Sword Art Online 05: Phantom Bullet Part 18

These words were said under silent circ.u.mstances, but the slight soundwaves entered my ears. The girl's lips smirked as she showed a beast like smile. My back started to have chills that I never had for a long time.

It's no wonder that this girl wouldn't notice the pressure the other guys gave.

That's because she was a lot stronger than those guys. No matter whether it's the skill as a VRMMO player- or the mental strength that's supporting her.

The girl glanced over at me who held my breath and remained silent. The smile on her face disappeared. She seemed to be thinking about something as she stopped her gaze. Then, she used her right hand to summon the menu window. After some simple operations, a small card appeared in her fingertips.

The girl then let the card slide across the table, which I caught. She said, "This should be the last time we're talking like this, so I better announce my name. That's the name of the person who's going to defeat you-"

I silently looked over at the card. The word indicated on it was- "Sinon", and the gender was obviously female.

"Sinon..."

I muttered. The girl moved her aqua-blue hair and nodded slightly. I again reported my name.

"I'm Kirito. Nice to meet you."

I subconsciously reached my right hand out from over the table, but of course, the girl called Sinon ignored my action as she immediately turned her face away. I could only give a wry smile and pulled my hand back.

After that, Sinon kept her silence, and didn't seem like she intend to continue talking.

I looked at the large screen in the dome and knew that there was about 5 minutes left. At this moment, I started to hesitate over whether I should just hug my knees together and wait on the chair or just try and talk to her again. However, just when I was about to make my conclusion, I could hear footsteps heading towards Sinon.

I lifted my face and saw that there was a tall and large male player with long silver hair on his forehead walking straight to this table.

He was wearing a grey patterned streamlined camouflage that was slightly lighter than charcoal color, and there was a somewhat large machine gun that was slung over his shoulder-probably not a submachine gun or an a.s.sault rifle, and he had an intelligent looking face that fit his tall and skinny body. As he didn't look like he had much armor on him, it gave me the feeling that he was able to move about agilely on the battlefield. He looked more like a special ops member than a thoroughly experienced soldier.

The man didn't look at me while I was sitting silently in the corner as he smiled at Sinon. Immediately, what looked like a highly skilled avatar showed a boyish-like gentleness, which made me blink.

"Yaa, why are you so slow, Sinon? I was worried whether you were late."

On hearing that guy's tone that sounded like he was trying to act like an acquaintance, I thought that Sinon would definitely give him a death glare and cringed back. But unexpectedly, the icy presence around the girl immediately eased, and she even showed a slight smile.

"h.e.l.lo, Spiegel. There was some accident, so I was delayed. Eh, but...don't you intend to show yourself?"

That man called Spiegel grinned awkwardly as he used his right hand to touch his hand.

"Well, I don't know whether you'll be bothered or not, but I came to cheer for you, Sinon. Besides, I can see the live telecast on the large screen."

It seemed that both of them were either friends or members of the same guild. Sinon moved her body away, and Spiegel naturally sat beside her.

"Speaking of which, what's that accident you mentioned?"

"Ahh...nothing much, just that I brought a certain person here and such..."

After Spiegel asked, Sinon immediately glanced at me with an icy expression. I reluctant retracted my shortened neck back to shape, and the man who only noticed my presence now nodded his head.

"h.e.l.lo, I'm that certain person..."

"Ah...he-h.e.l.lo. It's nice to meet you. Well...are you Sinon's friend?"

He didn't look like someone that's to be trifled with, but this man called Spiegel didn't seem to match his outwardly fierce look as he was rather polite. Or rather-is he treating me like a girl now?

I tried to juggle around with my choice of words as I thought of how to answer this in a more humorous manner, but Sinon immediately shot out, "Don't be fooled. He's a guy."

"Eh!?"

I could only use a normal tone to say my name at Spiegel, who widened his eyes.

"Ah- I'm called Kirito. I'm a guy alright."

"A-A guy...eh, that means, erm..."

Spiegel gave a rather bothered expression as he looked back and forth from me to Sinon. It seemed that he couldn't understand why Sinon would go out with a male player.

Thinking that this was the case, I felt like teasing them, so I tried to add fuel to the fire as I said, "Well, I was really was taken care of well by Sinon, you know."

At this moment, Sinon immediately shot me a bluish-lightning like glare at me and said viciously, "Oi...don't say that. I never took care of you at all. Speaking of which, when did I allow you to call me Sinon..."

"Why are you saying that so mercilessly?"

"What about mercy here? You're just a stranger!"

"Eh- but didn't you help coordinate my equipment?"

"That...That's because, you..."

Just when we were talking till here...

The slight BGM inside the dome gradually fade out, and what rang next was a fanfare of an electric guitar. After that, a sweet synthesized voice set at a loud volume blared above several hundred people's heads.

"Sorry to keep you waiting. We will now begin the preliminaries of the 3rd Bullet of Bullets tournament. All entered players will be automatically transferred to the field of the first round once the countdown reaches zero. At this moment, I shall wish you good luck."

A deafening applause and cheering rang inside the dome. *Katatata*, the sound of the machine guns being fired and the high pitched sound of lasers being fired was let out, and lights of different colors decorated the roof like fireworks.

Amidst all the ruckus, Sinon stood up and pointed her right index finger at me.

"You must get to the finals. I'll blow your head then."

I then stood up, grinned, and answered, "If you want to go out on a date with me, I'll be glad to."

"You-You ba..."

The 20 second countdown timer was about to reach zero, and I waved my hand at Sinon before turning around and head to the front to be transported to the field. At this moment, my eyes met Spiegel, who had been staring at me all this time.

His sharp eyes showed obvious wariness and hostility. Just when I felt that I may have gone overboard- My body was surrounded by a pillar of blue light, and my sights immediately showed blue light.

Finally, I was transported to a hexagonal panel that's floating in the darkness.

There's a light red hologram window in front of me, and on top of it were the large words "Kirito Vs Uemaru". Unlike SAO, which only allowed for English alphabets, it's possible to use j.a.panese in GGO. The name "Uemaru" was written in kanji, but of course, I had never met this guy before. Also, at the bottom of the window, there was a line of words "Preparation Time: 58 seconds left. Field: The Forgotten Old Monastery".

This minute of preparation should probably be to allow us to change into equipment that's suitable for this battle. I had no idea about my prepared weapons and maps, and I didn't even use them. I used my right hand to call out the menu, and in the equipment window that was similar to ALO, my main weapon was a "Kagemitsu G4" light saber, and my sidearm was a "Five-Seven". After checking whether I forgot to equip my defensive equipment, I closed the window.

As I waited for the time to slowly tick down, I suddenly had a strange thought.

That vicious smile shown for a moment by that girl called Sinon. It had the killing intent of a bullet, shot from a rifle, that could pierce through any shield or armor.

It made me remember that voice that resounded in my mind.

To eliminate the strong- this direct declaration sounded rather childish in a certain sense, but I never had such a chilling feeling, even including the time when I was in SAO. I felt her pet.i.te body let out a real will that far exceeded the roleplay in the game.

In this virtual world that's created through electric signals, I have not seen a player who showed such intense will like her. Amongst the female players, the only one I know who would go serious was Asuna. No- even when she's called "The Flash" or even "The Berserker" before that, she had never given me such an impression before.

Is it possible? Is that girl with light blue hair that "Death Gun" I'm looking for?

Kikuoka once let me hear the voice database of what's said to be "Death Gun"'s, but the screeching cry of metal rubbing against each other was completely different from Sinon's clear voice. However, GGO was just a world that was different from SAO. A player could have multiple characters, and there were many cases of logging in using different characters.

And from the sound of the tone, it seemed that Sinon had absolute confidence that she's able to make it to the finals. If my guess is that Death Gun will definitely appear in this tournament is right, I can narrow them down to about 30 people, and of course, Sinon is one of them.

To be honest, I really don't want to test out this possibility. I didn't feel any killing intent from her, when she guided me to the shop and explained all sorts of things to me. Rather, she gave off a somewhat lonely feeling, like she wanted to get close to others.

Just which is the real Sinon, I wonder.

-No, I won't get the answer no matter how much I think. When our swords clash, no, when we both fire our guns, we should be able to get some clues.

Just when I thought about this and lifted my sights, the countdown timer reached zero, and my body was again surrounded by an effect.

After that, I was abandoned under a dim sunset sky.

The wind that blew beside me seemed to bring about a sharp whistle like sound. There were many layers of broken clouds floating above in the air, and below me, the wilted gra.s.s were all floating.

Beside me, there were large cylindrical pillars that were either of the Ionian or Corinth style. They were about 3m apart and lined in an arc shape. Some of the pillars were wrecked, and some of the pillars have completely collapsed. It just looked like the ruins of a lost civilization's temple.

I leaned my body on the closest pillar, and then quickly looked around at my surroundings.

The wide wilted gra.s.sland all around me was blowing around hard, and far away in the hills, I could see ruins that were similar to this place. According to Sinon's explanation, the field is a square, a 1,000 meters wide, but to get from here to there would take about several kilometers. There should be some limiting boundary like a river or a cliff something like that.

I continued to remember her explanation. Right now, the opponent should be about 500 meters away from where I am now, but I couldn't see anyone in my sights. Like me, he should be hiding somewhere behind the ruins. There's no indication of the enemy around, so I have to find the enemy myself.

I can continue to wait here and let the enemy lose his patience before taking action. However, "waiting" really doesn't fit my personality. Instead of waiting here, I might as well run over to the closest ruin on the other side and use the gunshot of the enemy to quickly a.n.a.lyze my position...I thought as I used my left hand to feel the "Five-Seven" on my waist.

At this moment, a strong gust of wind blew by, and the surrounding gra.s.sland started to sway. As the gust stopped, the wilted gra.s.s again straightened...

And in the gra.s.sland about 20 meters away from my eyes, a profile suddenly stood up silently.

My blurred vision immediately saw the a.s.sault rifle the opponent whipped out, the tea-colored beard that's resting at the stalk of the gun, the goggles lens that covered more than half the face and the helmet that had dummy gra.s.s on it. There's only me and my opponent in the battlefield, so he's definitely "Uemaru".

I had no idea when he shortened the distance between us at all. One of the obvious reasons was the camouflage suit he was wearing. That clothing looked similar to the surrounding gra.s.sland, and had slight streamlined patterns on it. Just when I thought I see, so that's the use of the 60 seconds...

The black a.s.sault rifle the enemy was readying on the right shoulder showed several red lines- "Bullet Line", and the lines were piercing through me and the s.p.a.ce around me.

"UWAH!".

I couldn't help but cry out as I kicked the ground hard and moved to the place with the least bullet lines- up into the sky.

The enemy's rifle then went *katatatataatatata!!* And my right ankle got hit twice. The HP bar on the upper left corner of my sights showed a decrease of about 10%. Of course, I couldn't dodge all the bullets. At this moment, I remembered the "Full-Auto Shooting" Sinon warned me about.

I did a somersault in the air and landed on the half-broken pillar behind me. I tried to counter and drew the Five-Seven handgun from my belt with my left hand.

However, the enemy wouldn't give me time to aim at all. Immediately afterwards, numerous bullet lines appeared on my body again.

"WAAHHH!!".

I let out an embarra.s.sing scream as I rolled behind the pillar. Another bullet grazed my left wrist, and my HP dropped mercilessly.

The rain of bullets that descended on me seemed to hit the pillar, causing a *Bishibishibishi* sound and creating several fragments to fly out. I hurriedly cuddled my limbs together and hid my entire body behind the pillar.

-This is definitely different from a battle between swords!

In that dodging game against the NPC gunman, there was a time lapse and at most 6 bullets, but I already had to concentrate fully just to dodge those attacks. Now, when facing such-rapid fire of more than 10 bullets in a second, of course I'm at my wits end.

To slash Uemaru's bearded face with the light saber "Kagemitsu" on my right waist, I have to get right in front of him. But before that, I'll have bullets blown through me and my HP would be depleted already.

If I can't dodge them all, I can only think of a way to "defend" against the bullets. Unfortunately, even if there's a "protective field" in this world that can weaken the power of bullets, there isn't any magic shield that or something that can protect against actual bullets. In SAO, there's the "Weapon Defense Skill" that can allow a sword to replace a shield....

At this moment, I suddenly put my hand on the light saber that's held on the carabiner under my belt. I just need to deflect a few bullets if I can defend with this saber. This shouldn't be impossible. Didn't someone in a SF movie use a light saber to easily deflect bullets? If this game is developed by an American company, they would be able to recreate this scene. But to do that really tough skill, I have to first predict the trajectories the bullets are fired at me...

No- No, I can do this. I should be able to do this. Aren't the "Bullet Lines" telling me where the bullets are flying?

I swallowed my saliva and used my right hand to pull the light saber from my belt.

Right now, the gunfire stopped. I suppose Uemaru is again hidden amongst the gra.s.s and is ready to come over from the left or the right.

I closed my eyes and concentrated with my ears.

The wind continued to blow. At this moment, I tried my best to eliminate the noisy sound effects from my consciousness and concentrated on the rustling of the swaying gra.s.sland to hear for some irregular sound in this system.

This was a skill that could only be done in a VR s.p.a.ce where I can isolate each sound completely. From the time of SAO, this "Outside-system Skill" helped me out a lot. For example, an S level ingredient "Ragout Rabbit" would require this skill to deal a fatal blow.

But as for whether I'm able to succeed or not- And this moment, my ears caught an irregular sound coming from the rear left side from 7 o'clock to 9 o' clock. He moved for about 2, 3 seconds before stopping and started to probe my position.

The enemy then started to move, stop and got ready to move again...

"L...LET'S GO!".

I used my cry to step hard onto the ground and run straight where the enemy was hiding.

Uemaru probably didn't expect me to rush over at him while he was hiding in the bushes. As he stood up from the wilted gra.s.s, it took him about half a second to get down on one knee and get into his shooting position.