Phantom Bullet

Chapter 4

Sinon followed Kirito to a large building that was nothing like her old base.

They went in and Kirito asked a lady where 'Heathcliff' was.

"Who's Heathcliff?" Sinon asked.

"The man you tried to snipe, he's our leader." he said.

Leader? Like Sterben. Sinon thought.

"Sterben?" Kirito asked.

Sinon jumped, forgetting he could hear her thoughts.

"Stop eavesdropping!" Sinon snapped.

The man she'd tried to kill walked up to them.

"Hello Kirito." he said.

Sinon suddenly felt nervous, like she shouldn't be there.

"Hello Sinon." he then greeted.

Sinon stared at him in surprise.

"How do you know my name?" Sinon asked.

Heathcliff smiled.

"Follow me and I'll explain." he ordered.

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They walked through corridors, while Heathcliff explained.

"A year ago, I arrived in this world in the same state as you, I figured out what I was and learnt there were more of us, so I set up this building for people of our kind and got to work finding those people, and what happened to us." Heathcliff explained.

He stopped at a door and went in, inside it looked like an office.

He went over and sat down, Kirito and Sinon sat on the chairs in front of the table.

"I learnt we were all connected and that we'd once been human, but we entered a game that caused us to turn into this." he said.

"So, we're playing a game right now?" Sinon asked.

Heathcliff shook his head.

"The game was corrupted, and all players got sent out of the game, only they still had their in game identity." Heathcliff explained.

"Everything from the game has merged with the real world." Kirito said.

Heathcliff nodded.

"Any skills you got while playing the game still exist." he said.

Sinon dragged her fingers through the air and looked at the blue tab.

I've got telepathy, accuracy and martial arts, and 5000 col. whatever that is. Sinon thought as she went through.

"Telepathy, accuracy and martial arts." Sinon said.

"That sounds about right." Heathcliff said.

"How much money do you have?" Kirito asked.

"Huh?"

"It should be called col." Heathcliff said.

"Oh, 5000." she answered.

"How did you get that much?" Kirito asked in surprise.

"Hm? I dunno." Sinon answered.

"People start off with 100 col. and slowly go up as their skills advance." Heathcliff explained.

"Do you have details of us when we were human?" Sinon asked.

Heathcliff nodded.

"I keep them right over there, they're alphabetical by avatar name." Heathcliff said, pointing to a set of metal draws in the corner.

Sinon stood up and went over.

She went to the S and found herself under Sinocchi.

"My name isn't Sinocchi." Sinon said angrily.

"I know, Kirito said to use that name." Heathcliff said.

Sinon shot Kirito a glare before going through the papers in the file.