Phantom Bullet 2

  Yet the mysterious player showed no signs of haste, his trailing ghillie cloak flapping in the setting sun. He pointed the handgun down at Pale Rider and withdrew his left hand from the cloak as well. It was empty. For some reason, he touched his hooded forehead with the fingers of his empty hand. Then to his chest. Then left shoulder, then right.

  He was making the sign of the cross; a last tribute to a dying foe, perhaps. But his time was running out. Was he certain that he could avoid a shotgun blast at close range? Or was he just a fool who got a lucky gun and didn’t know when to rein in his act?

  Sinon couldn’t unclench her teeth from her lip, it was all so confusing. A whisper reached her left ear.

  “Fire, Sinon.”

  It was Kirito. But there was a desperate tension to his command that she hadn’t heard before. She asked him, “Huh? Who?”

  “The guy in the cloak. Please, shoot him now, before he fires!!”

  His intense plea was passionate enough to move her finger to the Hecate’s trigger. Normally she would have argued back out of habit, but she broke that pattern and trained her crosshairs over the back of the cloak. She estimated the wind and humidity from the level of visible dust effects. When she put pressure on the trigger, a green bullet circle covered the target.

  Theory said that she should wait until they were done fighting and shoot the victor. If she shot the tattered cloak now, Pale Rider would recover from his paralysis and dart off for the bushes, and she wouldn’t get a second chance to snipe him.

  But even knowing that, Sinon didn’t relax her finger. She just had a feeling that she needed to shoot him. She held her breath and gathered cold virtual air in her lungs. The chill slowed her heart. Ba-bump…ba-bump… The circle expanded and contracted with the beating of her heart. When it reached its smallest size, covering the center of the target’s back…

  A blast.

  Flames shot from the large muzzle brake like the breath of dragons. She was just 300 meters from her target. Sinon couldn’t have missed—she could already see the avatar flying, a giant hole in its back.

  But…

  At the exact time that Sinon pulled the trigger, the player in the tattered cloak dramatically bent over backward, like a ghost without a solid form. The deadly bullet grazed his chest and ripped an enormous hole in the earth past him.

  “Wha…”

  Stunned, Sinon suddenly felt the player’s face turn toward her and stare right into her eye through the scope. The mouth, hidden in darkness, sneered at her. Without realizing she was doing it, Sinon moaned, “H-he knew…he knew we were here all along…”

  “No way! He never even looked toward us!” Kirito exclaimed, equally shocked.

  She shook her head. “He couldn’t possibly have dodged like that unless he could see the bullet line. In other words, he must have registered me by sight at some point, which the system remembered…”

  Even as she spoke, Sinon was automatically loading the next bullet into Hecate’s chamber. But she wasn’t sure what she should do, even as she entered firing position. It was 99 percent impossible for her to hit a foe with that kind of reaction speed when there was a visible bullet line to utilize. She could try firing the four remaining bullets in the magazine in quick order. But if they all missed and he was able to close the distance, she’d be in trouble. What to do…what to do?

  The cloaked man regained his balance, as though sensing Sinon’s hesitation. He turned the handgun on Pale Rider again, cocking the hammer with his thumb. He steadied the grip with his left hand and pulled the trigger, facing his target at an incline.

  There was a small flash, and a moment later, a dry klak gunshot.

  “Ah!” Kirito gasped.

  The bullet caught Pale Rider in the center of the chest. It was a critical point, but no matter where a 9mm Parabellum bullet hit its target in this game, there could be no one-hit kills. If anything, Pale Rider probably still had 90 percent health left. For some reason, the cloaked player didn’t bother to shoot again. He stood in place, holding the gun in the Weaver stance. He had to know that Sinon was aiming for him, but he made no effort to hide. He was certain that he could dodge any of her shots.

  One, two, three…

  The electric stun that immobilized Pale Rider wore off at last. His camo-clad body leaped up off the ground, and the AR-17 shotgun rose so fast it looked like a blur, pointing directly at the cloaked player’s chest. It was literal point-blank range. Every projectile in the shot would hit the heart. Unlike the pistol, this one could be a one-hit kill.

  Sinon, Kirito, and most likely everyone else in GGO and the outside world watching the live stream of the event held their breath.

  There was no echo of return fire.

  Instead, all Sinon heard was a small crumpling thump. The AR-17 had fallen out of Pale Rider’s hand onto the red dirt.

  Next, he fell to his knees, like a lifeless rag doll with broken joints. The avatar leaned slowly, slowly to the right, and collapsed on its side.

  From Sinon’s position, she could see only the mouth poking out from beneath Pale Rider’s helmet visor. It was open wide, as though caught in a silent scream, or perhaps gasping for air.

  His left hand rose, eerily weak in contrast to his earlier confidence, and clutched at the center of his chest—

  And the pale camo body erupted with scrawling, irregular light like static noise, and vanished. All that was left of the light was a small, floating DISCONNECTION message, which soon evaporated into the setting sun as well.

  “…What was that?” Sinon finally said, several seconds later.

  The player in the tattered cloak had shot Pale Rider just once with a handgun. He still had HP left at that point; that was clear. Just after that, Pale Rider’s paralysis wore off, and he tried to shoot back with his shotgun, but something happened to his connection, and he was cut off from the game.

  That was the logical explanation for what she had just seen.

  But what was the likelihood of his connection going bad at that exact moment? And how would the cloaked player know that he’d emerge triumphant from that dire predicament? It was less that he got tremendously lucky, and more that he knew the connection would occur at that precise moment. In fact, it was like…

  …It was like he had willfully disconnected Pale Rider himself.

  But that was impossible. There was no way to interfere with another player’s connection from inside the game. Yet, the cloaked player showed no surprise at Pale Rider’s disappearance. He smoothly returned his left hand to his side, while he raised his right hand and pointed the pistol up to the sky. Sinon realized what he was pointing at right away: the virtual camera lens that was capturing their footage for the stream. It was represented within the game world as a pale, glowing object, to let the players know they were being filmed. He was pointing his gun for the sake of all the people watching. But why? His battle with Pale Rider was irregular, a victory by disqualification—not something to be proud of. Or was the cloaked man saying that this disappearance was his victory? Meaning…

  “He can knock other players…off the server?” she rasped.

  Kirito’s voice was calm and quiet, as though he wasn’t even thinking about what he was saying. “No. Not quite. I wish it was that benign…”

  “Benign? What do you mean? That’s a huge deal. He’s basically cheating his way to victory. What does Zaskar think it’s—”

  “No!” He grabbed her arm suddenly. She automatically tried to shake him off, but what he said next turned her blood to ice. “He didn’t knock him off the server. He killed him. Pale Rider…the actual player who was controlling Pale Rider, just died in real life, right now!”

  “…Wha…”

  What is he talking about?

  Before she could respond, Kirito continued, “That’s it. That’s him. That’s Death Gun.”

  She recognized that name. The vague knowledge floated up from the depths of her memory. “Death…Gun…Is that the guy with all the we
ird rumors? The one who shot at the last tournament’s champion, Zexceed, and one of its high-rankers, Usujio Tarako, and they never logged in after that…”

  “That’s right,” Kirito said, and stared right at Sinon. There was unfathomable shock and fear wavering within his deep, black eyes, as well as something else. “At first…I thought it was impossible, too. Even after meeting him in the waiting dome yesterday, I tried to deny it. But there’s no denying it now…He can kill players somehow. Zexceed and Usujio Tarako’s players both turned up dead…”

  “…”

  How do you know that? Who are you? And what happened between you and that cloaked player? Sinon wondered, holding her breath. The questions for Kirito were even more at the forefront of her mind than the shock of learning the Death Gun rumors were true.

  In fact, she couldn’t believe it right away. Killing someone from within a game? It was so absurd…if not downright contradictory. If real lives were on the line, they were no longer playing a “game.” But Kirito’s deadly serious expression, tone of voice, and gaze were so realistic and so pressing that she couldn’t just laugh it off as nonsense. So who was he…?

  Kirito finally removed his piercing gaze from the confused Sinon and turned back to the metal bridge. She followed his eyesight.

  The mysterious cloaked player finally lowered his gun and looked over at Dyne’s body just to the south. The DEAD tag still floated above his stomach, which meant he should still be online, but he obviously couldn’t say anything or show any reaction. There was no way to know how he was feeling about the bizarre battle that had just unfolded nearby.

  The cloaked player returned the pistol to its holster and reshouldered the L115, then started clanking off in Dyne’s direction. Sinon held her breath, wondering if he was going to shoot Dyne’s body next. Kirito went still, clearly thinking the same thing. He seemed ready to leap out of the bush.

  Fortunately, the cloaked player did not pull his pistol back out. He passed Dyne’s body and continued toward the bridge. However, he did not cross it but, similar to how he appeared, simply swung around the side of the large pillar and vanished—probably because he leaped down to the lower bank. That put him out of sight temporarily, but there was only north or south to go from there. Once he started moving, he would be visible very soon…

  “…He’s not emerging,” Kirito grumbled. Sinon nodded. There was no sign of the cloak after ten seconds. That meant he was still hiding in the shadow of the bridge. He had to be wary of Sinon’s sniping.

  At that moment, she felt an alarm vibration on her left wrist, and she looked at the clock: 8:44:50. In another ten seconds, the third satellite scan would happen. She pulled the terminal out of her pouch and watched the screen.

  “You keep an eye on the bridge, Kirito. I’ll use this to find out his name.”

  “Got it,” he responded.

  She waited for the map to update. Three seconds, two, one, scan. Far above, a spy satellite from the space-exploration era passed over. Its electronic eye would see through any meager cover. He wouldn’t escape its gaze unless he hid in a cave, or, as Kirito had proven for himself, deep water.

  A number of blips popped up on the map. Richie was still comfortably situated on top of the mountain to the south. He wouldn’t be coming down until the tournament was over.

  About 800 meters to the north of that, lined up above the cliff of the brushy area were two dots, Sinon and Kirito. Any distant player would assume from the map that they were in battle. They wouldn’t assume the two were lying down next to each other under a bush…she hoped.

  There was a faintly glowing dot another 200 meters to the north. That was the deceased Dyne. Pale Rider’s dot ought to be close by, but it wasn’t displaying. And to the east of Dyne, just under the bridge, was…

  “Wha—? Nothing?!” Sinon exclaimed, staring a hole into the high-tech terminal screen. No matter how hard she looked, there was no dot around the bridge except for Dyne’s. The cloaked player was already on the move. But if he ran along the river bank, they would have seen him. For a moment, she felt terrified, but she promptly corralled her thoughts to order.

  There was one possibility. Like Kirito, he dove into the river and swam downward to escape the satellite. Which meant…

  “This is our chance,” she whispered. Kirito frowned. He looked at her for clarification, which she provided. “The cloaked guy isn’t on the radar. He’s in the river. That means he has to have all of his gear off. It’s going to take him at least ten seconds to open the window and put all of it back on once he’s on dry land again. If we strike then—”

  “With one pistol? He can still swim with that equipped, can’t he?” Kirito interjected. Sinon thought briefly before responding.

  “I’ve never tried it myself, but if you have enough STR or VIT, I suppose it’s possible… But still, we can easily overpower one measly handgun—”

  “No!” he hissed suddenly, clutching her arm. “You saw him erase Pale Rider with that black pistol! If you take one hit from that thing, you might die, too!”

  She couldn’t pull her eyes away from those sparkling black orbs. It was only with great force of will that she could look away and shake her head in disagreement.

  “But…I just can’t accept that. How can you die for real, just because you were shot in a game…? And more than that, if it’s true, that means the guy in the cloak is killing people at will, right? It’s impossible…I don’t want to believe that someone in GGO—in a VRMMO—would do something like that…”

  Even in the desolate wastelands of Gun Gale Online, Sinon found it to be a comforting place.

  True evil and malice didn’t exist here. What looked like bullets and gunpowder was a pure expression of willpower, of desire to best one’s opponent and be tougher than anyone else. After all, dozens of bullet wounds never caused anyone here to bleed a drop of blood. There was no pain, no injury. So while battle could cause frustration, it never caused hatred. In a recent pitched battle, Sinon’s left leg was blown off by the minigunner Behemoth, and she destroyed his entire body with her Hecate. But when it was done, all she was left with was confidence, reflection, and respect for her worthy foe. Sinon believed that it was the same for him, as well.

  That was why she had chosen GGO as a buffer zone between her weak real-life self and the horrors of her past. If she kept fighting here, she hoped that the wealth of Sinon’s confidence would one day outweigh the depth of the hatred that plagued Shino.

  True malice must not exist in a VRMMO. It would no longer be a virtual world. It would be the darkness of reality that Shino feared and shied away from…

  “I…don’t want to admit that there are VRMMO players who would commit not PK, but actual murder.”

  Kirito replied to her comment with deep pain in his voice. “But there are. The guy in the cloak, Death Gun…once killed many people in the VRMMO that I played. He swung his sword, knowing that they would die. Just like he did now, when he shot Pale Rider. And…so did…”

  He looked down and let go of Sinon’s arm. He didn’t finish his sentence.

  But based on the fragments of his past that she’d gleaned from past conversations, Sinon felt she could fill in the blanks.

  The Incident that shocked all of Japan three years ago, in 2022. Even Sinon, who had no interest in VRMMOs at the time, knew quite a lot about it, thanks to the considerable press coverage it received. There were over ten thousand young people taken prisoner at the start of the game. When they were released to the world again two years later, only six thousand emerged. That meant that four thousand lives were lost over the course of the Incident.

  There was no doubting now that Kirito was one of the survivors of that world. And if his statement was true, so too was Death Gun. But Kirito’s words hinted at an even darker truth:

  In a world where in-game death meant true death, Death Gun had killed many players of his own accord. He had done it knowing that their bodies in real life would perish. He was the
very thing Sinon claimed she didn’t believe in: a VRMMO player who would commit murder.

  And he was in GGO now, logged in to the map of the third BoB final battle—using some mysterious means to kill players just as he had in the past. That was what Kirito claimed.

  When the picture coalesced in Sinon’s mind, she felt her entire body go as cold as ice. Her vision went dim, blackness spreading out from the center. Something was in its midst, watching her. That gaze—the lifeless, empty, but close, clinging gaze………

  “…non. Sinon!”

  She opened her eyes with a start. On the other side of the vanishing shadow was Kirito’s worried face. Only the disgust that flooded up within her at his pristine, bewitching beauty kept the panic down.

  She exhaled and said, “I’m fine…Just a little startled. To be honest…I’m not sure if I can believe all of your story just yet…but I don’t think all of it is made up.”

  “Thanks. That’s enough for me,” he said, right at the moment that the dots on her terminal map started to blink. The orbiting satellite was going out of range. She quickly set the map to display its full width so she could count the dots. There were seventeen dots still bright—the survivors. Eleven dim dots were deceased players. That added up to twenty-eight.

  “The numbers don’t add up…”

  There were thirty when the match started, which meant that if you included Pale Rider’s missing dot due to disconnection, there was one more dot still unaccounted for. That had to be Death Gun, who was evading detection at the bottom of the river. Even there, he could still be on the move—either approaching or distancing himself. If it was the former, he might appear from the water just to the east of their cover and attack at any time…

  All of the dots disappeared from the screen. She’d have to search with nothing but her five senses for another fifteen minutes.

  Sinon glanced down to the east, but nothing was moving. The cloaked player was probably going north. His Silent Assassin, the L115A3, was a deadly weapon, but like her Hecate II, it was a bolt-action sniper rifle, which made it unsuited for mid-and close-range combat. He was probably choosing not to attack the two of them at once, but to take distance so he could hide his location data.