Sword Art Online - Volume 6 - Phantom Bullet

  Sword Art Online

  Volume 6

  ~Phantom Bullet~

  Written by:

  Reki Kawahara

  Illustrations by:

  Abec

  Translated by:

  Baka-Tsuki

  Disclaimers:

  All materials’ copyrights reserved by their respective authors and the associated publishers.

  Please respect their rights. Works will be deleted upon request by copyright holders.

  Translators:

  Teh Ping

  Editors:

  Aorii

  Black Cats of the Full Moon

  Saorian

  Thinklife

  DrFaust

  Chancs

  Zero2001

  ePUB by:

  Simon

  Chapter 7

  “Onii-chan~!”

  It was a bright and clear Sunday. I was sitting at the dining table eating my lunch, and I suddenly had a «ominous feeling» rush up between my eyebrows after seeing my beloved imouto giving me her brightest smile. This proves how I, Kirigaya Kazuto, was not a good person.

  However, I still stopped myself from putting the cherry tomato into my mouth and said,

  “Wha…what’s wrong, Sugu?”

  Once I finished asking, I saw my imouto—or rather, my cousin, Kirigaya Suguha sitting across me. She picked up something that she had put down on the chair beside her, and at this moment, I immediately knew that my premonition was spot on.

  “Erm…did you see this news on the net this morning?”

  As she said that, a large A4-sized printing paper was pushed to me. It seemed that she printed the news bulletin of the largest VRMMO gaming info website «MMO Tomorrow», or ‘M Tomo’ for short.

  The headlines had the words ‘The list of 30 players taking part in the 3rd «Bullet of Bullets» Royal Rumble for the title of the strongest in ‘Gun Gale Online’ has been revealed’ written in thick font.

  Below it, there’s also a brief report of the namelist of all the participants.

  The finger of Suguha, who cut her fingernails neatly, pointed to a line ‘Ranked 1st in Group F: Kirito ‘First’ ‘ I glanced at those words and weakly tried to cover things up.

  “Heh, heh— so there’s someone with a name similar to mine—”

  “What do you mean similar? It’s completely the same.”

  Under the bangs, Suguha showed a smile on the clean face befitting that of a sportsgirl.

  In this world of reality, she could take part in the national High School kendo tournament and the Gyokuryuuki group kendo tournament. Someone weak like me who could only hide at home can’t match her physically. Also, Suguha’s controlling the fairy swordsman «Lyfa» in this completely technical VRMMO «ALfheim Online». Those proper and sturdy sword techniques far surpass my sword skills where I merely swung my sword wildly.

  No matter whether it’s the real world or virtual world, I could only apologize immediately once I get into an argument with Suguha, but normally, I wouldn’t need to worry about that. That’s because during the past year ever since I returned back to the real world, we cleared all the alienating feeling we had when we were young, and even had quite a good relationship. Even dad would feel jealous after coming back from America during summer vacation.

  Today—Sunday, year 2025, December 14. As mom was at the editorial department like usual, Suguha and I had to buy our own ingredients for lunch. We had Caesar salad with boiled eggs and seafood paella, and so we faced each other at the table and started to tuck in happily…until Suguha took out that piece of paper.

  “…Ye, yeah, it’s the same, hm.”

  I barely looked away from the paper that had the name Kirito on it and put the cherry tomato into my mouth. I chewed on it and said with a vague voice,

  “Bu, but, that’s a pretty common name, right? I just cut my name short. This Kirito in GGO may be called, Kiri… Kirigamine Tougorou. That could be his real name, un.”

  The reason why I would feel such a sharp pain after saying such a blatant lie must be because I made a huge lie to my beloved imouto. Yes, the Kirito Suguha was talking about was my character in the game.

  As for why I had to hide this fact, it was because I had to «convert» my avatar Kirito from ALO to the shooter MMO «Gun Gale Online», a game with lots of problems, so that I could take part in the «Bullet of Bullets» tournament.

  This so-called convert is to make use of the same VRMMO functions that «The Seed» platform used. It could convert a character from a certain game into another one while «keeping the same strength». This was a system that was completely unimaginable a few years ago.

  Of course, there were some limitations to this system, and the biggest of them was that I could only move a character, and can’t move the money and equipment into a new game. Thus, the transfer wouldn’t be just a temporary one, but a permanent one.

  If I said that I want to transfer from ALO to another game, Suguha, who liked that fairy kingdom, would be really badly affected. On the other hand, I am hesitating over whether I should explain to Suguha why I transferred «Kirito» over to GGO. That’s because this has something to do with the darkest secrets of VRMMO.

  The man who requested me to investigate the world of GGO was called Kikuoka Seijirou. He was once a member of the government’s «SAO incident task force», and now, he’s a member of the Ministry of Internal Affairs and VR world Division, a government official of what’s called the «Virtual Divison».

  On Sunday a week ago, Kikuoka called me out and told me of something strange.

  He noted that amongst the streets of the world of GGO, an avatar would say to other avatars «judgement» and shoot bullets at them. That alone would be merely a prank or a disturbance. However, in the real world, there were two players who died immediately the moment they were shot—that’s basically about it.

  I do feel that there’s a 90% chance that it was all a coincidence.

  However, I really couldn’t give up on that remaining 10% possibility of a «certain type»…so I accepted Kikuoka’s dangerous request and entered the world of GGO, hoping to interact with that shooter who created this commotion.

  As there was no time to train my character, I could only convert my Kirito from ALO over and took part in the BoB preliminaries on Saturday yesterday to catch his attention. The initial gunfight caused me quite a headache, but luckily, the first player I met and befriended explained the content of the game to me, allowing me to pass through the preliminaries and a first interaction with the guy who could be the shooter.

  Up till now, I still don’t know whether that guy who called himself «Death Gun» really had the ability to kill gamers in the real world through the game itself.

  However, that made me find out something.

  The «Death Gun» and I had an unexpected relationship.

  Like me, the «Death Gun» was a «survivor» of that death game—Sword Art Online. Also, I may have fought against him before and even intended to end his life—…

  “Onii-chan, you’re making that terrifying face again.”

  On hearing that, my body suddenly jerked. The eyes that were looking up at the sky blankly immediately saw Suguha frowning as she gave me a worried look.

  She put down the printed piece of paper she pushed to me onto the table, hold her hands together lightly and looked straight at me.

  “…Well, erm, actually, I knew that onii-chan… «Kirito-kun» converted over from ALO to GGO.”

  These sudden words caused me to nearly pop my eyes out. On seeing that, this imouto of mine who’s a year younger than me gave me a mature smile that showed that she saw through ev
erything.

  “How could I not notice that Kirito-kun already disappeared from my friends list?”

  “…No, however, I intend to move back after this weekend…and you don’t have to check your friends list all the time…”

  “I could feel it without looking.”

  Suguha said firmly. Those wide eyes were shining with the aura of mystery, and at this moment, I actually had a thought that this person is a girl. This idea was really awkward of me, and besides, the guilt of converting over without telling my imouto caused me to look away. However, Suguha said firmly to me.

  “…The moment I noticed that Kirito-kun disappeared yesterday, I immediately disconnected and got ready to rush into onii-chan’s room. However, onii-chan definitely wouldn’t have any reason to hide from me and leave ALO. I thought that something was amiss, so I contacted Asuna-san.”

  “I see…e”

  My neck shrank after I answered briefly.

  I only told Asuna—Yuuki Asuna and our «daughter», the AI Yui, that I converted from ALO to GGO. Even if I disappear only for two seconds, let alone days, Yui, who had partial system login authority would find out immediately.

  And Yui doesn’t like me hiding things from Asuna. Of course, she would definitely understand if I told her that I had some troubles, but I couldn’t do that after remembering that my instruction will cause a huge strain on Yui’s main program.

  Thus, I could only tell Asuna and Yui that ‘I have to head to GGO because Kikuoka Seijirou requested me to’, and even explained that the aim was to ‘investigate the links in The Seed’. However, I couldn’t explain the main reason to them. Actually, it was about «Death Gun»’s shooting in the game and the 2 deaths in the real world—

  This sounds really ridiculous, but as it was too unique, I felt that it just wasn’t right. Also, this was also the biggest reason why I couldn’t tell Suguha or my other friends that I converted my data.

  I looked down and murmured, and then, I heard something move.

  Then, it was the soft footsteps and the feeling of my shoulders being touched.

  “…Onii-chan.”

  Suguha leaned her body on my back and whispered to my ears.

  “Asuna-san said that ‘he will be back like usual after creating chaos in GGO’, but I guess that she should be rather anxious. I’m like her too, because…because, onii-chan, you came back so late last night, and your face was really scary.”

  “Is…that so.”

  I could only answer that. Suguha’s short hair stroked my neck, and a voice with a tinge of breath was close to my left ear, and ringed,

  “It…shouldn’t be dangerous, right…? I don’t really want you to go somewhere far away…”

  “…I won’t leave.”

  This time, I said it clearly to her, and then placed my right hand on the small hand that’s on my left shoulders.

  “I promise. Tonight, after the GGO event’s over, I’ll come back to ALO…and this house.”

  “…Un.”

  Suguha seemed to nod her head, and then leaned her upper body over to me as she just remained there.

  My imouto was already distraught during the 2 years I was trapped inside SAO, and I really shouldn’t have made her so anxious.

  Actually, I could send a message to Kikuoka Seijirou that ‘I don’t want to do it’, and just forget about everything— But after what happened in the preliminaries yesterday, there were two reasons that made it tough for me to do it.

  One of the reason was that I agreed to fight against the girl «Sinon», who wielded some terrifyingly huge sniper rifle, mistook me for some female gamer, and earnestly taught me all sorts of tricks.

  And the other reason was my grudge with «Death Gun».

  I have to face that man in the grey coat again, confirm his «past name»—and the two friends of his that I killed with my sword. This was supposed to be a responsibility I should have done when I returned back to the real world…

  I tapped on the hand Suguha placed on my shoulder, and again said,

  “Don’t worry, I’ll definitely come back. Let’s hurry up and eat. The food’s about to turn cold.”

  “…Un.”

  Suguha’s voice sounded more powerful now as she nodded her head, hugged me on the shoulders and let go after a while.

  After she ran back to her seat in small steps, my imouto had a bright smile on her face. She took a large scoop of paella, stuffed it into her mouth, and then twirled her spoon lightly.

  “Speaking of which, onii-chan.”

  “…hm?”

  “I heard from Asuna-san that you can earn lots of money in this «job», right?”

  “Ugh!”

  My mind started to remember the 300,000 yen reward I agreed with Kikuoka and the PC parts catalogue that I was prepared to use this money for…I guessed that I have to remove the storage capacity and slapped my chest confidently.

  “O, oh, I’ll buy anything for you, so just wait for me to come back.”

  “That’s great! I always wanted to buy a nanocarbon shinai!”

  …Looks like I have to correct the main memory capacity as well.

  I went out earlier than 3pm to avoid the traffic crowd, and hopped onto the old bike before leaving the house.

  The vehicle moved through Kawegoe Street as it continued to head east, went past Ikebukuro, and moved through Kasuga Street. After that, I turned south at Hongo, went through Bunkyou City before arriving at the general hospital, which was my current destination.

  I came here yesterday, but my memory seemed to be far away.

  Actually, the reason was simple. I couldn’t sleep no matter how long I laid on my bed, and could only keep my eyes opened in the darkness as I tried to remember the long-forgotten past that’s deep inside me, the entire process of the destruction of the killer guild «Laughing Coffin» during the SAO era.

  In the end, I finally gave up trying to sleep on my own and at 4am in the morning, wore the AmuSphere, entered the VR space, used the local area network to call out my «daughter» Yui from the PC in my house and made her continue to talk to me until «sleep mode» was activated. However, I couldn’t get a nice long dream because I couldn’t sleep soundly.

  Luckily, I don’t really remember much of the contents, but a voice continued to ring in my ears ever since I woke up.

  —Are you Kirito?

  That was probably the mutter the gamer called «Death Gun» said to me in the preliminaries yesterday.

  And this was also a question to me, the person who used his words to slay two—no three «Laughing Coffin» members, included that bodyguard of Asuna.

  Is it you? You’re the «Kirito» who killed us?

  I just couldn’t answer ‘that’s right’ straight away when facing this question, whether it’s the BoB preliminaries or the dream.

  During the finals at 8pm today, I guess I will face that guy who looked like an undead. If I am asked that question again, I have to admit this no matter what.

  But I just didn’t have confidence that I could do this.

  “…I knew it would become like this…”

  I should have used an entirely new name to enter GGO instead of converting the name «Kirito» over from ALO.

  Depreciating myself as I laughed about such a shameful thought, I parked the bike and walked into the ward building.

  As I sent a message over before I left, nurse Aki was waiting for me in that hospital room yesterday. Just like yesterday, she had a loosely tied braid on her hair, but today, she had a pair of frameless spectacles on her nose. She was sitting at the chair beside the bed, crossing her long and slender legs as she raised one of them up, and reading the paper book that seemed to be a little outdated. However, she quickly closed the book and smiled once she saw me.

  “Ya, you came here rather early, boy.”

  “Sorry for bothering you again today, Aki-san.”

  After nodding to her, I looked at the clock and found that it was not even 4pm yet. There’s more th
an 4 hours before the BoB finals begin, but I can’t possibly learn much if I sweated too much over nearly missing out on the registration, I guess it’s best to appear earlier and get some shooting practice.

  I placed my coat on the hanger and said to Nurse Aki.

  “Well, since the tournament’s starts at 8, you can take my ECG then.”

  In the end, this white nurse shrugged her shoulders lightly.

  “It’s okay. I just finished night duty. I’m on off duty today, so I can accompany you for a few hours.”

  “Eh…erm, isn’t that too awkward…”

  “Really? I’ll borrow your bed if I want to sleep.”

  She said these words and blinked a bit. As a huge VRMMO addict who has very little experience in BGR, I could only look away vaguely. Nurse Aki chuckled on seeing me like this. As this person saw me in an embarrassing position during my rehab, I could not lift my head up to look at her.

  I sat on the bed to hide this awkwardness, and immediately scanned through the screen equipment beside me and the two overlapping silver ringed-helmet—«AmuSphere» that were prepared for me.

  Kikuoka specially prepared a brand new machine for me, and there’s not a single stain on both the stainless steel or the man-made leather. Its trendy design and feel far surpassed the initial NERvGear, and it’s more apt to call it a decoration than an electronic device.

  This machine shouldn’t be able to cause fatal microwaves like what its ad tagline «definitely safe» indicates. No, it’s more like it was strictly designed to be able to create weak electric signals.

  So normally, there was no need to head to a hospital and connect myself to ECG and let a nurse stand beside me to guard my safety. No matter what one does, he can’t possibly hurt me through this AmuSphere.

  However,

  The famous gamers in GGO «Zekushiido» and «Usujio Tarako» did die in real life.

  And the «Death Gun» avatar who fired imaginary bullets at them was someone who PKed on his own will in SAO…the killer gamer.

  If I use stealth technology, will there still be a danger that I will be discovered?