Chapter 1336 One Formation Can Be Tougher Than Another One Part 2

「Hmm…… I knew it. This won’t do. A result like that does not satisfy me at all.」

「I think that the fact that you can do a pseudo-FPS inside of ShangriLa Frontier is more than satisfactory enough. 」

While waiting inside of the game’s lobby for another match to queue, the two chat without slightest bit of hesitation.

After all, they were both Mercanaries who absolutely loved the FPS genre. And the two sincerely believed that FPSs are that kind of a genre that can connect all sorts of people, no matter if old or young.

But that is exactly the reason why that particular kind of FPS was unable to properly satisfy them.

「Well, I guess that for a game that prides itself with its realistic engine, it’s pretty dissappointing that the experience there is pretty much entirely different from what you would expect. It’s far from being called realistic.」

「I know the the number of viewers for those games is pretty big, but FPSs are primarly team-based games, so I get it that they might not feel as exciting as for example fighting games. But I am hoping that because of this their popularity is going to slowly grow, even if it is only bit by bit.」

「Are we aiming for Silvia Goldberg here? Or perhaps Uomi Kei?」

「At the current moment we have difficulties with beating other Professional Gamers from our own country, and you are suggesting that we suddenly go international? That’s a little bit TOO tall of an order. Let’s not do something we might end up severely regretting later.」

「Alright then, what about Kaizaki-san? He should be a much easier target.」

「Don’t treat the guy like he’s some sort of a necessary evil or a compromise. It’s rude both for us and for the guy himself.」

FPSs, or First Person Shooters, are essentially games about hunting down your opponent and eliminating them with the help of all sorts of firearms.

In a really huge nutshell, the world of FPSs is the world built for those whose only wish is to shoot other people with guns.

Every single gamer out there must have thought about it at least once in their entire career. For example, what would have happened if a horde of bloodthirsty zombies would suddenly invade your school? Or what if there was a terrorist attack at your local shopping centre? What would you do if you could use magic in real life, just like you could use it inside of a game?

Or what would have happened if you could just go into the city and go absolutely trigger-happy on every single person that you could see right in front of you……?

Their current “purpose” when it comes to FPS games is to try and see if you could do the FPS gameplay and strategies inside of games and places that would normally never allow you to adopt FPS gameplay or strategies. They wanted to travel onto the battlefields where it would be utterly unthinkable to just take out your gun and start blasting away, they wanted to see how the non-combatants would react to the notion of being held at gunpoint. Especially since the vast majority of FPS games nowadays has a strict policy of not allowing the players to target civilian NPC and other characters that are not directly connected to the fight at hand.

So, once they have heard that there are now guns available inside of ShangriLa Frontier, they couldn’t help themselves but to give one another an enthusiastic high five. And their expectations were also set very high when they heard that the guns there are suppossed to be mainly Player Versus Player type of a weapon. Yes, it was becoming increasingly harder and harder for them not to go there and try it out for themselves.

「But is it possible to battle inside of a city in there?」

「There must be. I mean, with the signs pointing towards an all-out war betwen the cities is on the horizon, it would be pretty stupid if there was not such an option. How else do you think either of those cities would be conquered?」

「Well, it’s all good and all that, but first we need to actually get our hands on some actual weapons!!」

「Do you think that since this is ShangriLa Frontier, will we be able to actually smell the burning gunpowder? That would actually be sick!」

「Will ShangriLa Frontier’s guns run on gunpowder, though? Since the game has magic, wouldn’t it make sense for them to actually utilize Magic Power as their source of power?」

For them, it did not really mattered what side of the conflict they were going to support. They did not even care what would happen to the game’s world if either of the sides actually won the conflict…… They are Mercenaries, after all, and in their line of business, changing the side and supporting the one who is willing to offer more is nothing unusual. This is their own form of Justice. Of course, they would not try to shoot those who would show no signs of resistance, but after all, you pull that trigger in order to neutralize the “enemy”, and the “enemy” is such a broad term that is SO opened up for interpretation.

*** *** *** *** ***

He lit up a cigarette as he went on his break.

That was the man’s usual routine. It was something that was helping him to keep his spirits lifted throughout the day.

「Fuuuhーーーー………… No, seriously, this takes me back to those good old days when I was still a student.」

It was a feeling of a high quite different from the one that you would get from gambling, it’s also quite different from any feeling associated with doing your main job on a daily basis. So many expectations, getting fired up only to get burned out right in the very next moment, the feelings of thrashing about in the water, as if you were about to drown and you wanted to do everything in your power to prevent that from happening. Both frustratiion and elation going hand in hand. This is the taste of the “youth” he once knew quite well, but now he could hardly even recall that taste.

For the man, this opportunity was like a one in a thousand. He knew that if he did not capitalize on this chance given to him, he wouldn’t get another one quite like that.

It’s like it was too far away outside of his reach for the man to be unable to reach out to it and grasp it, but it felt more like his legs no longer had the strength to climb up that reminder of a way. And just like that, since he was unable to grasp his wishes on his own, he had no other choice but to entrust them to someone else instead. …… And he had the absolute confidence that his choice in here was the correct one.

「If I were to put my finger on it, I would say that it’s the Thirdrema’s side of the conflict that is closer to “Justice”, but I wonder how the other side feels about it?」

Loose threads of smoke from the cigarette drift upwards and dissappear into the night sky. His house had a large garden to it, and it was so spacious that the smoke would evaporate before it would reach the houses built right next to it, so the man did not need to worry about annoying his neighbors.

「Now then, I wonder what you are going to do now……? Will you read the love letter, perhaps?]」

As if waiting for a shooting star to come about and grant him his wish, the Professional Gamer Kaizaki Hayate looks up to the night sky and let out a short laugh, when ———

「Ouch! Hot!？」

Since he was smoking that cigarette for far too long, the filter part started to burn and it burned his fingers, causing him to let out a loud scream that echoed throughout the night.