Chapter 99

Just as someone belatedly murmured, “Isn’t that a gunshot?” I first thought that I had to get out of this place.

‘Just what kind of people…’

The Olympics.

And it was the Olympics being held in the United States.

I’d heard that not only security guards but also police and special forces were stationed inside and outside the Arena, so a gunshot meant this was clearly no ordinary matter.

“Coach. I think we should get out of the Arena first.”

“Wouldn’t it be better to wait for instructions from the event staff…?”

Director Ikeda seemed worried about us, who were on standby before our match, leaving our post without permission.

But with gunshots ringing out from outside, shouldn’t we secure our safety first?

So I tried to evacuate with the players, but it seemed we were already too late.

I heard the presence of several people outside the hallway, and then with a bang!, the door was violently thrown open and someone shouted for people to get in.

“Everyone, get inside.”

People I didn’t recognize were shoved into the Waiting Room as if they were being pushed.

Looking closely, the ones who came into the room were the players from the American team, who must have been waiting in the next Waiting Room.

‘It was a real terrorist attack?’

Some of the American players had swollen cheeks, as if they had already been assaulted, and they glared at the culprits with looks of humiliation.

As the American players, Director, and coaching staff entered our Waiting Room, the once-spacious room became a little cramped.

And then the very people who had created this grim situation spoke.

“Hey, you fake soldiers. You’re not our concern. If you just stay quiet, you’ll be able to go back alive, so be quiet.”

Black sunglasses.

A man dressed in military combat gear that a soldier would wear spoke as their representative.

There were four of them in total.

The men, armed with submachine guns, identified themselves as the ‘Humanity Preservation Society.’

Putting aside why a terrorist group would have such a name, I even wondered if this was reality.

It was because the weapons and attire the terrorist was wearing were things you could easily see inside UA.

It felt as if this Waiting Room had become a small part of the Battlefield.

“We will confiscate all electronic devices and cell phones you have. We’ll return them when this is over.”

Personal belongings were also confiscated.

After seeing a protesting American coach get beaten with a Gun Stock, we couldn’t say a word and had to hand over our things.

The terrorists, who had forcibly combined the Waiting Rooms to watch over us, turned on the previously off TV and paid attention to the situation outside.

When they changed the Channel to the news, a breaking report was being broadcast about a terrorist attack at the Olympics Arena.

Several ambulances.

And the police force that had cordoned off the area around the Arena.

The images of several people, already covered in blood, being carried outside were being reported.

The people gathered here in the Waiting Room had, at most, been slapped a few times, but it seemed far more horrific violence had been committed outside.

How much time passed like that?

The news began to play a video, saying it was a message that had arrived from the culprits.

A brown-haired man, dressed in the same attire as the terrorists in this Waiting Room, was delivering a message to the camera.

The location was presumed to be the passage leading to the center of the main stadium, and a long, undisguisable trail of blood stretched along the hallway wall, as if a commotion had already taken place.

“We are the Humanity Preservation Society, formed for the continuous and proper maintenance of human civilization.”

Behind the man were several people on their knees, their eyes covered with cloth and their hands tied behind their backs.

Seeing their attire, I realized they weren’t citizens, but players participating in the Olympics.

They were the Gaia players who had been using the Arena before us.

“We have planned this holy war for the liberation of humanity. Everyone watching this broadcast knows full well how many people are clinging to the illusion of Virtual Reality and turning a blind eye to reality.”

“The reason humanity is gradually becoming corrupt today is precisely because of this Virtual Reality. It would not be an exaggeration to say that VR is a thing created by the devil.”

The man in the video was telling people how much of a negative impact this Virtual Reality was having on reality.

He said that they could no longer stand by and watch this reality where humans increasingly disregard the real world and delve into games, chasing fiction.

“Our world is not a game. We stand here today to realize this once again and to develop the inherent value that humans possess. As of today, we will face the truth of what we have been swayed by.”

Having declared so, the man stated their demands.

The demand was simple.

Bring the people they were about to name to the Arena.

If they did, he said, today’s incident would end without any further loss of life.

“Alex Fischer, the Chairman of Geo, Nasser Mittal, who is the Chief Head of the Gaia development team, and Kim Hyunsoo, the Director of the Gaia Korean national team who should be staying somewhere in LA. We want these three individuals brought to the main stadium within one hour.”

The message the terrorist delivered was clear to anyone.

They were proposing to trade the lives of the people with the strongest influence in the current VR market for the lives of the hostages.

Of course, no one was unaware that if they were to switch places, the lives of the people just mentioned would naturally lead directly to death.

“One hour. After one hour, we will kill one hostage every five minutes. This is not a game, and we do not negotiate. That is all.”

With that, the video ended.

The LA main stadium, enveloped in terror.

The nightmare’s countdown had begun.

<Why the hell do we have to go through this? This is honestly because of Gaia, isn’t it?>

How long had it been since the murder-threat broadcast?

Kato Mikane grumbled in my head.

The terrorists’ purpose, aiming for the destruction of VR Content, and their target, was clearly Gaia.

UA had just been caught in the crossfire; we weren’t even their concern.

Didn’t those guys say it earlier? That if we just stayed quiet, we could get out alive.

I could roughly guess the reason.

In fact, although they were lumped together as VR Games, UA and Gaia were very different games.

Recently, there had been talk of copying Skills through updates and what not, but if you looked at both games at the same time, there were far more differences.

For one, unlike UA, which purely pursued the fun of each individual game, Gaia presented gamers and people with the slogan of another life.

Unlike UA, which simply consisted of a game Waiting Room, a Battlefield, and a training ground, Gaia had so many cities and resorts where people could laugh and chat, and so much Content designed for Users to spend time within the game.

Even office workers, busy earning a salary in reality, could become heroes that others needed, a powerful figure in a fantasy world, just by logging into the game.

The problem of game addiction among people who did nothing but eat and play Gaia had been raised as a social issue for decades, so it wasn’t entirely nonsensical for the terrorists to call Gaia ‘a game made by the devil.’

The more people around the world disregarded reality and clung only to games, the bigger the problems in reality would become.

So, if the terrorist group thought that people would return to their original lives if the game disappeared.

It was only natural that their goal would be to completely crush Gaia, the main cause.

This was the part that Kato was dissatisfied with.

<I mean, isn’t that right? If they hate Gaia, they could just terrorize the Gaia headquarters. Why do this during a festival?>

‘Terrorizing the headquarters probably wasn’t easy.’

The security at the Arena during the Olympics Season is considerable.

Countless police forces and military personnel would be deployed.

But if the comparison was with the headquarters of a massive corporation that had built an unbelievable world called Virtual Reality decades ago, it was hard to say which would be easier to breach.

It might be a joke, but there were even rumors that the Gaia headquarters was protected by alien technology.

‘Besides, their purpose is clear. They want to say that this thing called a VR Game is wrong when the whole world’s attention is focused on it.’

The terrorists must have thought that this would be more shocking to the people of the world than simply carrying out a terrorist attack on the game’s headquarters or Server.

<We won’t be able to play our game today, right?>

‘Probably.’

There was no way they would proceed with the tournament normally after all this chaos.

Fortunately, the people in the Waiting Room were still safe, but judging by the video from earlier, countless people were already dead or injured.

A horrific incident that could well be called a bloody Sunday.

So even if the incident was resolved and the matches resumed, it wouldn’t be today.

<I don’t even know if we’ll get out of here alive.>

Kato said that no matter how she thought about it, it didn’t seem like the people the terrorists requested would come to the Arena.

<They say you’re not supposed to negotiate with terrorists. And those people aren’t stupid, would they come when they know full well they’ll die if they do?>

There are very few people who can risk their own death to sacrifice themselves for others.

So, Kato’s opinion was that this was a very dangerous situation.

<They said they’d kill the hostages if the people they want don’t come here by the time is up, so doesn’t that mean we’re in danger too?>

At Kato’s words, I discreetly observed the terrorists who were chatting amongst themselves.

Four men in military uniforms.

Judging by their sturdy builds and the aura they exuded, they were by no means easy opponents.

I could easily imagine that if I lunged at them, I wouldn’t even be able to lift a finger before being turned into a honeycomb by their submachine guns.

‘Unless I can use something like Acceleration or a Shield…’

If this were the middle of a Battlefield and I had a weapon in my hand, I might be able to do something.

UA players fundamentally handle guns constantly, so if they just had a weapon in their hands, they could shoot with familiarity.

But shooting and killing a living person was another matter entirely.

In a game, my shot would just break the opponent’s Health Gauge, but here, blood would soak the floor.

Perhaps seeing that gruesome sight, even a UA Pro Gamer would immediately panic.

How much time passed like that?

An uncomfortable silence continued in the Waiting Room.

The silence was broken when a bang-!* sound was heard.

At that moment, everyone instinctively knew.

Ah, an hour has passed.

“Looks like it’s time.”

The man turned the TV in the Waiting Room back on.

On the news, a man appeared, saying that the time was up and they would begin the executions.

A male player, begging to be spared.

He was presumed to be a Gaia player who had been in a match, but the man on the screen pulled the Trigger without a hint of hesitation and shot the hostage in the head.

It was a shocking scene and was censored, but it was enough to evoke fear.

I could feel the people in the Waiting Room, who were watching the screen, trembling.

The Japanese national team players clung to Kato Mikane, gripping her collar tightly, and among the American players, there was one who couldn’t hold back her tears and was sniffling.

The terrorists guarding the Waiting Room glanced at the sound of sniffling but didn’t say anything.

It was a huge relief that they didn’t threaten to kill her if she kept sniffling.

If they had, someone might have really fallen into a panic.

‘This is really dangerous.’

Humans who have no hesitation in killing people.

These terrorists were probably actual trained soldiers.

They might be retired soldiers, or a private organization of various people who sympathized with the ideology of saving humanity by destroying VR Games.

‘If all the hostages die…’

That shouldn’t happen, but what would happen if all the hostages who kept appearing on the news died?

There was no guarantee that they wouldn’t turn their attention to us here.

That’s why I kept trying to figure out in my head how to escape this crisis.

The advantage of a Virtual Reality Pro Gamer.

The ability to use the Skills and Stamina honed for playing games as they are.

If I had a Rifle in my hand right now and a sturdy obstacle to take cover behind, I could exchange fire even if the opponents were soldiers.

‘What if I snatch an opponent’s gun and use it?’

I had practiced Close-Quarters Combat enough, so I tried to picture a scenario in my head where I snatched an opponent’s gun.

But it wasn’t easy.

There were four opponents.

Each was armed, so unless they were all subdued at the same time, an accident was bound to happen.

Just as I was thinking that there was no good solution in a physical fight, another gunshot rang out.

Five minutes.

These crazy bastards were really killing the hostages on schedule, just as they said they would.

Just as the fear filling the Waiting Room thickened to a point that was difficult for the human mind to fully bear, one of the American players shot up from her seat.

At that moment, I inwardly cried out, “Ah!”

An ominous premonition that someone was about to collapse in the Waiting Room flashed through my mind.

When the player stood up, the terrorists looked at her with a “What is it?” expression.

Their eyes asked if she had something to say.

Then, the American player answered.

“The bathroom… please let me go to the bathroom.”

She said in a tearful voice.

But everyone gathered in this place knew.

She didn’t need to go to the bathroom right now; she had stood up because she could no longer endure being in this space filled with terror.

“No.”

“I really feel like I’m going to pee my pants.”

“Wouldn’t it be better to just wet yourself?”

You won’t need to go to the bathroom if you’re dead—the terrorist said, casually waving the Muzzle of his gun.

At that moment, something no one had expected happened.

The player who had shouted, “I said let me go!” suddenly rushed at the terrorist as if performing a Takedown.

And soon, a gunshot erupted inside the Waiting Room.

It was an ear-splitting, incredibly sharp sound.