Am I the only one streaming Sword Art Online on the entire internet?

Shino shook her head slightly. Her tongue was paralyzed, curled up in her parched mouth. She bent over deeply, leaning against the wall and dry heaving.

"Remember to bring more money next time. We feel bad for you looking like this, right? After all, you're our friend..."

Who are your friends? Damn it. Why did I ever choose to be friends with these people...?

Shi leaned weakly against the wall; the only reason she was still standing there was her unwillingness to submit to these people. But just then, a sudden voice came from the other end of the alley.

"Officer! This way!"

"Damn it..." Endo's hand left his schoolbag, and the three of them immediately rushed forward at a very fast speed, eventually disappearing into the crowd of the shopping street. Only then did Shino's legs truly lose their strength, and she collapsed to the ground as if she were about to faint. She desperately tried to regulate her breathing, trying to suppress the feeling of panic. When she put her glasses back on and turned around, she found a thin boy standing in front of her.

She thought to herself, "They're familiar friends." Suddenly, she felt much more at ease.

"It's alright... Thank you, Shinkawa-kun. Where's the policeman?"

"I'm just kidding. Don't TV dramas and comics often have this kind of plot? I've wanted to try it out for a long time."

He scratched his head through his hat, smiling somewhat sheepishly. Shino paused for a moment, then gently shook her head.

"...How could you put on such a show in such a critical moment? What are you doing here?"

"Well... I just finished playing the game. I'll stop here for now. How about we go to a coffee shop for a drink?" Shinkawa, with a bright smile, extended his right hand to Shino and pulled her up from the ground. "You might think I'm being long-winded, but for things like this... it's probably better to talk to the school about it."

"No need, I'm not going to associate with them anymore anyway." Shino shook her head and then politely declined Shinkawa's invitation. "I have a live broadcast today, let's talk about it another day."

220. Sorin: Ubisoft, you're targeting me and Kirito!

Although the exact principle is unknown, Sorin was not able to randomly customize his character's appearance this time, or rather, his character design was already locked after he bought The Division.

"What if I don't want to play anymore? Should I create a new account?" Solin said, deciding to act immediately. He went back to the login screen, created a new account, and completed the tutorial. However, when he looked out the car window, he found that he still had the same appearance. His long, bright silver hair fluttered in the breeze, and his face not only replicated reality but even looked softer than in real life.

Fortunately, he was able to determine this by his flat chest, confirming that his gender in the game had not changed.

[Grandpa Suo, stop struggling, just leave it at that.]

[The game's official perks are great, Ubisoft will always be my dad.jpg]

Sorin was so engrossed in watching the chaotic barrage of comments that he lost all motivation to even complain. However, he still managed to prioritize, at least for him, finding Kirito was the most important thing right now.

“Alright friends, let’s take a look at this character now… max level? What’s going on?” Solin looked at the white zone level marked 30 in the upper left corner with some surprise, and his tone became strange. “But we shouldn’t have any max-level characters here… Where did this Secret Lone Star set come from?”

Besides the Lone Star armor set, there were two Grand Alejandro rifles and two Cassidy shotguns in his weapon inventory and backpack, respectively. He vaguely felt something was off, but after attributing these oddities to the official cheat codes, he didn't want to pay any more attention to the details.

"Alright friends, now that we've got a fully-fledged account, it wouldn't be right not to play it. Let's check Kirito's location. He seems to be lost, wandering around aimlessly."

Sorin opened the mini-map and watched as the yellow marker representing Kirito wandered around the entire camp, gaining a new appreciation for Kirito's level of idiocy.

"Stop wandering around, just wait in one place, I'll come get you."

Sorin glanced at the route and headed in Kirito's direction. The camp had a strong post-apocalyptic feel; the once-high-rise buildings outside looked dilapidated, like a city ravaged by a world war.

“If Ubisoft really is a pioneer… Assassin’s Creed represents the past, Rainbow Six Siege is the present, then The Division… isn’t that the future?” Sorin looked at the devastated scene and suddenly began to ponder. “The Strategic Homeland Bureau is now confirmed to be a real organization, after all, I’m wearing the Raider suit. But will the first batch of agents really betray us in the future?”

He had a vague feeling that if such a thing were to happen, it wouldn't just be New York and Washington in the United States that would be thrown into turmoil. The whole world could potentially descend into chaos. He forced himself to shift his attention away from it; after all, even if the future turned out this way, it wasn't something he could stop alone. This feeling of going with the flow made him very uncomfortable.

"Solin! Over here!"

Sorin suddenly heard such a shout. The voice sounded somewhat familiar, but it was softer than the one he was used to. He looked in the direction of the voice and saw a girl in a white and purple mixed combat outfit, her long, straight black hair flowing down her back just like his. Of course, her private parts were just as flat as his—obviously, otherwise this book would become a harem story.

"Who are you, you scoundrel...? Oh my god, hahaha... I never thought even someone with thick eyebrows and big eyes like you would..."

The moment Solin saw the girl, he burst out laughing, a truly exaggerated laugh. The girl reacted similarly when she saw Solin, and the two of them pointed at each other, laughing until they were breathless.

"And you're one of them, aren't you? Onee-sama?" Kirito pointed at Sorin's current appearance, laughed for a while before finally catching his breath, and stood there panting slightly. "I'll ask you later, are you...?"

"I'm going live now. If we're going to embarrass ourselves, we'll embarrass ourselves together. My viewers already laughed at me after I created my character." Sorin said, hooking his arm around Kirito's shoulder. His smile looked incredibly smug. "Good brothers should share the good times and the bad, right? Look at me, I'm still going live even in this state, how can I not include you?"

The two are in a very interesting position right now. Although Suolin thinks it's just like a brother putting his arm around his shoulder, to outsiders it looks like a silver-haired, purple-eyed older sister teasing her timid younger sister.

“But you’re like this in real life too, and I’m not…” Kirito muttered to himself, still a little uncomfortable in this position. He escaped from Sorin’s arm and awkwardly turned his head to the side. “By the way, Mr. Kikuoka said that both of our accounts were actually transferred over. You can check your status; you should be at max level with god-tier gear.”

“I checked, it’s definitely max level, and the set is Secret Lone Star. What about you?” Sorin nodded in realization, then looked at Kirito with a questioning gaze. “For a melee maniac like you, you should probably have close-combat gear like D3-FNC or Ronin.”

In The Division 3, the D3-FNC retains its frontline-focused design, while the Ronin set is now specialized for wilderness survival and skirmishes. However, Kirito simply shook his head upon hearing this, indicating that it wasn't either of those two.

"No, and I still haven't figured out how to use this set." Kirito said, showing his stats to Sorin. Sorin subconsciously leaned closer to Kirito, observing his stats: a standard electrician setup, wearing the Strategy of Power set, and holding a 206 item level LOVA-C electrician gun and an electrician-grade healing sniper rifle.

"Are you kidding me? You're such a noob at FPS games, how could you possibly understand this? You're probably messing with me." Solin shook his head, then grabbed his hand and started browsing the menu in front of him. "Really nothing else? How about you use me later... never mind, Lone Star might be even more difficult to play."

"Sorin... let go of me for a second..." Kirito huddled against Sorin's shoulder, his voice sounding incredibly weak, "This feels weird?"

"If you don't mean anything by it, then there's nothing strange about it." Although Sorin said this, she also let go of his hand and stood a little further away from Kirito.

"The problem does indeed seem to be..."

223. Weapon Selection and Betting

Sinon shook her head, stopping her pointless thoughts, and then turned her attention to the two's equipment. She noticed that they were both wearing complete sets of gear. Although she didn't know if it was classified equipment, obtaining such a set would mean they had fought for a long time in activities such as hunting rogue agents or resistance. However, based on Sorin's description, he and his sister Kiriko were clearly just beginners.

"You should already have suitable weapons, so why are you looking for a weapon shop?" Instead of directly questioning them, she asked indirectly, "I can't tell from Kirito's side, but your weapons must be fully upgraded, right?"

“Indeed, but I’m missing a long-range weapon. I can’t exactly be using a Cassidy to fight someone from 30 or 40 meters away,” Sorin explained calmly. He finally stopped what he was doing and smiled as he watched Kirito flee to a spot a little distance away. “Besides, Kirito isn’t really good at electrical work; her movement skills are just okay. I’m planning to get her a secondary shotgun for close-range self-defense and finishing off enemies.”

“I see.” Sinon’s blue eyes sparkled, and a clear smile appeared on her lips. “A newbie trying to participate in BOB right off the bat, that’s quite courageous. Come with me.”

She turned around and walked forward, with Sorin calmly following behind, while Kirito followed a little further away from Sorin, presumably still shaken by what had just happened.

After walking through a series of winding alleys, moving walkways, and stairs that Kirito could never possibly remember, he suddenly came to a main road after a few minutes. Right in front of him was a bright shop that looked like a foreign convenience store.

"So we see that the city in this game is a product of the complete collapse of the original order. Look, this weapon shop is openly located in... Oh, sorry, I forgot that this is a United States setting. It's quite normal for a gun shop to be open on the street."

Sorin was still giving a serious explanation as he followed Sinon through the crowd into the store. Once inside, the feeling of crowding lessened considerably, but it was simply because the hit boxes between players had been removed.

The spacious store was filled with lights of various colors and was quite noisy, like an amusement park. The NPC shop assistants who spawned here all had innocent and cheerful business smiles, and in their hands they held things that were thicker than the bottom of Kirito's skirt, emitting a dark glow.

Kirito, looking around with an air of naiveté, occasionally uttered exclamations of wonder. Meanwhile, Sorin immediately opened the shop interface, quickly browsing the secondary weapon items.

"Actually, compared to stores that are suitable for beginners, more specialized stores have better products. However, if you just want a secondary shotgun for melee combat, it's fine to choose it here, but I don't know how much money you have left."

Sinon gave a wry smile as she watched Sorin pull Kirito in front of her and then explained. Kirito, upon hearing this, realized the problem: all the other players in the shop besides the three of them were wearing brightly colored clothing, unlike their professional camouflage, giving them a newbie vibe.

“If nothing unexpected happens, Sorin’s stats will be at maximum firepower, while Kirito’s will probably be a mix of firepower and electricity.” Sinon pondered for a while, then pulled up the shop menu in front of them. “For maximum firepower ranged weapons, I recommend this one, [Competitor]. As for Kirito… I still recommend the Colt Revolver, since it has a rapid-fire function.”

"Sorin, do you think we have enough money to buy weapons?" Kirito asked softly, looking at the price list. "Why do I feel like our initial 1000 points aren't enough?"

"Are you kidding? When has The Division ever lacked white zone points? You can easily buy a couple of gold weapons for hundreds of thousands of points... It's true..."

Solin glanced at the 1000 white zone points displayed in the lower right corner of his phone, thought for a moment, and reluctantly suggested, "How about I just buy you a pistol with the Cold and Composed talent, and you can use it to refresh your skill cooldowns?"

He had indeed considered asking Sinon for some obsolete weapons or something, but Kirito seemed quite resistant to such things, perhaps due to his past as an MMO player. However, at that moment, Kirito suddenly had an idea.

"Um... is there any place where I can make money quickly? I heard this game has a casino."

When Sinon heard Kirito ask this question, she finally showed a helpless smile once again.

"That's a form of entertainment you do when you have extra money, under the premise that you're guaranteed to lose. Yes, there is one. I think this shop should have one too—look."

Ahead, where her slender fingertip pointed, lay a massive structure adorned with gleaming lights. A closer look revealed it to be an object that occupied a corner of the wall—far too large for a game console. It was approximately three meters wide and twenty meters long. A metal-plated floor was surrounded by a waist-high fence, and at the far end stood an NPC resembling a Western gunslinger, with the name McCree above his head.

He would occasionally draw his massive pistol, the "Peacekeeper," from his waist, then twirl it between his fingers while uttering lines like, "At least somewhere, it's noon." Behind him was a brick wall riddled with bullet holes, on which the words "Untouchable!" were written in neon.

Regardless of what others might think when they see this scene, all Thorin can think of right now is the dungeon called "The Stolen Signal," and then he habitually starts criticizing his own Diablo 3 players.

"After entering through the gate in front of you, see how far you can get by dodging the gunfire from the NPCs inside. The highest record so far is there."

The outstretched index finger pointed to a thin, red-glowing line on the ground inside the fence, extending more than two-thirds of the way across. It looked like many had tried here, but none had succeeded—just look at the sign above it displaying a whopping 300,000 points.

"It costs 500 points to play once, and you can get 1,000 points if you break through 10 meters, and 2,000 points if you break through 15 meters. If you can run into McCree, all the money that the players have contributed so far will go to that person."

"All...all of them?" Kirito asked incredulously.

"Yes, because it's simply impossible... wait?"

Shino wanted to say that it was impossible to succeed, but when she turned her gaze back to the entrance, she found that Sorin had run over there at some point, swiped his card to pay at the entrance, and then darted out like an arrow.

224. It's noon.

Normally, if you're aiming to win money, you should wait for someone to check it out before trying. However, Suolin is rather reckless when playing games...

A deafening roar of cheers erupted from the surrounding audience, and a dozen or so eagle-eyed observers immediately gathered around. Upon seeing the challenger, McCree uttered, "Justice doesn't always prevail," before placing his right hand on his holster. A massive green holographic number "3" appeared before Sorin, its sound effects gradually decreasing to 2, 1, and finally, as it reached zero, the metal bar acting as a gate opened with a resounding thud.

Sorin silently took out a delicate mask from his backpack that covered half of his face and put it on. Then he strode forward. Of course, he wasn't sprinting in a straight line. Kirito could see clearly that as he charged forward, he was actually swaying left and right, interspersed with turns and crouching movements. Kirito initially thought it was some kind of dance, but the next moment, magnum opus pellets grazed his body and flew out—strangely enough, Sorin's dodging seemed as if he already knew where the deadly magnum opus pellets were going to pass.

“No, this isn’t an attack evasion based on the [ballistic prediction line].” Sinon’s voice, mixed with doubt and surprise, suddenly reached Kirito’s ears. “His movement is irregular to begin with, and with the ballistic prediction line, he can basically dodge all attacks… He’s really amazing.”

At that moment, Sorin could indeed see the red bullet trajectory prediction lines that had appeared before McCree fired, but he didn't know what they were at first, relying only on his intuition and serpentine movements to avoid the shots. Once he understood the purpose of those red lines, he began to sprint forward at a slightly faster pace, until he reached the seven-meter line.

After the seven-meter line, there would be two more three-round bursts. Although it looked incredibly fast, Sorin never stopped, using only the smallest movements to dodge the constantly appearing bullet trajectory prediction lines. By the time the bullets actually passed through, he had often already sprinted to a position further ahead.

Sorin crossed the ten-meter line just like that. The system seemed to emit a brief sound effect, but he didn't pay any attention to it. After two bursts of three shots, the gunman ejected the empty reel and flung it behind him, then immediately inserted six brand-new Magnum rounds. The whole process took only 0.5 seconds.

"This reload speed is practically cheating..." Sinon exclaimed softly as she watched the scene unfold.

"Yeah, the way you're reloading... at least roll over, you won't even roll?" This was Kirito's sarcastic remark, followed by the sight of McCree pointing his loaded gun at Sorin once more. "But things are going to get tough from here on out..."

“That’s right, what follows will be completely unpredictable shooting, and we’ll have to rely on our instincts to dodge.” Sinon explained, her own nervousness tinged with a hint of anticipation.

Indeed, the next attack was completely different from the previous three-round bursts. Deadly attacks came at an irregular frequency, first two shots, then three in quick succession. He dodged them with his instincts and practiced dodgeball, then advanced another five meters. Cheers erupted in his ears once more, and McCree once again switched gears without even rolling.

With only five meters remaining, the enemy was practically upon them, but the bullets were also accelerating. McCree's dark eyes, hidden beneath his cowboy hat, darted slightly, then he aimed at about the height of Thorin's neck, placed his left hand on the firing pin of his revolver, and unleashed a six-round burst.

Sorin made a quick decision, sliding to dodge McCree's six-barreled attack, and after passing through the six lines of fire, he once again shortened the distance by two and a half meters.

"Now he's out of ammo," he thought. However, when Sorin looked at McCree, he noticed a strange glint of confidence still in his eyes. At that moment, Sorin suddenly remembered that in Overwatch, even after McCree had used his six-shot combo and tactical roll, there was still a way for him to conjure something out of thin air using his Peacekeeper, even though he was out of ammo.

Thinking this, Solin quickly did a forward roll to his feet and then leaped high into the air. The peacekeeper suddenly fired six lasers, piercing through the spot where he had just been standing.

"It's high noon!...what the fxck?"

McCree's confident demeanor instantly transformed into utter bewilderment. Sorin landed steadily in front of him, then tapped him on the chest. After a complete silence fell over the store, followed by a frenzied roar of cheers from the audience and the clanging of metal. Before Sorin could even process the sound of the impact, he saw the brick wall behind McCree collapse rapidly, as if an internal explosion had occurred, and then countless gold coins poured out like rain.

The total amount displayed below the neon sign rapidly decreased, and when it reached zero, the golden waterfall stopped. A louder commotion erupted inside the store; the game had been reset, and McCree stood up again, twirling his pistol in his finger. Although he was still standing there muttering, "At least somewhere, it's noon," after that exaggerated six-hit combo—"Noon is here!"—Sorin doubted whether anyone would be willing to go up and feed.

The crowd, which had seemingly doubled in size, erupted in deafening cheers, with shouts of "What just happened?" and "Who is that girl?" echoing everywhere. Seeing this spectacle, Solin thought to himself that choosing to wear the mask was a wise decision.

"That's an amazing reaction speed... I thought you'd become an old player after retiring for so long."