Chapter 2 — Ninja Reality Shock (1)

A day had passed in game time.

The Professor was conducting reconnaissance of the mine, the target of the upcoming raid, using the zoom function built into his visor.

"Security's pretty tight for a mine out in the boondocks..."

If the intel was accurate, this mine occasionally yielded minerals used as fuel components for high-end mechanized equipment, which explained why the Roaring Dragon Society treated it as important. Especially with official-match season looming, they'd brought in a large number of NPC miners and were extracting resources at a steady clip every day.

"Right, and the warehouse is over there..."

The infiltration of the facility and theft of the goods would be handled by the Black Tiger Alliance's raiding party. The Professor soon abandoned his tour of the interior facilities and shut off the zoom function.

"Anyway... eerie-looking forest."

As he surveyed the woods surrounding the mine where he stood, he suddenly went still.

Faint but unmistakable — a sharp sense of killing intent, pressing in on him.

For someone who prided himself as a professional at stealth sniping, the idea that someone could conceal themselves well enough to watch him unnoticed was startling. The Professor moved as inconspicuously as he could, letting his hand drift toward the pistol holster at the small of his back.

A woman's voice.

Beyond the fact that it came from somewhere up in the trees, it was impossible to pin down a precise direction — the voice echoed strangely from all sides, using some kind of unusual vocal technique.

"Well now. This is a surprise. Didn't know the Roaring Dragon Society had a user running such a peculiar skill set."

The killing intent sharpened.

Getting into a fight in a place like this before the operation had even begun was decidedly not the Professor's style. He raised both hands compliantly, showing he had no intention to fight, and lifted his head.

"If you know anything about me, you'd know I'm not the type to just wander around a place like this for no reason."

She pronounced the death sentence coldly, and the killing intent began pressing in earnest against the Professor's skin.

"Whoa, hold on. I'm not here for some assassination job or anything that extreme. See? No weapons besides this pistol."

He caught the faintest hint of her presence — a sense of her moving through the branches above him, circling around to study him from every angle.

"...Trade secret."

"Same answer. Sorry about that."

The woman's voice paused for a moment.

She was probably conferring with the commanding officer inside the mine. Soon, her voice returned.

At the suspicious, probing question, the Professor answered in his characteristic dry, machine-toned voice.

"It isn't. That much I can say with certainty."

"That's appreciated."

"...Understood."

The Professor immediately turned and put distance between himself and the mine.

The mysterious figure watching him waited until he'd vanished from sight before quietly dropping down from the branches.

The woman wore an outfit reminiscent of a Japanese female ninja — the kind that only showed up in fantasy-themed games these days — and lingered for a long while, gazing distrustfully in the direction the Professor had disappeared.

"Tch."

At her commander's summons, she reluctantly pushed off the ground and leapt back up into the branches, weaving nimbly through the treetops back toward the mine.

"Status of the raid team?"

[Formation's complete. Confirmed the arrangement with our Union friends again too. No problems.]

"...And countermeasures for that intel I sent you?"

He'd already relayed information to the Black Tiger Alliance about the female user with the strange skill set who'd threatened him during his earlier reconnaissance. Given how prepared they usually were, he'd assumed they'd have worked out some kind of contingency. Making sure every last variable, however small, had a plan to control it — that was his method for maintaining a 100% success rate.

[Unfortunately, we didn't have enough info to put together a specific countermeasure. We're leaving that part to you.]

"Tch... you people never stop working someone to the bone."

Generally speaking, the Professor preferred jobs from the Black Tiger Alliance. They understood his preferences well enough to only bring him jobs that suited him, and they never caused problems where money was concerned. But if he had to name one thing he disliked about them, it was exactly this. In exchange for paying generously and accommodating him as much as possible, they worked him correspondingly hard.

[We're leaving it to you because we trust your skill. Count on you.]

"I know."

When he finished the call and glanced to the side, he found a man already standing there, holding the Professor's bag.

"What's the costume today?"

"The latest season protagonist from Pretty Angela! What do you think, cute right?"

The gruff-voiced, nearly two-meter-tall mass of muscle was dressed in a magical-girl anime outfit — the kind that had young girls squealing in delight.

Mrs. Cuticle.

The Professor's one and only fixed partner, responsible for equipment crafting and maintenance.

His skill placed him among the top five crafters in the game, but his bizarre taste in fashion meant no one wanted to hire him — until the Professor, who judged people by skill alone, took him in.

"Doesn't matter either way. You set it up like I asked?"

"Of course! But what's this about? The great Professor using a one-handed axe of all things?"

"........."

The Professor fell into thought without answering.

Whoever that voice belonged to, she was, at the very least, not a user who primarily used firearms. If she had been, she would've simply shot at his feet rather than issuing that vague threat of "you'll have to die." That meant predicting how she'd actually come at him would be difficult.

"...Insurance."

"Insurance? For some backwater mine?"

"You know my franchise."

"Ah, well, that's true, but..."

A 100% mission success rate.

Expensive and notoriously picky about which jobs he accepted — but once he took a job, he saw it through by any means necessary. That was the Professor.

"Time to head out."

Cuticle watched with a grave expression as the Professor rose and left the house. It was genuinely rare for the Professor to bring up the word "insurance."

Soon, the Professor met up with the Black Tiger Alliance's raid team at the border between the Union's and the Roaring Dragon Society's territory.

"Hey. Long time no see."

"Yo. You're the famous Professor guy, right?"

A young user with an unusually casual way of talking looked over his visor with curiosity, then impulsively reached out to touch it. The Professor, clearly used to this, casually slapped the hand away.

"Aww, c'mon, at least show us your face? We're colleagues here."

"...Your name?"

"Wicked Jemi, sir! What's your real name, other than 'Professor'?"

"........."

Even accounting for how thinly stretched their manpower was with everyone funneled into official matches, it was hard to believe they'd put a rookie like this on the raid team. And he apparently didn't even know who the Professor was, despite the man's reputation on this server.

"You. How long have you been on this server?"

"Huh? About two months in game time."

"........."

The Professor seriously considered punching Baird Choi in the face once this job was over.

The server the Professor operated on wasn't a standard server. It was one of the PK-centric conflict-zone planets, distinct even from the server where official matches were held — a place designed for factions to fight over resources needed for those very matches. The environment and way of life here were completely different from the regular servers, where users from various factions lived in relative peace. You needed at least six months of in-game time here just to get your bearings.

"Jemi, was it."

"Yessir?"

"...If you don't want to die, I'd recommend pulling out of this job."

"What?! Did I do something wrong?!"

Flustered, he looked to the other Black Tiger Alliance users, who just shook their heads pityingly. The senior-most user among them soon walked over and offered the Professor a handshake.

"Sorry about that. We're short on people, couldn't be helped..."

"...Understood."

"Whaaat?! Boss, seriously?!"

Jemi got smacked upside the head by a senior member and grumbled his way to his position, while the Professor made his way toward a suitable old tree near his sniping position, climbing it with practiced ease using his spiked boots.

Watching him get into position, the raid team moved swiftly and stealthily through the trees, closing in on the mine.

Before long, a user in the mine's watchtower spotted them, flipped on a spotlight, and sounded the alarm — the battle had begun.

"Run! Once we're inside, it's our game! Don't stop for anything!"

"Turn on your shield modules!"

Being a faction largely composed of dark gamers, the Black Tiger Alliance handled the PK situation with practiced ease.

The Roaring Dragon Society users, on the other hand, were badly rattled. They'd tightened security after the Professor had been spotted lurking nearby a few days earlier, but the enemy's skill still exceeded their expectations.

"Damn it! Suppressing fire! Someone lay down suppressing fire!"

"What's the machine gunner doing?! Shoot! Shoot already!"

Urged on by the others, the Roaring Dragon Society's machine gunner, who'd been waiting in the rear, scrambled to grab his mounted gun and open fire.

Watching the Black Tiger Alliance users scatter as if they'd been expecting exactly this, the Roaring Dragon Society users swallowed hard.

"Don't let them get inside the facility! They're going for a chaotic close-quarters brawl!"

"Aaaargh!"

"Point the spotlight better! I can't see anything!"

With things heating up ahead of him, the Professor's hands got busy too. Pulling gun parts from his bag, he assembled his sniper rifle and settled into position, lying prone across a thick branch.

His first target was—

"Aah! The spotlight!"

"Wha— who's shooting?!"

"It's a snip—gah?!"

The user operating the spotlight from the watchtower took a headshot and tumbled down, disintegrating into particles under the death judgment.

Witnessing that, the Roaring Dragon Society users tensed up hard.

A sniper, at this hour of the night.

"Everyone, heads down! These bastards brought a sniper!"

"Glow sticks! Throw the glow sticks! I can't see a damn thing to shoot at!"

"You idiot! Light things up now and you'll get sniped!"

Amid the chaos, the Black Tiger Alliance's raid team began systematically bringing down the barbed-wire fences and barriers ringing the mine with grenades, one by one, until they finally forced their way inside.

"No! They're inside!"

"Hold them off! Hold the line! Don't give an inch!"

The compound descended into instant chaos. Users from both factions collided in a tangle of gunfire and clashing bayonets, and here and there, users who'd lost their shields disintegrated into particles.

The Professor picked off Roaring Dragon Society users as they came into view, steadily dragging the tide of battle in the Black Tiger Alliance's favor.

"Almost wrapped up now, wait... hm?"

At first, he thought he'd seen wrong.

Something was moving fast and stealthily between the shadows cast by the Roaring Dragon Society users.

"What is that? Some kind of mech unit?"

—To be continued—