And finally, the day of the decisive battle arrived. It was not just a battle for Sinon and Pitohui, but also, in a manner of speaking, a battle for Shana—a day to determine whether he could find any clues regarding the members of Laughing Coffin.
"Alright, let's go."
"I won't lose, Pito."
"Mufufufufu, Muzzle Flash!"
"What is that...?"
"Ah, sorry, nothing!"
"I can sort of guess just by looking at that face, but you should probably wipe that drool for now."
"Oops, did my overflowing libido accidentally drip from my mouth?"
Hearing that, Sinon said to Pitohui while trembling slightly.
"You know... the main tournament is about to start, so stop thinking about erotic things!"
"It doesn't matter what Shana does to me after I win the bet! That's up to Shana!"
"Don't drag me into your incomprehensible conversations..."
Shana spoke to the two with a sour expression. Perhaps influenced by this, Shizuka suddenly asked Shana.
"Shana, exactly what kind of naughty things are you planning to do to Pito? You can do those things to me... n-no, nothing!"
Shizuka mumbled the end of her sentence and blushed, causing Shana to smile wryly.
"Don't you jump on the bandwagon too, Shizu. Obviously, I don't intend to do anything. Seriously, if you're embarrassed, just don't play along with the joke."
"Onii-chan, do you intend to make me an old lady already?"
"Ah~ Kei. Our cousin couple who got married last year had a kid recently, so you've been an aunt for a while now."
"Aah! Come to think of it, Mom mentioned that the other day!"
"Well, we're estranged from our relatives, so we probably won't meet them anyway."
Rosalia didn't seem inclined to retort and watched the group with a warm, indulgent gaze. Incidentally, Ikoma, after finishing his earlier greeting with Nyangoro, had shut himself in the workshop as usual. It seemed he was working hard on making something and planned to watch the match from the base.
Finally, Nyangoro stepped in front of Shana with an air of satisfaction and said:
"Stop looking at my chest with those eyes filled with desire!"
"Sensei, I don't know what you mean. Actually, your personality has definitely changed since coming to GGO, hasn't it?"
Shana sighed as he said this, then issued a command to everyone.
"Ah, whatever. Enough already, let's get going."
Following his words, the group headed toward the planned meeting point with the MMO Today staff. On the way, Sinon and Pitohui split off to head to the meeting place for the main tournament participants, while the rest proceeded to the rental space secured by Thinker.
"Shana-san, we've been waiting for you."
"Thank you for your help today, Thinker-san, Yulier-san."
Along with Shana's words, the group bowed to the pair. Then, Yulier looked at Shana with a start.
"Ah, come to think of it, I forgot to report this the other day, but we got married."
"Oh, is that so? Congratulations!"
"Congratulations to you both!"
"This is also thanks to the two of you. Thank you so much. If you two hadn't been there, I definitely would have died in the Iron Palace."
"I'm really glad we made it in time back then."
At that moment, one of the staff members ran up to Thinker.
"Thinker-san, ten minutes until start."
"Ah, it's about time. Everyone, please take these."
"What are these?"
"These are the uniforms our staff will use inside GGO from now on. We plan to wear these during interviews to become as recognizable to as many people as possible. If we do that, we might be able to conduct interviews as a neutral presence even on the battlefield."
"I see. You'll want to raise awareness quickly then."
"Yes. This event became a good opportunity."
The group changed into the uniforms and headed to their assigned locations. According to the prior arrangement, Shana was in the center, Shizuka in the north, Benkei in the south, Nyangoro in the west, and Rosalia in the east.
Aside from Shana, the others could only judge whether someone looked suspicious from the perspective of an ordinary person, but cross-referencing their observations with video footage later would at least provide Shana with material to make a judgment.
"Alright then, everyone. If you see anything strange, remember it well. And cheer for Sinon and Pito, too."
"Yeah."
"I wonder which of those two will win."
"A draw would really save me..."
"You are trembling in fear, Shana."
"Well, whatever. See you later."
The group dispersed to their destinations, and finally, the main tournament of the 2nd Bullet of Bullets began.
In BoB, a Satellite Scan occurs at regular intervals, revealing everyone's location. Because of this, the standard theory is to stay hidden and wait until the first scan. However, there are occasionally those who pay no heed to such theories.
Sure enough, turmoil erupted right from the start.
"XeXeed and Yamikaze clashed right away!"
"That bastard XeXeed is lucky. He pulled off a magnificent surprise attack on Yamikaze."
Hearing the voices of the spectators, Shana glanced at the monitor.
(Come to think of it, just like Satellizer who started moving immediately last time, that guy appeared in front of me before the first scan too. Looking back, he probably started acting right away back then as well.)
Last time, that move backfired, making XeXeed the first to be eliminated, but this time it seemed to be working in his favor.
As expected of Yamikaze, he seemed to have avoided a fatal wound, but having lost the initiative and perhaps taken a hit to the leg, his movements lacked their usual brilliance. The battle seemed to proceed consistently in XeXeed's favor.
"Yamikaze is attacking more often, but it looks like XeXeed is blocking a lot of hits with his equipment."
"XeXeed is overwhelming him in accuracy too... though that's partly due to the weapon's performance."
"Or rather, since his shooting itself isn't that great, it's almost entirely thanks to the weapon."
"Tsk. Looks like this is XeXeed's win."
Just as predicted, Yamikaze couldn't find an opening throughout the fight and eventually switched entirely to fleeing. He barely avoided death, but took heavy damage and had to hide for a while to recover. XeXeed, perhaps having taken some damage as well, decided to stop his pursuit for the time being.
Immediately after, the first scan took place.
"Matches are gonna start moving fast from here."
Someone said this, and true to their words, other players began to move all at once.
It seemed Sinon and Pitohui had started far apart; the scenery visible behind them when they occasionally appeared on screen showed completely different terrain. Pitohui seemed to head straight for a nearby player, while Sinon appeared to be aiming for high ground advantageous for sniping.
Then the camera switched, showing a scene where Musketeer X took someone down with mid-range sniping.
(So that's Musketeer X. Just as Sinon said the other day, she doesn't look ferocious. If anything, her atmosphere is close to Sinon's.)
Shana assessed Musketeer X's appearance, seeing her clearly for the first time.
(Her combat style follows standard theory—keeping a better position than the opponent and reliably stacking damage. Still, she's calm.)
Musketeer X continued to dispatch enemies steadily after that. As expected of a previous finalist.
"Hey look! Lion King Richie is...!"
"Aaah, out of ammo? That guy really can't calculate that stuff, can he?"
"His opponent is that Pitohui? Well, I guess it can't be helped."
(Oh, Pito handled that well. But that... She really might have a split personality.)
This battle was a complete victory for Pitohui. Pitohui attacked minimally while moving, and while Lion King Richie returned fire with many times the volume, his attacks were sloppy. Perhaps due to the poor visibility of the surrounding forest causing him to fire blindly and excessively, Lion King Richie quickly ran out of ammo.
Confirming this, Pitohui closed in on Lion King Richie instantly. Laughing loudly, she fired a bullet into the head of Richie, who had stopped resisting with a look of resignation.
"Yup, that's just her usual self."
"Yeah, it's Pitohui, so it can't be helped."
(Is that really how others see her...? Well, with that attitude, it's no wonder.)
Shana smiled wryly and decided to do a lap around the tavern. This central tavern was quite large, making it difficult to grasp the whole situation by staying in one spot. Shana called out to Thinker, who was in charge of this area, and asked him to walk around the tavern with him.
Some players, seeing Thinker's camera, occasionally asked what they were doing out of curiosity, but when Thinker mentioned MMO Today, they accepted it and backed off.
"The name recognition of MMO Today is amazing, isn't it, Thinker-san?"
"No, well, despite a blank period of over two years, I'm just happy about it."
Conversing like this, the two checked inside the tavern, but they couldn't find anyone showing particularly suspicious behavior or emitting a strange aura.
That was to be expected. Shouichi and Atsushi, who had absolutely no interest in the BoB at this stage, had gone to the hospital where Shouichi and Kyouji's father was the director to obtain poison that day. They had successfully achieved their objective.
"That was surprisingly easy."
"With this, the plan has advanced another step."
"Come to think of it, wasn't today the day of that tournament?"
"We can just watch the recording. We're going to kill everyone whose address we got anyway."
"This is getting fun, partner."
"Yeah."
At this point, the survivors of the main tournament had been reduced to eleven. Dyne was defeated by Usu-Shio Tarako, who was then sniped by Sinon.
(Dyne couldn't beat Tarako, huh? Well, those two are better at group battles than individual ones anyway.)
As time passed, more players dropped out, until finally, only five remained: XeXeed, Yamikaze, Pitohui, Sinon, and Musketeer X.
XeXeed had been moving around trying to target other players, but whether due to luck being on his side or perhaps bad luck, the targets he aimed for were either defeated by others or had already moved, so he hadn't made contact with anyone since the start. Yamikaze's survival was likely thanks to his complete dedication to fleeing.
After another scan revealed that only five remained, Sinon decided that waiting any longer was pointless and began to move.
"I suppose it's time to settle things with Pitohui..."
Murmuring this, Sinon headed toward Pitohui while cautiously staying alert to her surroundings. Meanwhile, Pitohui was also heading toward Sinon.
"With the numbers down this much, I've got no choice but to go, right?"
Musketeer X, naturally knowing the names of Sinon and Pitohui as comrades of her God, Shana, headed toward them as well, her interest piqued.
Since the time for the next scan arrived, the three hid in nearby bushes to prepare. When the time came and they saw the scan results, they were astonished.
"Only two people are showing up on the scan results? No, don't tell me..."
Thinking similar thoughts, the three zoomed in on the screen.
"No, four people are gathered right nearby!"
The one who was slightly further away was Yamikaze. That meant...
Sinon, Pitohui, and Musketeer X all quietly peeked into the nearby clearing at the same time—and locked eyes with the other three players who had peeked into the clearing just like them.
"Tch, you bastards..."
"Pito!"
"Sinonon!"
"So that God may witness me, I will defeat everyone here."
Thus, the four-way battle between Sinon, Pitohui, Musketeer X, and XeXeed began.
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