Boss
A military-service-completed pretty girl who can actually fight is the kind of fantasy that only shows up in anime.
She wasn't even Awakened. There was no way a soft, delicate human woman could fight like that. War was the kind of place where even sturdy adult men dropped dead.
It wasn't discrimination or prejudice — it was a difference in physical ability decided from birth. And that rule applied inside games, too.
For decades now, the gender ratio on the Front Line had been catastrophic.
That was what everyone believed — until —
"Hwaah!?"
Soft fingers pressed lightly against her lips. A warm touch that matched that fragile-looking face.
"Shh."
"Y-yeah..."
That flawless white jade skin was unmistakably a delicate girl's. Beyond the mask, blue-tinted eyes were beautiful enough to pull you under if you weren't careful.
But in the crisp economy of her movements and speech, something of a seasoned soldier showed through. That gaze, equal parts fear and resolve, looked a lot like the veterans you sometimes ran into in ranked matches.
"Anti-monster engagement rule number one. Eyes always on the enemy. Those things aren't soldiers with guns. They're just foul-tempered beasts with no ranged attacks."
Only then did the finger leave her lips. The nameless pressure pinning Ara down scattered, and the noise of the battlefield rushed back in.
"The second you get overwhelmed by momentum like just now, you die. Remember that."
"Y-yeah..."
A hand was held out to Ara, still sprawled where she'd fallen on her rear.
Unfortunately, Ara didn't catch the fragile look in the girl's eyes.
She was an ordinary civilian, after all.
Even if it was only a game... after brushing the threshold of death and coming back with her heart hammering, there was no way she could think straight.
The viewers seemed to feel the same way — the chat, which until now had only been talking about the game, had completely lost its mind.
Three thousand people tossing even one line each meant three thousand chat messages. With the firepower several times denser than usual, Ara's eyes spun in circles.
"Uh...?"
A soft hand touched her cheek. It was the girl's right hand, the one that had been holding a gun until a moment ago. The hand that had been trembling without her noticing went still the instant it met Ara's cheek.
"Are you alright? Any injuries?"
"Ah, uh, yeah...!"
"Hoo... thank goodness."
The relief in a young girl's voice.
A hush that seemed to announce the crisis was over.
Warmth against her cheek that said she wasn't alone.
Only after all of it had calmed her wildly thrashing heart did a vague sense of wrongness set in.
In the girl's murmured "thank goodness," there was something more than I'm glad I could save a teammate.
It was the kind of thing you learned to recognize after meeting countless people as a streamer. In that faintly trembling voice was a sincerity that was hard to put into words.
But Ara never got the chance to ask about that sincerity.
"You're a rookie, aren't you?"
"Huh?"
"I'm Lee Haneul, Awakened of the 701st Drop Unit. What's a rookie doing out here?"
The girl pressed her with a sharp voice. Looking into Lee Haneul's eyes, Ara's mind locked up all over again.
Listing off a unit affiliation like an actual soldier wasn't that surprising.
In a VR game that chased extreme realism, you ran into hardcore roleplayers on the Front Line often enough.
But the "rookie" part was harder to let slide.
Sure, she bounced between Gold and Platinum — but she was still in the top ten percent.
She had sunk far too many hours into the Front Line to be treated like a total beginner.
"Hey, I'm Platinum, you know?"
"Kids who panic and spray their gun all over the place are either rookies or washouts. If you're not a rookie... then are you the latter?"
"Ah... n-no, that's not it..."
"Then quiet down and follow me. The second wave's about to start."
"Ugh, yes ma'am..."
Unfortunately, Ara's pride didn't last a full minute.
A pretty girl looking at her with contempt was more than she could take, so Ara set her pride aside for the moment and followed Haneul's lead.
The price was all Ara's to pay. The second she put her pride down, the chat drowned in every kind of slander imaginable.
"Ugh..."
Even so, Ara followed Haneul without a word. For all her confident talk, Haneul's actual skill was ridiculously high.
"What was anti-monster engagement rule number one?"
"Uh... eyes always toward the enemy's eyes?"
"If your eyes are on the enemy's, where should your muzzle be pointed?"
"At the enemy, obviously?"
"Hoo... then shall we check where your muzzle is right now?"
"...Ah."
...Of course, she got scolded a lot for it too.
On the way retreating to Point A, they ran into quite a few trash mobs. Not a single one of them got close to Haneul.
From behind a girl who cleaned up exactly thirty targets with thirty rounds, there wasn't much for Ara to do.
"Haa, haa... that's all of them. Ugh, let's move."
"...You okay?"
Thanks to that, the girl's condition started to register little by little. Between the frequent ragged breaths and the way she kept pressing a hand to her head, she didn't look well at all.
"I-I'm fine. I'm always like this, so you don't need to worry about it."
But all that came back was a bristling answer.
"So move. I don't think we can hold the next wave."
The game had already crossed the twenty-minute mark. Allied base defenses were tightening up, and the enemy side was about due to start sending elite mobs — which made things dangerous.
Wooooong—
As if to prove her words, the air itself began to tremble.
"Ah, shit..."
Haneul reacted first. She stopped dead and flung an arm out to hold Ara back.
Something was going wrong. Even Ara, who had no real combat experience, could feel it.
The stealth monsters that always tried to hit from behind the moment you forgot them, the dirty wolves that hid in corners waiting for an opening — none of them were around anymore.
What had taken their place was silence.
In a silence so deep a mouse would have died of it, something was approaching.
"Hmm..."
Haneul, who had closed her eyes as if weighing something, opened her mouth.
"Come to think of it, I never even asked your name."
"Ah..."
Ara tried to speak and felt her breath catch, as if her throat had closed.
In the girl's self-mocking murmur, there was a desolate kind of resolve.
It wasn't the kind of resolve you felt playing a simple game.
"It's fine. You don't have to tell me."
Clack—
Haneul discarded the gun she'd been holding. Against whatever was coming, a firearm was obviously going to be useless.
Instead, she gripped the sword at her hip.
Whether an E-rank Awakened body could stand against a D-rank dungeon boss was anyone's guess — but it was still better than dying without even putting up a fight.
She didn't want to run again.
She was tired of running, and she was afraid of what the hallucinations would show her if she ran one more time.
So the girl drew her sword.
"Walk about five minutes that way and you'll hit Point A. The trash mobs will all have scattered by now, so nothing should get in your way."
"B-but..."
"Go. I don't want to lose anyone else."
Tap. Haneul's hand gave Ara a light shove.
Through that delicate motion came the weight in her touch. And so, without even time to think, Ara had no choice but to obey.
Buuuuuuuuuuzz—!
Half a beat late, the sound of insect wings arrived.
A sound so bone-chilling it made even the heart vibrate.
"It's the boss! Hurry and go call for backup!"
A dungeon boss was not something an E-rank Awakened could take down alone.
It was the kind of opponent you might not even beat with thirty-plus people and heavy-weapons support from tanks and AA guns. Even a Platinum like Ara knew that much.
So Ara turned without hesitation.
If she hesitated here trying to help that girl, they would both die and Point A would get overrun — that much was obvious.
(Haneul's stream screen drowned in red)
(Immersion warning flashing in succession)
What stopped Ara in her tracks was a donation message that popped up out of nowhere about five minutes later, just as she was racing into Point A.
Please help her she's in real fucking danger right now
Ara's footsteps, which had been charging hard into Point A, came to a dead stop.