“We are on our way to defeat the team that contains Llenn, the player with the hundred-million-credit bounty. They are currently trapped inside the north tower. But the target I really want to dispatch is the grenadier known as Fukaziroh. I don’t need the bounty. If you want to join us, speak up. Let’s go and beat Llenn together. You just might win that bounty. Or would you rather get into a firefight with us?”
She repeated her message over and over.
Her voice carried well, echoing behind all the barricades.
One man who heard it, wearing desert camo and holding an M16A1, a standard-issue American assault rifle, stood up and made a show of himself.
“Don’t shoot! I’m in!”
✦ ✦ ✦
Once one person had volunteered, the rest felt less shame at the idea.
“Me too!”
“I’d love to join in!”
In small groups, surviving players—and sometimes teams—offered to take part in Vivi’s invitation.
Huey, Peter, and Max kept their machine guns aimed and ready, watching carefully, as the other players approached without their guns in hand. Soon all the gunfire in the area had died out.
As they came closer, Vivi said, “Very well. The place is the northernmost tower. Our partners in Memento Mori have it surrounded, so we’ll make plenty of noise as we approach. If you try to sneak up in silence, they will shoot you, so be careful.”
She beamed most fetchingly.
✦ ✦ ✦
“Llenn, I’ve taken out that annoying sniper,” Shirley stated.
“Thanks for that. But I can’t get out…”
Llenn was in quite the predicament right at the entrance of the tower. Or exit, depending on which direction you faced.
Earlier, she had removed a magazine from her pouch that was low on bullets and very casually tossed it through the entrance to the outside.
The next instant, it was neatly shot through the middle. The magazine had taken more damage than the item could withstand and turned into little fragments of light that soon disappeared.
That was a sniper shot from David’s scoped assault rifle, but from the inside, Llenn couldn’t tell who had done it.
All she knew was one simple fact: “If I go out in any way, I’ll get shot!” The message was extremely clear.
But there was one other thing: “They’re not aggressively coming in here, either.”
If they had intended to do that, they would have done it while they had sniper support. If that had been the case, Llenn would have rushed up the stairs and shot back at them with P-chan. Heh. You suckers saved your own lives there.
“Llenn. Boss says she wants to communicate with our team. Is that cool?” Fukaziroh asked.
“Of course! Hook everyone up!” she replied at once. Two seconds later, Boss was speaking into her ear.
“Llenn. I wanted to get out of the tower ASAP, but now we don’t really have that option. We’re switching to a plan to shoot back from the top. If it’s just MMTM, I think we can hold them off. We’ll just have to pray that some other team comes by to pick them off while we’re in a stare down.”
It was a rather passive plan, but Llenn couldn’t see a better option. Besides, being camped in a higher elevation was an advantage in battle.
While the barricades might block their attacks from above, they could be destroyed with enough shots. Eventually they would return, but it would help push hiding foes out into the open.
On the other hand, as had occurred to her earlier, they might be surrounded by more enemies in the meantime, and if they came with weapons powerful enough to destroy the tower, everyone was screwed.
The scariest possibility of all was what Shirley did in the Five Ordeals: a suicide attacking using plasma grenades that would kill the target by toppling the building on top of her.
But it was Boss coming up with the plans now, instead of M. All Llenn could do was follow her lead.
“All right. I’ll stay down below. If anyone tries to come in, I can shoot them from higher on the stairs.”
“Great. Do that.”
“I will!” she announced confidently.
Not knowing, of course, that ZEMAL was recruiting companions who were making their way toward MMTM.
Just so Vivi could take out Fukaziroh.
✦ ✦ ✦
There were about fifteen men who had either been convinced or hoodwinked by Vivi into approaching the tower that was currently surrounded by MMTM.
They moved in small groups together. Some were from the same team, while other groups were simply a product of happenstance. They didn’t want to get shot along the way by others who were unaware of the situation, so they made sure to have the same pitch ready that had worked on them: We’ve got a chance to seize that bounty; are you in?
Although none of them were aware of it, there were only about forty players still left in SJ5. That was all that remained of thirty teams totaling just under 180 players.
Not a single team was unblemished, either; nobody had their full lineup still alive.
It was still most of a mile to reach the tower, so they were all sprinting, but because it was a virtual world, nobody was short of breath.
“You don’t got your thang on you?” the man with the desert camo and M16A4 asked the fellow running next to him.
“Thang?” he replied, blank-faced. There was nothing in his hands.
He wore a green T-shirt and camo pants, just like your average person walking around Glocken. Just an average white avatar, average height, average build, with no real distinguishing features.
“I mean your main weapon. Come on, man, it’s not that hard to figure out,” the first man said, looking suspicious.
“Oh, my main gun. Sorry! I had it, but it got blown out of my hands in an explosion in the city area. I couldn’t find it, and I’ve been on the run ever since. I didn’t catch any of my squadmates, either.”
The suspicion turned into understanding. “Ah. That was the crazy suicide bomb team that messed things up last time, wasn’t it? I guess they were here again. We’re going to take out the pink demon, though. Are you gonna be able to do anything?” he asked.
The empty-handed man waved one of those hands as he ran. “Oh, no, no. There’s absolutely no way I could ever win the bounty. But since I’ve come this far, I’d like to see the outcome of the hundred million credits for myself. I’m the only survivor from my team, so I really appreciate ZEMAL’s proposal.”
“Uh-huh. Well, good luck. What’s your team name, by the way?” the desert camo asked.
The featureless man in light gear smiled back.
“We’re called BOKR. It’s our first time. Nice to meet you!”
✦ ✦ ✦
“Aren’t you going to use any grenades, Captain?” Kenta asked David while he was carefully patrolling the area behind the rest of the squad. They spoke through the comm. Their comms were only tuned to be within the squad for now.
Under the barrel of David’s STM-556 was an add-on grenade launcher. Distance and skill-wise, David was capable of placing a grenade squarely into the entrance to the tower.
He smiled viciously, without turning back to show it—vigilance was more important. “If I blew up the pink shrimp, and she died, just like that, it would cause problems. We need those folks looking for her bounty to come here.”
“Got it,” Kenta replied. “Makes sense.”
“Vivi’s target is just one person, whom she bears a very deep connection to going back to ALO and whom she blames for killing Shinohara: Fukaziroh. She really respects that grenadier, apparently. So until then, we let them do what they want. If they’re going to send people our way, we’ll take anyone we can get to help cut down on Llenn’s remaining strength and ammo stock.”
“And after that?” Kenta asked, patrolling farther away from David now. It was his job to stay on the move.
“We’ll use everything we’ve got to defeat ZEMAL and be Squad Jam champions. I don’t care how.”
Although he wasn’t saying it out loud, his implication was that they were willing to play dirty. For example, if members of ZEMAL were tired out from dealing with Llenn’s group, MMTM might just shoot them in the back.
So in a sense, he didn’t want to tire out the folks in the tower too much just yet.
“I thought you’d say that!” Kenta chirped, delighted.
“They’re going to be thinking the exact same thing, that’s why.”
“Of course. Oops, I think our guests are arriving,” Kenta said, spotting a group of men approaching with their guns raised high. “Got an incoming party of grist for the mill, ready to be seated.”