“Remind me to never let you drive again…”

The game didn’t simulate pain, or at least it wasn’t supposed to simulate this much, and yet…

Ethan felt like he would vomit at any moment. If he wasn’t in a match, he would probably run to the toilet by now. Instead, he took a breather and calmed himself down, knowing that if he messed up here, it could be the end for both of them. He looked up, his eyes on the gigantic, imposing soccer stadium that stood right before him. The stadium was around three hundred meters in diameter.

Clean, massive silver panels cover the exterior of the ring-shaped stadium. Not much could be seen outside, other than a large parking lot filled with several cars.

“!”

Ethan grabbed the back of Chione’s head and pushed her down, sending Chione face-first to the ground. Ethan ducked down as well, covering his head as bullets drilled through the side of his car. Both of them lay low, waiting for the bullets to stop. Chione gripped her handgun, ready to retaliate.

“Sorry about that.”

Ethan whispered. He did throw her face first to the ground, and had this been real life, it would surely hurt.

“Don’t worry about it.”

The bullets then stop. Chione turned around and lifted her head, peeking her eyes underneath the shattered windows of their vehicle. Ethan did the same and looked through the car’s rear windows. Ethan couldn’t see who shot at them. There were cars parked near them, as well as bushes surrounding the parking lot.

Unable to find their shooter, Ethan took Chione’s hand and ran toward the stadium. They weaved left and right, and after two seconds of silence, bullets started chasing after them. They leaped above another wall of plants separating the parking lot from the stadium and ran toward a parked white van that sat near one of the stadium’s entrances.

Projectiles shook the van that they hid behind, some of them piercing through and passing to the other side. Despite simulating bullets differently from their real-world counterparts, this game lets it retain some of its properties. A rifle bullet could easily tear through the van’s rear, forcing the two to move forward toward its engine.

Chione opened her inventory and with practiced movements swapped her handgun for her sniper. It took only a couple of seconds, but even those seconds felt long when they came under fire like this. A light gray, high-level sniper rifle appeared in arms. She had just found this sniper when they stopped in front of a small house in the center of a large, open field. Chione said that she had a feeling that something valuable was hiding there, and her intuition turned out to be right.

Ethan glanced at her holding a rifle. When he knew Chione was taking the sedan, he expected her to drive it on the highway, using its speed to hopefully dodge bullets. As it turned out, she decided going offroad was the best way, giving him one of the bumpiest rides he ever had. He couldn’t help but be impressed at the way she drove, though.

He watched as she grabbed the bolt handle, lifting it up and pulling it with one practiced motion, before inserting the magazine. She pushed the bolt handle and brought it down, inserting a bullet into the chamber. She then glanced at Ethan. Ethan ran toward the van’s rear and exposed himself from the cover. He turned his body toward their attacker, while Chione moved to the front and rested the gun’s bipod on the minivan’s hood, the sniper’s butt on her shoulder.

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Rounds of bullets flew toward Ethan as he charged ahead, swinging his longsword maniacally. It struck the bullets, deflecting and destroying them. He pushed forward, running through the flood of bullets which increased in intensity. He stepped left, dashed right, moved forward, and occasionally leaped backward, all in an attempt to get this person shooting at him confused. The world looked to be blurred around him, tracers flying all around. He waited for her sound, her voice, all while withstanding the strange feelings on his body.

Several bullets stabbed through him, but it didn’t hurt much. It felt as if someone had flicked him playfully, but he watched as every hit ate away at his health points. He waited patiently, he endured, then he heard it. Her voice. A loud bang accompanied a single bullet that traveled through the air, its metal surface reflecting the incoming sunlight. Ethan glanced at it. It flew in between the incoming bullets, narrowly missing the ones heading for Ethan. Like salmon swimming upstream, that bullet fought the waves of enemy bullets heading in an opposite direction, traveling under the glistening sun.

And then the rain stopped.

“Urgh!”

A loud moan came from before them. Ethan pushed his left foot back, propelling himself forward. He let his ear guide him where to go next, his limbs following their command. He stopped behind a yellow sports car and found a figure down on the ground, holding his hand that had been hit. That figure saw Ethan and quickly reached for his machine gun that he had dropped, but it was too late. Ethan pulled his longsword backward and lunged it forward. The longsword traveled through the air, turning and tumbling through the air.

“Ah!”

It hit the opponent straight in his head, but what impacted him was the wrong side. Instead of the blade, Ethan’s opponent took the full brunt of the sword’s hilt, knocking him back down. He tried to get up, but a second bullet from Chione put him down.

With the engagement over, Ethan did a quick search through his victim’s loot crate. The machine gun the player used was a medium-level, along with a high-level assault rifle, one far better compared to the one currently sitting in Chione’s inventory. Ethan turned around and motioned Chione to get closer. Chione swapped her sniper for a handgun and rushed toward him.

As he waited for her, he took another scan at the player’s loot. This player carried a low-level semi-auto sniper rifle as well along with a medium-level energy sword, but nothing else. No medicine, and little ammunition. He had an agility build combined with assault, but not much better compared to his own. He needed the defense more, anyway.

Chione kneeled down behind him and started swapping equipment. Ethan took his longsword back into his hand. He checked the map, seeing the zone that finally stopped. A dark red circle engulfed the stadium. A new zone appeared, its location on the soccer field itself.

The final showdown.

It wasn’t an official event, in a way, but he experienced this back when he won the previous event as well. The last zone would be located in one, large open field, where players would be forced to fight each other on one, equal ground. This didn’t always apply to the qualifications, but was basically guaranteed in the final.

Ethan carried a high-level longsword with a medium-level handgun he picked up on the way here that replaced his ax, while Chione carried a high-level handgun, sniper, and a medium-level assault rifle. Chione gave him her rifle in case he needed it, and he swapped it with his ax. With both of them carrying both close-range and long-range weapons, they headed toward the stadium.

They navigated through the clean white interior, heading deeper into the stadium. They didn’t see anyone else, however, the air devoid of any sounds. Their own footsteps filled the stadium, their sound echoing as it hit the walls of the large hallways. They ran past the shining, white ceramic tiles that were so clean it reflected their bodies.

The silence inside felt unsettling, especially since they couldn’t see any other player.

Eventually, they reached the spectator seats, coming from the south door. Rows of orange and red-colored seats aligned neatly surrounding the soccer field in the middle. And in the middle of that field, stood a girl, whose voice was all too familiar to him.

“We met again, brother.”