───Phew!

"Ugh, what’s going on? What happened?"

"…Y-yeah, I guess it’s different when it's the U.S. doing it..."

Saint Petersburg, Russia.

The temperature was in the single digits, causing visible breath in the air, with a cloudy, gloomy sky—yet the view outside the window, perfectly contrasting with the weather, was beautiful. The hotel where Dice, Harmony, and a group of twenty would stay for about two weeks greeted them with its large windows, but not today.

The holograms projected by the projector, and the large screen capable of accommodating them, were all part of the theater they visited. Harmony and Dice were lounging in chairs, with a large LED clock nearby—pointing to 8 a.m.

It almost looked like a first-person movie or an FPS game. However, the sense of reality in the scene was incomparable to any game or movie ever released, and perhaps the global audience shared the same sentiment, as the chat room to the right, though slowed down, still displayed an overwhelming amount of activity.

So, what was this about? It was a live broadcast of a sniper competition, streamed by Icarus in partnership with the U.S. Department of Defense.

It wasn’t a live broadcast, it was a relay.

"So, if we go by Saint Petersburg’s time zone… this is showing what happened in the U.S. about 2-3 hours ago?"

"Right. They said they censor or cut out anything that shouldn’t be broadcasted. This is the edited version they’re airing now. So, it’s a relay."

"Aha."

Just 24 hours before the last mission, a kind of… streaming preview through Icarus.

To sum it up, it was a simple matter. The U.S. Department of Defense, which had seen a significant rise in global interest regarding the sniper competition, had very unusually agreed to allow the final mission—a fortress assault—to be broadcast. This was approved.

The political giants in Washington D.C. knew this was a sort of performance by the Department of Defense, which had close ties to the Republican Party, to ensure they wouldn’t fall behind the Democrats, who were expected to take power. And there were countless vested interests tied into this. However, most people were unaware of these details.

The reason for that was simple.

The fierce ranking battles among special forces soldiers representing their countries were akin to… a game competition, and it was because of this that no one cared much about the behind-the-scenes politics.

"So, what should I say, Eugene… you won the final championship last year, so you’re aiming to win it again this year?"

"Unfortunately, as an alternate participant, I won’t be able to take the trophy, but I’ll bring something similar, I guess."

East Asia qualifiers, Europe qualifiers, North America qualifiers, South America qualifiers, Africa qualifiers, and so on.

Starting next week, qualifiers would be held in many countries to select participants for the final championship, and anyone who had even a slight interest in the game, or in the Dark Zone matches where each country’s representatives would compete, was essentially a potential viewer.

Among them, the fact that two representatives were selected from each country—the top elite special forces of each nation—competing against special forces from other countries that had gone through the same process was bound to become a topic of conversation beyond just casual chatter.

And the result of this?

It was that countless viewers, who could barely be counted, were watching the fortress assault mission video.

And back to the main focus.

Among them, Eugene and Logan were, of course, the most popular. As expected, no one would ever know exactly which units they belonged to—no one would be told, not even if the world turned upside down.

"Wow, are they really shooting? I can hear trees snapping...?"

"Maybe they’re deliberately missing. There’s no way they’d shoot for real."

Beyond the screen, Eugene watched as dead trees snapped and quickly hid near a valley where the bullets wouldn’t reach. She discarded her gear into the bushes and checked the mission displayed on her device.

Some sensitive content had been censored, but the many viewers quickly figured out what mission Logan’s team had been assigned.

Live fire threats using real bullets. However, due to the smart missiles contained in the bullets, they would not hit the two unless something went terribly wrong. But after a certain time, a Miles laser would scan Eugene or Logan, marking them for at least a minor or moderate injury.

Logan's team had to stop a humanoid sniper attempting to carry this out.

In short, it was a counter-sniping mission.

In the fast-paced situation, no one would fail to feel the tension.

-Check the bullet hit location and the angle of the broken tree!

-The shot came from the hill to the west. After confirming the crack bang, it didn’t exceed 3 seconds, so no matter how far, the distance between them shouldn’t be more than 1 km.

-Damn, where did I put that scale tape...

Crack bang—otherwise known as the sonic boom heard after the bullet hits.

Unlike ordinary people who can only hear it from up to 450 meters, Eugene and Logan, being Awakened, detected the barely audible sound of the sonic boom with success.

Logan marked the result of multiplying the average time of 2.5 seconds, as Eugene had promised, by 340, giving a result of 850 meters, and then, taking a map out from his chest, drew a virtual line with his eyes, making hash marks on the locations he predicted the enemy might be.

This took a mere 10 seconds.

The counter-sniping tactic was carried out in an instant, and nothing was censored in the process. Naturally, this was impossible to replicate even for other special forces soldiers, let alone ordinary civilians.

The viewers' reactions were predictable.

"…Wow. I know it sounds cliché, but that was really cool."

"Sometimes it feels like those two… have probably been through a lot of situations like this. How do you train to react like that? Maybe with VR equipment…?"

In the meantime, Eugene and Logan quickly increased the distance and changed positions.

They did this to find a place where they could better snipe the enemy and, as they moved, they observed the enemy sniper’s shots to better pinpoint their position.

Crack. This time the tree snapped, and only a faint shot sound followed. But, as though it wasn’t enough that they possessed heightened senses, the two of them quickly regained their composure and settled into position.

After a few deep, mechanical breaths, their heartbeats began to slow down.

"So that’s why they do training that exhausts your stamina before shooting."

"…There really are all sorts of things."

Unlike the millions of viewers who watched this in excitement, Eugene and Logan never lost their calm despite the urgency of the situation.

The two set up the bipod of their TAC-50 sniper rifles, swept the area with their scopes several times, and even took out binoculars with laser range finders to measure the exact distance to the likely enemy position: 850 meters, as predicted by Eugene and calculated by Logan.

Soon, they witnessed the glint of sunlight reflected off a scope, and through the enemy humanoid sniper's turret, they spotted a spinning anemometer.

Of course, upon seeing this, they could immediately infer the wind speed and direction.

-Confirming enemy location. Wind speed: 9 m/s, wind direction: from southwest to northeast. Crosswind blowing from left to right.

-Humidity: 50%. 850 meters. Time taken so far: 1 minute 23 seconds… Let’s go.

-Zeroing complete. I’ll take the first shot. If they try to flee, you take successive shots.

-Of course.

───Ping!

And the shooting began.

The first shot missed, but since it landed below the humanoid sniper, the enemy didn’t flee. Logan, noticing the downwind from afar, reloaded while informing Eugene about the situation. The clicking sound from their in-ear comms indicated she was adjusting the elevation.

Not even a second passed before Logan loaded a round into the chamber and sealed the breech, followed by a loud boom.

An eternity of silence followed.

-…Left shoulder. Slightly off-target. The guy’s trying to get up…!

-That arm’s completely wrecked. Where does he think he’s going?

Without delay, Logan pulled the trigger again.

And how much time had passed?

───Crack!

-Wow.

-That’s what happens when you try to flee.

A bullet flew in an arc, striking the humanoid robot’s waist as it attempted to rise and run to the right.

It was a very short time, but it looked almost like slow motion. The robot was cut in half at the waist and rolled off the ridge on the other side, as if a blade from the sky had severed it and pushed it over the cliff.

How can one describe this? While the viewers were processing this, Eugene and Logan, seeing their successful completion of the side mission, watched the small vibration on their devices and chuckled quietly.

A brief exchange followed.

"Phew, really… situation’s over. Let’s go back to our path."

"That’s why special forces guys can’t live long and get startled even when they hear the sound of a breath."

In the 1.5 minutes captured by the first-person cam, the viewers could almost feel the struggles and sacrifices of the special forces soldiers.

"…My ears are itchy. Feels like a shark’s cursing us."

"That’s just because the guys who got side missions like us started their engagements."

"I figured as much."

Meanwhile, somewhere in the Georgia state national forest.

Two hours later, others were spending a peaceful time.

"Gunfire coming from all directions. The suppressors make it muffled, though."

"Yeah, it’s time. No one’s still trying to enter the unconfirmed area… Well, apart from the gunshots, there’s not much else to hear, so that’s probably it."

31 hours into the fortress assault mission, 4 a.m. the next day.

18 km to the fortress.

The temperature was drastically different from when the sun had risen. Under the harsh winds along the foothills and a sky blocked by the moonlight, with the team now reduced from 16 to 11, Logan and I, both clad in ghillie suits, surveyed the area, marking the positions of humanoid patrols on the UI.

There wasn’t complete darkness. Occasionally, headlights from vehicles passing on artificially constructed or unpaved roads pierced through the darkness. Most of them were humanoid patrols, but sometimes there were civilian vehicles unrelated to the training.

After about four hours of lying on the cold ground, my belly began to ache. But it was unavoidable. The thrill of staying still, minimizing movement, and doing everything sneaky possible was honestly fun.

What’s all this about?

"...The C4 traps were really fun. The guys across the way probably have no idea why their vehicles exploded. I can already imagine them grumbling at the reinforced defense lines."

"That’s the fun part."

Making things difficult for other teams within legal boundaries.

Small actions like shooting at the humanoid patrols near teams infiltrating from other directions, firing at concealed posts to make the enemy soldiers more alert, or shooting at SAM sites to speed up the activation of the anti-air defense network.

The first two situations were easy to imagine. But the last one might need some explanation.

───Pew!

"Well, well, well, someone just shot down a reconnaissance drone."

"Since information isn’t being shared, situations like this happen a lot. They could just grab a PDA from the humanoid patrols and check, though."

"Yeah, but it doesn’t always go as planned."

Somewhere, a missile was fired, and the blast illuminated the darkness.

It looked like fireworks, but it wasn’t the kind everyone thought. It was an anti-air missile fired from somewhere, silently taking down a medium-sized reconnaissance drone hovering in the dark.

It was the third time I’d seen this today. The team that had lost the drone would suffer quite a painful penalty. It wasn’t just damaged and crashed, but shattered in mid-air, so they wouldn’t even need to collect fragments.

To explain briefly, the reason this was possible was because SAM sites, which were usually in standby mode, activated as soon as the alert level was raised. The patrols or posts that hadn’t been handled in time triggered the alert.

There’s a reason they have strict standards for reconnaissance drones—being airborne makes them detectable by radar.

Being able to check where the enemy is from the high skies, without having to worry about detection, is a privilege. If that goes unchecked, everyone would just carry drones.

Anyway, back to the topic.

"3, 2, 1… Boom. Second C4 trap explosion."

"Explosion confirmed. See the flames in the distance."

The explosion wasn’t audible, but a small flame was visible about 10 km north of our position.

The C4 trap was simple. Place the explosives under a humanoid-operated vehicle, attach them when it passes, and set a timer between 5 and 25 minutes. When the timer hits zero, the explosion happens.

The explosion didn’t scatter many fragments, so there was little chance of debris flying. With the humanoids operating the vehicles, there was no need for us to get close to them.

The C4 traps had an effect: they disrupted the humanoid patrols’ network for a 1 km radius, causing chaos around the explosion site.

If a different team happened to be passing by at that time, they’d face a rough time—but then again, other teams weren’t any less sneaky. This mission was survival of the fittest.

Of course, no one else was quite as creative as us.

It was about time to move again.

"If this weren’t reality, other teams would probably be chasing us down like crazy, right?"

"I think they’re still coming after us like that now."

"We’ve probably earned our fair share of karma."

The sky was dark, but the stars twinkled in white.

My body felt heavy, my eyes drooping, but the air was clear.

37 hours left until the final mission was completed.