CHAPTER 14
This Summer, Fukaziroh Leaps and Llenn Races
“Kept ya waitin’, huh?”
It was a very cool line to make her entrance on. But then a solid line came silently down over her head.
“Run awaaaay!” Llenn called.
“Huh? Hyaaaa!” Fukaziroh leaped off the bike and sprinted to one side. She dived behind a large mass of concrete at the same moment that the enemy’s grenade landed.
Krshunk!
The handy-dandy bicycle that Tanya and Fukaziroh had used to such great effect was instantly reduced to scrap metal. Its pieces vanished shortly thereafter.
When Fukaziroh poked her head out from behind the rubble, bits of concrete rained down and pattered off her helmet.
“Aw, my sweet ride… Farewell, Pretty Miyu…,” she lamented.
She gave it a name? Llenn was taken aback. More importantly, she was overjoyed. “I’m so glad you made it here safely!”
Fukaziroh had gotten down from that building without being spotted and busted past the eastern side, where the enemy was—or wait…maybe not? Were there no enemies?
“The bad guys are on the other side of the collapsed building! One Humvee and three dudes! I saw them in the distance!”
Aha! Yes, she is awesome! Llenn thought without reservation.
“I got the hell outta that place when they fired on me, but it got easier once I spotted the bike. I rode it as far out of the way north as I could, then found out where you all were during the scan and built up some speed to zoom past them while the guy was shooting the grenades at you from the Humvee! Bikes rule!” Fukaziroh explained all at once.
“Amazing! Wait, where are your guns?” Llenn inquired, realizing that she was holding neither Rightony nor Leftania. Fukaziroh never put her weapons away into virtual storage, but perhaps it was necessary when riding a bicycle.
“Oh, those… I was careless enough to loosen my grip on them, and they got blown away in the blast… I looked around but couldn’t find them, so I set them free. They’re probably running around wild in the pastures now. But I’ve still got my pistol, so no worries!” Fukaziroh answered smoothly.
“Wh-what…?” Llenn was stunned.
“Aw, man,” lamented Pitohui, staring up at the sky.
The absence of those two grenade launchers meant more than being unable to return fire here. It was a major loss of team power in general.
Sitting around bemoaning their situation wouldn’t help, though. Llenn returned to the first thing Fukaziroh had said upon her return. “What did you mean, ‘my role’?”
“I’m glad you asked!” Fukaziroh exclaimed, trotting right over to M. “Here, get out the VR goggles and control stick.”
“Huh? Are you going to fly the drone, Fuka?” Llenn asked over her shoulder.
Fukaziroh turned around and gave her a thumbs-up. “You bet!”
“……”
M hesitated, but after Pitohui came up and whispered something in his ear, he said, “All right. Go ahead. Crash it if you must; just bring that enemy drone down.”
“Sounds good! But in the meantime, pick me up and keep me safe!”
What does that mean? Llenn wondered, a question mark over her head.
Fukaziroh took off her helmet and attached a set of VR goggles to her face. M handed her the controller with the flight stick, which she took in her left hand.
As Fukaziroh had commanded, M then picked up her tiny body and lifted it to his shoulders. This way, if a grenade launcher attack should come after them, he could ensure she didn’t get hit.
Like Llenn, Team SHINC kept their eyes on the sky and the horizon, but they couldn’t help but sneak curious glances at what was going on with their allies.
“Here we go!”
Fukaziroh pressed a button on the controller. The resting drone extended its arms and began to rotate the propellers on the ends.
Then it abruptly shot upward as if it were on a spring. Over the buzzing of its wings, Fukaziroh shouted, “Hya-haaa! Here we go! Fly, my pretty! Fly, Charming Miyu!”
If only she could come up with a better name, Llenn thought, watching the drone shrink into the distance. Hopefully, this would be the key to breaking their stalemate.
“We’re all counting on you, Fuka!”
“Don’t worry; I got this!” she answered cheerily.
Hey, Fukaziroh, when exactly did you learn…to pilot a drone? While Llenn thought up a haiku, she had forgotten something important.
No more than two hundred meters away from Fukaziroh and Llenn, there was a Humvee in wait.
Inside were three members of Team V2HG. They were the ones kitted out with sturdy chest protectors. All of them wore face masks and sunglasses.
Although only a short distance separated the two parties, a huge building was resting on its side between them. This left the opposite side invisible and unapproachable from here.
And that meant attacking from above was a practical option.
One of the men stuck his head out of the roof turret surrounded by bulletproof plating, holding an M79 grenade launcher.
It was a single-shot weapon that folded up in the middle. Americans had used such armaments in the Vietnam War. The wooden stock was angled on the top rather than the bottom, and the weapon resembled an ugly shotgun.
His M79 was painted with yellow highlights in a kind of tiger pattern. It had been done in imitation of a weapon that appeared in one of the classic Vietnam War films. He’d been popping off shots for the last few minutes over the building in front of them, but a man wearing VR goggles in the passenger seat delivered the bad news.
“They’re still unharmed.”
He was the drone pilot, of course, and held the control stick in his right hand.
The bombardier grumbled, “Damn. It just doesn’t work like in the movies,” and pulled the empty grenade cartridge out.
The one in the driver’s seat said, “We don’t wanna wipe ’em all out anyway. Let’s have a more exciting battle.”
He had the Humvee in gear, waiting with his foot on the brakes. If anything happened, they could move instantly. That meant the vehicle had been idling the whole time, but they still had over half a tank of gas.
Pomp!
The man with the launcher adjusted his angle and fired a grenade. It made a cute sound and launched a 40 mm bomb into the air.
A few seconds later, they heard a distant explosion. How had it gone? The drone operator gave them the answer.
“Dodged it. But they’re not running away. I guess they want to hole themselves up there?”
“It’s not a bad idea, but they’re only going to make their situation worse over time,” remarked the guy with the launcher as he loaded another grenade.
Just then, all three of them heard a voice speaking directly into their ears.
“This is Leader.”
The comm they were using was a standard wireless item with which you had to press the switch to send your audio, rather than the simultaneous open-channel type. Many players preferred this style, since it involved less chatter, felt more realistic to them, or allowed them to grumble to themselves without anyone hearing it.
“Message to Car Three. Road spotted. Car Two heading out. T-S is no threat. Car Three, stop bombardment and remain on alert. Our guests will approach on foot from the south. Over.”
The report had come from their distant companions in Car One.
The Minigun-toting monster was Car Two, and they had identified a route to put themselves on the western road. Team T-S, previously in the vicinity, had scampered off and was not a priority now. The camo squad, WNGL, a temporary part of the alliance, had stepped off Cars One and Two and were now looking for their own sniping positions among the city’s ruins.
The driver responded for the rest of his group. He put his hand to his throat, where the switch was, and stated, “This is Car Three, I read you. We will remain on standby without further attack. Just leave some for us, huh, boys? Over.”
“I dunno if we can promise that. Just tell us when you’re bringing your drone back. We’ll launch ours to take its place. Over.”
The conversation was finished. The driver shrugged and asked the man sitting next to him, “How much longer will the batteries last?”
“About four minutes.”
The man with the grenade launcher noted, “That’s a fair amount. We might end up cleaning them out before the time’s up, without any extra surprises.”
But no sooner were the words out of his mouth than the drone operator exclaimed, “Aaooow!”
Llenn watched through Boss’s binoculars as Fukaziroh’s drone, the Charming Miyu, buzzed and soared high into the sky.
It rapidly circled around behind the enemy’s surveillance drone, which was weaving from side to side regularly but maintaining a steady altitude.
Then it launched into a diagonal sweep, straight for a body blow to the other drone.
A simple collision would damage the drone’s propeller, so she employed the one method that would avoid that kind of wear and tear—meaning she used the drone’s flat body to hit the enemy’s rear propellers. It was a brilliant maneuver, deftly twisting the flying craft’s bearing just before it collided with its counterpart.
The enemy drone lost its right rear propeller, and with it all sense of balance. All four blades were required to maintain stability, so there was nothing it could do now. It dropped from the sky in a tailspin, like a kite that had lost its string.
It seemed like the process took a long time, but it was only five seconds before the enemy drone collided with the side of the fallen building and burst into little polygonal pieces that vanished.
Fukaziroh’s drone did a little victory backflip. SHINC cheered at the feat, and Llenn murmured, “Amazing…”
On the other side of the fallen building, someone asked, “What happened?”
“I don’t know! It just fell! We’ve lost the drone! Aw, dammit, that was expensive!” lamented the member of V2HG who’d bought the thing.
The man with the grenade launcher hit the switch on his radio and said, “This is Car Three. Drone down, drone down. Over.”
“This is Leader. We’ll send up ours immediately. What’s the cause? Did you get shot down? Over.”
“I don’t know. It shouldn’t have been the battery…but regardless, drone down. Over.”
“You just want to say that phrase, huh? Over.”
“Was it that obvious? Over.”
“Enough with you and the Hollywood movies! We’ll send up ours. Remain in position. Over.”
“I knocked it down!” exclaimed Fukaziroh, who was still wearing the VR goggles. Then she switched to performing traditional reconnaissance duties. “Oops! Just spotted another Humvee! Yeah, I can see that cute little ass from above… This one doesn’t have a Minigun on it! Just one person on board!”
“Where are they?” Pitohui asked.
“An intersection to the south of here. All I can tell is that it’s a few hundred yards out—oh! Hang on, he’s getting ready to launch another drone!”
“Rich bastard. You know what to do, Fuka?”
“Naturally!”
Pitohui opened up a screen that looked like a tablet and set it so that Llenn could see the information, too. It was a direct feed from the drone, so the image was constantly shifting and shaking, making for a disorienting watch.
“You’re not going anywhere!”
The other drone, which was completely identical except that it had been painted brown, was closing in. Within moments, it completely filled the image on-screen.
“Number two!”
The man in the roof turret of the Humvee protected by bulletproof plates watched the drone he’d just hurled up into the sky go—and get smashed by another drone painted white.
“What?!”
His fell. The enemy one stayed aloft.
“……”
Although he understood what had happened, he couldn’t understand how it was possible.
“Fuka? When did you practice piloting drones?” Llenn asked. She couldn’t help it.
Without taking off the VR goggles, her friend replied, “Never. But it’s not my first time flying!”
Oh! Llenn remembered at last.
Fukaziroh was here in GGO now, but most of the time, she was a fairy in ALfheim Online.
The biggest selling point of that game was that you could fly.
Of course! That’s right!
Now Llenn recalled what she’d looked up before testing out ALO. Every character in that game had wings, so with some practice, you could learn to use voluntary flight by moving muscles that human beings did not typically have. How did people fly around before getting used to that? The answer was obvious—flight sticks.
Fukaziroh was used to swooping here and there in ALO, so piloting a drone using VR goggles for a first-person view was second nature to her.
From her perch on M’s shoulders, she exclaimed in English, “Yahoo! I’m flyiiing!” But she didn’t forget her mission, either. “Onward to distant skies! Well, I guess not. What next, Pito? Should I bop this guy on the head?”
A man inside the Humvee was looking up at her. While the mask and sunglasses hid his expression, he was unquestionably frustrated.
He was the only one in the Humvee. No sign of any other teams around. Once she’d checked and memorized the appearance of the buildings around her position, Pitohui said, “We’re done. I know where he is. The Minigun should be to your west. Look for it.”
“Roger!”
As the drone that stared him down flew off to the west, the leader of Team V2HG put a hand to his ear and tapped it a few times. “Hook up your comms, everyone!”
He said to his five teammates, “My drone is down, too. They knocked it out of the sky. The enemy one rammed it. They’ve got one hell of an acrobatic pilot over there. It went west.”
“That’s amazing!”
“Are you serious…?”
“Whew! Impressive!”
The members of V2HG were alternately stunned and intimidated.
The driver of the Humvee equipped with the Minigun asked, “West? That means it’s coming this way. Should we shoot it down?”
The leader considered this briefly. The Minigun was an excellent piece of antiair weaponry and had a fair chance of hitting the drone. It was about to turn two o’clock, so they didn’t have to worry about ammo, either.
However, they needed to keep the Humvee in place to block their opponent’s escape route. If they moved, the enemy would have a chance to sneak off to the west.
V2HG’s leader made his decision. “Stay where you are, but try to knock it out of the sky!”
They weren’t just one team at the moment. They were in an alliance with a squad of experts, WNGL.
“We’ll have to leave the rest of the heavy lifting to them.”
The drone buzzed just past the side of the standing building and took a hard turn around the corner, bringing a target into Fukaziroh’s sights.
“Spotted the minigunner!”
She headed west down the main road, nimbly zipping past the scattered debris in her way, before coming to an unexpected, screeching halt.
“Ugh!”
The turret protected by armor plating spun around to face her.
“Some sharp eyes on this one!”
Fukaziroh tilted the flight stick left, completely altering the bearing of her vision. A terrifying amount of light surged in from the right.
Fukaziroh lowered the drone’s elevation.
Pitohui’s screen showed lines of gunfire lancing forth from the Minigun toward the camera. Only Fukaziroh’s exceptional control kept those bullets from striking the drone.
Suddenly, the Humvee was much larger in the video feed than it had been moments before. If Fukaziroh hadn’t zoomed in the camera, that meant she’d flown much lower to the ground.
“Why? Why isn’t she going higher to get away?” Llenn wondered.
Pitohui answered that for her. “It’s the opposite. If she goes up, then the total angle of the drone’s strafing ability is smaller, and the Minigun has to move less to adjust. It’s better to stay low and close, darting around while watching the turret’s maneuvers.”
“Ohhh, I get it now… Very smart, Fuka…”
Llenn looked over at Fukaziroh, who was sitting on M’s shoulders, her mouth twisted into a delighted grin. Her left hand was jerking the control stick back and forth wildly.
Llenn recalled when she’d gone over to Miyu’s house and watched her kick ass at a shoot-’em-up game. It was in Llenn’s first year of high school, right after they’d become friends.
Karen had hardly ever played a video game in all of her fifteen years of life, so seeing Miyu with all those game consoles in her own bedroom was a kind of culture shock.
Now it was five years later, and Karen was playing full-dive VR games.
“C’mon, sucker. If you’re mad about it, why don’t you hit me?” Fukaziroh taunted. She was only flying the drone and had no means of hitting the enemy. All she could do was weave through the enemy’s hail of bullets.
However, Fukaziroh was occupying the powerful Minigun and Humvee, buying her squad valuable time.
“Pito, they’re stuck in place! We can escape to the west now!”
“Mmm,” Pitohui murmured noncommittally.
“I think that would be a good idea, too. What’s wrong?” Boss asked.
Pitohui replied, “Did you forget that there’s another squad?”
Crap, I did, Llenn thought.
“Ah, that’s right,” Boss replied. “But we have nine people here. If we come across a team of six, we can blast them back to kingdom come.”
It was a bold statement, and not at all a bluff, but Pitohui just shook her head. She took one of her photon swords out of the pouch on her back and extended the pale blade. Then she swung it, severing the head of a monster that was popping up over the broken concrete.
That action, as casual as swatting at a mosquito, had just bought them another five minutes of peace from any monsters in this area.
Pito really is amazing, Llenn praised silently. She hadn’t noticed the monster at all.
Pitohui stowed the photon sword and resumed talking. “That name, WNGL. I just figured it out. They’re the Lancers.”
“Ohhh, them,” appended M, who was still carrying Fukaziroh on his shoulders. The girl’s fingers and head were continually twitching back and forth.
“You know them?” Llenn asked.
M couldn’t move his head very much with Fukaziroh on top of him, but he managed to indicate an affirmative answer. “They’re a fairly well-known squadron. To be a member, you have to be a sniper capable of acting on your own. Very extreme group.”
In real life, snipers worked in teams with a spotter; taking a position on your own made you too vulnerable, and it was frowned upon. Yet, plenty of people played GGO alone, so solo snipers weren’t that rare.
Pitohui continued the explanation. “But there’s a very severe test to join the squadron. GGO’s already packed with gun freaks, and WNGL are the snipers, so they’re the freaks among the freaks. They’ve chosen to disregard everything except for pushing the limits of their sniping accuracy.”
Wow, there really are all kinds in GGO, Llenn thought, and then she scolded herself. Hey! This isn’t the time for losing focus!
“Then…they’re tough?”
“In terms of individual sniping techniques, they’re probably the best team in GGO. They’re good at hiding behind cover and sneaking up on enemies, too. I don’t think all of them can snipe without a bullet line, but they’re all good at aiming from angles and positions where the target won’t see the line anyway.”
“Urgh…”
If the bullet line was out of your field of vision, it might as well not exist. No matter how fast Llenn was, she couldn’t dodge a line on her back that she couldn’t see.
“Now, you’ll notice the squadron’s tag suggests more than just the name Lancers…”
“Is it Long Lancers?”
“Close, but no cigar. See the W? It’s Wrong Lancers. WNGL.”
“Wrong Lancers…”
“That’s the sort of twisted folks we’re up against.”
Boss considered the discussion and, without taking her eye off the surroundings, particularly to the west, opined, “If all of them are solo snipers, doesn’t that give them terrible team balance?”
SHINC had more snipers than the average squad, but that was still only two people. If you included Boss’s close-range Vintorez due to the silencer’s muzzling effect, it brought the count to three.
“Yeah, it’s not good. So they’re really at a disadvantage in a team battle-royale event. I wouldn’t expect a group like that to join a Squad Jam. They’re all hard-core players, so I didn’t think they’d be interested in a frivolous event like this,” said Pitohui. “But…”
“Winning aside, if they’re focusing on cooperation with the other squads under Fire’s control, they can be a lot more effective,” Boss remarked.
“Exactly! If they’ve been placed up ahead, it’s not going to be an easy escape route.” Pitohui gave her a thumbs-up. She seemed to be enjoying their perilous situation quite a lot.
Llenn, meanwhile, was furious.
Damn you, Fire! How much did you spend to hire these cutthroats? If there was ever an opportunity to talk with him, that’s what she wanted to ask.
“Crap! Quick little bugger!”
The battle of Fukaziroh vs. Minigun was currently tilted in the former’s favor.
While the gun turret could be swiveled with electronic controls, its speed could not match the drone’s sheer mobility. In addition to weaving left and right, Fukaziroh could do the occasional backflip and abruptly drop toward the ground to evade the enemy’s aim.
“Forget it!” cried the gunner after several fruitless tries. Although he stopped firing the gun, he kept his eyes on the drone and his thumb near the trigger in case he needed to shoot.
Sensing that the gunner wasn’t going to shoot her down, Fukaziroh began to circle around the Humvee at a height of ten meters.
“It kills me to admit, but it’s too hard to hit that thing. Should we move?”
“No, stay in place. We’ll run the drone out of battery.”
Fukaziroh was too fast to be hit, but that didn’t change the fact that she had no means of attack. A surprise kamikaze dive wasn’t going to help if the drone didn’t have lethal power. And barring some extraordinary stroke of luck, there was no way she could damage the Minigun.
“What do I do now? Wait like this until the power runs out?” she wondered. The battery readout on her headset and Pitohui’s screen indicated that only a third of the charge remained. Flight time depended on what you were doing with the motors, but it was likely going to be in the air for only two to four more minutes.
“If you just wanted me to distract them for a bit, that’s one thing, but this thing’s expensive, right? Should I be flying it back here?” Fukaziroh inquired from atop M’s shoulders.
“Hmmm…” M was faced with one of his most difficult decisions ever. His mind was working at a breakneck pace.
The fallen building and rubble protected their current location. It had good visibility and was reliably safe for now. However, the group couldn’t set up permanent residence here. The longer they remained, the greater their disadvantage grew. If the enemy pressed with an all-out siege, it was only a matter of time until they clinched victory.
If they were going to run, now seemed the best time, as the Minigun wasn’t active. Unfortunately, their only routes were to the south or west, and they didn’t know where the Wrong Lancer snipers were hiding. It would be too dangerous to run down the spacious road as a group. Like Boss earlier, they could very quickly get shot and knocked out, perhaps without a chance of fighting back.
If they left, it was hell. If they stayed, it was hell.
Yet, M had another solution—attack.
Go on the offensive by staying put in this location and sending the speedy Llenn toward the Minigun.
Even skilled snipers would find it difficult to hit such a small and swift target. If she could approach the Humvee while it was distracted by the drone, she could toss a plasma grenade into it.
That was the best move in their current situation.
However, M didn’t dare choose a plan with a reasonably high chance of killing Llenn when Karen’s future hung in the balance.
In a previous Squad Jam, he would have employed the tactic without hesitation. He’d done it before.
Two seconds later, before M could recover from the paralysis of his indecision, Llenn cried, “That’s it! If I just run over there as fast as I can, I can toss a grenade at the Minigun!”
It was 1:57, according to the clock in the bar, when Llenn leaped into the enemy.
“Oh! She’s moving!” the audience cried.
The image on one monitor zoomed out as it followed her mad dash.
Another screen’s shot followed over her shoulder in a close-up, keeping her centered in the frame. Because she was running so fast, the scenery around her was little more than a blur.
Llenn waved her left hand, bringing up her inventory. A gray camouflage poncho appeared and settled onto her body.
“Ooh, a transformation!”
She continued to race through the ruins of the city, dressed perfectly for blending in.
Barely a minute earlier…
“But that means you’ll—,” Boss protested.
“I know it’s dangerous. But this is Squad Jam. I’ve got to make sure the team wins! I won’t win if I’m the last one of us standing!”
“…”
“Thanks for the concern, Boss. But remember, I’m the lucky girl! I’m the champion of SJ1! I’m gonna tear it up just like I did before!”
“…All right. Best of luck!” Boss acquiesced.
Llenn took off as fast as she could. There was no fear of tripping and falling. The bulky poncho’s air resistance would be a problem in real life, but GGO had no such hindrance.
She kept her P90 in place under the cloak, ready to shoot at anything that moved. If she got targeted by a sniper, however, it would be best to simply keep moving.
M’s voice on the comms gave her directions. “Left at the next intersection. Then you’ll be on a big, wide road. Be wary of snipers and run down the middle, zigzagging every two seconds.”
“Got it!”
With the help of Fukaziroh’s drone, now at a healthy altitude, and M’s judgment with the map at his disposal, Llenn continued her sprint.
“We’ve got an incoming hostile,” said a man in a mask and sunglasses quietly. He was wearing a vivid-green camo outfit in the distinct style of WNGL members. His voice was deep, calm, and smooth.
The man was in the city’s tallest building, on a floor high enough to enable him to see over any other. He stayed hidden to the side of a broken window frame with a large pair of binoculars in his hand.
“Small target. Wearing a camo poncho. Has to be LPFM’s speedster.”
A hundred meters below him, the little figure ran in a jagged formation down the street.
He put down the binoculars and looked at his map. It was not a Satellite Scanner map but a piece of waterproof paper he’d quickly copied the device’s map onto with a pen.
There were numbers listed on the chart’s roads. On top of that, features were recorded for each intersection—a flipped-over truck, for example, or a big scar on the southeast-corner building’s sign.
WNGL had been painstakingly copying down these details by zooming in on the map at maximum resolution while on standby atop the frozen lake throughout SJ4. Thanks to this, they had easily identifiable names for all points of the map.
“Target is running south down East Eighth Street in a zigzag pattern. She’ll reach the intersection with South Fifth Street in forty seconds. She’ll have to pause there for an instant to turn right,” the Wrong Lancer explained to his team.
“First to bag the target wins the prize.”
“Haven’t been shot yet! So far, so good!” Llenn reported to M as she ran.
A minute and a half had passed since she jumped out of her hiding spot. She’d covered a great distance already, and the sniping squad hadn’t shot at her yet. She didn’t know if that was because they weren’t nearby or because her zigzagging was keeping them from getting a bead on her.
“That’s a good pace. When you come up on the big intersection ahead, go right. In another hundred feet, there will be an alley to your left. Take it three hundred feet, and you’ll reach the street with the Humvee. It’s about a hundred feet to the right of the intersection. I’ll have Fuka keep it away, but be careful.”
“Got it!”
Yes! I’m gonna do this! I can do this!
Once Llenn got into the alley, the Humvee with that damned Minigun would be a hundred feet to her right after a three-hundred-foot run.
With her speed, she could close that gap in an instant, pull two plasma grenades off her belt, and toss them right inside.
Happily playing out the scenario in her mind, Llenn hit the end of the street and charged into the intersection—only to trip over a chunk of concrete there, crashing spectacularly to the ground.
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