Loner High-School Girl And The God-Tier Game — I Don't Want To Talk, So I Shoot

Gun Fight On-line. GFO for short.

A VRMMORPG where guns are the only weapons. Conquer a fantasy world with firearms. That’s the concept.

The gun-only part aside, the systems aren’t much different from any other VRMMORPG. Kill monsters, kill players, gain levels, get stronger. Take what drops off the monsters and what drops off the players and turn it into new gear. Get stronger, fight, win, get stronger. The whole game is that loop, on repeat.

It’s a pretty old game by now, so it’s thoroughly dead. Nothing about it particularly stands out, either.

So why have I sunk two thousand hours into it? Because… I don’t have to talk to anyone.

Fight another player and it’s a gunfight, obviously. You rarely close to a range where talking is even possible. The game’s dead, so there aren’t many people around, and the guild system doesn’t matter enough to bother joining one. Magnificent.

Today, like every other day, I was going to sit back and enjoy the hunting life at my utterly deserted ruined castle (hunting grounds)¹… or that was how it was supposed to go.

“Ugh.”

A player icon popped up on my radar. Through my rifle scope, from the fortieth floor of the ruined castle, I watched a party of three come strolling across the wasteland toward me, chatting and laughing.

Oh, come on… this is definitely where they’re headed… I really don’t want to deal with this.

“…Guess I’ll shoot. I don’t want to talk anyway.”

— Bang! Bang! Bang! Yep, three kills.

“Don’t take it personally. You’re the ones who walked up to someone with a communication disorder (me) uninvited.”

That last part is a joke, of course. Killing a player in this game nets you a considerable amount of EXP and drop items, so player-killing is an everyday affair, and getting killed doesn’t earn you the right to drag your killer onto the message boards. You die, it’s your own fault. That’s simply how it works. And anyone who leaves their Radar Protect (gear that keeps your icon off the radar) switched off in wide-open ground like that is just plain stupid.

“Right then, let’s push to floor sixty today. A hundred and twenty-three floors in all… the road ahead is still long.”

And then, the next day.

“Huh?”

I’d logged out at the ruined castle’s save point, logged back in, and…

“There’s a whole crowd of them?!”

Ten, eleven, twelve… fourteen. Fourteen of them out on the wasteland, at least as far as I can see from the sixtieth-floor window.

They’re clustered right around the spot where I shot that trio dead yesterday. Two kilometers out, not counting elevation. Yesterday’s trio is down there with them, combing over the site like they’re running a crime scene investigation.

Don’t tell me it’s a guild? Did they bring the whole guild here for payback?!

“What a pain…”

They’ll come this way if I leave them alone. Guess I’ll just kill them again.

I snipe every last one of them dead.

A mountain of EXP rolls in, intended or not. Drop items fall at the point where the enemy was deleted, so I gave up on collecting them. Walking out to pick them up is a bother, and there’s no way players at this level are carrying anything I’d actually want.

“…Maybe it’s time to call it. But I’m so close, too…”

This place is an ultra-high-difficulty dungeon. A treasure trove of rare items. Honestly, your average player could reach this castle and still never make it as far as the tenth floor.

I’d put myself among the top tier of players in this game, and even so it took me three days of diving to reach floor sixty. Pulling out here would be… no. I hate that. What a waste.

“Nothing for it… this is a siege.”

After that, I kept exploring the castle while sniping any player who came near it. Sometimes a bullet from above. Sometimes an ambush out of the dark to crush the bandits (players) who broke into the castle.

The castle has a save point every ten floors, and once you’ve reached a save point you can warp to it from any other. That makes it easy to lie in wait near one and crush whoever wandered inside while I was logged out. And I know every gimmick and every enemy monster in this place inside out, so I can put those elements to work and sic them on the intruders too.

Heh heh heh… topple it, if you think you can. This impregnable castle of mine…!

Gun Fight On-line: Raid Party Recruitment Board

‘Impromptu raid at the Ruined Castle Abyss. Recruiting, level 150 and up. There’s an absolute monster in there.’

‘Sounds fun. Details plz.’

‘Abyss is that Chaos-difficulty sadist dungeon, right?’

‘One of our guild members just went near it to grind levels and got sniped. There’s a sniper guarding the ruined castle.’

‘So it’s just a player lol. What do you mean, impromptu raid. Don’t make me laugh.’

‘Took the whole guild in today (40 of us) and got wiped. Five of us made it to the castle, but apparently they got ambushed inside. Btw everyone was level 150 and up.’

‘Seriously…? (shudder)’

‘It’s one person?’

‘There’s no way it’s one person. That castle isn’t at a level where one guy can do a damn thing about it.’

‘Nah, looks like one. There was nobody else.’

‘Sure your guild wasn’t just complete trash? (lol)’

‘Talk is cheap. If you’re so confident, come try it yourself.’

‘Haaah, good grief. (cracks knuckles)’

‘Been a while… guess I’ll get serious? (smug grin)’

‘Anyway, we’ve named that sniper “Abyss Hawk.” They carry a rifle with absurd stopping power, so build for evasion over defense. They’re holed up in the Abyss, so they have the high ground completely, and the range gap is so wide that a sniper duel is a non-starter. Sniping is not recommended. I’ll post combat footage of Abyss Hawk later, so give it a look.’