“Do you guys have any plans for tonight's attack?”
A girl's voice asked inside the room, echoing around for a while as they entered Ayame's ears.
She woke up on a cushion, her entire body was laid down on it. Her forehead was wrapped in a bandage with a little red spot visible.
As she had just regained full consciousness, she noticed that the sky was different again.
Well, it was not a sky. It was a dark green ceiling in a building.
Her vision immediately cleared, realizing this was a new place.
She listened as voices that were answering that question drifted into her ears from the room she was in.
She wiped her eyes with her finger, taking in the sight of a cluttered room filled with tense faces illuminated by the overhead lights on the ceiling.
Everyone in the room was almost all girls, wearing basically the same uniform.
The only thing that made them different were the color and length of their hair and skirt. Some wore dark blue, some wore army green, some skirts were knee length, some were high enough to their thighs.
The guys however, all of them were in a black suit, their faces completely masked and they wore black vests.
There was the girl that Ayame first met in that room, now she wore the same type of clothing as the others.
Sitting at the head of the table, her back to Ayame.
Her silvery blonde hair was highlighted by the light right above her.
"We'll bring another mortar to hit them again. We’ll give them a proper American welcome!"
A short blonde haired girl with amber eyes courageously proposed her idea to her.
"That’s not too efficient, Kiri!"
The sniper girl ended with a sigh.
Ayame sat up and observed the room. There were about 6 people arguing and suggesting strategies to the girl sitting at the desk.
Albeit the situation they were in, those people seemed so unserious.
The girl beside Kiri was pretty tall, her hair was blonde with a darker shade and her eyes were cyan.
She was discussing things with some other girls indistinctly, though their discussions were pretty serious, and her face was pretty aggressive too.
Another one, beside the previous girl though she wasn't involved in their conversation, had brown hair and light brown eyes.
She caught Ayame's gaze, but she quickly looked at the sniper girl.
She didn't seem so nonchalant like the rest of the girls and instead looked pretty outgoing, but it looked like she prioritized the boss over a random newbie.
"What about grenade launchers?"
"You're just looking for a war among our classmates, Rika. Don't you remember that we share this school building with our neighbors?”
“Not really…I've been here for only like 3 weeks.”
"Then we'll use a Silenced LMG⁽¹⁾!"
Another girl chimed in. She had slick black hair with flat fringe and red eyes.
She was tall but too skinny. Her shin and thigh were very slim. It was worth worrying that they could even support carrying the weapon she recommended.
"That's not discreet enough, plus it draws too much attention, aren't you bored of carrying a riot shield yet, Ririka?"
"Then we'll use rifles."
A smoother voice spoke up. The owner of this voice was a shorter girl with reddish-brown hair and brown eyes, standing at about 5 feet tall.
She was the girl that the cyan eyed girl talked with.
“You're making this mission sound like a suicide mission, you know!”
Eri was obviously not satisfied with the ‘Assault Rifles’ response.
“Why don't we all rush in with shotguns?”
The cyan eyed girl asked, she was pretty optimistic with her voice too.
"Do you want me to kick your cunt? I said we can't rush while being suicidal!”
“We'll bring a tank!"
Rika excitedly exclaimed, brushing her hair off with pride.
Just as she finished her sentence, the girl immediately reached into her desk and pulled out a sawed-off shotgun.
Without even trying to aim, she fired a buckshot straight into her groin.
The pellets busted into her skirt, torn half of it off and obliterated that area of her body.
Everyone was shocked, their eyes almost popped out of their sockets.
At the same time, Rika screamed her lungs out, gasped for air and knelt to the floor on one knee as her groin were smoking.
"Why did you do that?!!!"
She screamed hysterically, tears streaming down her face as she held onto her injured area.
"Sorry, I thought you said 'we'll bring a spank'."
The girl nonchalantly faced away and sat on her chair, and put the sawed-off down on the table.
"Fuck!!! Why does this hurt worse than getting my balls busted?!”
Rika yelled again, her voice cracked as she fell to the floor.
The girl only shrugged.
"I specifically told you we needed a silent weapon for this mission! We can't afford to attract attention while flanking them!"
The room fell silent, except for Rika who was still writhing in pain. Everyone covered their crotch, trying not to be the next victim.
"Hey, isn't that guy awake now?"
The shortest girl spoke up, pointing at the Ayame who was sitting on the cushion.
“Ah! You've woken up.”
The girl rose from her seat.
Everyone around her immediately took a step back.
She confidently strode towards Ayame sitting on the cushion and politely bowed before her with a friendly smile.
"Have you come up with a plan?"
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Her smile widened in curiosity as she asked the question.
Ayame instinctively moved away as the girl's face came closer to her own.
"What are you talking about?"
Ayame snapped back, avoiding eye contact with the girl's amethyst eyes that looked like a pair of marbles.
"Our attack strategy."
The girl clarified, not backing down.
"Why don't you just mind your own business?"
Ayame retorted, refusing to answer anything.
"Oh, so you're brave enough to defy the commander's orders?!"
The cyan-eyed girl took a bold step forward, pulling out a Katana from her left sleeve and pointing it at Ayame's neck.
The sniper girl stepped away.
Her aggressive expression turned even more menacing as she scowled.
Ayame quickly backed away when she saw the blade coming close to her neck.
She glanced down at the sword, only an inch away from touching her skin, and then back at the girl with cyan eyes who was holding it.
That girl smirked wickedly as she spoke.
"What an eyesore, still having a bloody bandage on that knucklehead of yours."
Ayame bristled at the insult but reacted quickly, parrying the blade away with the back of her right hand and jumping off the cushion.
The girl's face was surprised and shocked at Ayame's reflexes.
As Ayame’s feet landed on the ground, she immediately wobbled, her arms pinwheeling wildly as she struggled to steady herself.
As that girl noticed Ayame's right hand wasn't even bleeding, her eyes widened.
"I already told you, I don't care."
Ayame stated firmly, looking into the girl's eyes, trying to intimidate her.
With a sharp snap, the girl jumped back two feet from Ayame and swung her Katana through the air.
"Watch your manners, kid!"
She bellowed as she dropped the scabbard from her sleeve and deftly switched her grip on the sword and sheathed it.
"I've told you before, I want nothing to do with this! I'm logging out!"
Ayame responded firmly, taking a few steps back until she bumped into the bumper of a nearby truck.
She let out a groan as she turned to see what had hit her - a personnel truck with a green mattress laid out in its pickup bed.
This truck’s cushion was where Ayame had woken up before.
Then she looked around.
The floor was made with sealed concrete, and there were a lot of pillars painted with the same color as the ceiling.
"What a foolish girl…"
"That fall must have knocked at least 30 IQ points out of her brain."
Some voices whispered through the air, gossips about Ayame echoed around.
"So you're going to run away even though you've been rescued here?”
Kiri asked her. Her face expression was flat, but her eyes looked like they were going to hypnotize her.
"Yeah!"
Ayame answered back, her brows were furrowed.
"And you're going to run away without even trying to see this world?"
"Yes!"
"I've been trying to tell her…"
The sniper girl sighed.
"You're willing to run away from this place even though you know your real life is shittier?"
Kiri asked again, incredulously.
"Hell yeah!"
Ayame replied, then quickly backtracked.
"Wait, what?!”
"Ha, you've forgotten the reason why you entered this world, huh?"
The cyan-eyed girl ridiculed Ayame.
"What a dumb girl."
A girl with sky blue hair sat in the corner where no light was on, absentmindedly polishing the barrel of her sniper rifle as she muttered.
Her body was perfectly camouflaged into the color of the wall, overlaid with the shadow.
The same bright blue color adorned both of her eyes, the right one was covered by her hair.
She wore a jacket with a matching pattern to her skirt over a shirt.
Ayame's gaze widened when she noticed her.
Meanwhile, Rika was nursing her injured groin as she made her way towards the nearest wall for support, still limping from the buckshot's damage.
"This place is our only escape from reality. Some of us are actually handicapped in real life, and we are grateful to have the freedom to move around here!”
Ririka explained, scratching her chin thoughtfully.
"Really?!"
Ayame was confused and worried, feeling guilty for even retorting in the first place.
"And don't you find it strange that we don't even think about our real lives when we're here?"
Kiri chimed in, showing a little expression for the first time—a little smirk though her mouth was still pretty flat.
“Well because we are here because of one thing in common; escaping reality. But this goddamn game logs us out forcefully every 12 hours in real life.”
She sighed.
"There's still more to it than that..." The shortest girl added.
"If you stay in the real world, you'll just be beaten down by reality. Is that what you want?"
Kiri asked sarcastically.
"So basically, you should just leave this world behind and face reality to say goodbye to happiness forever."
The cyan-eyed girl interjected with a smirk before adding.
"Not to mention that amount of money you had spent to enter this game though. Perhaps, you're better suited to continue living as a beggar and breathe in vehicle smoke everyday until you rot into a corpse."
Ayame showed fear and dread in her face.
She imagined herself sitting helplessly on the pavement of a street, begging for a penny while cars and trucks got stuck in a traffic jam.
Yet no people dropped one, and she insisted on staying there for the entire day.
One day, she got respiratory problems and died because the hospital refused to take care of her because she couldn't afford the medical bills.
Meanwhile, hushed whispers and stifled giggles spread through the room, mocking Ayame from the shadows.
Rika was still wincing in pain as her injuries almost finished healing.
"Enough already! Don't be so cruel and push her out like that. She's new here and knows nothing about this world."
The sniper girl spoke up calmly.
"Let's focus on our plans for tonight's battle. We'll bring-"
"Machine guns."
The cyan-eyed girl cut her off with enthusiasm, with a masculine pride.
"Yeah!"
The girl nodded and smiled gratefully.
"We'll take the Mac-"
Suddenly, BANG!
Another buckshot from the sawed-off shotgun destroyed the cyan-eyed girl's groin.
She screamed, then fell to her knees screaming in agony, her torn skirts still hanging off of her.
The girl casually blew the smoke off the barrel of her gun.
“I'm reverting it! We'll just stick to the old plan while some marksmen⁽²⁾ keep guarding behind!”
Ayame just watched in confusion.
“Anyways, whenever you're here, you're safe to do anything. Did you even realize that when you woke up?”
The girl looked at Ayame. She knew Ayame must be questioning her existence in this room where all that girl did was just destroy other girl's groins.
“How am I supposed to?”
Ayame explained, still confused.
“Besides that, did any of you guys meet that computer head that talks? Why didn't he tell me the truth about this world?”
“You mean the stack of CRT monitors? He actually did. It's just he spoke about what the world was built for.”
Ririka answered her.
“How could you prove it? Has anyone actually seen it?”
Ayame asked again.
“Of course not. But according to general programming knowledge, that computer head only reads data from this world’s data bank. He can't see the shit we're going through right now.”
The girl answered her.
“But still, I don't get it.”
The boy answered her.
“That's not a problem. Everybody knows that this world was built for depressed people who have lost their hope in life. So just enjoy it while it lasts.”
The girl answered, then continued.
“Moreover, it's not like that computer guy is gonna get out of his nest and attack us head to head.”
“But what do you guys want to accomplish in this world?”
Ayame asked again.
“Right now, we are relentlessly working on increasing our character level, to find the Obsidian Compass. But that knucklehead Marika…”
She answered, letting a sigh as she spoke the last sentence.
“What does that thing do?”
Ayame asked again.
“It's an object that is used to open our way into the XML realm. The universe's code lies below that realm, and we want to disable that computer guy.”
The girl answered.
“XML?”
“Extensible Markup Language. Basically a universe in this game where you can modify tons of datas. Character attributes are one of the examples.”
“So like how many hearts a character has and how much damage each of us can deal?”
“That's a close analogy. To be honest, I don't know much.”
“Why though, isn't this world already perfect enough?”
Ayame asked again.
“No. Some people have disappeared from this world. I believe it's because they encounter some bug within the program, and the only way to debug it is to enter the XML world.”
The girl said.
“Then why fight when you guys can work together to find that compass?”
Ayame asked.
“It's easier said than done, brat. Don't talk to her like you're close!”
The cyan-eyed girl exclaimed, sitting on the floor while patting her injured area.
“Well, people can't always have the same opinions. But this is already way better than suffering in real life. You've been told that someone can't even walk in real life. So, consider this a paycheck from this world.”
The girl answered.
“I see.”
Ayame huffed.
“I assume you're still new here. You'll find out as time passes. Learn to adapt.”
“So all we do is to find the compass?”
Ayame asked, just to make sure.
“And kick Marika’s ass.”
The girl answered, lifting her right and offering a handshake.
Ayame gazed at the girl's face that was smiling at her with confidence, then she looked at the hand that was raised towards her again.
Almost everybody in the room looked at Ayame with unwelcoming faces.
Ayame noticed that too.
Without a second thought, Ayame brought her hand to the girl’s. They shook, as Ayame nodded a little.
The reaction from the people inside the room was not outrageous. But they seem to not bother with Ayame's presence anymore.
“I am Eri, the leader of our organization, The Resistance.”
Ayame only nodded while getting her hand shaken.
“The blue-haired girl that I shot first is Rika. The name of the player in real life is Kerry. She looks stupid, but she's actually reliable at times.”
Eri pointed to Rika.
Rika learned on a wall, nursing her groin. When she realized Eri pointed at her, she waved towards Ayame weakly.
Before Eri moved on the the next person, Rika immediately snapped into a standing position, yelling at her.
“Hey! You've forgotten to tell her that I'm your experimental ragdoll most of the time!”
“That tall woman is Ririka. The player behind her is Fenix. The person in real life had a job in database programming, so it would be useful when we have her inside the XML realm. For now, she also carries riot shields when we flank the enemy territory.”
Eri pointed at Ririka, meanwhile Rika kept yelling at Eri.
“Don’t forget to buy me fuel every weekend night, alright.”
Ririka stood on her ground, crossing her arms and looking to the floor, her mouth slightly open.
“She has a weird addiction to petrol for some reason.”
Eri added.
Ayame immediately looked at Ririka with a concerned face as Eri told her about Ririka.
“The short redhead over there is Kurumi, played by Ali in real life. She's the fastest between us and is able to squeeze between holes, she's basically a cat.”
Eri introduced Kurumi to him.
Kurumi turned away and did a vague “Hmph!” while crossing her arms.
“That blondie with a bob cut is Kiri, played by Ezra. She looks smart, but she's actually stupid. However I dare say that her sword skills are remarkable.”
Eri pointed to Kiri as Ayame followed her finger.
“Welcome.”
Kiri welcomed her, but it seems like she was also uninterested in her.
“The cyan-eyed girl who carries a Katana is Tsukasa. Andi plays her. He has the mentality of a cartel drug dealer, I'd say.”
She pointed at Tsukasa.
“Remember to call me Tsukasa, you insolent brat!”
Tsukasa had already gotten on her feet. She exclaimed while tilting his head to the left while putting her sheathed Katana on her shoulder.
“I'm not insolent…”
Ayame muttered.
Sure, here's the revised version with added dialogue tags and some unnecessary tags removed:
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“Also that girl who cleans her sniper rifle all the time is Eru. Davin plays her, and she's the sharpest sniper in this game,” Eri said, pointing at the blue-haired girl who was still wiping the barrel of her sniper rifle with a piece of cloth.
Eri's eyes flicked over to Ayame for a moment before returning to her own thoughts. Her brow furrowed, deep in contemplation, but then something sparked in her mind. She turned sharply to face Ayame, her eyes gleaming with sudden intensity.
"I almost forgot to ask. What's your name?" Eri asked abruptly, her voice slicing through the murmur of the room with sharp curiosity.
"Ayame," came the hesitant but determined reply.
"Is that your real name?" Eri pressed, her stare intense.
Ayame faltered, uncertainty creeping into her eyes as she struggled to find an answer.
Ririka and Eri exchanged a knowing look, a silent communication that didn't go unnoticed by Ayame.
"Are any of our names real?" Ayame answered, her face showing no concern.
Ririka and Eri's focus didn't waver. They continued to scrutinize Ayame with grave expressions, their eyes demanding more than just superficial answers.
"Do you even remember how you got here?" Ririka's question hung heavy in the air, the weight of it pressing down on Ayame like a tangible force.
"I woke up in an abandoned school, ran into a monster, and then suddenly I was here with you all," Ayame responded, her voice strained as she recalled the harrowing events. The memory was still raw and vivid in her mind.
The room fell silent. Every eye was on Ayame, their expressions a mix of shock and concern, the air thick with tension. Ririka and Eri's jaws hung.
"Oi, she's supposed to remember the device that brought her here, right?" Ririka whispered to Eri.
"Yeah..." Eri answered briefly.
"Ayame... did you die on your first mission?" Ririka's voice cut through the stillness, her words carrying a sense of foreboding, breaking the tension like a knife.
Ayame nodded slowly, understanding dawning on her face as well as on the faces of those around her.
Ririka's jaw hung even wider in disbelief. Then she slowly talked to Ayame, her words stuttering.
"Ayame… you shouldn't have died on your first mission,"
Ririka said, her voice filled with confusion and concern. Ayame was confused, the pieces of the puzzle not quite fitting together in her mind.
"As expected. It's not only our guys,"
Eri mumbled, lost in thought, her hand on her chin as she pieced together the implications.
"It must be a glitch in the XML,"
Ririka explained urgently, her voice growing more frantic.
"Or maybe corrupted files we can't access..."
Eri added, her tone grave. Her face showed that she was thinking deeply.
"If that's true, it means if Ayame dies again while trapped in this game world, she won't respawn."
“What does that mean?”
Ayame asked, her confusion evident.
“Normally, your real-life memories that are terrible are used to exchange lives in this world. One life usually costs 6 months to 2 years of memories. When you run out of memories, you won't respawn anymore, nor can you exit this game.”
Eri said.
“But I think there is a mistake in the software. It had mistaken 2 years of memories as the memories of your entire life, and brainwashed you.”
She added.
After the echoes of her voice faded, the room became silent.
Ayame took a while to process what Eri meant. Before she even finished thinking, Ririka’s trembling voice broke the silence.
“Ayame… don't die…”
⁽¹⁾ Light Machine Gun