Sword Art Online - Phantom Bullet

Chapter 13

Gun Gale Online. The system for this game did not have the «Warrior» or «Mage» class like RPGs in the past.

Each player could choose to increase 6 of their «stats» like strength 'STR', agility 'AGI', vitality 'VIT' and dexterity 'DEX'. Also, there are hundreds of «skills» that include 'masteries', 'suggestion', 'first aid' and 'acrobatics', forming one's own build. In a sense, this means that there were as many classes as the number of builds.

But on the other hand, a build that wasn't planned—like having low STR and unable to equip a large machine gun and yet increasing the mastery of a heavy machine gun—would weaken one's own ability. Because of that, there would definitely be a fixed pattern where people have to attain certain statuses and skills before being able to equip certain weapons. Based on the slight differences of the skills, everyone would classify similar players as «Attacker», «Tank», «Medic», «Scout» and all sorts of names for different classes.

Though Sinon's class as a «Sniper» was extremely rare, it was one of these. To equip a large-sized sniper rifle, they have to strengthen their STR status, and then have to increase their DEX to improve their accuracy, and finally a suitable amount of AGI to get away quickly from the scene after a snipe. However, they would lose if they were discovered, so they gave up on VIT completely. As for skills, they need the necessary gun mastery and also other skills that could improve their accuracy. Of course, they gave up completely on defenses. However, there's also the possibility of a failed snipe because of the «heartbeat count system» even if the build was perfect, and this would be the hard part about this class.

Such an overly specialized class wasn't really suited for a battle royale. While aiming for an enemy far away, they could be easily approached by others. A sniper could only surrender once an attacker-type player with a submachine gun or an assault rifle rushed in. Even if a sniper barely managed to fire at the rushing enemy without aiming—which were normally unable to hit the target—the sniper would end up becoming a pincushion of bullets before they were able to get a second shot out.

Because of the above reasons, if Sinon acted on her own, she would have no chance of winning if a mid-ranged shooter who would value accuracy like the attacker «Xiahou Dun» reaches the range where the Norinco CQ would hit.

However, things were different now. Because of a chance occasion, beside her was a «lightsaber warrior» which no one else in the world of GGO would possibly have. This person looked like a black-haired beauty no matter how you looked at it—but he's actually a boy.

The 'lightsaber' was a weapon that the programmers of 'Zasker' created out of their own whims, and its range would be far less than a sniper rifle.

The attack range was as long as the blade of the saber itself, about 1.2 meters. The GGO world's smallest firearm «Remington Derringer» had a range of merely 5m, but the attack range of the lightsaber was a lot smaller than it. However, that energy blade that was glowing blue and white seemed to have power that far exceeded expectations. The fact that it was able to slice the .50BMG the Hecate fired from close range was the proof of it.

In another perspective, since it could slice any bullet apart, it would mean that this would be the strongest defensive weapon in the world. But even with the «Bullet Line», it's not easy to use a 3cm wide blade to defend against a rain of bullet that was coming at a supersonic speed.

This needed a calm prediction of the bullet lines, order, and perfect response ability to use the sword. Also, the most important thing was not to show any fear when facing a fully-automatic rifle—

What sort of training allowed him to learn such skills? Sinon really could not imagine it. No, this may not be just a VR game technique. It's when the player merged with the avatar through his own experience, belief and power of his soul.