
They shot and shot and shot, exchanging their infinite supply of magazines as they went. Over two minutes, the dozen players moved about 250 meters, creating an awful racket among the ruined city as they went. Seven hundred and fifty meters left.
At their feet, golden cartridges bounced off gray concrete, then turned into little flashes of light as they vanished. There were so many of them that the ground looked more like a starry sky. It was a beautiful phenomenon.
Between all the grenades and bullets, they tore chunks out of the wall of endless enemies. The fact that the gaps weren’t filling in was a sign that no additional forces were spawning.
Llenn could see that the wall was starting to develop holes. The gray asphalt behind the monsters was clearly visible from fifty meters away.
“We can do this! We’ve got the firepower!” she cheered, exchanging another magazine; she’d lost count how many she’d gone through.
Hunching down, she turned her P90 sideways and sprayed lead like it was water from a hose. The maneuver put a tremendous dent into the remaining foes. It almost felt like target practice in the game tutorial.
With no worries about running out of ammo, Llenn and her teammates mercilessly carved through the enemies like ice melting over a stove.
This actually isn’t as hard as I thought. Is this easy mode or something? Because it’s the first one? Llenn thought optimistically.
That mood didn’t last long, though. From the rear, Boss called out, “They’re coming from behind now, everybody!”
“Dammit! I should’ve known!” Pitohui swore.
“Huh? What does this mean?” Llenn asked, turning back. Then she saw them. “Eugh!”
The enemy was giving chase a few hundred meters behind.
It looked like a flood.
They filled the wide road from end to end, advancing faster than the group was pushing forward.
“When the enemy total in any direction falls below a certain amount, the other thirty thousand will rush in at top speed. Be careful that they don’t overtake you, everyone,” explained Suuzaburou courteously, after they’d already figured it out.
“Daaargh! Stupid mutt! Mention that earlier next time!” fumed Clarence, putting the group’s thoughts into words.
“My humblest apologies. I do not have the authority to do that.”
“Don’t pick on Suuzaburou!” It seemed that Fukaziroh would be the little black dog’s ally no matter the situation.
“Darn… I guess there aren’t any easy ordeals,” muttered Llenn, lamenting her own optimism. She exchanged her current magazine, which still had twenty rounds, for a full one.
“So what now, Pito?” asked Fukaziroh.
She smirked and replied, “You’ll have to choose from the following three options. One, we flee forward as fast as possible. Two, we do our best and flee forward. Three, we hurry and flee forward.”
“Let’s go with all three!”
“That settles it.”
“Should we shoot behind us?”
“No, I think we should just focus on getting the hell out of here.”
This was not the sort of flood that six grenades would stop.
“Yeah, I guess that’s right.” Fukaziroh took the latest MGL-140, freshly refilled courtesy of M, and fired it directly forward. The grenades exploded amid the enemies, but there were already so few remaining that it didn’t have much of an effect. No point in shooting anymore.
“Book it, everyone!” Pitohui commanded, and the squad charged forward to the north, where their opponents were fewest.
Llenn was the first to burst forward, quickly passing Rosa and running parallel to her machine-gun fire.
“Raaaaah!” With quick three-shot bursts, she turned three monsters into polygonal shards.
“Plasma grenades! Set timers and leave them behind you!” Boss instructed her squad, taking her own out of item storage.
She was packing both normal-size plasma grenades, which could be thrown with one hand, and a huge variety that was three times larger, like a small watermelon—the “grand grenade.”
Boss glared to the south, gauging the amount of time it would take the monsters to overtake her current position. “About sixty seconds…”
Then she quickly set the timers and rolled the explosives onto the ground at her feet.
Sophie did the same. “Boss! Hurry!” she called, trying to set down as many as possible while the others went ahead.
“That’s enough! Just go!”
“Ah…!”
If Boss gave an order, she had to obey. Sophie began to lurch north.
It would all be over if they could travel one kilometer exactly, but they still had seven hundred meters to go. Llenn and Tanya could run as fast as cars, but the slower players like M, Sophie, and Rosa couldn’t possibly cross that distance before the monsters caught up to them.
“That’s not gonna happen.”
Boss placed all the plasma grenades she could, spacing them out so they didn’t set one another off, then turned tail and fled.
“Yaaaah!”
Llenn passed through the enemy blockade, then turned around to help finish the remaining few. With her speed, she was guaranteed to reach the finish line, so she wanted to use her power to cut down as many of the northern monsters as possible to keep the path clear for her teammates.
Every dozen feet or so, another freakish creature popped out. “Haaah! Urgh! Hi ya!” She sent them packing with quick bursts from her P90.
“Nice work, Llenn!” encouraged Pitohui as she rushed past.
She glanced to the south. M and Sophie were still plodding this way. And far behind them was Boss.
A flood of darkness pounded behind her, a tidal wave of enemies. Boss wasn’t especially slow, so why was she so far behind the others? The answer revealed itself in moments.
Blue light bloomed in the distance.
Llenn had used them before, so she knew what that effect was: plasma grenade explosions. The surges of blue shattered every enemy caught in their midst. Even this far off, the din of the blast and its accompanying vibrations battered her body and feet.
Boss’s presents were perfectly timed, detonating at the front end of the flood and directly in its midst, laying waste to hundreds of foes all at once.
“Incredible!” Llenn marveled. But when the light of the explosions faded, she grunted, “Oof…”
Behind it was another black mass that might as well have been called the second wave of the flood.
“Oh, right, it was three different directions…”
Boss had blown up the group from the south. But there were also monsters bearing down from both the eastern and western roads.
We’re not going to make it in time…
M and Sophie were too slow to run all the way down the road before the monsters caught up.
Then Boss ground to a halt.
She stood in place, waving her left arm. That signified she was messing with her inventory. But Llenn had an inkling of what she was planning.
She made up her mind. Without a moment’s hesitation, Llenn started sprinting toward Boss, blasting with her P90.
“Wha—?!”
Boss whipped around with shock, then understood.
Llenn’s red bullet lines were shining past her side, disappearing as the bullets zipped along them. She turned back behind her and saw some of the oncoming enemies vanishing.
“Stop it, Llenn!” she cried, waving off the friend charging her way to save her. Boss was stationary, going through her inventory. An infinite supply of grenades rested on the ground at her feet.
Even without the endless supply, Boss typically carried around enough plasma grenades to snap a gigantic cruise ship in half. Now there was no limit. Her firepower was unfathomable.
But eventually they were going to catch up to her, and she would die.
“I’m the only one who needs to die here!” Boss shouted.
“I knew it!” Llenn had guessed correctly.
Boss had stopped in her tracks to focus on placing grenades, stemming the enemy tide just enough so the rest of the squad could get away, at the cost of her own life.
“Oooh! It’s the sacrificial gambit of Shimazu! From the Battle of Sekigahara battle in 1600!” Clarence clamored as she ran.
“That’s a weird thing to be so knowledgeable about,” remarked an impressed Shirley as she riddled an enemy with buckshot from the M870. “But you repeated battle there.”
Like Llenn, Tanya had turned back on her heel. “I won’t let them kill Boss!” she shouted, racing to the south with the Bizon at her side.
Pitohui grunted “The fewer losses, the better” as she watched the silver-haired woman rush past her in the other direction.
“What now?” asked M, plodding behind her.
“What can we do? I don’t want to lose anything more than the bare minimum of force at the very start,” she replied, producing a seventy-five-round drum for the KTR-09 and exchanging it as she ran. The drum’s only downside was that it was too large to fit into any pouches for easy access.
As the two teammates ran back to save their fellow squad member, she sent them a message like a teacher chaperone. “Llenn, Tanya, I appreciate your effort, but I want you to come back from helping Boss before it’s too late.”
“No!” Llenn protested immediately.
“Llenn,” Pitohui hissed, “Boss is doing this for the sake of the team. Plus, this battle is supposed to be nasty. It’s designed to force you to lose a member or two.”
“But that doesn’t mean I can just abandon her!”
“Oh, come on.”
Pitohui stopped and turned south to where the trio were giving it their all, three hundred meters away.
Boss backed away, tossing one explosive after the other, while Llenn and Tanya fired as fast as they could. Although the monsters were disappearing bit by bit, and the blue grenade blasts had gouged out large chunks of their forces, there were just too many. They would surely overtake the three women at some point.
“So what do we do?” Pitohui pondered, resuming her northward trek. A crocodilian monster that was still clinging to life opened its jaw as she considered her options.
“What…to…do…”
She kicked out with her left foot and sent the beast flying. That was all it took to eliminate its hit points, and it turned into tiny fragments in the air.
That was when she noticed the store with the blue sign.
At that moment, Pitohui was exactly 495 meters from the starting position. From here, the storefront was quite visible through its glass walls.
She smirked, her facial tattoos stretching. “Anna… I think this really is your lucky day. Well done.”
“Huh?” Anna replied through the comm. She took out a few small machines with her Strizh pistol, then turned back to her in confusion.
“Just stick with me, people!” Pitohui called out, heading off the road toward the store.
Fukaziroh, who was protected in formation by Clarence and Shirley, shouted, “Whaddaya doing, Pito? We don’t have time for shopping!”
“Shopping? No—this is more like shoplifting!”
“Whut?”
“I’m stealing! C’mon, keep up. This is going to be on the test.”
Yet another detonation took out a swarm of enemies. After the blue surge vanished, the monsters rushed over the hole left in its wake, as though filling it up. There was no end to them.
“Dammit!”
Boss realized that this tactic wasn’t going to be enough to keep the monsters at bay. Scratch that—reminded herself, not realized. She already knew it wouldn’t have worked.
“Boss!”
“Boss!”
Two small avatars raced over to her side, screeching to a halt so rapidly that smoke could have risen from their boots. They shot from the hip.
Llenn’s P90 could manage fifty bullets, and Tanya’s Bizon could shoot fifty-three without stopping, but even that wasn’t going to get the job done here.
“Llenn, Tanya! I appreciate it, but you should go! I’ve bought enough time for everyone else to get away! Now run!”
“But—!”
“Which is better, losing one of us here or three?”
“…I mean…one, but—!”
“Then you know what to do. Go!”
“No! I’m staying here! We can easily run away. We’ll stay until the very last moment!”
“It’s not going to change the outcome,” mumbled Boss, who was busy setting the timers on more plasma grenades. She had utterly given up on getting through the ordeal alive.
More blue maelstroms appeared, growing into spheres that eliminated just a small percent of the overall horde descending upon them.
Empties showered out of Llenn’s P90 onto the ground. “No! Pito’s going to figure something out! I believe in her!”
“You think too highly of me. C’mon, let’s go,” ordered Pitohui.
“Okay!” replied M.
“You got it,” answered Shirley.
“Are you sure this will work?” worried Clarence.
The glass covering the front of the store with the blue sign shattered outward.
Two vehicles emerged.
They were pickup trucks, the kind with flatbeds in the back. This was a real-world model called the Jeep Gladiator.
The Jeep brand was synonymous with four-wheel drive, and the Gladiator was their pickup model. It was very long, nearly eighteen feet from front to end, and looked quite boxy from the side. The vehicle consisted of a hood, a cabin with front and rear seats jumping upward, and a slightly recessed bed in the back.
These Gladiators had no doors. You could see the people sitting in them perfectly from the side. There weren’t roofs, either. The sky was clearly visible from their pipe frames. On top of that, their windshield frames had toppled forward, so there was no glass in front. The wind just blew straight through.
One of the features of Jeep’s four-wheel drive vehicles was that they could drive even when the windows and roof were off and the windshield was down. This attribute stemmed from their first models, which were military vehicles in WWII. It made for a liberating ride—if a terrifying one.
The two Jeeps were identical save for their colors—one red, one black. Like everything in GGO, they were faded and beaten up, but it made for a cool look here.
Perhaps more mystifying was why these vehicles, which had been abandoned since the end of Earth civilization in the distant past, would start right up and run like a charm, but none of the players were going to bother thinking about that. It was a game.
M sat in the driver’s seat of the red car, his hands on the steering wheel. It was a North American vehicle, so the wheel was on the left side. In the passenger seat on the right was Pitohui, her KTR-09 pointed forward. Fukaziroh was in the left-rear seat, holding Suuzaburou steady beside her.
Rosa had taken up the position in the center of the truck bed. She was resting her PKM on the pipe frame of the roof so she could blast wherever the vehicle was pointing. Tohma was still there, just to her right, on machine-gun-loading duty.
As for the black car, Clarence sat in the passenger seat, asking, “Are you sure about this?”
“Don’t worry, I’ve got it!” responded Shirley, gripping the wheel.
Sophie and Anna took up the back seat, worry lining their faces. They were probably hoping that Tohma would drive instead. That wish might’ve had something to do with the pickup grazing a light pole just seconds after leaving the building.
The pair of Gladiators roared back up the street they’d just come down.
“Yoo-hoo! You girls tired? Want a ride in a taxi?” asked a voice in the comm. Llenn spun around and saw the pickup trucks approaching.
“Thanks! I knew you’d come through, Pito! Cars are awesome! How’d you do it?” she asked, beaming.
“We went to the car dealership with the blue sign and rented them out.”
“Amazing! There are usable vehicles in this quest, too…?”
“Finders keepers. You gotta make use of the tools they give you.”
In the meantime, the red Gladiator came to a stop right in front of Llenn’s trio.
Dut-dut, dut-dut-dut-dut, dut-dut-dut-dut!
Rosa’s PKM thudded heavily from the roof, slowing the onslaught of enemies.
In the rear seat, Fukaziroh covered Suuzaburou’s ears with her hands, but she probably didn’t need to bother. It was just GGO.
“We’re at capacity, so you’ll have to take the black one.”
Llenn and Boss and Tanya saw the black Gladiator rushing up from behind the other one.
“Oh! Look out!” Llenn shrieked, right as it came to a stop by smashing into the red one. Unfortunately, the driver-assistance systems were broken. It had been abandoned for many, many years, after all.
The collision pushed the red Gladiator forward so that it nearly ran over Tanya, who was standing closest.
“Ouch!”
Clarence’s face slammed into the dashboard of the black Gladiator. It left a glowing mark on her forehead. She’d lost about 5 percent of her HP.
Thus, the boyish sniper was the first player to suffer damage in the quest. The cause: traffic accident.
“……”
“……”
Sophie and Anna looked pale in the back seat. Fortunately, nothing worse had happened to the pair than hitting the seats in front of them.
“What’s wrong with this car? The stupid brakes don’t work! Piece of junk!” Shirley fumed, smacking the steering wheel. In fact, the real problem was that her pedal work was too slow and clumsy. It was bad driving.
Tohma hopped down from the bed of the red truck. “H-here, I’ll take over!” she offered, approaching the driver’s side of the black one.
“How come? I’ll drive more.”
“Trust me, Shirley, you’ll look great in the pickup bed. Just imagine, your green hair flowing in the wind, rifle held at the ready,” Clarence urged, pulling her out.
“Aw, fine,” she acquiesced, hopping over to the back.
Boss piled into the passenger seat of the black truck, while Tanya and Llenn were small enough that they could go in the bed of the red truck, behind Rosa.
In the meantime, the swarm of monsters was now a flood that covered the road, bearing down on the two pickups.
“We’re all in!” Boss called out.
“Then let’s get going. Hey, driver!” Pitohui shouted to M. “It’ll be a pain to turn around, so just move us straight forward. Watch out for the holes from the plasma grenades. Tohma, keep up behind us.”
“G-got it…,” muttered Tohma, her hands trembling on the wheel as she realized what Pitohui was suggesting.
“Then let’s go.” M jammed his foot on the accelerator, and the Gladiator’s 3.6 liter V6 engine roared. The automobile shuddered and began to zoom forward.
“Urgh!” Llenn wasn’t holding on to anything in the back, so she rolled backward.
They were heading south. Naturally, it was the direction where the massive swarms of enemies were.
“We’re going to blaze through ’em! Hold on!” Pitohui cackled as the truck began to smash through the smaller enemies like a snowplow.
They were puny, weak opponents. Some of them got smushed right under the big fat tires, while others bounced off the bumper. The front grill even sent one of them flying into the air.
“Hah—?”
Just as it was about to land right on top of Llenn in the bed, the damage it had sustained caused it to burst into polygons. It was like fireworks.
M turned the wheel left and right in an easy rhythm, just barely avoiding the large holes in the road created by the plasma grenades. With each sway of the truck, Llenn clutched the pipe frame to avoid being thrown off.
“Aaaah!”
In the car behind them, Tohma murmured, “This is crazy…”
She was keeping up with the path M carved out.
“What’s wrong, Black Hair? Run some of them over! You don’t need to practice safe driving in a game!” howled Shirley from the back seat, but Tohma was keen to ignore her attempt at advice.
Llenn had her P90 ready and pointed below the bed, but she didn’t need to fire it. The two Gladiators were blazing a trail through the monsters who choked the road, splitting the swarm in two. Soon they reached the intersection where they’d started the game.
“We’re through!” Llenn beamed, the group completely clearing the enemy horde. Nothing but empty road lay ahead.
Now they just had to drive. It was the easiest racing game ever.
The Gladiators sped up, faster and faster, and crossed the remaining kilometer in an unceremonious fashion. It only took about thirty seconds.
Not a single enemy could catch up.
The moment they made it out of the town, Suuzaburou announced, “Congratulations, everyone. You have completed the first ordeal.”
The clock said that it was exactly twelve fifteen.
No Comments Yet
Post a new comment
Register or Login