Reunion
The words that had guided me from the moment I first gripped a firearm for real were simple but absolute.
You never slow down or stop to take aim. The fight must end before you cross the threshold.
These were the benchmarks I had set for myself the instant I picked up a gun again.
The South Korean special forces I faced wore armor tough enough to shrug off rounds that would turn ordinary soldiers into paste. Even the 40mm dual-purpose grenades they lobbed could not keep the enemy drones from flipping sides and turning on their pilots.
But in the end, those two rules meant the same thing: end the engagement before the enemy even realizes you are a threat.
I could not see the internal situation, but the instant I kicked in the door I had to clear the room at the speed I was traveling.
Holographic silhouettes rose beyond the cool, open doorway, barrels trained on me, but I was already one step ahead, putting a neat hole through the center of each one.
Without teammates to cover my back, I moved faster than I should have.
Recognize. Trigger. Pivot. Repeat.
It was supposed to be simple, but if every cycle took longer than one breath, the fight would be over before it began.
Accuracy, speed, spatial awareness. CQB rewarded you the harder you tried to keep all three in balance.
After that, the rest was routine. If you had the skills for close-quarters work, you simply adjusted your loadout to the environment.
These were real people who fired real bullets, not paper targets, so ammo was used without mercy.
Flashbangs rolled around corners I could not see. I advanced the moment they detonated, taking out the first visible threat.
In theory the order should have been reversed, but once they were neutralized the sequence no longer mattered.
Four rooms. Twenty-three seconds.
Every new session had different walls, furniture, and enemy placements, yet the core pattern never changed.
Each attempt carried me one step closer to freedom.
💥 CRITICAL HIT! 💥
-42 HP
“…!”
Jam.
My hands left the carbine on instinct. I pulled the pistol instead. The sudden malfunction had left me no time for a proper field-repair.
The enemy’s body armor was rated high, and the Glock I carried carried a generous magazine capacity. In situations like this the trick I had learned years ago still worked.
There were only two left.
I aimed for the head. The helmets were good, but that meant the impact would hit the skull itself.
Two shots cracked out. The bodies staggered.
I sent one round each into both knees in the same breath. It hurt less to worry about.
Then I carefully lined up the last enemy’s head and put a single round exactly through the bridge of the nose.
When the last man slumped, groaning, I ejected the jammed round from the carbine’s chamber.
Malfunctions were rare, especially after I had started wearing the Icarus gear, but today the timing felt cruelly on point.
New in the worst possible way.
The clock had ticked a little past the target, but I did not let it bother me.
We were already at the final stretch of the Killhouse trial.
Memories piled up over countless live-fire and sim runs condensed into just fifty-five seconds.
Like brass casings hitting the floor, the enemies who had been inside the building dropped one by one onto the cold concrete.
And when I finally reached the exit door and kicked it open, the world outside exploded with noise.
───BOOM!
“…?”
Outside the exit, at least fifteen people stood frozen, staring.
“He’s out!”
“He did it! He actually did it!”
“Teacher, tell us how to beat the training course faster!”
“Please, we want to beat the two-minute-thirty-second mark──!”
…No.
Who the hell are you people?
Meanwhile, at the exact moment Eugene found himself swallowed by the crowd,
the person who had started the chaos was not faring much better.
Red dot, right next to it seven thousand.
Even though I had not even launched the day’s planned content, the chat still moved faster than I could read it.
Compared with the previous chat windows where I could at least guess what people were typing, this one felt like full acceleration.
I had been streaming for long enough to stay calm on the surface, but the question of how to handle this kept looping in my head.
If this ended up making the stream stronger, great, but it was still just a variable for someone who had already found her place with Harmony.
Still, solving it was my job as a streamer…
“I’ll try logging in first and see what happens. I need to understand the game better before I can write new content anyway, so I’ll focus on the system for now.”
Of course every time I threw in one comment the chat exploded in response, but what else could I do?
I decided not to let Harmony get too worked up.
Unlike the old days when I had to click the mouse a dozen times to launch the game, now all I had to do was scroll and focus.
Between the fantasy VR titles decorated with laurel leaves and leaves, the post-apocalyptic ruins of a city rendered through sharp contrasts of light and shadow, and one lone agent standing in the middle.
Dark Zone.
Only one day had passed since I first connected… but the loading screen ahead was something I would have to get used to.
The screen moved forward and the in-game avatar of Harmony appeared in full view.
A girl with refreshing green hair and cat ears, wearing a thick ballistic vest that contrasted with her cool green tones, gripping a firearm.
Her expression was a little uncertain as she looked at what she was holding.
The moment the choice was made, the screen flashed.
And then the world around me brightened gradually.
“…The weather is nice today.”
Unlike yesterday when it had rained and the wind had blown, the sky over New York was clear and bright.
The sun poured down without a cloud, but the air still carried a chill. Five degrees below zero. It was cold enough to freeze your breath, yet it was the kind of winter day that matched the season.
The place I had logged out from the night before stood right in front of me.
The same bench where I had talked to Eugene. Only the time had changed, and so had the absence of the man who had been sitting there.
💥 CRITICAL HIT! 💥
-42 HP
“Could it be…?”
I quietly opened the friend list.
As expected, a green flashing window.
Even though I knew this person was not in the game, it still felt strange to picture it.
Of course contacting them for a guide request or party invitation was completely different from whatever had happened yesterday.
Still, most of the content I had tried and wanted to share with new players required this person to be the guide.
He… almost fit the second part, but the login time was the same either way.
How should I handle it?
Finally I decided to ping her.
“Everyone. Um… after the tutorial ends, if you party up with the hardcore users, do you still get that ridiculously difficult content?”
It seemed this unfortunate chain of events was not going to end with one message.
Viewers flooded the chat to the point of overflowing just by watching me start to type, but I ignored them and opened the friend window.
Another option would have been to ask a fellow streamer and create a party that felt like a forced collab, but for some reason this user kept sticking in my mind.
I made my decision.
I reached out toward the single online user hovering above the friend list.
“What are you doing here?”
“Kyah!?”
That I had not expected.
Before I could even call, Eugene suddenly appeared right behind me, and Harmony reacted like she had seen a ghost.
It took a second for my heart rate to drop back to normal.
“Wait, why are you here!?”
“…Exactly.”
It was true that when you panicked people became rude.
Harmony could clearly see what he meant.
“Aigoo, I’m sorry. My words just came out wrong. I was about to contact you, but I never imagined you would suddenly appear right behind me.”
“It’s fine. More importantly, what’s up?”
…Did this person have zero interest in being a streamer?
Even though I had clearly sent the link to my channel and the place I was streaming yesterday, this was the reaction I got.
I could not help but look at him a little strangely.
But if I thought about it, I was being a frog in the well after all.
The world probably had plenty of people who did not care about streaming.
Harmony quickly regained her composure and answered carefully.
“Um… it’s nothing special. I just logged in a minute ago and was about to run a mission, but I thought it would be better to do it with more people rather than alone.”
“I thought you were a streamer so I expected more people to join, but I was wrong.”
“I was planning to recruit a bit inside the game, but Eugene happened to be online. Plus the connection from yesterday.”
How should I finish the sentence?
She paused for a moment and added,
“So if you have time… ah, today I won’t troll like yesterday! You don’t have to worry.”
The chat was always chaos.
Still, the user in front of me opened his mouth carefully.
If he said no, I would have to accept it, but even if I accepted, the anxiety would remain the same.
Yet the words that came out of his mouth were combinations I never could have imagined.
“Mistakes usually come from actions you have never experienced before.”
“…Huh?”
“Not making mistakes means you have become familiar with the field. Considering the time, there is no guarantee yesterday’s incident won’t happen again….”
“That is true….”
“But if you look at it the other way, it means you will be fine if you spend enough time.”
Huh. Something about the atmosphere felt off.
More precisely, the situation right before I had been hiding, pressing the magazine release, and nearly getting discovered…
Yet the person in front of me spoke to me gently, without raising his voice at all, exactly as usual.
“Since you said you have time, let’s loosen up a bit… and learn briefly about actions you should never do during combat.”
“…Nuh?”
Without thinking, Harmony’s mouth fell open in a perfect “O.”
She had not asked for something this detailed.
Even while she was thinking whether this activity could fit inside her schedule for the day, Eugene simply said,
“Have you ever been to a shooting range?”
Shooting range.
The place where I would end up today.
At least that was how Harmony took it.