Sword Art Online - Volume 5 - Phantom Bullet

  “It seemed like a hardcore player using drugs and hallucinating… Although looking at this one case alone doesn’t help very much when put into a general perspective compared to all the other cases…”

  “Indeed, in terms of the overall national crime rate, these barely amount to anything, but concluding from a myopic perspective it may be VRMMO games that breed such social unrest. However, as you had previously mentioned…”

  “- VRMMO games do cause people to lower certain boundaries in reality. It is something even I recognize.”

  At that time, the waiter returned with silent footfalls and placed in front of me two plates of dessert and a cup of coffee.

  “Would this be everything Sir?”

  After a nod, he placed a bill with a scary figure face down on the edge of the table. I took a sip of the coffee that exuded a nutty aroma and continued our conversation.

  “… As PKing is seen in most of these games as just another daily occurrence, it isn’t impossible for such an environment to serve as a training ground for real world murders. Especially in this new genre of games, where cutting off a wrist leads to blood spurting out and slicing open a stomach results in internal organs spilling out. Above that, are also hardcore maniacs who would rather commit suicide than log out.”

  A throat was cleared from a nearby table with an interrupting ‘ahem’, to reveal two prim and proper women glaring daggers directed at me. I lowered my head, and continued in a quieter voice:

  “Given such common daily occurrences, it isn’t much of a mystery for some idiot to have brought back that practice into reality. I too, feel the need for some sort of counter-measures to be put into place, although the law would be nearly useless in such a case.”

  “Useless?”

  “Useless.”

  With a golden spoon, I carefully skimmed off a thin layer of pink cream and cake, cautiously transporting it to my mouth as I thought to myself, that each spoonful was worth 100 yen. While savoring each delicious morsel as it literally melted in my mouth, I continued on our debate of savagery.

  “…Not even if you closed off the network. Because the VRMMO networking server is relatively easy to set-up, no matter how much you ban it in Japan, users and traders will just move overseas.”

  “Hmm…”

  Kikuoka’s dignified gaze fell onto the table, and after a few seconds of thought, he opened his mouth.

  “…Your mille-feuille looks good… may I have a bite?”

  “…”

  I directed my third sigh, along with my plate, towards Kikuoka. This career dignitary then proceeded to steal with great gusto, approximately 280 yen’s worth of my mille-feuille, and stuffed his cheeks.

  “But you know, Kirito-kun, I was just thinking… Why PK? Isn’t getting along nicely with everyone else more fun than just killing them?”

  “…You play ALO too, so you should already have an idea, as long before FullDive, there’d already been MMORPGs that stole from each other. To say the least, because such games do not technically have definitive endings, some form of endgame content has to serve for player’s motivation… like seeking and playing for the feeling of superiority over others, I think.”

  “Oh?”

  In the midst of his chewing, Kikuoka raised his eyebrows as if to request a further explanation. Seriously, why did we have to talk about that, deep inside I considered poisoning him, half for the sake of revenge as I continued:

  “…It’s not just limited to the game. Wanting to be recognized, wanting to climb even higher than others, isn’t that the basic structure of our society? Even you should understand as those in the same department as you, there are government officials who are envious of others with a better university degree or have faster promotions due to connections; but on the other hand, they look down at the non-government officials with a smug sense of superiority. Finally those with both inferiority and superiority in balance can eat cake with peaceful faces, isn’t it?”

  Kikuoka swallowed the mille-feuille, and smiled gingerly.

  “You are quite frank with your spite aren’t you? So what about Kirito-kun? How do you take the balance?”

  “…”

  Of course, despite having an inferiority complex as high as a mountain, I have no intention of telling this guy. With an ignorant face, I fired back:

  “…Well, at least I’m together with my girlfriend.”

  “I see, I am jealous to death over that one point, Kirito-kun. The next time we’re in ALO, wouldn’t you introduce me to some girls? Take the Sylph Lord for example, she is just my type.”

  “I’ll tell you in advance, the moment you say ‘I’m actually a high ranking bureaucrat’, you’ll get decapitated.”

  “If it’s by her, then I wouldn’t mind being killed once. - So?”

  “So, about this superiority complex, it’s surprisingly hard to fulfill in the real world. It’s not something you can get unless you work really hard. You’ll have to study hard to get better grades, to get better at sports, become cooler, or more attractive… All of which require a lot of time and energy and there is no concrete guarantee of payoff, above that the requirements are near impossible to achieve anyway.”

  “I see. After all, I did study to death for my exams, and still did not get into Toudai.”

  For some reason, having seen Kikuoka smile so happily while speaking about the subject, I suppressed the desire to make a smart remark and quickly continued talking.

  “Then, MMORPG to the rescue. Here, time sacrificed doesn’t pass in vain like in reality and your character will become stronger as you find rare items, learn more skills, and have higher stats. Of course you’d still have to work hard, but that’s because it’s still a game. Rather than studying or training your muscles, this is a lot more fun. Equipping expensive gear to show off your high level while walking down the avenues of a main street, you will definitely attract a lot of envious attention from those weaker than you… virtually, that is. If you go to the hunting grounds, you can defeat monsters with overwhelming power, or save a party in a pinch. Be thanked, be respected -“

  “Virtually?”

  “…Of course, that’s only one aspect of it and MMO games also do have many other elements to them. But, network games with social networking as the main theme have been around for a long time, and none has been more successful than MMORPG.”

  “…I see, that kind games are hard to satisfy the need to feel superior?”

  “Yes. - Then VRMMO games came out. In these games, you can walk down the street yourself instead of through an avatar character. Where previously you would have had to settle for fantasizing about it through your computer screen, you now actually feel the gazes fixed upon you.”

  “Hmn. That is true I guess, because when you walk side by side with Asuna-chan in Yg-city, everyone stares.”

  “…You say such spiteful things so bluntly. In any case, in VRMMO games, so long as you take the time to do it, anyone can achieve a sense of superiority. Compared to how well you study, how good you are at soccer or how much money you have, is much simpler, much more primitive, and appeals directly to human instinct.

  “…In other words…?”

  “In other words, it’s «Strength», physical, arduous strength. With your own hands, the power to destroy your opponent. In a way, it’s like being on drugs.”

  “…«Strength» …Or the greatest «Power», huh.”

  Kikuoka murmured with some kind of nostalgia.

  “…Boys will, no matter who, always seek strength at one point or another… doing things such as reading fighting-based manga and wanting to train the same way they do. But, usually most of them will immediately recognize the futility of doing so, and start to pursue a more realistic goal… - I see, then are VRMMO’s not another chance to pursue such goals, I wonder.”

  I nodded, and as I rarely speak so much, soothed my dry throat with some coffee before speaking.

  “Aah. Some games from the fighting genre also
seem to merge into reality, where alliances and schools of martial arts are formed.”

  “Oh? Which means?”

  “In other words… What characters learn in-game could very well lead them to become experts in things like This-and-That-Styled-Karate or Here-and-There-Styled-Kenpou. That in turn could reproduce some of the stereo-typified scenes of Shinjuku and Shibuya, leading to some outlaw bros taking out enemy characters, the Tekken system of justice. …Following that, obviously I can’t teach you to understand their hearts. People who live in this kind of games might want to try out the skills they learn in VRMMOs in the real world… or might already have, that possibility does not exist, is unfortunately not something I am able to say - such are my sentiments.”

  “I see… It’s an invasion of the VRMMO concept of «strength» into reality, huh. Hey, Kirito-kun.”

  Kikuoka, his face once again turning serious, looked at me.

  “That, are we only talking about only psychological issues here?”

  “…What do you mean?”

  “Beside their psychological resistance to committing acts of violence being lowered, and also being able to gather the knowledge and skill required to commit violence… In reality, their physical attributes somehow accommodating these changes… that kind of thing doesn’t occur, right?”

  This time, it was my turn to think and reflect.

  “…That is, using the example from before, that the physical strength required to swing around a 3.5 kg sword in Shinjuku, was developed by the man in the game-world… you mean?

  “Yes, that.”

  “Hmm… As for the FullDive system affecting the human nervous system, it seems that research has just begun. But in reality, lying down for long periods of time would certainly result in diminished overall strength, although such brute strength surfacing just for an instant could be due to the rush of adrenaline in the heat of the moment… - But that’s more your field than mine, right?”

  “A long time ago, I went to listen to what a professor had to say about neurophysiology, and it was like Greek to me… We may have gotten off track a lot, but we’ve reached today’s objective. Please take a look at this.”

  Kikuoka played with his tablet, and handed it to me.

  I accepted it, and on the LCD screen, I saw the mug-shot of a man I did not recognize, with his home and other profile next to it. He had extensively long hair, silver rimmed glasses and quantity of neck and cheek fat.

  “…Who’s this?”

  Accepting the terminal back from me, Kikuoka moved his fingers around.

  “Riight, last month… on the 14th of November. At an apartment located in Nakano Ward, Tokyo, the landlord noticed an unpleasant smell while cleaning up around the area. He tried to reach the resident through the inter-phone, but there was no response and there was no answer on the regular phone either. But as the room’s lights were still on he released the electronic lock out of curiosity, and found this man… Shigemura Tamotsu, age 26, dead. It seems he had died five and half days ago. There were no signs of the room being ravaged, and the body was lying on the bed wearing on his head…”

  “An AmuSphere, I’m guessing.”

  I had one of those in my room too, two overlapping golden rings that formed a piece of head gear, the FullDive machine popped up in my mind as I said it, then Kikuoka lightly nodded.

  “That’s right. - Immediately we contacted his family members, and ordered a post-mortem autopsy to investigate the mysterious death. Cause of death: acute heart failure.”

  “Heart failure? The one where a heart suddenly stops beating right? Why did it happen?”

  “We don’t know.”

  “…”

  “As a long time had passed since the time of death and the probability of it being a crime is low, we didn’t do a detailed autopsy. But it seems like he had not eaten for 2 days after having logged in continuously.”

  I frowned once again.

  To be honest, such cases aren’t all that rare. Why? Because although having eaten nothing in reality, having consumed something while inside a VRMMO means that you still feel full, and the feeling lasts for a few hours. Addicts, or those so-called hard-core gamers, tend to consider time outside gaming as time wasted, and cases where people don’t eat for 1 or 2 days really aren’t that rare.

  However, if such routines are consistent, it’d be impossible not to have negative repercussions on the body. A malnourished victim living alone having an attack… wasn’t a very rare case at all.

  Closing my eyes for a moment and after praying for Shigemura-shi to find happiness in the next world, I opened my mouth.

  “…while this is tragic, but…”

  “Indeed it’s depressing, but it is common these days. Because such an incident won’t appear on the news, and the family members won’t say much as they want to conceal the fact of dying from this way due to a game, we can’t seem to conduct any further investigations. In a way, such a death can also be seen as an invasion of VRMMOs, but… “

  “…You wouldn’t normally call me out just to hear a surface theory right? What’s up with this case?”

  At my question, Kikuoka glanced at his terminal, and answered.

  “This Shigemura-kun installed only one game on his AmuSphere. «Gun Gale Online»… heard about it?”

  “That’s… obviously a given. Due to the fact that it’s the only VRMMO game in Japan with «Pro» playing; I haven’t played it myself, though.”

  “It seems that in Gun Gale Online… Abbreviated GGO, he was ranked as the top player. That was decided in an event during October to find the strongest. His character’s name was «Zekushiido».”

  “…Then, did he die while logged into GGO?”

  “Actually, no, he didn’t. His avatar, «Zekushiido», was being featured on «MMO Stream», a channel hosted by one of the net stations.”

  “Aah… You mean M-ST’s «This Week’s Winning Group»? That reminds me, I remember hearing that one of their guests lost connection during a show and it stopped in the middle…”

  “Yeah, probably that one. He suffered heart failure while on the show. Their log recorded everything to the exact second. Then, this is unconfirmed information… Around the time of the heart failure, something weird happened in GGO, according to a user’s blog.”

  “Weird?”

  “MMO Stream also broadcast in GGO right?”

  “Aah. They usually air in pubs.”

  “It happened in a pub that was airing the show, off a street in the capital city «SBC Gurokken» of the GGO world. So, the problem is that around that time, one of the players happened to do something really strange.”

  “…”

  “Anyway, toward a televised image of Zekushiido-shi, «He» discharged a gun while screaming about judgment and death. Having seen that, one of the players who had coincidentally been recording the event uploaded it onto a video site. The uploaded clip also included a counter in JST… And… The gun was fired on the 9th of November, at 11:30 PM, 02 seconds. Shigemura-kun’s sudden disappearance from the show, at 11:30 PM, 15 seconds.”

  “…Just a coincidence right.”

  I said, as I moved my second plate in front of me.

  Taking a spoon-full of some tea-colored cylindrical thing, I brought it to my mouth. At once, its coldness surprised me. If it were a type of cake, it’d be an ice-cream cake, I thought. With sweetness that was barely contained, the densely packed chocolate essence began to unfurl, overpowering the bitter taste of the conversation that Kikuoka had started.

  I polished off a third into my stomach and continued from where I had left off.

  “Becoming the top ranked player of GGO would naturally cause others to hate him and envy him beyond the degree found in other VRMMOs. To shoot the actual person might require a lot of bravery, but it’s not very strange for the TV image to have been shot at.”

  “Yes, however, there was another incident.”

  “…What?”

  My spoon-hand froz
e, and I looked up into Kikuoka’s unchanging poker face.

  “This time, it happened just about 10 days ago, on the 28th of November. A dead body was found in the unit of a 2-story apartment building in Ômiya Ward, Saitama City, Saitama prefecture. A newspaper seller thought he was being ignored as the unit’s lights were still on, despite there being no answer, he tried the door knob and it wasn’t locked. Looking inside, a man was found lying on his futon wearing an AmuSphere, with a similar odor…”

  Ehem! A deliberately cleared throat put our conversation on hold; we looked at the same two women from before, at a table near ours, as they glared condemningly and gave us the evil eye. But, in a surprisingly bold move by Kikuoka, he nodded at them and continued our conversation.

  “…Well, let’s skip the details of the postmortem autopsy. This time, it was also confirmed to be death by heart failure. His name… let’s skip that too. Male, 31 years old. He was also a very strong GGO player and his character’s name… was «Usujio Tarako»? Is this the right name?”

  “A while back in SAO, there was a guy called «Hokkai Ikura», so they’re probably related. Was this Tarako-shi also on a TV program?”

  “No, this time it was an in-game incident. From the AmuSphere’s log, his connection was cut off about 3 days before the body was found, on the 25th of November, at 10:00:04 PM, Estimated time of death is also thought to be around that period. At that time, he was at Gurokken’s town square attending a Squadron - a guild, apparently - meeting. He’d jumped onto the stage to voice an opinion, and a player who crashed the meeting shot him with a gun. Although city streets are areas where all and any damage received would get instantly voided, he was angered by gunman’s assault and went after him, then suddenly disappeared. This information was also taken from a net forum thread, so the authenticity leaves much to be desired, but…”

  “The gunman, is it the same player from the «Zekushiido» incident?”