Chapter 556: A Nostalgic Original Landscape Seen From a Swallow's Wings

Author's Preface

MHW is fun (An overly concise sentence to explain the reason for the late update).

You see, my life, you see, is being completely sucked dry by the Charge Blade............

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Scrap Gunman!

It's a new sensation hack-and-shot action game developed by Swallows Nest!!

A simple game where you slam damn bullets into the damn brains of undead scraps endlessly spawning from junk, "Scrads" for short!!

Equipping a dedicated AR controller, goggles, gloves, plates, belt, and boots to blow away enemies formed by AR is no different from most other AR games! But Scrap Gunman has a system that other games don't!!

And that is the glove... or rather, in terms of in-game lore, the "Rebuild System" that utilizes the "Scavenger Glove" to strip parts from enemy wreckage and use them for various purposes!! In short.........

"Defeat them, strip them, and upgrade, huh."

"That's how it goes! And......... it somehow ended up looking like a demonstration, didn't it."

Well, a fair amount of time passed while we were listening to the explanations and stuff...

"Uuu..."

"N-Now now..."

Before we knew it, a massive number of attendees had swarmed the Swallows Nest booth too... and naturally, their gazes were directed right at us as we were just about to start our play session.

Even though it was through a pumpkin helmet, I have a past of having my gameplay broadcast live to the whole world, so I'm over it, but...

"You okay?"

"I-I'm, fine... Let's, do our best."

Rei-san is in trouble, her body is completely stiff. Hmmm, maybe it would've been better to come here first so Rei-san could've played without feeling so pressured... That's 1 Pizza Study Abroad Point, I gotta reflect on this.

"You don't have to be so nervous... Well, competing for a high score isn't an obligation anyway. Let's just take it easy and have fun."

"........."

"Eh? Did I say something weird?"

For some reason she was looking at me blankly, but... after a little while, the unnecessary stiffness drained out of Rei-san's body. Since she was wearing goggles, I couldn't see her eyes well, but from the slight lift at the corners of her mouth, I could tell she was smiling.

"Ah, no! It's not that......... you're right, let's have fun together...!"

"Yeah, that's the spirit."

Even so, a game is a game; I'm at least going to make it to the stage clear.

"Now then, the early demo play for Scrap Gunman! We will begin Stage 1 【Carrier Retreat Battle】!!"

The moment the female staff member shouted that out, the various pieces of equipment in the AR space where Rei-san and I were standing booted up all at once.

"Ooh..."

The object blocks turned into the bed of an armored vehicle, the surroundings turned into a carrier battlefield raging with metal debris and flames, and the floor turned into the carrier deck carved with the tire tracks of armored vehicles driving at high speed.

The scenery visible through the goggles completely painted over the real-life background of the Mega-Float Site, transforming it into an ocean dyed with black smoke.

"This is pretty... oh, here they come!"

The Scrads are enemies that look like roughly made dolls a kid cobbled together from junk. But they have obnoxiously vicious designs at key points, to the extent that if this wasn't AR, I'd want to run away the second they entered a 5-meter radius.

But, this is a game.

"Seriously, there's recoil!?"

Crap, missed the headshot! Adding another shot, two shots... Three guaranteed shots if it's not a headshot!? Wait, aren't they too tanky... ah, I get it.

"It means I gotta scavenge the wreckage!!"

I held my left palm—which wasn't holding the gun-shaped controller—over the destroyed Scrad, and made a motion like gripping the air and pulling. Then, a part of some sort was ripped right off the Scrad's wreckage and sucked into my hand, politely accompanied by a navigation arrow telling me to use it to upgrade my gun.

"Upgrading the barrel for now!"

『Three Burst!!』

"Uwah, who was that!?"

That scared me... but I get what it's trying to say, a three-round burst is just the right timing.

With a satisfying "Ta-ta-tan!" the fired bullets destroyed a Scrad that had gotten close with a single trigger pull, and continuing on to a Scrad that was stealthily approaching from the side...

"Guh, wouldn't it save more ammo to just aim for headshots..."

To think it was a trap... no, but for an early-game rush, a three-round burst where you just need to land hits should be more time-efficient!

"Rei-san, how's it going!!"

"There are, a few too many..."

"Gotcha, incoming backup!"

Since it's a tag play, helping each other out is a must! I turned around and blasted the Scrads Rei-san couldn't deal with, while also sweeping my gaze back towards the side I had been dealing with while standing back-to-back.

"There it is, the obligatory Fat EnemyHigh HP!"

"U-Ugh, it's tough...!"

Just going pew-pew isn't gonna cut it, and if we're entirely focused on that guy, the other mobs will get close. This is stricter than I thought; in times like this...

"Magne-Repulser, was it?"

The action of firing off the parts stripped from Scrads like bullets; it does zero damage but guarantees a stagger on trash mobs. And completely separate from that, firing off the stolen parts as a single massive bullet instead of using them for a gun upgrade...

"Slug Bullet!"

Whew! One shot opened up a wind hole right through the fat guy! I see, so we deal with the fatties using this while... wait a second.

I can see the walkthrough chart forming. We should probably specialize our roles here, right?

"Rei-san, do you want to to be the chubby chaser or the trash sweeper!?"

"Chub......... Ah, yes! I will, sweep up the trash mobs!"

Never thought I'd hear the word 'sweep' in real life, but it's definitely reassuring.

『Shot Gun!!』

"This is the one after all!"

The controller suddenly transforming into a long barrel freaked me out a little, but since the retro age when games were played on ancient displays, the market rate dictates that a player who gets their hands on a shotgun becomes the strongest.

Shotguns are basically buckshot, and you can load slug rounds faster than in the normal form......... I think. I mean, it has to have at least that much going for it; it's a shotgun for crying out loud.

"........."

"I-Is something... wrong?"

"Nah, just got a bit of deja vu... whoops!"

I blew away a trash Scrad that lunged at me with point-blank buckshot, thrust my palm at the scattered wreckage, and ripped off its parts. Load, aim, fire. Out of the corner of my eye, I watched the fat Scrad's head get blown clean off, while my thoughts once again turned to the faint sense of deja vu burning into my hands.

What is this? I shouldn't have played much AR before... so why does this feel so natural? If anything comes to mind, there was probably a VR game with a similar feel, but......... Swallows Nest is strictly an AR company. They shouldn't have any connection to VR.

Shotgun... Immortal Medic? CosBus? ShanFro... No.

This exquisitely hard-to-use recoil control... this slightly quirky bullet trajectory even when aiming perfectly......... No, it couldn't be.........

"Rakuro, kun... It's the, boss! Rakuro-kun?"

Bird, Avian, Swallow, Tsubame, Successor, President.........

Eh, seriously?

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Author's Afterword

The motions of all the firearms appearing in Scrap Gunman were set by President Tsubame himself based on his own "experience", and with the cooperation of a strangely accommodating higher-up at Utopia Corp, they closely replicate the exact feel of the firearms from a certain game that etched a negative name into history.

This is a feat that could only be achieved by a player who spent every waking hour collecting and consuming firearms on a certain server.

By the way, the musket was apparently cut in tears due to issues with the expansion limits of the controller. The employees could only tilt their heads in confusion as the President strangely persisted, asking, "Why don't we make a limited edition with an attachable part?"