Tokyo Sky Tree, the tallest piece of architecture in Japan as of the present year of 2026, can be seen easily from any tall building in the center of the city, yet the closer you get to it, the more difficult it is to see in its entirety. I had visited the Sky Tree once myself many years ago, and when I looked up at it from directly below, all I could see was the truss-style formation of its support pillars. The upper portion of the tower vanished into the gray sky.
And now this giant, who stood 1.5 times as tall as the Sky Tree, also lost his upper body to the clouds the closer we got. After running toward the giant for not even five minutes, all we could see of him were his large legs that resembled two cylindrical towers.
And his feet pushing against the thick clouds as he walked were still on the other side of the bottomless canyon—that is to say, beyond the edge of the world map. But if he kept moving forward at that pace, he would cross the border in five...no, four more steps, thereby encroaching upon the world of GGO.
Several hundred players already stood at the border in formation, weapons at the ready just within shooting range, awaiting the signal to attack. Sounds of rifles blasting from overeager players rang through the air sporadically, but the bullets were all absorbed by an invisible wall.
And even though our bullets could not yet reach the giant, we could already hear him. With each move of the giant's feet, a rumbling like thunder boomed in the sky, and seconds after a foot made contact with the ground, a loud—KABOOM!—sort of heavy explosive noise shook the air. Beyond the border—the outside of the world map—there was nothing but a flat, gray surface. Though there shouldn't be any dirt or rocks, dust clouds rose up wherever the giant's feet fell.
"...In three more steps, the giant will breach the invisible wall."
When ArFA-Sys whispered this, Kureha undid the safety on her "Deneb Kaitos Type-Z" optic launcher.
As the giant's legs drew closer, we could make out the details on the armor wrapped around them. The giant's magnificently decorated armor stood in stark contrast to the sci-fi-style mechanical plating the giant robot enemies rampant in the world of GGO bore—in comparison, he almost resembled a piece of Gothic architecture.
His legs ripped the thick clouds apart and shook the earth as he took one step and then another closer...until, just as ArFA-Sys predicted, in just three steps he straddled the canyon at the edge of the world map.
The sole of his foot was the size of a soccer field. The moment it touched the ground within the GGO border, an explosive noise many times louder than any we'd heard before boomed around us, causing us to crouch reflexively. But the giant's right foot birthed more than a simple vibration.
A glowing rainbow-colored wall of light shot up and spread in a circular radius with alarming force. In mere seconds it was right before us, swallowing hundreds of players in one fell swoop.
Flickering lights like an aurora clouded my vision, and ArFA-Sys and Kureha disappeared from either side of me.
"Ahh!!" "Master!!"
I let go of my rifle and grabbed Kureha and ArFA-Sys with all my might as they shrieked. I was certain the shockwave following the rainbow-colored light would send us flying, eating away a fair chunk of our HP when it did. But with each passing second, the impact I was bracing for did not arrive. Not even so much as a gentle breeze hit us.
In time, the bright light slowly began to fade. Keeping a firm grip on my companions, I forced my eyes open and immediately checked my HP bar. If we had taken no damage, I reasoned, then we must have been hit by quite the blocking effect. But none of the debuff icons were lit.
I returned my gaze forward, wondering what that light could have been...then I saw it.
"...Huh?"
Not even noticing the dumb noise that had escaped my mouth, I opened my eyes wide in shock.
The scenery before me had transformed.
The hills that characterized The Old South area had vanished without a trace. The field was flat, without even a millimeter of an undulation in it. Hexagon-shaped tiles made neither of stone nor metal were lined together in an orderly fashion, dully reflecting the sunlight. The coloring was quite similar to the armor of the giant, who now stood about a kilometer ahead of us.
"What...just happened...?"
Kureha murmured hoarsely, not even noticing that I was gripping her left arm.
ArFA-Sys lowered her voice so only Kureha and I could hear:
"Kureha, Master, we are no longer in The Old South."
"Huh...? Rei, what do you mean...?"
"We're in an area completely disconnected from SBC Glocken, an unknown map—no, wait a minute."
ArFA-Sys closed her eyes for a second, then quickly looked up.
"No... Impossible."
"Wh-What's wrong?"
I instinctively tightened my grip on her right arm.
The look on ArFA-Sys's face was so raw with shock and fear that I couldn't believe she was an AI.
"Master...this space is not in the world of GGO..."
I was unable to hear the rest of what she said.
The giant, who had stood still for nearly a minute, had now resumed his progress forward. His upper half was still obscured by the thick clouds, but one of his two towering legs raised high into the sky, drawing an arc of about a hundred meters before coming down on the surface of the brass-colored tile. A harsh, clanking shockwave quite unlike the dull thud from before rang through the air and sent a tremor through the ground.
"I have no idea what's going on...but let's shoot him!"
Someone raised a desperate cry from the front line.
That lit the fuse of the hundreds of players. Half of them raised their rifles and launchers while the other half began to rush forward, submachine guns and handguns at the ready.
Immediately after, the explosive sound of bullets, both solid and energy, rang through the air as countless projectiles shot on a trajectory to the sky. They pierced right into the giant's legs, releasing colorful beams of light...but his hundred-level HP bar did not show any signs of decreasing.
And that was to be expected. Our enemy was so big that our depth perception was warped, but he was still nearly a whole kilometer away from us. Anti-materiel rifles in the real world had a range of over two kilometers, but in GGO, even sniper rifles like the AMR Tiamat couldn't reach one kilometer.
Just when I started to recall that ArFA-Sys had said something shocking earlier, Kureha, whose left arm I still had a grip on, yelled out:
"We should join them at the front!"
She twirled around her arm and gripped my right wrist. Before she could take off running, I yanked her to a stop.
"Whoa, not so fast! ArFA-Sys, what were you saying about the world of GGO earlier?"
ArFA-Sys's blank eyes blinked several times, her silver hair swaying as she looked at me.
"My link with my mom was severed, so I cannot make a sound conclusion...but this map appears to exist in a system outside of the GGO servers, Master."
"In a system outside of GGO...?"
I questioningly murmured the words back as my eyes darted around the scenery.
The weapon and skill icons on either side of the simple HP bar, and the circular mini-map were just as before. I released the girls' arms and opened and closed my fists...but nothing felt amiss with the bodily sensation feedback.
I looked at Kureha, who was performing the same tests. She then waved her right hand to the side and called up her menu window. I leaned in from the side to look, assuming this would be the same, too...but I received yet another surprise and let out another dumb gasp.
In the center of the square window were four numbers in simple typeface. That was all there was—the equipment figures, tabs to switch screens, and logout buttons that ought to be there were nowhere to be found.
The four numbers, split in the middle with a colon, had the number 27 on the left and 33...32...31...on the righthand side, counting down by the second.
"A 30-minute countdown...?"
When I murmured this, Kureha nodded.
"Seems like it. I think the countdown started when we touched that wall of light."
"What do you think happens when it reaches zero?"
"I don't know...but from the look of this window, Rei's theory that we aren't in GGO has gained quite a lot of credibility."
Kureha closed her window and turned her gaze forward.
The golden giant continued his forward course, slowly and deliberately. Each step took about five seconds to complete, with the giant stopping for about fifteen seconds between each stride, but after all, his stride was a hundred meters. In other words, he was walking at a speed of 300 meters per minute...or three kilometers per 10 minutes. So by the time the countdown ended in 30 minutes, the giant would have moved about nine kilometers.
The players previously shooting ranged launchers and rifles at the giant, finally realizing their attacks were having no effect, lowered their weapons and began to run. The melee fighters had already gotten within 500 meters of the giant. In just one more minute, they would erupt into an all-out riot.
I knew we had to do something since Kureha had informed me of her intent to win the greatest damage inflicted prize the moment we met up...but when I chanced a sideways glance at her, she gave a light shrug in response, as if she had read my thoughts:
"I haven't given up on that biggest damage prize. But rushing in won't help us right now."
"Uh...why not?"
As I gave her a strange look, ArFA-Sys let out a little cough on my righthand side.
"Ahem...I've decoded it! Since our menu windows are not functioning properly, that means in this space, exchanging weapons and replenishing ammunition is impossible!"
"Oh..."
It seemed obvious, now that she said it.
Ammunition in GGO was divided into three categories: magazines attached to the gun, materialized spare magazines, and ammunition in storage. Handguns of the long stroke category that used large-calibur handgun bullets shot eleven rounds per magazine. In my case, I could carry three spare magazines on my belt, along with a maximum of 1,280 rounds in storage. Even if I shot four magazines' worth of 44 rounds, if I opened my storage to reload my guns, it was nearly impossible to run out of ammo in a boss fight.
But since the menu windows weren't functioning on this map, we couldn't access our storage, meaning the only ammunition available to me were the 44 large-calibur handgun bullets of my longstroke Type-Z and the 20 rounds in my AMR Breakthrough-4 anti-materiel rifle... If I shot like there was no tomorrow, I would run out of ammo in less than two minutes.
Kureha's Deneb Kaitos was an optic launcher that used an energy pack instead of magazines, but if I recalled correctly, one pack only had three rounds, and she only carried five or six spare packs. ArFA-Sys's SPB Potassium Type-Z submachine gun held 50 rounds in its magazine, but she only had one spare.
It made me wish we had thought to materialize the maximum possible ammo beforehand...but not even veterans like Yamikaze could have possibly predicted the menu screens not working.
And Yamikaze had confidently said he would wait for more information before he acted, but the way things were going, it looked like the majority of the players would run out of bullets before we got the information we needed. Upon realizing this, I leaned in close to my old friend and whispered.
"Kureha, shouldn't we tell the other players their menus won't open?"
"When the first people run out of bullets, news will spread quickly enough."
With an emotionless answer, Kureha glanced at the watch concealed in her left glove, then looked over her shoulder, her side-pony swishing with the motion. ArFA-Sys and I turned to look over our shoulders as well.
What we beheld was truly bizarre.
The wall of light that shot through us a few minutes prior had stopped about 30 meters ahead, where it now wavered like a mirage. The wall painted graceful arcs to the left and right, and made a circle of about a one-kilometer radius around the golden giant.
The ground of hexagonal tiles continued all the way to the edge of the wall of light, but beyond the wall, the silhouettes of a large dome and a collection of skyscrapers could be seen. In other words, this space had cut a circle out of The Old South area from GGO...or rather, The Old South area had been eaten away.
"That wall...do you think people can pass through it from the outside?"
Right after I murmured that, a portion of the wall of light rippled in concentric circles and birthed three human silhouettes. It was as if the wall had heard me.
Standing at the front was a female player with curly silver hair tinted with purple draped over her left shoulder. It was my friend Zeliska, who I had almost contacted right before the giant started moving forward. In her right hand was an optical shotgun with a polymer frame.
Diagonally to her rear was a small girl with milk-colored hair in twin half ponytails with a large patch over her right eye. She wasn't holding a weapon because she was Zeliska's ArFA-Sys. Her name was Daisy.
And the third silhouette was a tall man in a black and white coat with ash-gray hair. He carried a classic sniper rifle slung over his right shoulder. I was friends with him too, but only in-game. He and I had a complicated history. His name was Itsuki.
"Kureha, when you said you called for backup..."
Kureha ignored me and waved eagerly at the trio.
"Hey, guys! Come on dowwwn!"
Zeliska and the others stood still for a moment, their gazes still turned upwards, but when they recognized us, they waved back and trotted over.
"It's much bigger in person, isn't it? Gotta have a big polygon count—I wonder how much data that thing is eating up..."
As soon as I heard that remark from Zeliska, I held in the greeting I was about to give her. Instead, I pointed behind us and asked:
"Like you don't know—aren't you the one who implemented that guy, Zeliska?"
That's right—in reality, Zeliska was one of the top programmers working at Zaskar, the Japanese branch of the Gun Gale Online development company. That's not to say she had game master privileges—she was logged in as a player and nothing more—but if nothing else, she would know everything about a guerrilla event top to bottom.
I wasn't sure whether to call Kureha gutsy or cocky to invite Zeliska as backup...but I kept this opinion to myself as I waited for her answer. But Zeliska, a perplexed look on her face, gave an answer that betrayed expectations:
"I'd love to say I did, but I had absolutely nothing to do with this..."
"What...?"
As I blinked rapidly in dumbfounded surprise, Kureha took a quick step in front of me.
"W-Wait a minute...so you're saying they pushed an event through without you knowing about it?!"
"If they did, that would hurt, but it's kinnnda hard to believe that's what happened. Because of the incidents, Zaskar Japan has their hands full trying to get the management system on track. They don't have time to put on a big-scale event like this..."
Zeliska followed her answer with a little sigh.
When she mentioned "the incidents," two things that had happened simultaneously came to our minds.
The first was the Death Gun Incident that rocked every AmuSphere user in Japan to the core. A player calling himself Sterben conspired with his allies to poison two famous GGO players to death. It was a brutal incident, but a different crime was actually unfolding behind the scenes.
Somebody using the name of Death Gun sent NerveGear to the homes of me, Kureha, and Zeliska, made us fight an enhanced boss enemy with the NerveGear on, and forced us to make life-or-death choices...and one of the key players in this "Underground Death Gun Incident" was Itsuki, the man currently standing behind Zeliska. It also just so happened that the one who had laid the groundwork for everything was Python, the sub-leader of Itsuki's squadron, Alphard. Surprisingly, in the real world, Python was part of the management at Zaskar Japan—in other words, he was Zeliska's superior. But unlike Zeliska, who kept meddling with other players to a bare minimum, Python abused his admin credentials to ban players he held long-standing grudges against, or to multiply his squadron's war chest.
After the incident, Python was arrested for embezzlement and extortion, but his crimes were overshadowed by the Death Gun incident that had produced two victims, never receiving any substantial coverage. But as Zeliska said, Zaskar Japan was likely in utter chaos internally, and with the recent addition of their high-difficulty DLC, "The Abyss Dungeon," it was indeed quite difficult to believe they would have any time to run a large-scale guerrilla event like this.
"But...if what you're saying is true, then who programmed this event?"
After Kureha murmured the question, she glanced behind Zeliska. ArFA-Sys and I followed her gaze.
And under our collective hard stare, Itsuki blinked innocently before allowing a sheepish grin to fill his face.
"I don't blame you for thinking I did it...but nobody could have planned an event this big on their own. More to the point...could we even call this an event?"
"What do you mean by that, Itsuki?"
Itsuki looked up, not answering Kureha's question immediately.
I turned around again and looked up at the golden giant in the distance. The vanguard of players who had boldly run out to the front to fight were just about to arrive at the giant's feet. I focused my eyes to get a clear view of the countless figures dashing across the hexagonal tiles—but the giant's feet leisurely moving up and down in their direction were just so big that simply looking at them was threw off my equilibrium.
That colossus most likely contained data unavailable in The Seed program that GGO used, and Itsuki was only able to pull off the Underground Death Gun Incident because he had an accomplice working for Zaskar Japan. The fact of the matter was that all acts deemed illegal were committed by Python, meaning Itsuki wasn't even arrested, let alone indicted. But he vanished into the woodwork right after the case was closed, and I didn't see him again until a raid at The Abyss Dungeon. So I wasn't all that informed on how he had been spending his days recently.
I'd been meaning to have a talk with since I did owe him for helping me out of a bind back in the dungeon...but now here we were, running into each other in the most unexpected of ways. As I stood there, wondering how to break the ice as I stared at the giant—
"...So, this is unconfirmed intel, but..."
—I heard a voice from behind me. I once again turned around to look at Itsuki.
"Rumor has it this same guerrilla event is happening in other VRMMOs, too."
"Uh...by other games, do you mean ALO or Sword Art Origin?"
Itsuki slowly nodded in reply to Kureha's question. Beside him, Zeliska knit her brows and spoke up in a doubtful tone.
"Ummm, I haven't heard anything about that rumor."
"You've been diving for a while now, right? I was still in the real world when Kureha contacted me. And when I saw a lot of comments on social media that there was some multi-VRMMO guerrilla event, I thought that's probably what this was about... So I dived into GGO to see for myself, and...you know the rest."
Hearing Itsuki's story, Zeliska glanced at Daisy beside her.
"Hey Daisy, can you search the main social media sites for me?"
But Daisy's twin half ponytails swished as she shook her head side to side.
"I am terribly sorry, Master. At present, all access to outside networks is cut off."
"Cut off...? But Type-X ArFA-Sys have the highest-ranking credentials in the game... Rei, are you cut off from the outside, too?"
My ArFA-Sys nodded solemnly in reply.
"Yes... Not only that, I cannot contact my mother either."
"Well, that just doesn't make sense. Mother Klavier and Type-X are on the same server, both logically and physically... You exist on the same storage drive. You'd have to bypass GGO's core system to sever that connection. And only a handful of people at Zaskar have the credentials to do that..."
"Maybe there's more to it than you think."
Zeliska gave Itsuki a dubious look.
"...Care to explain what you mean?"
"I'm not suggesting there's a problem with Zaskar management itself. Simply that...GGO has a fatal security risk. Well, every VRMMO game does, really."
"Are you talking about...the black box embedded in the programming of The Seed?"
"That's right. The Seed is a super high-performance Full Dive game engine without any license fees or royalties. To game companies, it's like a dream come true, but it comes with many constraints. Coercive connections, character conversions, along with unanalyzable and unknown components that exist in the core part of The Seed's connector."
"......"
Zeliska fell silent, so I stepped forward and posed a question to Itsuki:
"So what you're saying is, this guerrilla event was not coordinated by Zaskar, but was brought about by The Seed program itself?"
"That's all blind conjecture, of course. I have no concrete evidence..."
With that caveat in place, Itsuki looked me in the eye and continued:
"But assuming that's the case, doesn't that explain the rumor of the same event happening simultaneously across multiple VRMMOs? That giant might be more than your average event boss. He might be an evolution of The Seed's connector...or maybe even a god of destruction bringing about a great calamity—just a fun theory."
Though he made it sound like a cute joke at the end, I understood that Itsuki had spoken mostly in earnest.
I stood still, keeping my gaze hard on those mysterious, pale red eyes of his—
A dry breeze whipped through the inorganic field, bringing with it the sound of scattered gunfire.
I looked up to see that the players lined up in front of the golden giant were shooting colorful streams from their guns, angled upward. They were aiming for the giant's ankles, which seemed to be where his defenses were at their weakest. Somebody had probably used the Eagle Eye Beacon skill to affix lock-on markers to the joints in the armor. Hundreds of gun rays concentrated on just two or three small points, releasing explosions as bright as fireworks where they struck... But the giant showed no signs of stopping much less faltering as he continued to walk.
"His gauge...has it decreased at all?"
As Kureha whispered the question, I turned my attention to the blue pillar on the righthand side of the giant—his HP gauge with a hundred levels. The top of the gauge was obscured by the clouds, so I assumed it would deplete from the bottom...but the smoke from the concentrated fire made it impossible to see from where I stood.
"They're whittling it down little by little, Kureha."
It was Daisy who answered Kureha, her left eye opened wide. Even without a link to the system, an android's sight and hearing were superhuman.
"Well, at least we know he isn't invincible."
Since there was relief in Kureha's voice, I decided to mention our concerns once more:
"But at this rate, we'll run out of ammo first. Shouldn't we tell everyone?"
"Run out of ammo...?"
Zeliska sounded doubtful again.
"For an enemy that huge, you'd think everyone would stock their ammo and energy to the max, right?"
"Yes, Zeliska, but in this space..."
When I was about to explain to her that we couldn't access our menu windows, a powerful tremor and explosion rattled the field, cutting me off.
The distance fighters had arrived within range and unleashed a volley of attacks all at once. The air was filled with the savage roar of gatling guns, rocket launchers, and grenade launchers as countless balls of fire bloomed around the giant's ankles.
And this time, the giant finally wobbled ever so slightly. Of course he did not fall, but his right foot wavered left and right in the air amid the hail of explosions before stomping down violently to the ground. A thin crack shot along the shin plate of the boot, and golden shards fell away from it in a glittering shower.
"The giant's first HP bar will vanish shortly."
Daisy's announcement made me impressed by the sheer speed of it all, but then I remembered there were still 99 bars to go. If the thirty-minute countdown was our time limit for defeating the giant, depleting every HP bar in that window would be quite difficult, and I had the sense most of the players would run out of ammo long before then anyway.
My theory was that once we left this space, we would be able to access our menu windows again, but it was also possible that the wall of light was a one-way barrier. Our best option might be to run to the wall of light and check to see if passing through it was even possible—
"The first level is passed."
Hearing Daisy's second announcement, I watched the giant carefully.
His right foot remained still where it had stomped down, and shortly was swallowed by an even bigger explosion. Several new cracks formed in the thick gold plating of the boot, unceremoniously breaking apart with a shattering noise that reached all the way to where we stood.
The pieces of broken armor fell away, exposing the giant's muscled shin and calf. He had the beautiful musculature of an ancient Greek statue...but in the back of my mind, I felt something was oddly amiss.
"Hey, guys...just a theory, but if we destroy all this guy's armor..."
Kureha, who seemed to have reached a similar conclusion, murmured her thoughts. And barely a moment after—
The gray clouds that covered the sky over the battlefield and obscured the giant's upper body swirled in a violent vortex and quickly dispersed.
And as the clouds left, they revealed the familiar yellow sky of GGO—oh, if only. Instead, it was a vivid sunset, red as blood...and upon closer glance, the sky was engraved with the same hexagonal pattern that covered the ground.
And suddenly, each hexagon glowed white, displaying two different messages. In alternation, they read: [Warning] and [System Announcement].
The players who had been shooting at the giant's ankles quickly ceased fire. In time, silence fell over the battlefield.
Menu windows popped up here and there. The players probably thought this would be a good opportunity to reload. That ought to clue them in to the fact that they couldn't access their storage.
Suddenly, the giant started to move again.
But that wasn't to say he had resumed his walk. He swiftly righted his pitched-forward torso, spread his legs wide, and stood in a power pose.
He moved his shadowed face left to right, as if to glare in contempt at the battlefield below. His bearded mouth opened, and a sonorous voice boomed through the field.
"The seeds bud, spread their leaves, form a ring, and build a gate. O warriors gathered upon the luckless battlefield, I dare you to stop me. Should I stride into your capital, all shall be for naught. Whoever should crush my golden crown...will receive everything."
His voice cut off there, echoing quieter and quieter until it disappeared.
Unable to wrap my mind around the theatrical wording of everything, I racked my brain trying to translate it. That first part aside, the second part was our biggest concern. "Should I stride into your capital"...based off the direction the giant was walking, the "capital" of which he spoke had to be SBC Glocken. But the "all shall be for naught" part was far too abstract.
The "Whoever should crush my golden crown" part that followed must mean that we had to literally destroy the crown he was wearing. And the player that accomplished that would "receive everything"...?
After managing to interpret that much of it, I turned to talk to Zeliska.
But once again, an unexpected phenomenon interrupted me.
Tiny pillars of light began to shoot up all over the flat field. There were more of them closer to the center, but even five to ten of them cropped up not too far from the area where we were standing.
Once the pillars reached a height of about two meters, they swiftly began to intertwine. And from the center of the tangle, a person emerged. It was a player. But their silhouette seemed wrong somehow. This player was clad not the sci-fi-inspired combat uniforms players from GGO typically wore, but attire that seemed...much more ancient.
"Master!!"
ArFA-Sys abruptly shouted right beside me.
Almost simultaneously, I heard a dull POP! right beside my left ear.
My eyes shot in that direction and saw that Itsuki, who had made his way to my side without my noticing, was reaching out toward me. Something black had sprouted from the palm of his open hand...or maybe not. It was a sharp blade, piercing right through his hand.
"Itsuki!"
The moment I screamed his name, Itsuki fell to his knees. The HP bar over his head had not gone down much, but the Paralysis debuff icon was lit.
Was the blade poisoned? But the only poison that existed in GGO was damage-type. I had never heard of nor seen paralysis poison before.
But one thing was clear: that black blade was meant for me, and Itsuki had blocked it with his hand. Meaning, between the Abyss Dungeon and now, I owed Itsuki two debts.
Cursing my own inadequacies, I jumped in front of Itsuki and readied the sniper rifle hanging on my right shoulder.
About eight players had appeared 20 meters away from me. The pillars of light had surely summoned them here, too.
Kureha and ArFA-Sys readied their guns in turn, and Zeliska moved Daisy protectively behind her. Since Itsuki was paralyzed, it was only four of us that were able to fight. The enemy outnumbered us two to one. But even for an assault squadron, it would just be far too convenient for them to be able to suddenly attack us in these conditions———
"...What?!"
The moment I was clearly able to see our enemy's faces, a gasp escaped my mouth.
These were not GGO players. The three in the front were dressed in Japanese armor, holding katanas in both hands. They were samurai. Behind them stood two Shinto shrine maidens in white robes and scarlet hakama, as well as two mountain monks dressed in training garb.
And in the center of the pack stood one person dressed in dark gray shinobi attire—a ninja.
Without even flinching at the sight of our guns, one of the samurai yelled in a throaty voice:
"We recognize you as the commander in chief of Gun Gale Online! We are the Gakkatai of Asuka Empire—and we have come to claim your life!!"
