Sword Art Online - Phantom Bullet

Chapter 3

Twilight.

The low lying clouds were stained yellow by the setting sun.

In the wilderness of rock and sand, the shadow cast by the tall relic building ruins was getting longer and longer. If we continued to wait for another hour, we must consider switching to night combat equipment.

Fighting with night vision goggles dampened the excitement of killing or being killed, so it was not Sinon's preferred way. Before the sun fully disappears, please let the target party appear quickly, she muttered while crouching behind the concrete. Moreover, her five partners who were also waiting gloomily in ambush were no doubt thinking of the same thing.

Voicing the doubt lurking within everyone's mind, a front line party member lowered his small-caliber short handled gun and whispered.

"Really, how much longer are we supposed to wait... Hey Dyne, are they really going to come? Is the information reliable?"

The man in question, Dyne, with his large rock-solid body and rough face, is their squadron (guild) leader; he lowered the large assault rifle from his shoulder and said while shaking his head.

"Those guys have been using the same route to go hunting for the past three weeks, at nearly the same time everyday. I have personally confirmed that information. Indeed today they are a bit late; they must have ran into some Mob (Monster). That means our share will increase, so stop complaining. "

"But."

The front line man became even more displeased and pouted.

"Today's prey is the same group we attacked the previous week, right? They may have changed their route as a precaution..."

"It has been six days since the previous ambush. Since then, they have always gone to the same hunting grounds. They are a squadron specialized for farming Mobs..."

On Dyne's face, was a mocking smile.

"No matter how many times they were attacked, even if their loot was robbed, they think that they just need to hunt more to make up for the loss. For anti-personnel squadrons like us, they are the best prey, and we can do this two or three more times."

"But, that's hard to believe. Normally, if people were attacked once, they will come up with some kind of counter measure."

"The day after they may be alert, but people become careless after a while, as they are used to fighting the predictable algorithms of field Mobs every day. Because they hunt only those Mobs for so long, their repetitive farming makes them act like Mobs themselves. Just a bunch of people without any pride."

The more Sinon heard, the more unpleasant she felt. She buried her face deeper into her muffler, and emotional fluctuations slowed her trigger finger down. Although she understood all of that, hearing Dyne's impertinent speech caused irritation to bubble up in her heart.

Laughing at a specialized routine Mob hunting party, his own supposedly PvP (Anti-personnel) squad ambushing that kind of party in a similar fashion didn't seem to hurt his pride. Instead of waiting for so many hours in this neutral field, it would be better to go to the underground ruins and fight a high level squadron that would result in higher gains.

Of course, the chance of total defeat, dropping equipment, and returning to the street through «Death Return» was higher too. But that is what a real battle is and only through that sort of tension was the soul forged.

It had been two weeks since she was invited to this squadron that Dyne led, and she soon regretted joining. Their PvP main objective was sort of a lie, because they only went after weaker opponents. And if there was even a minuscule sign of danger, they would retreat; it's a safety first kind of group.