Samuro walked in at a measured pace.
One step at a time. One round after another.
The bullets slid into the Peacemaker. The cold-weather gear he had been wearing until now was gone, replaced by his usual trench coat. Beneath the coat's faint sway was only symbolic clothing, pieces that offered almost no defense but also kept his load as light as possible.
This was Samuro's AGI build in its best condition.
Far behind him, Sinon was already in position, the black Hecate II set up and ready. With the huge damage of an anti-materiel sniper rifle, she should be able to shave down the giant mutant boss's HP easily.
Samuro kept moving forward. Around him, lights that had gone dark lit up one by one in time with his steps. He stared deep into the space ahead.
"..."
For one moment, the focus he had built up wavered in surprise.
The ruined bridge was covered in metal wreckage. Cold wind moved through the damaged sections like ghosts inside the ship. Black-purple strands of flesh still clung to the massive scars in the hull. The air was cold, the surroundings silent except for wind, with no trace of gunpowder in the smell.
And just as importantly, there was no endless tide of mobs from his memory.
His brow tightened as he looked at the hollow where that huge lump of flesh should have been anchored.
The ruin boss had already been killed.
The monster that had absorbed and stored so much power on the bridge, blocking the passage toward the bow, was gone. There was nothing in front of him now. He could even see the black space beyond the breach.
He no longer had to waste effort holding back endless small mobs. He could just step through and start gathering the best metal material currently available.
Except.
His gaze turned, checking the wide, unobstructed surroundings. The Peacemaker hanging at his side waited quietly.
Did they log out after killing it?
Or were they still hiding here?
While his Search skill was active, his eyes glowed a pale blue-green.
Samuro stood there silently, his gaze sweeping over every inch.
"Is something wrong...?"
Sinon's voice came faintly through the combat radio in his ear. Behind him, she had entered firing posture. According to what they had discussed, once Samuro went in, a huge commotion should have started. The monsters flooding out would have placed their aggro on their party. There was no way things should be this quiet.
Through her scope, Samuro had barely moved at all.
Samuro lowered his head slightly and dropped his voice.
"Someone's been here...!"
His final word suddenly rose in pitch. Through the radio, it turned into a burst of static that stabbed Sinon's eardrum, making the girl bare her teeth and tilt her head aside. She did not waste time scolding him for what felt like a prank. She immediately shifted into combat mode, steadying the Hecate II and sweeping her scope around Samuro.
Because right after that word came the sharp, urgent sound of gunfire.
The instant Samuro saw the crimson bullet line, he twisted his body aside by sheer AGI correction. A hot round grazed past the right side of his waist.
Following the red line, he saw a slender player hidden beneath a cloak.
...No cover?
That should have been the worst possible place to hide. His Search skill had swept over it. He had been certain no one was there. How had that person appeared there like a ghost?
Samuro rolled across the floor and got up, noticing that his HP had dropped slightly. The bullet had only barely scraped him, yet its power was higher than expected and still triggered a damage check. Its firing speed was terrifying too. It had to be an expensive rare weapon.
"..."
The cloaked man seemed surprised as well, having watched Samuro dodge an assassination-style attack with such absurd reaction speed and stats. He did not fire a second shot right away. When he raised the long, thin weapon for another aim, a red bullet line appeared dead center on his forehead.
Boom!!
Both guns fired almost at the same time.
Then both of them rolled aside with startlingly similar timing, each trying to dodge the other's attack. Both bullets missed and buried themselves deep in the frost-scored deck. Samuro used the motion to slide straight behind a piece of wreckage.
"Sinon, don't shoot."
He warned the sniper supporting him from the rear in a low voice.
"If this guy helped take down the boss, then there's no way he's alone. As a sniper, you'll expose your position after your first shot. Save that chance for when it matters most."
"No... even if I wanted to shoot now, I couldn't," Sinon said quietly. "He disappeared."
"What?"
"More accurately, he disappeared from my field of view."
Samuro touched the wound on his right side. Before he could say anything else, a metal object rolled to his feet.
He froze.
A G4 concussion grenade.
The next second, a violent blast erupted from the wreckage he was using as cover, sending metal fragments flying.
"Samuro!"
For a moment, Sinon's scope was filled with snow-white dust.
"Not dead yet."
Samuro's low voice came through the noise.
"This might be a little troublesome," he added.
A concealment method that ignored his high-level Search skill. It was probably the effect of rare equipment. After all, GGO did not have a stealth skill on this level. The opponent had likely noticed him, activated that equipment, and waited near him the whole time. He had not attacked immediately because he had sensed Samuro's caution.
Then, when Samuro lowered his head and began communicating, he seized the moment when the enemy's attention might be split and aimed for an instant kill with a high-power weapon.
But he had not expected Samuro to dodge that shot.
After their second exchange, he immediately vanished again to claim the advantage of sight. This time, instead of firing a gun that would generate a bullet prediction line, he threw a grenade.
First, because of Samuro's alertness and evasion. Second, because with this much AGI, his build had to be fragile. One grenade would be enough to kill him.
He had fired only twice, yet the opponent had already gathered that much information.
"Interesting..."
Samuro laughed under his breath.
He flipped open the cylinder, quickly loaded one round, and snapped it shut with a flick. Then he vaulted out from behind cover. His wide trench coat spread like wings, sweeping aside the smoke and debris from the grenade blast. He shot out of the white haze like lightning, no longer trying to find a safe position.
Then I'll just kill my way through in the open.
Three red bullet lines appeared before his eyes at once.
A clumsy grenade attack only worked against an enemy who kept shrinking back. That read had been right too.
Samuro laughed aloud, and his speed rose again. His trench coat whipped harder around him. He charged straight toward the bullet coming for his face, and just before impact, his entire body shifted left and right in a flash. In an instant, he completed a zigzag advance and slipped past the shot in a way that looked impossible.
As he moved like a shadow, his eyes had already turned pale gold.
A little excitement was enough to make this happen.
Uncontrolled, it dragged him into that stalled world. Once he tasted it, the enemy would be crushed, and battle would become simple and dull. Afterward came the price. Pain, for example. Lifespan, for example.
During the charge, the Peacemaker had already emptied its six shots. Those six rounds were enough to temporarily cut off the cloaked man's escape routes. Samuro threw the Peacemaker aside without hesitation and drew Blue Rose from his belt.
He was like a starving tiger. Even with firearms in hand, he lunged in to kill, craving the thrill of close-quarters combat.
Only when he got close did he make out the cloaked man's face.
No. Not his face.
Only the dead, metallic skull mask hiding his appearance.
Boom!!
A giant beast roared.
The blast of a large-caliber sniper rifle was deafening.
"That wasn't me!"
Sinon, far behind him, could only warn him with words. It was already far too late.
Blue Rose in Samuro's hand was shattered in an instant by the large-caliber sniper round. The burst barrel and bullet fragments turned into glittering shards before him and vanished. His golden-eyed face showed no expression.
Inside this realm, the sniper rifle's proud roar stretched endlessly in his hearing. He could notice it without even trying.
A bullet that killed with divine speed in ordinary eyes was, to him, nothing more than a silent, slowly spinning kite.
Blue Rose in his right hand struck the bullet with the precision of both shield and dagger, taking the hit as his substitute.
Sinon stared blankly as he casually slashed out and stopped a high-speed sniper round with Blue Rose as if it were a blade.
Her heart was shocked, but her hand moved before thought could catch up.
The enemy sniper had fired first.
Which meant...
He had revealed his position.
Her thin fingers pressed the trigger.
Boom!!
Thunder exploded. The Hecate II's voice carried the force of night falling. Almost at the same instant as the gunshot, an explosion burst from a dark corner in the distance.
Got him!
From the sound and from her long experience hunting enemies, Sinon knew the shot had landed. She worked the bolt immediately, and the long empty casing popped out with a crisp metallic ring.
Her own position had been exposed too. If the enemy had a third or fourth player, she would probably have a hard time surviving. A sniper's second shot was not as threatening, but if it landed, it could still decide the battle. Sinon swung the muzzle around. In her scope was the cloaked man in front of Samuro.
The Hecate II roared a second time. The fire from its muzzle flared dazzlingly, and Sinon's slender body shook with the recoil.
The cloaked man stepped back and hurriedly raised the long gun in his hands, looking almost flustered.
But.
He blocked it.
The Hecate II's second bullet was stopped by the long gun and vanished just like Samuro's Blue Rose had moments earlier.
"What are these people...?" Sinon gritted her teeth and spat, frustrated that the cloaked man could react to the Hecate II. His companion dying first had given him time to react, and the second shot had a visible prediction line, but still. Being faster than a sniper round was too much no matter how she looked at it.
Sinon quickly stood up and prepared to change positions, searching for a better sniper angle.
But she had a small worry.
Samuro should have no weapons left now, while the opponent should at least have a sidearm or something similar.
...
Clang.
The cloaked man silently stared at Samuro.
More precisely, at the bullet he had split in two, now fallen to the floor. From the eye sockets of that black-gray metal skull, his gaze quietly fixed on the slim, jet-black weapon in Samuro's right hand.
"A... katana."
His voice was unpleasant, as if deliberately processed. There was no emotional color in it, only enough clarity to make out the words.
"In terms of size, it's closer to a wakizashi," Samuro answered in a voice as still as dead water. Holding the small prop in a reverse grip, he slowly closed in on the cloaked man. In terms of power, it was absolutely inferior to the pistol in the other man's hand, but Samuro advanced with the firm confidence of someone who had already won.
The cloaked man fired a second shot without hesitation. The bullet gave off an almost comic, sharp whistle before Samuro's small blade deflected it.
The cloaked man retreated as if afraid.
You can't run.
Besides, right now, every movement you make looks as slow as a turtle to me.
Samuro pressed forward.
The cloaked man rolled across the floor. In a blur, he picked up something from the wreckage of the long gun that had been shattered earlier. He tilted his head slightly, held that thing, and suddenly sprang up from the floor, striking like a venomous snake going for a fatal bite.
In that instant, Samuro had an illusion.
It was as if the blessing of Fluctlight had suddenly left him. The man before his eyes, whose movements had been as slow as if frozen, suddenly seemed to have been hit with countless acceleration commands. His body became swift, deadly, and terrifying, like a ghost.
"...!"
No.
That was wrong.
Samuro was still inside this invincible realm.
It was just that the other man had become fast too, if only for the instant he launched himself from the floor.
Samuro looked down at the slender weapon buried deep in his abdomen.
It was ridiculously thin, like the tip of a needle.
"This rapier... this thrust-type Sword Skill... I practiced it... thirteen thousand four hundred and sixty-four times."
The cloaked man's voice came from beneath the skull mask, right beside his ears.
Samuro raised his head and met the crimson eye sockets inside that skull.
"Soon. Very soon..."
"You won't be able to dodge it anymore, will you?"
"Heh. Heheh..."
...
Deep beneath the town, not even on the First Floor, inside that cold prison.
The man imprisoned there for his sins had not seen sunlight once since the day he entered. There was no food there. No water. In that world, even without eating or drinking, the body would not weaken enough to die unless the real self on the other side perished first.
But hunger and thirst still existed.
Day after day.
Year after year.
The man endured the ever-deepening torment of weakness from his virtual body. In the cold, empty room, he screamed with a hoarse, burning throat.
No one knew his rage. No one knew his insane laughter. There was no one to talk to.
In the deep darkness and the torment.
He simply repeated the same action over and over.
With that rapier, he carved a single person's name countless times into the system-protected walls that could never be destroyed.
Even though the walls had no marks at all, in his eyes, the ceiling, the floor, and every wall were covered in that person's name. Crooked, scrawled, as if each name had been carved into his bones.
Then he attacked.
Attacked those nonexistent names.
No sleep.
No rest.
Only the dry hunger of a virtual body with no light and no sound.
Then attack.
And attack again.
Until the world ended.
...
"There's a solo player named Samuro in my game world."
One day, he overheard his younger brother talking to a friend from a game.
For once, the man grabbed his younger brother by the hair. His eyes widened, and he could not suppress his smile as he asked in a soft voice.
"Is that true?"
After receiving a frightened but clear answer from his brother, his smile became even harder to control.
...
"Yurnero? What kind of name is that? Is it from something?"
"Why are you asking?"
"You've helped me finish so many orders already. Let me ask one thing. I feel like we're friends by now."
"...It's just a name everyone in that class uses in the game."
"And?"
"...That class is Sword Saint. There are a lot of them. Yurnero, Togara, Kakinede, Yushura, Samuro. Plenty."
"Oh, I see. They're all so complicated, though."
"That's why I usually use Yurnero and Samuro. They're easy to spell. Samuro itself also sounds a bit like 'samurai' in Chinese."
"I see."
...
"Thirteen thousand four hundred and sixty-four times."
The voice beneath the skull mask continued.
"Soon. Very soon..."
"You won't be able to escape, will you?"
"Heh. Heheh..."