Inside the castle, the various machinations and plans of the players doing battle intertwined in curious and nasty ways—without any of them realizing it, of course.
It was 2:14 PM.
“Let’s go.”
M and his companions started to move.
M, Boss, Anna, Llenn, and Fukaziroh chose to trust in their own instincts and continue forward, rather than wait at the end of the rampart tunnel.
It was easy to see where the middle of the castle was, thanks to the player’s compass visible directly above, which had returned when the fog cleared. The problem was that it was impossible to know the route to get there.
It was a maze, after all. A gigantic maze, in which the shortest possible distance to the center was still five hundred yards.
Looking at the map on the Satellite Scanner wouldn’t show you a detailed look at the maze, either, of course. They didn’t give you school test sheets with the answers on the back, after all.
But staying put and doing nothing wouldn’t help much either, since the enemies would come after M anyway, now that his location was visible to them.
Sitting here and playing defense would not lead to winning SJ5. They had to go on the offensive.
Let’s go! Llenn thought, pumping herself up.
She’d been through the wringer so far, but she was still alive. And if she was alive, she could fight. She gripped the bright-pink P90, feeling her weapon respond to the touch.
M popped out of the huge tunnel and rushed into the labyrinth, shield and machine gun in hand.
Boss, Anna, Fukaziroh, and Llenn followed him, in that order.
Just before she left the tunnel, Llenn finally got her first look at the maze ahead.
Brown walls about fifteen feet high bordered a passage about ten feet wide. They were clearly long walls of townhouses, but the buildings held no doors, meaning they were just environmental items meant to make the area into a maze. Some of the walls were just that—walls.
Ping. Ping. Ping.
Enemy cursors appeared in Llenn’s vision.
KEES, BOB, and YAMACHAN. She had never seen any of these names. It was clear that they were working together, so she decided to think of them as Kees’s team.
The distance to Kees’s team was about twenty yards. M headed north, toward the center of the castle. The three cursors were slightly to the left, meaning they were to the northwest.
In GGO, a distance of twenty yards was close enough to reach out and tap someone’s shoulder. In other words, very close.
But she couldn’t see them.
All Llenn could see were brown walls twice as tall as she was. And they ended in a crossroads just a few yards away. It truly was a maze.
I really don’t like this map, Llenn grumbled to herself. It was so difficult to fight in a place like this.
M continued quickly in silence; he was moving more or less at full speed by his standards.
Boss and Anna stayed about ten feet behind him, followed by Fukaziroh, and lastly Llenn.
Of course, she was only going at a light jog. She could run about three times faster if she wanted. She could turn and run backward and still not have to worry about falling behind.
After the party had traveled about sixty feet since leaving the tunnel, they came to a T-intersection. They would have to turn here; the left and right choices each went another ten feet.
Ordinarily, they would stop running and check for enemies down either path, but M immediately decided “right” and burst around the corner toward the east.
Boss and Anna glanced to the left just after M went around the corner, then continued their pursuit of his path.
Oh, I get it! Llenn thought, putting the picture together.
The cursors were nasty in that they gave away your location, but it also meant you could avoid an unexpected run-in with enemies. In other words, as long as the other cursor didn’t get too close, you could keep moving through the maze without slowing down.
Meaning…
“What the—? So if you can see the cursors…that means you can just run through the maze however you want,” Llenn commented, watching the distance to Kees’s team carefully; they were now seventy-five feet away.
Apparently they weren’t able to find a route that brought them closer to the group and were stuck going in circles on their own.
“What, did you just figure that out? That’s the maze game, baby!” said Fukaziroh, ten feet ahead.
“Finally. Gotta love a good game,” Llenn replied, running backward. At last, it made sense. They didn’t have to fight as long as they could stay on the run.
Just then, a cute little ping! sound happened in Llenn’s mind.
“Uh-oh, a new one. At four o’clock,” Fukaziroh said. Indeed, if M was traveling toward twelve, the new cursors appeared in the vision of the entire team in the four o’clock direction.
There were four of them at a distance of fifty yards. Then it turned to forty-nine, then forty-eight.
But in the next moment, they stopped at forty-seven. Llenn was fairly confident she was correct. They had run into a dead end in the maze.
Of course, the other side could presumably see her LLENN cursor and her distance. They would also imagine the tantalizing one hundred million number as well.
Shirley’s name was not one of the four. In fact, she didn’t recognize any of their names.
If she tried to stop and memorize every name she saw, it would take too much time and mental energy, so Llenn just focused on the direction and distance.
They were still wavering between forty-seven and forty-nine, so it didn’t seem they had anything to worry about at this point in time.