C-Rank Ranked Match — Trading Blows

I fired the G-AGE at the perfect moment, under perfect conditions. The round cracked one of Tsubasa’s Aegis shields and struck home. And yet…

“To think you’d been holding onto a treasure like that…!”

The G-AGE hadn’t found Tsubasa’s vital point; all it managed to take was her right arm.

Why?! My aim should have been perfect…

Live rounds are slow next to laser rounds. Even at this range, if she can pick the bullet out, she can dodge it. But I masked the gunshot, and I killed her sightline too. There’s no way she should have been able to react…

“I heard the gunshot loud and clear. That was the report of an M1911.”

“Huh…?”

“Tsubasa’s an idol, you know. She’s got a sharp ear for sound. She can pick out footsteps even inside a noisy arcade.”

No way…!

I’ve got confidence in my own ears, too. But in the middle of this much noise and clamor, instantly pinning down a single sound’s ‘location’ and ‘type’ and reacting to it is impossible. Even in this world, where human performance is boosted across the board, the ability to tell sounds apart is the one thing that still comes down to the individual, to their own real, physical talent. Becoming a Space Girl lets you catch sounds far fainter and farther off than your real body ever could, but telling apart a sound’s ‘pitch’ and ‘timbre’ still hinges on the person themselves. In other words, Tsubasa’s ear naturally sits at or near absolute pitch.

The Aegis behind Tsubasa, right on my line of fire, is toppled without a scratch. The one in front, she couldn’t pull clear in time given the distance, it seems, but the Aegis farther from me she got out of the way cleanly. Reflexes and processing speed, both first-rate. It’s not that I was underestimating her, but this person… she’s stronger than I figured.

My calculations have come undone. And now Tsubasa’s onto my trump card.

“There’s no way you’d use a plain M1911 in a spot like this. It was half a guess, but thank goodness I threw myself aside. A bullet that punches clean through even an Aegis…! A Guardner killer, that’s what it is!!”

I fire off two more G-AGE rounds. Tsubasa dodges them, Aegis and all, and slips out of the cramped shop.

“We’ll settle this later, Shiki. Something nasty’s about to come back around.”

Tsubasa deftly scoops up the bike we’d been riding with an Aegis, hops on, and makes her escape.

“Tch!”

I can’t help clicking my tongue. Honestly, it stings. My tactics, crushed by raw talent…!

I try to Thruster Boost after her, but the Thrusters cut out after barely a meter.

“Out of EN…!”

So I was the one who got the lucky break. If the fight had dragged on a little longer, I’d have lost.

“Shiki!”

Shiina comes into the shop.

“ChaCha filled me in on the situation. Shaving off Tsubasa’s right arm and one Aegis is huge. Nice fight.”

“…I suppose so. The fact that I couldn’t take her down in one shot is a big minus, too, though. Now my ace in the hole’s been exposed.”

On the minus side, the G-AGE got recognized. On the plus side, I shaved off Tsubasa’s right arm and one Aegis. Personally, the minus is the one that weighs heavier.

“On balance, it is unquestionably a plus.”

Shiina seems to see it the opposite way. Or maybe she’s just being considerate.

“By the way, what about Ren…?”

“I took her down. That leaves Tsubasa on her own.”

“Th-that’s Shiina for you! Taking Ren down here is a really big deal!”

“That is thanks to you keeping Tsubasa pinned, Shiki.”

At the team level, there’s no question this clash goes to us. I’m glad that trap-and-snipe combo is off the board. We can move freely now.

“In any case, let’s hunt down some EN Bottles for now. There aren’t any enemies nearby, right?”

“Yes. Zero contacts.”

Shiina and I split up, rummaging through houses and shops for EN Bottles.

Five minutes after Tsubasa left, twenty minutes have now passed since the Ranked Match began. The fourth area shrink comes to an end. A minute more, and the next shrink zone appears on the map. Resort City has finally fallen outside the safety area, and we need to get clear of town before the next shrink hits. Twenty-one players left. Eight to ten teams, at a guess.

Inside the cafe, Shiina and I show each other our supplies.

“You should use all three EN Bottles yourself, Shiki.”

“Are you sure you don’t need to recover, Shiina?”

“I still have around forty percent, so pay me no mind. Given how things are likely to unfold from here, it is better to keep your EN reserves at full, Shiki.”

In that case… I drink down all three EN Bottles.

“We are moving out. I spotted a supercar a moment ago, so we will use that.”

“A supercar! Now that gets the heart racing…!”

“Your heart…? It is just a fast car, though?”

Shiina and I climb into the blue supercar parked in a burger joint’s garage, me in the driver’s seat and Shiina in the passenger seat.

“Shiki, are you all right to drive?”

“As long as the controls aren’t different from other games… I can at least work it better than you can one-handed, Shiina.”

I stomp the accelerator to the floor and we take off.

“Wha—?! Shiki?!”

“Heeere we goooo~!!!”

I blast us up to 180 km/h. The speed keeps climbing and climbing… 200… 250… 300… 400. This looks to be as fast as the car will go.

“Sh-Shiki?!”

“Yeees! What is it!”

“I-It is fast, and it is reckless…!”

“Oh, come now~! This much is still crawling, practically~! This is tortoise-slow, this is~!”

“This girl… didn’t her whole character kind of change?”

“She’s the type whose personality flips the second she grabs the wheel…! We can absolutely never let her drive in real life.”

In no time at all, we come tearing out of Resort City.

“…That is quite enough driving for now. Shiki, about our destination.”

“The ‘sea of trees’ or the ‘shipyard,’ right?”

“Yes. Judging by how the area has been shrinking, one of the two is likely to be the final zone. The shipyard has a great many workshops for manufacturing ship parts and doubles as a harbor, so a large number of ships are docked there. The sea of trees is ringed by hills, with a shallow lake at its center no deeper than knee height.”

Shiina lays out the map for me in more detail than I could manage on my own.

The sea of trees is, well, packed with trees, ringed by hills forty to seventy meters high, with an enormous lake at its center as well. From up on the hills you can snipe a Space Girl down among the trees, but if the safety area ends up shrunk to just the lake, you’d have no choice but to drop down onto it. Open ground with no cover is the worst possible place for a sniper.

The shipyard, by contrast, sits right on the coast, packed with ships and factories. If I can dig in atop a ship or on a factory roof, I can snipe to my heart’s content. And with the sea at my back, I don’t have to keep my guard up against being flanked from behind.

If I’m going to stake out a spot either way…

“I recommend the shipyard.”

“Adopted. Let us head for the shipyard.”