At 2:29 and fifty seconds, Llenn’s watch warned her of the time. She was right outside the tunnel entrance.
Ten seconds until the collapse. It didn’t seem likely that this spot closest to the center would go right from the start, but in any case, there was very little time left.
From what she could tell, there were no traps or enemies inside the entrance. Or maybe there were, but it was too dark for her to see them. Either way, she couldn’t spend any more time out here.
She made up her mind.
“All right, I’m goin’ in!”
Llenn hopped through the darkened entrance with both feet and immediately felt a strange sense of weightlessness.
“Oh, I’m being teleported!” she realized at once, saying as much to Fukaziroh behind her.
It wasn’t an uncommon sensation in a game to be forcibly sent to a different location, i.e. teleported. It was like the simulated Earth gravity got weaker, and her body was suddenly floating. Or perhaps like a rapid descent in an elevator.
“Guess I’ll go in, too,” said Fukaziroh, following suit.
“Huh? Wait—” Llenn panicked.
In her mind, she was thinking that her warning meant: I don’t know where I’ll get teleported. So I’ll get sent there first and report back on the comm. If it’s safe, or if I need you, I’ll want you to come right after me. But if not, I’d rather you stayed there as long as possible to preserve your own safety.
Instead, Fukaziroh had come running in right after her.
Oh, she did that on purpose, Llenn realized.
Fukaziroh was a hardcore gamer, and she would have understood the meaning of the warning right after Llenn said it—in fact, a whole three years before she said it.
But she thought it would be more fun to tag along.
She had misjudged Fukaziroh’s willfulness. Then again, Miyu had always been like this. It was her own fault for forgetting that.
Something more than just regret dimmed Llenn’s vision. Her eyes were open but saw nothing. Closing them would surely do the same.
In the next instant, she was going to be somewhere else. There might be an enemy right in front of her. Such mean-spirited teleportation did not usually happen in the game, but you never knew with Squad Jam.
Her finger was poised at the ready, just short of touching the P90’s trigger.
And then…
…the floating sensation stopped, and her feet touched a hard surface. Light began to coalesce and return into vision.
“Hey! You’re here!”
And there was Clarence’s smiling face. It was always such a dashing smile.
Llenn was standing, while Clarence was crouched in front of her, handsome and boyish Takarazuka face tilted slightly upward. It wasn’t a hard angle, because Llenn was so short.
It was such a shock that she nearly started shooting on impulse. Thankfully, she was able to hold back her finger.
“Hey! We’re here!” said Fukaziroh, appearing behind Llenn.
She turned around and saw Fukaziroh being her best self.
Where are we? She turned around to get a better view.
She was inside a square space about three tatami mats in size. Meaning: a bit over seven feet to a side. Under her feet was a flat stone floor. In one corner of the floor was a hole big enough for a person to fit through, followed by a very steep staircase.
Around the edge of the space was a stone wall less than two feet tall, and in each of the corners was a thick, round, stone pillar with a diameter of about sixteen inches. She looked up and saw that the pillars were supporting a stone roof overhead.
“Oh!”
Llenn figured it out. Actually, she should have figured it out when she saw Clarence.
“We’re at the top of a spire!”
“Bingo, correct! But get down, get down,” Clarence warned, in the same tone of voice as someone saying Sit down, have a beer.
“Ah!” Llenn did exactly as she said. She had just remembered how Clarence had been shot earlier. This was a place where you could get sniped.
Fukaziroh had already hit the deck, so to speak. She was good at this sort of thing. Those hardcore gamer instincts.
“Gosh, it’s been so long since I saw you two, though. What’s it been, three years?” Clarence asked, now that their faces were looking at each other, pressed to the ground.
“No, not since college graduation, so it’s been five years. Everything going well with you?” Fukaziroh joked back. Llenn didn’t need to say a word.
Clarence seemed satisfied with that comeback and asked quite seriously, “You’re both alive, right? You’re not ghosts?” She was more serious than earlier, at least.
“Yes, we’re alive, somehow. It wasn’t easy!” Llenn answered.
From behind Clarence, Tanya’s silver head popped up. She was flat on the ground too, of course.
“What about Boss, Llenn?”
“……”
She wasn’t sure how to respond.
That was when Boss popped into the space just to her left. That giant bulk, hanging pigtails, and gorilla face couldn’t belong to anyone else.
She was followed by golden-haired Anna, shades and all.
Llenn was startled in the extreme by their sudden, ghostlike materialization and realized that she must have appeared in the same fashion. She found herself oddly impressed by how Clarence had taken her presence in stride, with a healthy smile.
“Oh? Ohh…! You guys!”
Boss was startled at first but grinned when she recognized Tanya, although it was not as delighted as you might have thought. Behind her sunglasses, Anna’s expression was clouded, too.
They understood where they were and crouched down at once.
Six people on the floor in the same three-tatami-mat space was very cramped. Even with the diminutive size of Llenn and Fukaziroh, they were fairly squished, jammed in like hikers in a mountain cabin in the busy season. The guns were getting in the way. (Don’t bring your guns to a mountain cabin, by the way.)
Unperturbed by the lack of space, Clarence marveled, “I knew it! The teleportation mode automatically places the teams back together again!”
That made sense to Llenn.
The mean-spirited rule that forced them to fight apart was finally over. It had been such a bother that she was not in any kind of mood generous enough to think Thank you for letting us regroup!