Up ahead, M came to another T-intersection. Ordinarily, which direction to go was a difficult decision, but he took no time at all. He went right, to put more distance between them and Kees’s team, which was still closer. It put them a bit farther away—and the new group of four a bit closer.
“This could end up with the enemies just ten feet away, on the other side of a thin wall, right?” Llenn asked hesitantly.
“It’s possible,” M replied.
“Could they throw grenades over the wall?”
“Well, uh…” He sounded surprisingly hesitant.
“Should I blast ’em first? It’s a bit close, but I could probably get a good shot on those four,” crowed Fukaziroh, the grenadier. It was as casual as if she’d asked, “Want me to get some popsicles at the convenience store? It’s a bit of a hike, but with my moped, it’s a quick trip.”
If Fukaziroh knew the distance and angle, she could indeed land an arcing grenade shot with considerable accuracy. In a maze like this, it was an almighty, one-sided means of attack.
But Llenn had her misgivings. If it were really an advantageous tactic, M would have given her the order to do that already. So why hadn’t he?
A number of possible answers occurred to Llenn.
One: to save on grenades. Even if there were refills, it wouldn’t do to start wasting them on distant enemies before the final battle.
Two: to prioritize movement. Getting through the maze was more important.
Three: ummm…
“You don’t need to,” M stated, before Llenn could actually think of a third reason. “Llenn, take a single shot into the air with your P90.”
“Huh? All right.”
She didn’t know why, but she knew there was a reason. She followed the leader’s instruction.
Wait, I’m the leader. Oh, whatever.
Llenn stopped briefly and aimed the P90, which had a sound suppressor on the end, at an angle into the air.
The P90ists of the world are aware of a fact of life as simple and profound as “The sun always rises in the east,” but which most other, normal, healthy people have no idea about. And that’s: “Even with the P90’s selector in full auto mode, a light pull of the trigger can fire a single semi-auto shot.” A feature known as a progressive trigger.
Llenn lightly depressed the trigger.
Shpak!
P-chan jolted in her hand, emitting a tiny 5.7 mm bullet faster than sound. An empty cartridge ejected from the bottom of the gun.
The bullet vanished in the distant reddish-blue sky—
“Oh!”
Or so you would have thought. But instead, it stopped at a height of fifteen feet, right at the top of the maze wall. The little bullet was too fast to see coming out of the gun, so it was like it had just appeared, hanging in the air.
There was also what appeared to be a ripple in the air. Then the bullet simply fell back to the ground, clattering lightly.
“It stopped! It fell back down!” Llenn said, announcing what she’d just seen.
“I figured,” M murmured.
“No surprise there,” Boss added. They’d both expected this.
“What does it mean?” Llenn asked, just to be sure. She had an idea of her own, but it would be dangerous to just make an assumption without confirming it with the others.
“You can’t attack over the top of the maze. If you shoot, the bullets will stop. It probably works the same way from above, too.”
“Like an invisible barrier?” Llenn asked.
When playing GGO normally, there were certain enemies out on the map, especially the “mid-boss” larger ones, who used invisible defensive shields like this. The phenomenon didn’t have an official name, so people just called it an invisible barrier.
Sometimes it was a localized effect that just covered a weak point, and sometimes it surrounded an entire foe. In the case of the latter, you needed a strategy to get past it somehow.
Up to this point in time, invisible barriers were not an item that players could acquire. It would be too big of an advantage.
“Exactly. It’s like they’ve placed an invisible barrier over the entire top of the maze,” M explained.
“I see. Makes total sense.”
“So if Fuka tried to shoot a grenade,” M continued, not bothering to stop running, “the barrier would probably stop it before it explodes. And because it’s within the safety range, they won’t explode, period.”
Launched grenades had a safety feature that measured distance and refused to allow them to explode until they’d traveled a certain distance from the shooter. If Llenn’s memory was correct, Fukaziroh’s launchers had a safety range of about sixty feet.
“But I can still shoot a plasma grenade down the path ahead of us.”
Don’t do that! Llenn’s mental commentary snapped as soon as the words were out of Fukaziroh’s mouth.
“Don’t use a weapon with a sixty-foot blast diameter in this cramped area. Have you forgotten how you almost blew me up earlier?” she said aloud, glaring pointedly.
“Yes, I forgot. Do you think I can knock these annoying walls down?”
Don’t do that either! Even in her mind, Llenn was fast.
M interjected, “I doubt anything we do will destroy these walls. If that were possible, it wouldn’t be a maze anymore.”
Exactly, Llenn thought. If that were possible, you could just create your own path straight through. Every player with grenades would be doing it.
“So I’m basically useless until we’re through the maze.” Fukaziroh sulked. “Fine, then. I’ll put Rightony and Leftonia away and use my pistol. The Smith & Wesson will be my passport. My hard, gleaming passport. Any enemies that come flocking to us will get a bullet in the brain courtesy of this.”
The Smith & Wesson M&P was Fukaziroh’s sidearm. That was an abbreviation of Military & Police. It was a 9 mm automatic.
But before Fukaziroh could draw it from its holster, Llenn snapped, “Don’t do that. You’ll put someone’s eye out.”