An hour and six minutes had passed since the start of SJ5. It was 2:06 PM.
“All right. We’re heading into the castle!” M called out. But his teammates did not budge.
They were distracted by something else. Something their eyes couldn’t help but be drawn to.
That something was the sight of Pitohui’s body, facedown, resting before the massive gate of the castle in the center of the map—with a DEAD tag hovering over it.
Llenn, Fukaziroh, Boss, and Anna—every surviving member other than M—was staring at her.
And they also saw the ground begin to crumble.
There had been a minor earthquake-level rumbling for quite a while, and now its cause was coming into view. It was quite apparent, as the forest they’d just been inside only five hundred yards away was vanishing.
Although they could no longer see it, the earth beneath the trees must have simply withered and given way like an aged sponge. The massive trees the earth supported tumbled with it, causing the green of the forest canopy to grow thinner by the moment.
“Good-bye, forest…,” Fukaziroh offered wistfully just as the final piece of the verdant forest tumbled out of sight. She said it in English, too, for some reason, and Llenn didn’t bother to ask why, because she knew the answer would be stupid.
Lastly, the five-hundred-yard stretch of barren ground they had raced across to get there began to disappear as well.
“Good-bye, earth…”
Llenn didn’t ask Fukaziroh why she said it. She just watched the process happen, marveling at the strange wonder of it all.
✦ ✦ ✦
While the rest of them were distracted by the magnificent sight behind the group, M was the sole member who kept his wits about him.
He stared in the other direction, toward the center of the castle, with two shields propped up defensively to hide the MG5 machine gun at his side.
The ramparts were fifty yards thick, which meant that the entry gate was also that long; a pitch-black tunnel ten yards tall and twenty wide.
The exit, however, was shining brightly. For now, there was no one standing at the other end.
✦ ✦ ✦
“Oh…the right side…”
Llenn noticed something as she watched the earth crumble nearby.
On their right, a single player was running across the wasteland. It was an unfamiliar man dressed in a dark-green jumpsuit. He was sprinting for all he was worth, legs working madly, as he raced toward them, for the castle.
Based on his position, he must have been hiding at the southwest edge of the map, then had panicked and started running for his life to stay ahead of the collapse.
There was still a space of three hundred yards between him and the castle, a cruelly unfortunate number.
“He’s not going to make it,” Boss noted flatly.
This mystery man was one of the many opponents between them and winning, so it was a good thing for him to die here, of course.
But then again, having just sprinted through that stretch herself, Llenn couldn’t help herself. There was just one thought on her mind: You can do it!
“Yep, he’s not making it,” added Fukaziroh, equally without sentiment. “If he can’t run the distance, why doesn’t he just fly?”
“Because it’s not ALO,” Llenn snapped. Fukaziroh’s old haunt was ALO, where every player was a fairy, and if you wanted to fly, you had wings right there waiting to be used.
Little tendrils of dust began to rise up from the ground near the man’s feet. From overhead came the faint, dry sound of gunfire.
Someone in a position of safety was attempting to off the man who was so desperately trying to survive.
“That’s harsh. But that’s the way it is,” Boss commented.
If not for the assistance(?) of the suicide bomber, that would have been them, too.
“Oh! Aw…”
After a few more seconds of sprinting, the man fell to the ground in silence, about two hundred yards away. There was a glowing red damage effect on him, so one of the bullets must have hit him.
There was no DEAD tag, so he was still alive, but not for long. The ground soon gave way underneath him, and he vanished from sight.
The only sensation left at the castle gate was the rumbling of the seismic collapse and an air of chilly pathos.
“Poor guy,” Fukaziroh muttered. “If only he’d gotten closer…I could have hit him with a grenade instead…”
✦ ✦ ✦
They were so occupied by the tragic fate of the nameless contestant that they never realized, off to the left, just out of their sight line, that Shirley was engaging in a desperate sprint of her own.
“Shit, crap, shit, crap! Uh-oh, uh-oh, uh-oh!” Shirley hissed, running for all she was worth. She kept the long R93 Tactical 2 rifle in front of her, running as fast as she was physically able to move.
The people shooting at her from atop the castle struck her in a few spots. Fortunately, however, they didn’t hit any bone, so she was able to maintain her momentum. There was no time to stop and wince at the pain.
She ran, and ran, and got shot, and ran, and got shot, and ran again…
Shirley’s HP was down by half when she finally came within range of the gate.
But the collapse was right behind her. She could tell from the sound and didn’t need to look back to see it. There was no guarantee that there would be any ground beneath her foot the next time she set it down.
“First ice…now dirt! Goddammit!” she swore, recalling the time that breaking ice nearly killed her in SJ4. She was almost at the massive gate, but the sound of the crumbling was so close that it could practically reach over and tap her on the shoulder.
“Hraaaaaaah!” she bellowed, the sort of thing she would never do in real life, and leaped, putting herself airborne into the space where the gate yawned wide. It was the biggest jump of her VR life.
She soared through the opening and landed inside the gate.
Clutching the sniper rifle close to her chest, she tumbled onto the paved ground, rolled, and bonked her head hard against the side of the tunnel.
“Ow.”
She sprang to her feet and gasped.
“Whoa!”
Her surprise was understandable. Just ten feet away, outside the castle gate she’d just leaped through, there was nothing to see. It was only sky.
Because she’d been facing the other way, Shirley hadn’t realized just how close she was to the edge. The instant after her foot had pushed her into the air, that bit of ground was gone.
She’d survived the ordeal as dramatically as the final scene of an action movie.
✦ ✦ ✦
✦ ✦ ✦
“Hell yeah!”
Shirley turned around and began to race down the tunnel, which was as long as the rampart structure was thick. When she heard how loudly the sound of her boots echoed down the tunnel, she murmured “Oops” and slowed to a quick walk.
She also made sure to use one of her emergency med kits to start healing back some of the HP she’d lost. There were two left after this.
✦ ✦ ✦
While Shirley’s HP began its slow regeneration, Fukaziroh was a few hundred yards away, marveling at the wonder before her.
“What a sight! What a sight!”
Barely twelve inches from the toe of her boot was a drop of ten thousand feet to the earth below.
“It’s terrifying,” Llenn admitted, backing away from the open gate.
The earth’s collapse stopped just short of the gate itself. In fact, the edge of the earth and the outer circumference of the castle wall were in perfect alignment. It was literally a sheer cliff. The two-mile-diameter castle sat atop a pillar of earth its precise size.
“See? This is what you people get for not flying all the time,” Fukaziroh said smugly.
“Another reason not to play ALO,” Llenn replied, straight-faced. The biggest reason she wouldn’t go back was because her avatar there was an ultra-tall and gorgeous babe.
“Once you get your first hit of winged flight and chase that dragon, you’ll never go back, sweetheart.”
“Don’t compare your game to doing drugs,” Llenn snapped.
Behind them, M, the only one actually paying attention, said, “It’s time for us to move.” His instructions were to the group—but primarily the two little ones. It was hard work keeping them in line.
“Ah, roger that,” Llenn replied, turning on her heel. The change in view brought Pitohui’s body into her line of sight.
Watch over me from Heaven—I mean, Hell—I mean, the waiting room. I’m gonna kick some ass, Llenn thought, squeezing her pink-dyed P90 for good luck.
“I’ll kick some ass, too!”
You sure will, P-chan.
“Oops… I forgot, the suppressor’s on, so I’m supposed to be quiet… I’ll kick some ass, too…”
Tee-hee-hee. Oh, P-chan, you’re so clever.
“Hey, Llenn! We’re leaving you behind! What are you staring at? What’s with that crazy look in your eyes?”