Terror Infinity - Side B

Chapter 3 - 1, Btooom.

One among many, a lone player of the real world Btooom game fell through the skys and touched the sands of the tropical island.

- *Crash Landing*!

Shin: *Sigh*... I finally made it! Parachuting at night is crazy scary. I only, kinda want to do again, only a little bit. Now then... What an I supposed to do now?

In the dead of night, I finally made it to the island death game where the real world Btooom takes place. From what I could see around me I landed on one of the beaches, barely missed ending up in the pitch black night ocean. For what I am too do now... I was lost.

I was separated from my teammates, new and old. It was too dangerous to look for them or NPCs to hunt for Chips in this darkness no matter how much better my vision has become. I also had no shelter from the cold of the night.

Shin: But first... I have to see if it is really safe.

Shin raised his left hand where his blue chip was implanted and ererted some force in to his left middle finger to activate the radar function of his blue IC Chip. He felt the radar blue-ish green wave of light spread out with him at the center, and waited for a possible response.

Shin: ...No responce is it. Well, no point in staying here any longer. Lets find somewhere I can get some idea where I am.

Now knowing that it was safe, I left the beach and walked fearlessly into dark island jungles of the night.

☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆

Shin left the beach and began walking into the island's jungle.

In the manga and anime there should be poisonous and large animals inside, like the giant Komodo Dragons, but he wasn't too worried. Shin had Ki, regenerative power of a ghoul and grenades. Whether it is a fight or he gets bitten by one of them, he should be fine for the most part long as he avoids whole families of them.

After an entire hour of tracking through the jungle in the darkness, having the bad luck to almost fall into two sink holes, Shin was greeted by two things. One was the light of the coming day and the other was...

- *Explosion*!!!

An explosion rang through out the island's jungle.

Whoever it was, Player vs NPC, or NPC vs NPC the fighting had begun. They used the light of the new day as a signal to start the killing of the death game.

Shin: Was no one confident enough to start a night battle on the first day? Wait, why am I making this sound like it has nothing to do with me? I don't have time to waste here. I need to get into the spirt as well and fight it out with them.

The reason was that I simply didn't want to die.

If I don't have two chips including my own by the midnight, or seven chips by the end of Day 7, I will be killed by God. I need two chips for today, and one additional chip for each of the following day that are to come.

I also have to collect as many chips as I can today.

Starting tomorrow the mysterious Btooom Soldiers and Btooom Commanders will start appearing. Their sole purpose will be to kill us players, but more importantly they will collect the chips the NPC's that us players desperately need.

Today, how many chips one can acquire will determine the difficulty of the next few days for us Player. Ideally, collecting all 7 today would be for the best. If not, starting tomorrow we will have to start looking for scarce NPCs while also being hunted by the BT Soldiers and BT Commanders.

Shin: No time to waste messing around. Time to look for my first chip.

☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆

Shin looked around for the next two hour using his radar, yet found no signs of either NPCs or his fellow Players. It was when he was about to give up and take a break that his luck changed for the better. Without even having to use his radar, Shin spotted something in the distance.

Shin: (That guy there... He is not one of the Players. He is an NPC!)

Sitting on a rock by a wide stream 400 meters from where I was hiding within the jungle was a lone man.

With a PET bottle that he must have had on him from the start, he was collecting water from the stream and looked to be resting. ( I have to wonder how clean the water here is on the island. I forgot that part, but it can't be healthy to drink that as is ).

He was definitely unaware of me, so this was my chance, but I couldn't be careless here. With my increased vision from my enhancements I was able to perfectly spot what was around the man's shoulder. It was one of the bags that are used to carry BIM.

I had to be careful. With my handgun and reflexes I definitely have the advantage, but depending on the type of BIM he has, I could be walking into a trap. If it is the Cracker or Timmer type bombs that need to be thrown I can manage, but if he has set a Remote Control BIM I could be walking into a trap, or if he has Barrier BIM then he can block my attacks and run away.

If it is the latter I just had to hunt him down till he runs out, but I don't like that idea. I will be spending tons of bullets firing at him when he has both Barriers and the natural barriers of the nearby trees and rocks, and when I do finally get him my reward will only be a single Chip and no BIM. My best course of action is to not let this get drawn into a battle and cleanly kill him in one shot of my gun.

Shin: Huh? Cleanly kill in one shot. When did I acquire the mindset to plan out a man's execution, I wonder? It is very good, but... A bit disturbing nonetheless.

☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆

NPC: What am I even doing here?

He was a man who lived a somewhat shameful life, but he had never done anything to deserve being sent to this place. This hell. A real life death game where they had to use toy looking, yet still real bombs to kill other people.

The man's name, family, friends and occupation didn't matter.

All that mattered was that his ex-girlfriend, who cheated on him and spent his savings sent him here. Just because the man was pestering her a little to return the outrageous amount of money that she spent, that she got fed up and submitted his name to be sent here.

NPC: Damm! She wasn't even that good looking of a women to be acting like that, but I gave her a chance because my coworkers said she was easily. I should have been the one to send her to this hell hole, not the other way around! Damm, just... Just what did I do to deserve to be sent here. I, I won't let it end here. Once I get eight of these chips I can return... Return and let her experience the shame, no much greater hardships then I had to-

- *SPLASH*!

NPC: Who's there!

The man turned his body around towards the stream where he heard something falling over. He was about to activate his radar to see if there was an enemy nearby, but he saw something sinking down the stream that made him relax and somewhat confused.

NPC: Just a rock. That nearly scared me to death. But still... How did a rock fall like that? There was nowhere high up for it to fall-

- *BANG*!!!

Something impacting the back of the man's head hard and fast, and the faint traces of his own blood pouring onto the stone he was just standing on... That was the last few things a nameless man who was brought to this island felt and saw before his life came to an end... Such was the fate of this NPC of Btooom.

☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆

Shin saw the bullet hit and rejoice at the message he them received from God.

- SIDE QUEST REWARD 2, NPC CHIP - 10 POINTS ACQUIRED.

Shin: Great! My plan worked, but I was scared there for a second. I don't know what I would have done if he had immediately activated his radar back there.

The one who had shot the NPC man was Shin. Shin devised a plan to have the NPC fousc his attention somewhere else for a moment so that he could get a clear shot in.

Shin's plan began by him finding a rock. Once he found a good rock he would throw up into the air, not at the NPC with the possibility of it missing. Then having said rock drop loudly into the stream just at the edge of the man's vision, away from where Shin was.

Then while carefully moving closer to the NPC while looking out for hidden traps, Shin would get within his best firing range, aim and then shoot the NPC dead. With his one shot hitting squarely in the back of the NPC's head, the plan was a success with Shin's victory.

His makeshift plan went off without a single hitch to even Shin's own surprise.

Shin: Who knew that with my aim and physical strength I could throw a stone so high into the air and land so precisely in the stream like that? Maybe instead of bullets, I could just throw stones at them. It will save me ammo for a real emergency and it is much quieter to throw stones then shooting a gun. Kinda like a silencer. Also, I should exchange for a silencer when I return to the Terminal Lobby.

With those thoughts still in my head, I decided to check my spoils of war.

The blue chip on the back of my left hand which before had the number 1 mark on it, the number 2 has taken its place. This confirmed that without having to take a fallen opponents chip personally, the one who kills the NPC will automatically gain his chip.

With two chips acquired, I now filled my base quota for the day and gained 10 points as well. Knowing that I am in the clear for tonight's Midnight Execution I can comfortably hunt for more chips without felling pressure to find my next foe immediately.

Shin: Now then, lets check out the second spoils of war, BIM!

Besides chips, the winner of a battle in Btooom can take the defeated parties chips. I wasn't allowed to start off this game with BIMS of my own, but now I would have my own set of BIM from the NPCs I've killed.

Watching my step as I moved closer to the fallen NPC, I reached out and took the man's BIM bandolier case. I opened the bag carefully and found that inside were all Timer BIM, BIMs that go off with a countdown instead of exploding on impact.

Doing a quick count, inside the case were all eight of the BIM that a NPC starts with were all here!

Shin: How lucky! How great is it that this guy didn't even use one BIM yet. Poor sap, I'll make sure to use them well and at use at least one before this mission is over.

To test to see if I was the rightful owner of these BIM now, I turned on and tried to adjust the countdown of one of my new Timer BIM. I could successfully set a Timer BIM's countdown for as long as ten seconds or as short as one second. Timer BIM were useful, difficult to use because of the adjustable countdown that was the key point for this BIM.

I need both instant explosions and set timer for practical combat, so I set the countdown of four of the eight BIM for one second and left the rest unset for now. Now I had effectively four Cracker like BIMs and four timers that I can adjust to the situation.

Shin: My first kill was easy. Let us hope that the next one will be just as-

- *PING*!

Shin: Wha- Th-that was was a reaction. From the chip on the back of my left hand there was some kind of reaction to something... Someone just used their radar on me. I have to get out of here!

That was my first thought.

Obviousl, in this real life death game of Btooom or in any combat situation one should run away when there position is found out. A Blazing Gas BIM could be thrown over here at any second for instance, but this was also a chance.

Like a wise red haired magician of the Type Moon universe once said, 'Escaping without purpose is called falling and escaping with purpose is called flying'. Just running away will do me no good.

This is a chance to set a trap.

It is only the first day in the death game, so the NPCs probably had yet to discover all the tactics one could use here on this island with their BIM and radars. If that NPC that I killed was a more experienced Btooom player he would have used his radar the moment he felt something was off.

More so then I originally thought, this was the ideal time to take advantage of the newbie NPCs. The difficulty of this mission itself is high, so the leaning speed of the NPCs may be faster then the players in the original manga.

Shin: I have to take advantage of this time. I'll hide.

Shin ran into the jungle quickly to hide, yet he did not go too far. Hiding within the trees and tall grass he kept silent. A few seconds later, someone came out of the jungle from the other side of the stream where Shin once was.

This person, a young girl raised her left hand where her chip was implanted and activated her radar. She did not get a response like she did the first time around, so she tried a second, third, fourth and fifth sweep of the area, but there was no response.

Shin's plan was working.

The IC Chip's radar can find other player's chips, yet only under one condition. They have to be moving. If someone who has a chip isn't moving around a lot like Shin is then the radar won't pick him up no matter how many times they sweep the area.

Shin: (Good. It seems like she thinks that whoever it was that she picked up escaped already. Now, it was my turn to ambush her. Don't hold it against me now.)

Once I was done acting like a cheap third rate villain and saw that the hand of the girl with the chip that she raised was down, and that there wasn't going to be another radar search, I began to act. While staying hidden and making as little noise as humanly possible, I crawled closer and closer back to the river stream.

Now that I was close as I could possibly get to her without leaving the cover of the jungle, and was able take her out, I was able to see her face clearly... And I unconsciously stood up from the tall grass and called out to her.

Shin: Hikari? What are you doing here? It is me, Sh-

Hikari: Kyaaa! Stay away!!

Hikari, our self-proclaimed genius hacker heroine took out not a BIM, but one of the grenades that I EXCHANGED FOR HER, AND SHE ALL TOO QUICKLY DECIDED TO RETURN IT TO ME BY THROWING IT IN MY DIRECTION.

Shin: Fuck! You-

- *EXPLOSION*!!!

Where Shin just stood... Became a sea of flames and smoldering earth.

☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆

Tyrannos Japan: Game Planner Gemu Shusaisha's Report 2.

Real World Btoom Game, Hard Mode - Day 1.

7:05 A.M

Players Alive: 12/15.

NPCs Alive: 140/150.

Btooom Soldiers Inactive: 25/25.

Btooom Commanders Inactive: 5/5.

Ryota Sakamoto, Btooom Lord Inactive: 1/1.

Daily Minutes -

1. The players of the 7th Real World Btooom have begun to face each. Still in the early stages.

2. Although it is not important... The security system was down for 2.03 seconds around 3 PM. The system scan showed that there were no errors that would get int he way of the game, but our technicians will keep an eye on the system.

☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆

Authors Note:

Now, if Shin survives his first bomb fight we can proudly begin the Hikari arc... Or the lost MC arc if he didn't make it.