Phantom Bullet 1

  “Because…um, I’ve played all fantasy games until this point, and I was in the mood to try something more cyber-ish…And I’m kind of curious about what it’s like to have a gunfight.”

  This wasn’t exactly a lie. After honing my VRMMO skills on close-range sword combat for so long, I wondered how well that skill would translate to the vastly different style of GGO.

  “I see. Well, you’ve got real guts to challenge the BoB right off the bat,” she chuckled. “All right, I’ll show you where to go. I was on my way to the regent’s office too, anyway. But before that, a gun shop. What kind of firearms are you into?”

  “Umm…”

  I didn’t have an immediate answer. As it became clear that I didn’t know, she grinned once more.

  “We should visit a nice big market with lots of selection, then. That’ll be this way.”

  She spun around and took off. I hurried after the swaying muffler.

  We passed through so many twisting alleys and moving walkways and stairs that I was certain I’d never be able to recall the path we took. After several minutes, we came on another wide-open street. Directly in front was a huge, flashy store that looked like a giant foreign supermarket chain.

  “That’s it,” she said, pointing to the building as she weaved through the crowd.

  The interior of the vast store was full of color, light, and sound, like an amusement park. The NPC shopkeepers were all beautiful women in revealing silver outfits flashing dazzling smiles, which made it all the more shocking to see them holding, and surrounded on all sides by, menacing dark handguns and machine guns.

  “This is…quite a store,” I muttered, and the girl next to me chuckled.

  “It’s usually easier to get the good bargains at the deeper specialty shops than these all-round stores that sell to newbies. But you can also use this place to find the type of gun you’d like, and then go do your shopping elsewhere.”

  Now that she mentioned it, the players milling about the establishment seemed to be wearing more colorful attire than the average, and compared to her veteran desert-colored fatigues, they came across as amateurish.

  “All right. What type of build are you playing?”

  I paused. Though I had converted between very different worlds, my character’s general leanings should have been preserved.

  “Um, mostly strength, followed by speed…I guess?”

  “So you’re a STR-AGI type, then. You could be a midrange fighter with a heavier assault rifle or a large-caliber machine gun as your main weapon and a handgun for your sub…Oh, but you just converted, didn’t you? So you won’t have much money…”

  “Ah…r-right.”

  I waved my right hand to bring up the menu. Though I kept my statistics, I lost all my items and money in the transfer. So the number displayed at the bottom of my item storage said…

  “Um, one thousand credits.”

  “…Exactly the starter sum.”

  We looked at each other and laughed nervously.

  “Hmm,” she murmured, putting her fingers to her chin and tilting her head in thought. “With that amount, you might only be able to get a small raygun. Or on the live-ammo side, a used revolver, perhaps…But then again, if you’re interested…”

  I sensed what she was about to suggest and quickly shook my head. No matter the MMO, it was never wise for a newbie to get too much assistance from a veteran player. I wasn’t here to enjoy the game, but there were still rules that a gamer had to follow.

  “N-no, that’s all right. So…is there somewhere that I can earn a bunch of money really fast? I thought I heard there was a casino in this game…”

  The girl looked troubled at this idea.

  “That kind of thing is best to jump into when you’ve got plenty of money and expect to lose what you wager. But it’s true that there are places you can gamble, big and small. In fact, even in here…”

  She spun around and pointed toward the back.

  “There’s a game just over there, see?”

  Her slender finger was pointing to a large machine, flashing with electric lights. Upon approaching it, I found that it was too big to be called a game machine—it covered the entire wall.

  It had to be nearly ten feet tall and sixty feet wide. It was surrounded by a waist-high fence set into the metallic floor tiles, and an NPC dressed like an Old West gunman stood watch in the back. There was no fence at the near end, only a revolving metal bar and a square pillar that looked like a cashier box.

  Behind the gunman, who regularly drew his oversized revolver from its holster to spin it on his finger and offer challenges to passersby, was a brick wall riddled with countless bulletholes. At the top of that wall was a pink neon sign reading UNTOUCHABLE!

  “What’s this?” I asked. She pointed out the features for me.

  “It’s a game where you go in the gate at the front and see how close you can get to the NPC at the back without being hit. There, see where the high score is?”

  Her finger indicated a glowing red line on the floor behind the fence. It was just over two-thirds down the length of the space.

  “Oh…and how much do you win?”

  “Well, it costs five hundred credits to play, and you get a thousand for reaching ten meters, and double that for fifteen. Oh, and if you actually touch the gunman, you win back all of the money that’s been put into the game so far.”

  “All of it?!”

  “See the carryover amount on the sign? Ten, hundred…three hundred thousand credits and change.”

  “That’s…quite a sum.”

  “Yeah, well, it’s impossible,” she said flatly. “Once you get past the eight-meter mark, the gunman starts doing this high-speed firing pattern that’s a total cheat. He’s got an ultra-fast reload and three-point burst somehow, even though it’s just a revolver. By the time you see the bullet line, it’s already too late.”

  “Bullet line…”

  She pulled on my sleeve and whispered into my ear, “Look, someone’s going to add to the pool right now.”

  I tore my eyes from the gunman to see that a group of three men were approaching the game.

  One of them, clad in a wintry white-and-gray camo jacket, strode up to the gate with purpose. He pressed his palm to the cashier terminal, which erupted into a bright fanfare to indicate that a transaction had taken place. Nearly a dozen people wandered up from elsewhere in the store to watch.

  The NPC gunman drawled something in English that I took as a threat to “blast your ass to the moon,” and put a hand to the gun in his holster. A large, green, holographic number three appeared in the air before the Arctic camo challenger, then beeped down to zero, at which point the metal bar clanked open.

  “Rrraaagh!”

  He roared and raced forward, then abruptly threw his legs wide to come to a stop, his eyes wide-open. He tilted his upper half to the right and lifted his left hand and leg up into the air in a truly comical stance.

  Before I could wonder what kind of dance he was doing, three shining red bullets passed to the left of his head, through the space under his left arm, and below his left knee. While I’d been distracted, the gunman had fired three quick bullets in succession. The man’s evasion was impressive—but it seemed as though he knew where the bullets would be fired.

  “Were those…trajectories?” I murmured to the blue-haired girl, who nodded and answered:

  “Yes, he evaded the bullets by watching the bullet lines.”

  The man in the camo took off on another mad dash when the lines of fire were gone, then stopped again, just as quickly. This time he opened his legs wider and bent over ninety degrees at the waist.

  With a high-pitched whine, two bullets flew over his head and another passed through his legs. Another rush forward, another abrupt stop. It was like a game of “Red Light, Green Light.”

  The camo man showed considerable agility in proceeding forward seven meters. Just three more, and he’d be able to win back double what he paid to
play—but that’s when it all went wrong.

  Until now, the NPC gunman had been firing three shots in the same pattern: pause, two shots, one shot. The man jumped to evade the last shot, but lost his balance and put a hand to the ground when he landed. By the time he recovered, it was already too late—the gunman’s hand flashed, and the shot caught him on his white vest, shooting orange sparks.

  The sound system played another flare, this one droopy and mocking. The gunmen swore in triumph, and the pool total on the wall behind him shot up 500 with a jingle. The Arctic camo man slumped back toward the gate.

  “…See?” The girl shrugged, hiding a grin behind her muffler. “It would be one thing if you could dart left and right, but it’s pretty much a straight shot forward, so you always get beat right around there.”

  “Hmm…I see. So it’s already too late by the time you see the trajectory lines,” I muttered to myself, heading for the gate.

  “Oh…Hey, wait,” she called out in surprise, trying to stop me. I grinned back with one cheek and put my palm against the cashier. It made an old-fashioned cha-ching sound.

  The onlookers and the previous challenger’s group both murmured in surprise, either at another foolish attempt so soon, or at seeing my appearance. The girl with the muffler had her hands on her hips, shaking her head in disapproval.

  The gunman drawled a different taunt this time, followed by the same countdown.

  I dropped my hips and took a dashing stance. The instant that it hit zero and the metal bar swung open, I burst forward.

  Within a few steps, the gunman’s hand rose and three red lines appeared from the end of his gun. They pointed at my head, right breast, and left leg.

  As soon as this registered in my head, I leaped forward to the right as hard as I could. An orange bullet tracer shot past my left side. I kicked the panel on the right and returned to the center of the lane.

  Naturally, this was my first experience against a gun within a VRMMO.

  There were many monsters who used ranged attacks like arrows, poison projectiles, or magic spells in ALO and even SAO. There was one way to evade these attacks. You had to read the enemy’s eyes. It had to have been a sticking point with Akihiko Kayaba—every VRMMO monster run by the Cardinal system looked directly at its target when it attacked…but only if the creature actually had optical organs that could be classified as eyes.

  That golden rule had to apply to the NPC gunman as well.

  I focused not on the red bullet lines or the black muzzle of the gun, only on the gunman’s eyes. I could sense the trajectories of his shots just from the lifeless twitching of those eyes. When they moved, I darted just enough to avoid them, left and right, up and down, weaving my way around the silent lines. Each time a bullet passed, I was already in position for the next leap forward.

  I must have passed the ten-meter mark by the time he finished the second set of three, because a brief sound effect played. I barely even registered it.

  The gunman released his empty cylinder, sprayed the spent cartridges behind him and popped in a full six bullets with one motion, then clicked the frame back into place within the span of half a second—cheating, indeed—then pointed it at me again.

  His next attack was not the same crisp three-shot pattern. The shots came irregularly; two, one, then three. I evaded out of sheer instinct, closing another five meters. There was another brief jingle, and the gunman’s lightning-quick reload.

  There were only five meters left. I could see his whiskered face, twisted in what I imagined was disgust.

  Beneath the ten-gallon hat, his black beady eyes swiped sideways across my chest. I determined that dodging to the side was impossible, so I flopped down and slid on the tile. The six shots flew like machine-gun fire, but I’d bought myself half of the remaining distance.

  The enemy was out of bullets again. With another half a second to reload, I had enough time to reach him. But as I got to my feet, I thought I saw the gunman’s eyes twinkle with pleasure.

  On the spot, I changed gears and leaped as high as I could.

  The air I’d previously occupied was burned through by six lasers that shot out of his revolver without reloading.

  What the hell was that?!

  I did a flip in midair and landed just in front of the gunman. Though I was tempted to drop a catchy one-liner, I didn’t want to find out what other tricks he had up his sleeve—laser beams from his eyes?—so I silently slapped his leather vest instead.

  There was a moment of silence, as if all the sound was sucked out of the store.

  “Oh my Gaaww—!!”

  The gunman screamed and put his hands on his head, then fell to his knees. A mad fanfare played overhead.

  A rattling sound caused me to look up and see that the brick wall behind the gunman was crumbling outward. Before I even had time to be surprised by this, a fountain of coins was raining out, pouring over my legs and vanishing with nice little tinkling sound effects.

  The big counter underneath the neon sign was dropping with eye-popping speed, and hit zero just as the waterfall of gold dried up. An awful clanging bounced off the walls of the store, then the game reset itself. The gunman was back on his feet, twirling the pistol around his finger and spouting challenges again, but after the illegal twelve-shot maneuver he just exhibited, no one in the crowd was likely to take the bait.

  “…Whew.”

  I took a breath and left through the exit on the left-hand fence.

  Suddenly, a roar of murmurs spread through the crowd, which had grown to twice its previous size. I heard people wondering who I was and what in the world I’d done.

  The little blue-haired girl trotted over from the side of the crowd and stared at me with her catlike eyes. After a few seconds, she finally said something, her voice hoarse.

  “…What kind of reflexes do you have…? That last one, where you were right in front of him…You dodged a laser from six feet away…From that distance, there’s almost zero time lag between the bullet line and the actual bullet!”

  “Umm…well…” I struggled, trying to find the right thing to say. “This thing’s basically a game where you predict where the bullet prediction will be, right?”

  “P-predict the prediction?!” she yelped adorably, loud enough for the entire store to hear. Everyone in the crowd simply gaped, openmouthed.

  A few minutes later, once the audience had drifted off, I was in a corner of the store, examining a case of rifles.

  “Hmm…I don’t get this assault rifle. Why is it so big, when the caliber is smaller than a submachine gun?” I asked the nice girl, who was still helping me. She still seemed like a cat trapped between caution and curiosity, staring at me like some kind of unfamiliar creature.

  “…How could you have that much evasive skill, and not even know this basic information? You said you converted, right? What kind of game was it?”

  “Umm…Just, y’know, one of the fantasy kind…”

  “Oh. Well, whatever. If you enter the BoB, you’ll get a good look at what real combat is like. So what were you asking—why assault rifles are so small-caliber? Well, it starts with the American M16, which they designed for small, high-speed rounds that offered increased accuracy and penetration…”

  She trailed off with a sour face, like she couldn’t believe what she was saying. That odd reaction disappeared instantly, replaced by a gentle smile.

  “…But that doesn’t matter, does it? Come on, let’s finish up your shopping.”

  “Uh…yeah, thanks,” I said, nodding suspiciously. She looked away from me and began strolling past the large display case.

  “You won 300K, so you should be able to afford something nice…but ultimately it all comes down to personal preference, so that’s what we need to figure out first.”

  “Preference, huh…?”

  I followed the girl, eyeing the many black and gleaming guns, but none of them stood out to me. That made sense, as I knew nothing about guns, other than that the
re were revolvers and automatics.

  As I agonized, I eventually reached the very last one of the cases that filled the store from end to end. At this point, she ought to just pick one out for me, I thought—until something caught my eye.

  In the corner of the long display case was a selection of things that looked like metal tubes, clearly not guns.

  They were about an inch across and ten inches long. On one end was a metal tool that looked like a climber’s carabiner, while the other end was slightly wider and featured a black hole that seemed likely to shoot something. If it was in this place, it was probably some kind of gun, but there was no grip or trigger of any kind. The only other feature was a small switch high on the side of the tube.

  “Um…what are these?” I asked the girl. She looked back and shrugged her shoulders, which seemed to be a typical reaction for her.

  “Oh, those are lightswords.”

  “L-lightswords?”

  “Yes. As in swords of light. The official title is ‘photon sword,’ but everyone just calls them laser blades, or lightsabers, or beam sabers, or whatever they want.”

  “S-swords?! There are swords in this game?”

  I leaned over to get a better look at the case. Now that she’d put the image in my head, they did indeed resemble the tools used by those force-wielding knights from the sci-fi movies of old.

  “Sure there are, but no one actually uses them.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because…you have to be at point-blank range to hit anyone, and you’ll be pumped full of lead before you can get close enough to…”

  She trailed off and stared at me, her mouth hanging open. I nearly gave her a nasty grin back, but salvaged it into a gentler, reassuring smile.

  “So I just need to get close enough.”

  “L-look, I know you’re real good at dodging, but against a full-auto rifle—ah!”

  I had already turned away from her and tapped on a particular photon sword whose matte black finish I liked. When the pop-up menu appeared, I hit BUY, and an NPC employee came rushing over at top speed with a smile and a metal panel. When it dawned on me that the panel had the same green scanner that the game cashier did, I knew to put my palm on it.