Sword Art Online - Phantom Bullet

Chapter 11

Sinon sighed for a long while, and spent the same amount of time trying to exhale the icy air out from her virtual lungs.

She slowly tried to adjust her breathing with her heartbeat, and the green reticle of hers started to expand and shrink.

She looked right in the middle of the screen. A player was moving through the bushes. He was holding a mini «Yatei» assault rifle, and though other support weapons couldn't be seen, there were all sorts of abnormal lumps on him. Perhaps he lightened his rifle to the bare minimum, and used hi-tech optical shielding and multi-layered armor against live rounds to fill up the capacity. Also, he was wearing a helmet with a face shield, and looked just like a giant boar. His name was «Shishigane», and the stats showed that he was a defensive player who focused on VIT. Although he took part in the last finals, Sinon didn't face him directly.

With a distance of more than 1,200m, even the anti-tank sniper rifle «Ultima Ratio Hecate II» can't give a fatal shot through that thick armor. Of course, it'll be different if she could hit twice consecutively, but the enemy is no slouch. Once he's hit, he would definitely hide in the shadows and not show up again. Until then, if she waits for him to show up at that position, the other players who heard the first shot would definitely gather over, and it'll be a wave of machine gun fire swarming around her like a beehive.

As Sinon was laying prone between the large rock and the shrubs, the trigger in her finger was silently muttering,

"...Come over here."

Once the distance between the target and her were within 800m, she believed that she could break through the thinner part of the armor, the face, and deal a larger amount of damage to eliminate this player from the stage.

However, Sinon's wishes didn't come true as the guy turned away and moved further away from her. He was careful enough to put heavy armor on his back too, and it could be said to be that there were no openings about him. It was a pity, but it seemed that the best choice she had would be to give up on this prey and wait for the next enemy. Just when Sinon was about to move her right eye away from the scope, she found that there was a round thing on the guy's right waist.

It was a large plasma grenade, two of them. Perhaps he was using it as another means of protection as he didn't have any support weapons. However, in this game, those «cheap and effective tools» would normally have some elements of danger to them. Sinon made herself tense and narrowed her eye that was on the scope.

She moved the scope down from the guy's back to the bottom right area, and finally aimed the crosshair at the shaking metal ball.

Inhale, exhale. She inhaled—and stopped.

As the screen of success removed all random thoughts, her body and the hand on the sniper rifle would fuse into one for a moment, and pinpoint into a fine circle. The girl naturally squeezed the trigger.

Then, there was an impact rushing through her body. Her eyes were immediately dyed white because of the sparks released by the muzzle. However, Sinon's vision immediately recovered as she looked through the scope, and through the vision that retained its color, she could see a grenade on the right waist of the man go 'bam', and she turned her face away from the gun.

"Bingo."

As she muttered, a blue explosion occured in the middle of the hill far away, and all the neighboring trees collapsed. A few seconds later, the sound of a thunderclap came over, and she didn't need to check to know that the guy's HP was reduced to zero.

At this moment, Sinon stood up, straightened her legs and carried her Hecate. As the gunshot and the muzzle spark revealed her position, the next few minutes after a snipe would be the most dangerous moment for a sniper. She quickly scanned around and then decided on the route she would take.