This game of gunfire and smoke took place in a chaotic age after a devastating war on Earth. Humanity's warlike predecessors had destroyed both their enemies and the environment with weapons of mass destruction before fleeing the ruined planet aboard massive spaceships. Because of that setting, the world's technology felt more futuristic than anything in modern reality.
The players of the present era were descendants of the survivors left behind on Earth after the war.
By all rights, the setting could have expanded into large-scale warfare across outer space. But the developers clearly understood the appeal of the game and kept its focus fixed on one thing: brutal gunfights in ruined wasteland cities.
At present, GGO's world was divided into several continental regions: the mostly barren western wastelands, the eastern forests filled with ruins, and the frozen northern territories.
The explorable map was enormous. Endless monsters and densely packed side quests made the PvE side of the game genuinely appealing. At times, it even felt like a tribute to EverQuest.
But GGO was still a ruthless PvP-focused online game.
Even all those exploration resources ultimately existed as battlefields for players to compete against one another.
Of course, players could choose not to hurt anyone. They could slowly wander across the continents like they were playing a collection game, experience the dark main storyline, complete weapon and monster encyclopedias, and dig through abandoned warships for bits of worldbuilding and hidden lore.
But even players like that had to stay alert.
Because outside the towns, PK was legal everywhere.
Killing players brought high rewards, and to some people, it was even more satisfying than ordinary quests. Every region hid hunters like that.
Even the official tournament, the event known as BoB, dropped dozens of selected players into a randomly generated battlefield. The rules resembled a battle royale. Players could cooperate and form temporary alliances, but in the end, only one person could survive as the final winner. Eventually, even teammates had to turn on one another.
The game's hard-edged atmosphere, combined with a generally older and more serious player base than fantasy VRMMOs, gave it an unusually high barrier to entry. That was also why people often called it the only VRMMO in Japan with professional players.
When The Seed was released online and countless VRMMOs began appearing, Satoru moved to GGO almost without hesitation.
There were fewer sword-related elements here, and the competition remained intense. Most importantly, he would not constantly run into people who treated games like glorified social apps.
Sometimes, watching people casually flirt with girls or constantly show off their relationships was exhausting. They waved swords and guns around like props at a dinner party, barely cared about learning encounters properly, and after wiping a few times, immediately lost interest and went back to chatting about unrelated nonsense through the interface.
It made him uncomfortable.
He even disliked seeing people stand casually in front of vicious monsters as if none of it mattered.
Still, that was their way of enjoying themselves. He had no right to criticize it.
So instead, he simply left.
The irony was hard to ignore.
That world was one he himself had ended with his own hands, and now he had become an "orphan" wandering away from it in mourning.
He chose his build.
Chose his weapons.
Chose his battlefield.
And so Samuro, a regular of the ruins, was born.
He inherited the same Sword Saint title, yet never picked up a blade again.
...
The Ketes-class Isarot warship, commonly called the Isaro ship, was a large-scale area added only last month.
According to the setting, it had once belonged to a northern nation nearly a century ago. It originally carried biological weapons, but not long after leaving port, it was intercepted by enemy forces. Forced into battle, it eventually crash-landed on the northern ice plains.
During the fighting, the biological weapons leaked accidentally. Every soldier and officer aboard died, while the enemy army, wary of the poison gas, temporarily withdrew and planned to deal with it later.
But before they could, another war erupted elsewhere, and the Isaro ship was forgotten.
And so the vessel remained buried beneath snow and ice through the final years of the Great War.
The North's brutal climate froze the virus before it could spread far, sealing the entire area together with the warship beneath endless white snow.
It remained silent for decades until postwar survivors stumbled across it by chance.
Only then was the latest warship ruin, Isaro, opened to players.
There was no level restriction, but anyone below the top tier of players would barely survive inside. The freezing climate, endless snow, and poor visibility severely disrupted ballistic prediction lines and made combat difficult.
The area demanded both excellent equipment and high-level combat skill.
"Cold-weather gear, tactical body armor, shield batteries, high-calorie rations, optical weapons..." Satoru muttered while trading items from his inventory to Sinon one by one. "And goggles."
"These will interfere with my aim," Sinon said, shaking her head. "If I wear goggles, I can't press my face properly against the scope. It feels awful."
"That won't work. Without goggles, the wind out there will make it hard to even keep your eyes open. You'll have trouble spotting targets and reading ballistic lines. And all that snow glare will wear your eyes out fast. The lenses tint everything brown a little, so it's much easier on your vision."
Satoru explained patiently.
Sinon still looked reluctant, but after accepting the trade request, she equipped the gear he had given her.
Her originally light and practical outfit was now buried beneath a thick winter cloak that wrapped around her entire body. Combined with the goggles covering her sharp blue-green eyes, she suddenly looked oddly cute.
No.
Once the massive black Hecate II, taller than she was, was added to the picture, the overall result became more like a clumsy little mascot.
Satoru's lips curved upward slightly as he looked her over.
"Hm. Like this, if you lie down in a snowbank, people will just assume you're a pile of snow. Nobody will suspect there's a sniper hiding there."
That teasing habit of calling her a girl probably was not going away anytime soon. Still, he had a good sense of boundaries. It never felt unpleasant, only like harmless banter between teammates.
Sinon sighed and shifted her body slightly, adjusting to the unfamiliar weight.
"This definitely feels safer, but moving around in this is a pain. My STR isn't that high."
Then she noticed something.
"Wait. You're almost full AGI. Can you even move in this stuff?"
"It's less a question of moving and more a question of barely managing to wear it," Satoru replied with complete seriousness.
"What...?"
"Honestly, the goggles and winter coat are already close to my limit. I don't have enough spare STR for anything heavier."
"Doesn't that completely contradict everything you said about safety?!"
"It wouldn't matter much anyway. High-AGI builds shouldn't be tanking hits in the first place. Even with composite armor, bullets still hurt. It's better to focus on dodging."
Satoru sounded entirely sincere.
"So you're fragile, carrying limited ammo, limited supplies, and you still explored the Isaro Ruins multiple times by yourself like that?"
Sinon pressed a hand to her forehead.
"There are actually fewer people here than you'd think. It's a newly opened endgame area, not some crowded mid-level zone where you run into players every few minutes. The two scouting runs I did only led to four or five encounters total. The monsters are the same: rare, but each one is a nightmare to deal with. That's why we didn't bring many optical weapons."
"I came to Isaro mainly for a specific material," Satoru continued. "Unfortunately, I can't reach it alone. I need a partner. That's my objective. As for you, you came here looking for PvP, right?"
"In that case, we prioritize my goal while pushing forward. If we run into anyone along the way, whether they're PvP players or not, we make trouble. Sound good?"
Sinon nodded.
That refusal to avoid conflict was exactly what she wanted.
And this was the newest high-risk zone in the game. Anyone willing to come here had to be strong.
Still...
She turned and looked around the outpost where they were currently staying.
The unstable-looking buildings looked ready to collapse beneath the icy wind at any moment. Within the perimeter formed by broken walls, the NPC in charge of explaining the region sat crouched beside a small stove, warming his hands inside a padded coat. Nearby, several idle young soldiers stood guard.
Only the pharmacy and supply shop maintained by the system still gave off warmth.
Beyond the walls, the snow-covered ground stretched endlessly. There were no animals. No birds. Nothing moved beneath the freezing sky.
The entire place felt lonely and desolate.
There really aren't many players here...
"There are several safe spots around Isaro where players can rest or log in and out," Satoru explained after noticing her gaze. "You wouldn't want to log back in outside and immediately open your eyes to some twisted infected creature lunging at you through the snow."
"Safe spots?" Sinon blinked. "I don't remember anything like that existing before. Does this area really take that long to clear?"
"The warship itself isn't huge. The problem is the massive frozen plains surrounding it. It's easy to lose your sense of direction out there. And GGO doesn't have teleportation outside respawning in town after death. Most people can't stay FullDived for two or three days straight without food or rest, right? The safe spots help a lot."
"Two or three days...?"
"If you're going in blind, yeah. But I've already been here twice, so I understand the surrounding terrain pretty well now. I have a map. We should be able to reach the ship itself in about ninety minutes. After that, things get easier."
Satoru smiled, opened his menu, pulled up the map interface, copied a regional map, and sent the data to Sinon through the party system.
Normally, unexplored regions remained hidden on a player's map. That was part of the game's exploration system.
Of course, players who found that annoying could simply buy copied map data from someone who had already explored the area.
Basic maps were dirt cheap.
Mid-level and high-level maps became expensive if they included valuable locations.
As for a fully explored map of a newly opened endgame ruin that strategy sites still had not documented properly...
At this stage, its value was obvious.
"I could probably sell this to a guide site for decent money," Sinon said in a rare teasing tone.
"Map data only stays valuable while the hype lasts. After that, it's worthless. Do whatever you want with it."
Satoru waved it off casually.
Sinon had only been joking.
Still, for someone she had known for less than a day, Samuro trusted his teammates surprisingly easily. Maybe because the version of him she had fought in the wasteland felt so sharp and dangerous, this more relaxed side of him felt unexpectedly strange.
She loaded the map data and opened it.
Then froze.
For a moment, she genuinely thought she was looking at internal developer map data.
It was simply too complete.
Aside from a few mountain regions, caves, and unreachable locations still covered by fog, the map looked almost professionally made. Every road, side route, and hidden branch had been thoroughly explored. It was the kind of obsessive completionist map that would satisfy even the most demanding explorer.
"Now I really do want to sell this to a strategy site..." Sinon said after a long silence. "What were you before this, some kind of professional explorer?"
"I used to be a professional," Satoru replied calmly. "Not anymore."