I Have Returned, but I Cannot Lay down My Gun

Chapter 39 – Watch Your Bag

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As time passed, the medium for running the game transitioned from computers to VR, causing sniping to naturally disappear or evolve accordingly.

Unlike in the past, when one could succeed or fail at sniping, shut off their eyes and ears, and escape into a self-congratulatory victory,

It became difficult for snipers to endure the advanced reporting systems and the immediate personal attacks that would follow such actions.

Considering that anonymity was the biggest reason sniping could succeed, this seemed like a natural process.

Conversely, this meant that there were occasionally people who could brazenly spit in someone else’s face… that is, snipe, and still act shamelessly.

And in the public eye, these people were called crazy.

“Wow, this is really fun. I’ve never blown up a broadcast like this before.”

Suddenly, such a thought crossed Harmony’s mind.

Even though avatars were standing in for real people, could someone who casually said such things in front of a properly moving person be considered normal?

Throughout my broadcasting career, I had experienced numerous and diverse people, but such people were truly… Was it because they were crazy that they could do this, or did sniping make them crazy?

No, that wasn’t the point.

I had to buy time by saying whatever I could.

“Blow up the broadcast? The broadcast won’t be transmitted, so how did you….”

“Oh, you heard that. Just think of it as something like that. Aren’t you a streamer? Haven’t you been sniped a few times? Is your brain not working?”

It was hard to stay upright.

Since a warning had popped up saying I had fallen, did they set it up so my body wouldn’t have any strength? I could only crawl little by little. The situation was so sudden that I couldn’t even take out the trigger device.

Should I turn off the broadcast? I could guess what the chatroom was like without looking. There was no need to broadcast this situation….

No, forget other thoughts. The top priority was how to overcome this situation.

I had to take out the trigger device.

“If you’re going to kill me anyway, can you at least tell me why you’re sniping me? Why are you doing this?”

“To see your reaction. And to piss off your viewers.”

Honestly, I wasn’t very curious.

Struggling, I leaned against the wall I was hiding behind. The trigger device was in the multipurpose pouch, secured with a safety clip so it wouldn’t get pressed during combat.

Fortunately, it was hanging on my right thigh, so I could subtly slip my hand in and take it out. I just had to untie the tightly knotted strap.

For that, I had to keep distracting the user in front of me.

Panting heavily, I continuously brought up topics to provoke a reaction from the enemy.

“Isn’t that enough? I’m already feeling pretty lousy.”

“That’s just your opinion. This ends when I’m satisfied. Can’t you still think straight? I don’t care if I live or die. I just need to kill you and run away before your team or hunters arrive.”

“….”

“You have a lot to say. What, are you going to sue me? For what? Suing me for this will only make it tiring for you. I have a lot of money. I can drag it out with appeals, and I’ll just pay the settlement.”

The barcode user crouched down, reached out, and grabbed her cheek.

It was an insult that was hard to endure, but Harmony didn’t care about that part. She hadn’t responded because she was focusing all her nerves on her fingertips.

The strap of the multipurpose pouch loosened. The tightly secured space that allowed nothing to enter was gradually opening.

It felt strange.

No matter what the enemy in front of me was saying, my mind was just calm. All my senses and nerves were focused on my fingertips, moving with all their might to achieve a single goal.

As if it was the path to take.

Even though high-level insults that I had never encountered while broadcasting, or even in life, were pouring at me, they all slid off my ears and disappeared.

“Ha, this is boring. I should have seen what the guys on your stream were saying, but I can only see the broadcast at 1x speed on the computer.”

“…?”

“Why are you looking at me like that? Don’t you know you can install a webcam and watch on the computer? Amazing. That’s why you got caught off guard and got hit on the back of the head.”

Clatter.

I carefully moved my hand, slipping it into the pouch.

My stamina was dropping little by little. A warning message in bright red filled the UI, indicating that I would die from bleeding within two minutes.

The noise outside was gradually diminishing. The hunter… couldn’t catch me for now. So, the fight was still ongoing; it would have been better if they had come by now.

They were truly an enemy who couldn’t read the situation.

It felt like things were heading towards the end.

My hand movements began to hasten.

“Ah, I’ve talked too much. I should kill you and run now.”

“…Ha….”

“Does it piss you off? Then you should have prepared better against sniping… What the.”

Sneer.

At that moment, emotions crossed, and a boot stomped on Harmony’s arm.

“…Argh!”

“No, so you were plotting something like this. Is there a grenade inside? Do you want to die together? You must have watched too many movies, it’s so obvious. Even a passing idiot would know.”

A more despicable smile than I had imagined spread across the man’s lips.

At the moment when the final blow was interrupted, the anger that had been flowing in a direction unrelated to her up until now reversed through her veins. With the rising fury, the power she had been saving flowed through her fingers.

She had to release the safety clip and grasp it in her hand.

But the power concentrated in her ankle suddenly surged.

“This, ugh…”

“Hey, no way. Did you really think I’d let you do that? Now, I really have to kill you. I was planning to play a little longer.”

Swoosh.

The muzzle of the gun was raised.

But ironically, at the very end, the emotion she showed was nothing but a smile.

The expression of the hostile sniper user started to distort slightly.

“…Why are you looking at me with that expression?”

“No, it’s nothing special….”

At the end of her gaze, on top of the hostile user’s tactical rig.

A red laser, which seemed to come from nowhere, was aiming at him without a single tremor.

Whether it was Yoo Jin or a Hunter, she wasn’t sure… but with the thought that this was enough, she carefully opened her mouth.

“…I think I bought quite a bit of time.”

───!!

And then a storm erupted.

The Hunter’s air pressure round flew in and exploded in the air, completely blowing away the enemy who had been aiming at her, along with the sensation of being crushed.

Since the shockwave of the shot spread in all directions, Harmony was also affected, but leaning against the wall worked greatly in her favor, allowing her to barely avoid being thrown away.

Moreover, not only that, but the aftershock also caused her hand to be pulled out of the pouch.

At the end of it, she was holding the trigger.

“Damn it, that Hunter bastard!”

Although he had been hit by the wall and was shocked, Barcode quickly recovered and got up, moving to pick up the rifle that had bounced off the wall and landed near his feet.

But by this point, he would have realized.

Harmony’s expression was not ordinary.

Their eyes met, now in a situation completely reversed from just a few tens of seconds ago.

“Where’s the gun… wait a minute. That’s not a grenade….”

“Well, it’s not exactly a grenade….”

She gave a mischievous smile and added, squeezing her hand.

“…But it’s probably similar.”

Click.

A clear sound echoed.

In that very brief moment of silence, numerous emotions crossed between the two.

And then───

───Boom!

“Aaaah! Ugh, aaaargh!”

From the bag of the sniper user with the nickname Barcode, an explosion of incredible magnitude accompanied by numerous projectiles erupted.

[Notification: Cluster Seeker Mine inside hostile agent’s bag detonated.]

“…Impressive.”

Whether she could hear me or not, anyway, it seemed Harmony was much stronger than she appeared on the outside.

The fact that my trigger had failed to work, and that Fallen had downed her faster than expected, made me nervous that I might not make it in time to handle the Hunter.

But she had held on much longer than I thought and had done her job excellently.

However, on the flip side, it meant that Harmony had been down for quite a long time.

The second fight with the Hunter was nearing its end, but there was still one more left, and the staggering effect from the Seeker Mine wouldn’t last long.

In other words, I had to move.

Right now.

───Click!

I discarded the firearm and bag on the ground, wearing only a bulletproof vest, and started running towards Harmony with just a Tomahawk and a pistol.

To prepare for any unforeseen situation, the bag I made contained not only two Seeker Mines but also reactive grenades that delivered electric shocks, though they were also just to buy time.

In an instant, the surroundings stretched out. I dashed across the snow-covered rooftop of a building at a speed of at least 30km/h.

Ahead was a ledge at least 150cm high that I would reach in just a few seconds. The Hunter was climbing up, and above, a staggering Rogue was still trying to regain his senses.

It was too late to slow down.

The choice was simple.

“…!”

I jumped over the ledge, touched the ground with both hands, rolled over once, and drew my Tomahawk as I landed.

I gripped the handle as if to crush it, lowered my body, and struck the Hunter who had just turned to look this way. I aimed for the thigh, but in the moment of swinging, the entire leg was severed along with a burst of destructive force.

However, even as the Hunter lost control of his body and collapsed sideways, he attempted to shoot immediately.

I managed to twist the barrel just in time to avoid being hit, and soon the enemy fell to the ground, with his head and neck severed in a ghastly state, never to move again.

Meanwhile, a Rogue User who just noticed my arrival tried to flee in a hurry, but I triggered an electric grenade that I had in my bag with a simple hand signal.

A chilling sound and lightning spread out.

───Bzzt, bzzzzzt!

“Ugh, ugh, aaarrggh…!”

He fell to the floor and looked up at the sky, shaking all over like a malfunctioning electric toothbrush.

Spinning the tomahawk in my hand once, I slowly approached him.

“W-what the hell is this, damn…!”

“A while ago, I received messages from five people who had died by my hand. The contents weren’t much, but there was something particularly memorable.”

Harmony, on the verge of death.

When I used the still plentiful first-aid kit on her, the pained expression on her face quickly softened, and the self-healing function of the ICARUS Gear activated.

It would take about a minute for her to be able to walk again.

Leaving her behind, I added to the guy who was wriggling and trying to get up.

“I heard that in hardcore mode, when you die, the sensation at the time of death lingers. Normally, it’s something you wouldn’t need to know.”

“Damn, what are you… babbling about…!”

“I thought you should know.”

I pressed his chest with my foot to make him lie down completely, then lifted my foot and slipped the instep into the gap, slowly pushing to make his face touch the floor.

Explaining it in words might be confusing, so to put it simply, he was now lying face down.

I loosened my body and checked the slender gap between his bulletproof vest and helmet.

“You’ll soon learn the sensation of an axe blade piercing your cervical spine.”

“W-what? Don’t be ridiculous, are you kidding? Damn it, answer me!”

But as I put my weight on my left foot and confirmed the trajectory where the axe would swing, it turned from an unbelievable fact into a reality he had to face.

His anguished scream echoed through the middle of Manhattan.

“This crazy, don’t! Please! Spare me! I was wrong! Damn it!”

“Let’s make sure we never see each other again.”

“No, aaaaaaah───!”

Crunch.

The sound of flesh being crushed, spine shattered, and a dull thud mixed with a grotesque death cry spread into the air.

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