BOW-BOW-BOW!!! BOWBOWBOWBOW!!!
Flashes of gunfire lit the large room with light, sound filled the room with thumping blasts. Cheers rang out whenever someone died, though…
“Hell yeah, this is awesome! We should go compete there sometime!” Lisbeth cheered with a virtual beer in her hand. Klein cheered with her and they quickly clanked their glasses, chugging with excitement.
Asuna, Silica, Lisbeth, Yui, and Klein were all sitting in a player home owned by Asuna, which had been moved around to create a cinematic experience. Not to mention, with a great view of the rest of Yggdrasil City.
Back on the screen, a player with red hair was shown from behind, running at a blisteringly fast pace. His steps were as smooth as glass, his form like an Olympic sprinter, and his sheer focus pinned to a shadow in the distance like a raging bull.
“Oh shit, there’s Zenith!” Klein called out from the back. On the screen, Zenith was running straight for a player he had just identified to be an enemy–but the enemy didn’t know he was coming. Within just another ten seconds, he would make contact and be able to cut down the unsuspecting idiot who didn’t even know how or when to check their six.
“Yes, get’im!” Lisbeth eagerly spattered, taking some beer out of her mouth with her words.
Five seconds until contact. Three.. One!
Below the frame of the camera, Zenith grabbed a metal rod that was just larger than his hand and flicked a switch once it was in view. He held the rod–now buzzing lightsword–at a deadly horizontal angle, perpendicular to his gaze. In just two steps, Zenith changed the position from the sword from his very left to his zenith. Then when he was just one more step away..
Bzzz! zzZZZZzzzzz!!
In just two swipes–a vertical from up to down and a diagonal cut from bottom right to top left–the enemy had turned around but was immediately cut into three pieces. There was his legs and lower torso, and both sides of his bust and head cut into two. The open wounds were filled with a neon red light that quickly shattered his body into tiny blue shards of glass, making a soft chime with them as well.
The entire room lit up with excitement. All that could stand in ecstasy did and there was even a great deal of cheering from the screen itself. There was even a faint cheer for their befriended canadian…
“Woo, go Zenith!”
“Haha! Was that Oyaga?” Silica asked humorously, in which she got her answer from the screen.
“I’ll buy you dinner if you wiiin!~”
This was met with a collective chuckle from the room.
“She’s got something for him, don’tchya think, Asuna? Maybe they’ll become loversss~.” Lisbeth teased from the back, which Asuna turned around and commented back, “That’s assuming he ever finds out how many hints she’s giving him! But they would make a nice couple…”
Asuna thought it over for a moment before the screen changed away from Zenith and onto another player–this time with cyan-blue hair.
The pressure was rising in my chest. If I didn’t manage to find Death Gun–or the person claiming to be the scrawny bastard–this operation would be completely busted.
That’s to say that; if I didn’t manage to find the player in question, the supposed killings caused by the mysterious Death Gun would continue happening, and therefore, completely shatter the VRMMORPG genre’s reputation and support. That wasn’t to say that the entire VR gaming sphere would evaporate overnight, just that if this game was taking down in Japan because of fear of continuous murders caused by an anonymous doer, regulation would grip the genre this game occupied by the balls. Or completely rip off its scrotom.
Either way, I had to continue this fight for two reasons now: one of them being the fact that the person in question was tied to the game of death: Sword Art Online. It couldn’t have been coincidence. I was told by Kazuto that nothing gathered from witness testimony had released information about the most prevalent murder guild known as Laughing Coffin.
This fight wasn’t over. It was never over.
I heard three quick beeps in my chest and quickly made for a puck-sized projector in my jacket, setting it on the ground in a secluded area of the forest. Within three seconds, a large projection of an island was laid out in front of me. The projection quite literally the size of me, but made searching for players significantly easier than just looking at the projection from your palm.
I tapped on a blue dot in the center of a forested area. Above the dot then read a name, “Zenith.” Directly next to it, I saw another dot and quickly pulled out my pistol in the cardinal direction of the dot.
Ta-papapapapap!
The dot went from red to gray, identifying that the player was now dead–in game. Their body was still safe on the other side, but that was no guarantee at this point in time.
I sighed in silent momentary prayer for their safety and began scanning the rest of the map.
Up north was a spannining desert with a city at the northernmost point, in the center was a lengthy forest cut into two by a river that led to a dilapidated city on the west. On the east was a hell scape of a swamp, and spanning the entire south was a tall-grass plain with almost mountainous features. In total, this was the entirety of the secluded Oceania island of ISL Ragnarok, planted just above New Zealand if planted on a world map.
The lore of this battle-royale map was surprisingly vast, but that was out of my current consideration for thought. My primary objective was finding Death Gun and preventing further damage. I had to do my job. But my job was quickly cut short as I heard blatant beeping below me. It was the transmitter announcing that the location broadcast was quickly ending.
Upon realization of this, I bent down, grabbed the puck, putting it back in my jacket. Once it was zipped away and secure, I made deadly haste to the city on the west of the island. It was going to be another 10 or so minutes before I would actually make it there, so I had time to evade threats and make a solid b-line.
This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.
Before I knew it, massive raging towers stood in my path. I could hear gunfire on the inside of the city, light chatter on my left, and overall sensation of wind and pressure.
This was the city of ISL Ragnarok–heightened and dilapidated.
For as ruined as it was, most assumed that the city would one day crumble under its own weight after the many battles it had so-far seen. Surprisingly, it didn’t, and it held fast as more shots were put into it. Useless information as of now, but a possible plotpoint in future tournaments.
I ran into one of the buildings and began organizing my thoughts on how to proceed.
The first problem on this shit-stained list was figuring out the identity of Death Gun. Not the pseudonym used to idolize him, but that actual player name behind the mask and cloak.
It had been made evident from that last tournament that solely top dogs had been making it into the final tournament bracket, showcasing the best of the best to the entire world. Some players were absent from this reincarnation of the BoB, primarily because of the fact that the Japanese and American servers were disjointed and forbidden from making connection after some North American players managed to slip into the Japanese servers and cause havoc in the tourney. One player stood out on top, touting only a pistol and a knife, and taking every single player’s name by force.
In this rendition, he was completely out of the question. North American players had no possible way to connect to Japanese servers with the hefty regulations put on VPN’s over the past few weeks, primarily siting piracy and other illegal activity.
With the foreigner option out of the way, there was another idea on the table: that one of the newest participants was the supposed Death Gun. All of last night, I had taken the time to comb through the live stream footage and couldn’t find a single instance of someone wearing the cloak and mask in a match. I had lummed over the option that another player had approached me with the outfit in an attempt to spook me, but too many points lined up for it to be that simple of a conclusion.
Anyway, there were just a few names on the leaderboard this time. Some were well established rising players in the game–such as Pale Rider and Garrett–but others that seemed to be completely fresh from the chopping block. One of the only players that fit that bill was a player named “Sterben,” which was concluded to be a shitty misspelling of “Steven,” so we casted him aside. Besides, looking at his playstyle showed that he played nothing like Death Gun. That wasn’t our guy. So… could he have been a ghost? Was this all a dream? Is this even reality?
I kept pondering on a tall building’s 30th floor when I heard a voice from behind.
“This way, Sinon! Be quiet!”
“You tell me that like I’m a child, Kirito!”
I instantly pulled my rifle from over my back and shouldered it on my right before realizing…
“Fuck, Kirito?!”
“Zenith?!”
I couldn’t believe my ears, or my eyes for that fact. As soon as I turned around to face the voice of.. a girl? No, that didn’t match. It was like a twinky-er version of Kirito. Long black hair, face like a young girl, but built like a mid-pubecent boy… or rather the real Kazuto, but shorter and cuter.
“What the fuck is that, dude? What happened to you, genderbend operation failed?”
“You know I transferred from ALO, Zenith! Knock it off!”
I laughed at the high pitched voice of Kirito, putting away my rifle as I looked to his left and saw a girl with a outfit that was a mix of neomilitarism and a sniper’s needs. The girl’s figure was covered in a skin-tight bodysuit that was laced with hexagonal tiles that was like flexible armor plating. She wore a low-cut leather jacket and shorts that barely went three inches past her butt and onto her thigh. She was short–probably about five foot and three inches tall–but held a sniper rifle that was literally as big as her, and had a utility belt that went around the belt-loop of her shorts.
“Hey, I know you. You’re Sinon.”
“Yeah, and I know you when you were asking me about this annoyance.”
Sinon’s voice and eyes were like that of a mildly annoyed cat, but still cute enough for almost every single player in the game to lust over her–literally. I was lucky enough to see a player ask her out on a virtual date whenever we were in a squadron together with another player called Deen.
“He’s not that bad, just gotta warm up to him.”
“Tell me that when he’s dead!”
“Quit whining, you two! Can we get on the topic of Death Gun now?!” Kirito budged in with his ironically chirpy voice and got me and Sinon to listen. We sat down on a circular table and began to listen.
“In a couple minutes, our transceivers are gonna get a ping from the satellite again. When that happens, we’ll take out our devices and scan the city for the players we assume are Death Gun, got it?”
Sinon and I looked at each other for a moment before looking back towards Kirito and nodding in unison.
“Alright, until then, you two get acquainted. We’re going to be in this makeshift party for the long run.”
I quickly decided to lie down on the table, making a significant “dump!” on impact. It was a wooden table laid in fabric and was meant for card games. …Meaning we were probably in a tall casino. I found this fact ironic–that gambling could still inhabit the most unsightly places–and moved on from it as I began to sort through my inventory some.
“You really didn’t organize your stuff earlier today?” Sinon probed me with her arms crossed.
“No, I was out when Kirito wanted to go ahead and dive in immediately.”
She scoffed and moved off the table, leaving me to my inventory window.
Just a minute later, I heard the same beep that I had heard 15 minutes ago.
“It’s time, pull ‘em out!”
We all collectively pulled out our transceivers and held them in our palms.
“Three…”
“Two…”
“One!”
Crack De Dam Down The Middle
The map comprised of a wireframe city in yellow lines. The light casted on our faces as we quickly scanned. I glanced up at Sinon and Kirito who were checking their own map. They seemed to be in tandem, looking for a specific name while I was just looking for anyone that seemed of suspicion.
A few seconds passed, and I heard a collective, “There!” My head jolted back up to see Kirito and Sinon looking at each other, then going back down to double check themselves.
“What the fuck are you ‘there-ing’ about? I have no idea who you’re looking for!”
“Jushi X, we think that’s Death Gun!” Kirito blurted out.
“On what suspicion? We don’t even know what he looks like!”
“I guess we’ll just have to find out. Zenith, you’re with me. Sinon, you keep a good lookout!”
I sighed and headed out with Kirito, making sure I kept an eye on his smaller frame to reduce bumping into him.
"How many compliments have you gotten so far?" I asked as we got to the ground level front entrance.
"Eh… I did a thing for some guys… just to show off."
Our eyes looked with each other for a moment. Weird… weird wouldn't even describe it.
"...Twink." I roasted and let Kirito move out.
We ran across the flag pavement with my head on a swivel as Kirito ran straight for the large stadium across the street.
"You damn dimwit! You'll get shot out here!"
I rolled my eyes and continued with Kirito in order to raid Jushi X.
With Jushi X dead, we confirmed that she wasn't Death Gun. But I had a more tense realization when I looked outside from Jushi's perch.
"Kirito! Gimme the smoke 'nade, now!"
"Why?"
"Just do it!! Sinon's in trouble!
With a swift toss, Kirito flung the smoke grenade at me, which I caught and pulled the pin with my teeth. We both jumped out of the perch, both holding rifles and firing as the canister hit the ground and clouded two people.
A bullet whizzed past my chest from the ploom of smoke, it made me spin, and what I saw…
Kirito's face turned into a deadly gaping mouth. His eyes rolled into the back of his head and a new red hole was found in the center of his forehead. I cursed loudly. Kirito was eliminated.