───Dudududek!

───Tududududu!

"AAAH!"

It was hard to take a step, and the ceiling and walls of the building were cracking, causing large chunks of debris to fall like fists. However, the entire building was not collapsing. This was because the final kill zone of the day, in other words, the sea of lava, was encircling this very building.

Outside, visible through the collapsed outer wall, the flow of lava was quite bizarre. Due to volcanic activity compounded by earthquakes splitting the ground, lava was flowing and being pushed into crevices. The water level on the floor had likely dropped temporarily, and the burden on the first floor of this building would have been reduced as well.

In short, as mentioned earlier, just because the building was shaking, it would not necessarily lead to a collapse.

It was the optimal timing to execute a tactical maneuver.

If I moved while the building was vibrating and making noise, it would be nearly impossible for the enemy to ascertain my position, allowing me to ambush them at just the right moment. Ambushes are typically conducted when the opponent is unaware, but even if they were aware, they likely wouldn’t be able to respond.

A user without an ADS (Aim Down Sights) wouldn’t be able to counter a flashbang flying at them.

And thus, I returned to the beginning.

Gunfire was still echoing around me. I didn’t particularly need to be on guard. I just had to quietly grab the door handle with my tail and carefully close the door. That was all it took. I simply started looting. Unless I was using a gun that fired the same caliber of bullets, there was no need to touch either the magazines or the guns. I just needed to stuff the throwing weapons I had consumed back into my multipurpose pouch to replenish them.

This building, tall above and wide to the sides, resembled an enormous Menger sponge, with a sky garden in the middle. Of course, the beautiful garden that should have been trickling water had long since lost its function, and the grass that had grown halfway was ruthlessly torn apart by bullets crossing the air.

In any case, it was a suitable place to accommodate the last fifteen or so users.

Since I had killed one, that meant there were fourteen left.

───Kwaaaang!

During this, with a terrifying noise, tons of stone blocks fell from the very center of the sky garden. The building weakened by the earthquake first collapsed in places where it could. Given the damage those falling rocks inflicted on this building, it was only a matter of time before it was completely destroyed.

Of course, that was only when analyzing the phenomenon of falling rocks itself. From a tactical standpoint, it meant that several pieces of cover had appeared over the wide-open sky garden.

And then…

-[Alert: Fire detected.]

It was about time to get out of the building.

I opened the door and stepped outside into a space filled with black smoke, cautiously entering the newly formed cover in the sky garden. Naturally, even with cover present, I had no intention of staying here. If I engaged in a hard fight here for even a few minutes, the floor would collapse. Underneath was, of course, filled with the bright red liquid of death.

However, that very fact could be exploited. Moving around the cover in the sky garden, I switched two sticky bombs and three nanite canisters to autonomous mode and buried them out of sight. Since it had not been long since the falling rocks had occurred, there was no one coming, making it possible to do so.

If there had been a second ceiling collapse, I would have been crushed.

I crossed the sky garden to the opposite side. Here, there was a massive library. In other words, it was filled with materials that could easily ignite and could simultaneously cause the collapse of the building due to their own weight.

Of course, it seemed someone had already thought a step ahead.

"Who set fire to this already?"

Just as I said.

With crackling sounds, tens of thousands of books and bookshelves were fiercely burning. The bookshelves had turned into a mass of flames dense enough for a person to pass through, and the radiant heat was no joke. Moreover, considering how excessively the fire had spread, someone must have intentionally shot or thrown incendiary devices to start the fire.

It was certain that it was a fire deliberately set to block the pathway or create a favorable environment. This meant that the moment I broke through this place, I was likely to see the enemy’s vulnerable flank. Furthermore, it was completely impossible to conduct precise reconnaissance of such a fire scene.

My shield reserves were still considerable.

There was no reason not to break through.

-[Warning: Large heat source detected. Distance is excessively close.]

I crossed the burning library quickly.

Since it was densely packed with bookshelves, there was no need for delicate reconnaissance. In the first place, it was a place where anything could be hidden if one wanted to hide something. Instead of meticulously scouting, the best course of action was to leave this place as quickly as possible.

But how long had it been since I moved?

───Tang! Tang! Tang!

A lighter sound than that of a rifle echoed from the right. The shield hadn’t been significantly damaged, indicating it was likely a pistol bullet. However, the mere fact that someone was shooting a pistol at this point made no sense. It wouldn’t inflict much damage anyway.

Thus, that gunfire was a kind of signal. It was closer to a system established to automatically respond through some method when someone passed a designated patrol area. Considering that purpose… it was likely to ascertain the enemy’s position.

In other words, the moment I heard that gunfire, I needed to escape this place as quickly as possible.

It was already too late.

"This is bad."

Swoosh!

A sinister sound resonated from the floor. The nanite canister melted the floor in an instant, and simultaneously, the bookshelves and floor surrounding me collapsed. Just before I was about to be crushed by the four bookshelves falling from all sides, I quickly dodged and jumped toward the one spot that seemed relatively solid.

And at that moment, the floor collapsed entirely.

───Kwahjijijik!

"Kugh…!"

Since I jumped hastily, I had no time to calculate the landing point, and because the floor collapsed more than expected, I bumped my head a little. I nearly fell through. However, the bright red flames visible from the gaping hole whipped at me to keep moving without delay.

And as expected…

───Tududududu!

Bullets began flying from the side.

An alarming precision, immediate evasion upon realizing the fact, and rapid tactical movement. Along with the ability to set traps and the audacity to execute them. At that point, I could identify who the enemy was.

It wasn’t an avatar I had memorized, but that very fact became a hint. There was a reason they consistently ranked in the top 20%. As one moved toward the upper echelons of the Final Championship, there were always familiar faces. And if there was someone I couldn’t remember among them, it would be difficult to see it as an unexpected rise from someone.

In other words, that was a Korean user. And it was highly likely to be Dice.

As soon as I realized that, I couldn’t help but smile.

"Surely, if I had been even a little bit later, I would have been dead."

After numerous studies, had I finally succeeded in using a trap that could send Logan and me to the grave?

But even so, I wasn’t necessarily at an advantage yet. In fact, it was the opposite. At this moment, if I were to refer to that user as Dice—she was hiding behind sturdy cover and was fiddling with something. My anxiety only grew further, especially in the part where she wasn’t shooting.

At the same time, what she pulled out was— a chemical launcher. However, when she fired its contents into the air, it was not like a nanite canister. It was literally a grenade.

Indeed, had she been able to keep one hidden even from me?

The tension of being able to die at this spot and the realization that Dice had grown to the point of being able to kill me intersected, stirring up my animal instincts for the first time in a while. I felt a clear smile forming on my lips that I couldn’t ignore.

A thrill surged through me that I had never felt during combat.

───Kwahaaang!

Simultaneously, a grenade flew with a speed impossible for a person to throw and exploded just above my head. It precisely hit the ceiling, which was already weakened, emitting an ominous noise.

Instinctively rolling away from that spot, massive stone blocks fell again. It was hard to distinguish whether this was the Final Championship or something else. But even in that moment, I didn’t hide my smile as I fired my gun and moved.

The library was collapsing entirely. Dice, as if she had anticipated this, moved to another location, and I chased after her. Thus, flames and soot, along with bullets and blood, painted a massive canvas known as a chase.

As two colossal wheels named Dice and I moved closer and farther from each other, those caught in between were ejected into the lobby like sparks. During the escape, Dice attracted aggro in all directions, and I detected and dealt with the enemies responding to her.

An adept escape, while through skillful hate manipulation, she tossed another enemy toward me, using them as bait to buy time. She was probably growing in this spot by the second. If one were to pick one of the most brilliant moments of Dice’s life since she was born, it would undoubtedly be this very moment.

And it was my role to break that.

"Cough!"

Ugh!

With precise movements and the grenade plus hologram decoy, Dice successfully diverted another user’s attention, then struck her opponent’s jaw with her gun’s stock, using that as her shield while she shot at me with her right hand, dragging the body of the stunned corpse with her left to shield herself.

Without hesitation, I slammed a sticky bomb, and Dice and another user bounced away from that spot. Of course, since that user absorbed nearly all the explosive force, she remained unscathed. The individual was blasted into the lobby as ash.

She used every means at her disposal to bind my feet, and most of the results had the precision and power that could potentially kill me.

However, the chase was bound to end eventually.

Not being able to kill me in one go was Dice’s only mistake, if one could even call it a mistake. Of course, my shield had broken, my HP had dropped below half, and I had expended a large amount of ammunition, meaning she had indeed achieved the maximum result she could.

Seo Ye-rin, shot in the leg, collapsed on the spot. Of course, I hadn’t gotten close. I hadn’t approached for about ten seconds, keeping my distance while aiming, since I could have ended up exchanging grenades at the last moment.

"…Ha, I really wasn’t fooled. I should have caught you at the beginning…."

As I said that, two grenades with pins still in them rolled out from her arms, and Dice forced a smile.

She was armed, but her hands had already been hit by bullets multiple times. It was practically like she had half her limbs cut off, making it fair to say she was at a point where she couldn’t use either her arms or legs.

Normally, she could recover through a nanomachine injection, but since I was watching her with wide-open eyes, that was impossible. Essentially, she was merely waiting to be ejected into the lobby.

The conversation continued.

"…You can come in first, right, teacher?"

"Of course."

I nodded at that, and Dice painfully leaned her body against cover.

I pulled the trigger. Dice became a pile of items and dispersed into glimmering polygon fragments, melting into thin air.

After glancing at that for a moment, I tossed aside the gun I had been using and the remaining magazine and picked up the AAC Honey Badger that Dice had been using.

Because I wanted to bring the final victory of the Final Championship to the gun she had used.

-[Alert: 1 enemy remains.]

With Dice’s death, only one person was left.

Pushing through the rising dust, a figure walked in holding a shield. Though covered in concrete debris, her hair looked as if it had been pulled straight from her head, white as snow, and her chilling sky-blue eyes were staring directly at me.

Logan Blemis.

The mountain I had to climb.

The wall I had to overcome.

The end of the Final Championship.

I firmly shouldered the Honey Badger Dice had left behind and cautiously raised it.

Aligning the sights, I placed my finger on the trigger, aiming precisely at her head.

With a crack, the bullet flew into the sky, and at that moment, Logan vanished.

The final confrontation of the Final Championship began.

───Clank!

"I’m here, I’m here!"

"Fourth place in the Final Championship has arrived!"

"Yujin, Yujin, are you still in the match?"

"Oh, is that more urgent? You’re still alive, so sit here quickly."

The final match of the Final Championship—third place.

As Dice received the results sheet, she switched to AFK mode the moment she was ejected into the lobby, literally tossing aside the choker around her neck and dashed down the hallway, bursting through the door to the debriefing room. Inside, it was naturally filled with the Korean representatives who had been eliminated first, and they offered their congratulations, guiding her to her designated seat that had been arranged for her.

As she sat down and looked at the screen, what she saw were Yujin’s first-person and third-person views, along with a small mini-map displayed on the right. However, what caught Dice's eye wasn’t that.

Yujin, having discarded her previous gun, was now wielding the AAC Honey Badger that Dice had just been holding, engaged in a life-or-death battle with Logan.

The moment she realized that, Gambit added:

"Even if you can’t win, the gun you hold will win."

"Hah, Yujin, for real…."

The sight of millions, perhaps even billions, of people watching.

Yujin, without hesitation, threw away the weapon she had been using to pay her respects to Dice, or perhaps for a similar reason, and took up the gun she had used. Of course, some might think otherwise, but who cares? It would be revealed later if they asked directly.

What on earth should she react to this? Dice wore a strange expression, resembling someone about to cry or laugh, and stared at the screen without responding to anyone’s words.

The only thing she could offer was one prayer.

'…Please win and come back.'

That was her utmost wish.