At my question, Kikuoka glanced at his terminal, and answered.

"This Shigemura-kun installed only one game on his AmuSphere. "Gun Gale Online"... heard about it?"

"That's... obviously a given. Due to the fact that it's the only VRMMO game in j.a.pan with "Pro" playing; I haven't played it myself, though."

"It seems that in Gun Gale Online... Abbreviated GGO, he was ranked as the top player. That was decided in an event during October to find the strongest. His character's name was "Zekushiido"."

"...Then, did he die while logged into GGO?"

"Actually, no, he didn't. His avatar, "Zekushiido", was being featured on "MMO Stream", a channel hosted by one of the net stations."

"Aah... You mean M-ST's "This Week's Winning Group"? That reminds me, I remember hearing that one of their guests lost connection during a show and it stopped in the middle..."

"Yeah, probably that one. He suffered heart failure while on the show. Their log recorded everything to the exact second. Then, this is unconfirmed information... Around the time of the heart failure, something weird happened in GGO, according to a user's blog."

"Weird?"

"MMO Stream also broadcast in GGO right?"

"Aah. They usually air in pubs."

"It happened in a pub that was airing the show, off a street in the capital city "SBC Gurokken" of the GGO world. So, the problem is that around that time, one of the players happened to do something really strange."

"Anyway, toward a televised image of Zekushiido-shi, "He" discharged a gun while screaming about judgment and death. Having seen that, one of the players who had coincidentally been recording the event uploaded it onto a video site. The uploaded clip also included a counter in JST[4]... And... The gun was fired on the 9th of November, at 11:30 PM, 02 seconds. Shigemura-kun's sudden disappearance from the show, at 11:30 PM, 15 seconds."

"...Just a coincidence right."

I said, as I moved my second plate in front of me.

Taking a spoon-full of some tea-colored cylindrical thing, I brought it to my mouth. At once, its coldness surprised me. If it were a type of cake, it'd be an ice-cream cake, I thought. With sweetness that was barely contained, the densely packed chocolate essence began to unfurl, overpowering the bitter taste of the conversation that Kikuoka had started.

I polished off a third into my stomach and continued from where I had left off.

"Becoming the top ranked player of GGO would naturally cause others to hate him and envy him beyond the degree found in other VRMMOs. To shoot the actual person might require a lot of bravery, but it's not very strange for the TV image to have been shot at."

"Yes, however, there was another incident."

"...What?"

My spoon-hand froze, and I looked up into Kikuoka's unchanging poker face.

"This time, it happened just about 10 days ago, on the 28th of November. A dead body was found in the unit of a 2-story apartment building in omiya Ward, Saitama City, Saitama prefecture. A newspaper seller thought he was being ignored as the unit's lights were still on, despite there being no answer, he tried the door k.n.o.b and it wasn't locked. Looking inside, a man was found lying on his futon wearing an AmuSphere, with a similar odor..."

Ehem! A deliberately cleared throat put our conversation on hold; we looked at the same two women from before, at a table near ours, as they glared condemningly and gave us the evil eye. But, in a surprisingly bold move by Kikuoka, he nodded at them and continued our conversation.

"...Well, let's skip the details of the postmortem autopsy. This time, it was also confirmed to be death by heart failure. His name... let's skip that too. Male, 31 years old. He was also a very strong GGO player and his character's name... was "Usujio Tarako[5]"? Is this the right name?"

"A while back in SAO, there was a guy called "Hokkai Ikura[5]", so they're probably related. Was this Tarako-shi also on a TV program?"

"No, this time it was an in-game incident. From the AmuSphere's log, his connection was cut off about 3 days before the body was found, on the 25th of November, at 10:00:04 PM, Estimated time of death is also thought to be around that period. At that time, he was at Gurokken's town square attending a Squadron - a guild, apparently - meeting. He'd jumped onto the stage to voice an opinion, and a player who crashed the meeting shot him with a gun. Although city streets are areas where all and any damage received would get instantly voided, he was angered by gunman's a.s.sault and went after him, then suddenly disappeared. This information was also taken from a net forum thread, so the authenticity leaves much to be desired, but..."

"The gunman, is it the same player from the "Zekushiido" incident?"

"You can think of it that way. After all, words like 'justice' and 'strength' were also spoken by a player with the same character name as from the previous case."

"...What kind of...?"

Kikuoka checked his tablet, and frowned.

""Death Pistol"... That and "Death Gun""

"A Death... Gun..."

- In other words, "Death Gun"?

I placed my spoon on the now empty plate, as I repeated that name to myself over and over in my thoughts. Such a character name, no matter how much it was intended as a joke, really did give off a certain impression of the character. Death Gun, the impression that name evoked was of black metallic coldness.

"...You're sure that Zekushiido and Usujio Tarako both died of heart failure, right?"

"If I said yes?"

"And... No brain damage?"

Upon hearing that, Kikuoka caught my drift and grinned.

"That bothered me too. And I confronted the forensics team about it, but they couldn't find any abnormalities like cerebral hemorrhages or cerebral arterial occlusions."

"Also, with Nerve Gear... Ah, are you fine, discussing this?"

"I'm fine."

"...With Nerve Gear, when it kills a user, its signal sensors turn into a high powered microwave which destroys a part of the brain, but AmuSpheres are not made to emit such high powered electromagnetic waves. 'Such a machine can only transmit auditory and visual types to the 5 senses with very low and mild signals', is what the developers had claimed."

"So you have already talked to the makers... you did your homework for this meeting, huh, Kikuoka-san? Is it an accident that you manage to do your job just by looking through pa.s.sing rumors?"

As I stared through the lens of his gla.s.ses at his narrowed eyes, Kikuoka erased that expression in a second, and immediately, his lips widened into a smile.

"I get flown everywhere; so actually, I'm quite free on a daily basis."

"Then, next time why don't you help the front-line clearers of Aincrad. Sir Eugene praised you for being a good mage, you know."

Actually, I had never once thought this man to be the joke of an officer that his appearance and demeanor portrayed. He created a character in ALO not because he had an interest in the game, but most likely for the sake of easily collecting intelligence on the VR world. Although the business card I had previously received placed him under the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications Technology, there was definitely something suspicious going on here. That his real unit was a part of the Department of National Security was something that I had already considered.

But leaving that aside, it seemed that the "Virtual Division" during the "SAO Incident Victims Rescue Countermeasure Team" period, had only managed to accommodate all the players into hospitals due to his efforts. Therefore, with that and the favor regarding Asuna's location, I am dealing with him at a ratio of 60% grat.i.tude to 40% suspicion.

So whether he knew my inner thoughts or not, Kikuoka just scratched the back of his head and gave an embarra.s.sed smile.

"You're too kind; I can memorize the spell words, but am not good at chanting them. I have been really bad at tongue twisters since a long time ago. ...Anyway, well, regarding this case, I think the chances are over 90% that it is either a coincidence or a hoax. That's why, we need to disprove it. - Kirito-kun, you think it's possible? Is it possible for a person shot in-game, to consequently suffer an episode of heart failure in reality?"

Kikuoka's proposal conjured up an image in my head, causing me to frown.

Dressed completely in black... A faceless gunman peered into the void and pulled the trigger. A black phantasm bullet was shot forth piercing through the virtual wall; the packet invaded the network world. From router to router, server to server, making various right-angled turns, the bullet charged onward. Eventually, it would reach a certain apartment unit, materialize outside the LAN connector mounted on the wall, and hit a man's heart while he was laying down...

Shaking my head to clear that disturbing image, I raised a finger.

"I do think it's impossible, but... Just a.s.suming, that... "Death Gun" is our gunman, and he somehow managed to send some signals to the AmuSpheres of "Zekushiido" and "Usujio Tarako"..."

"Oh, let's start from there. Is it even possible to do something like that?"

"Yea... If what was sent was not some deadly mysterious force, but normal sense signals... You still remember the "Imaginator Virus" that caused a commotion from a while back?"

"Aah, that surprise mail incident, right?"

Imaginator, that was a piece of software developed by someone for the AmuSphere. That piece of software generated a virtual s.p.a.ce for diving, where you face the camera and whisper a message, and then compress it into a mail format. The receiver can then replay the file, which would reproduce the sender's virtual body and the spoken message, that kind thing. Since you could convey videos, audios and even sense of touch, it became very popular.

Eventually though, a security loophole was found, and there was a virus infected mail that would accompany the original message, which caused a major disturbance. If you tried to dive with that mail in your inbox, it would force open a preview, and before your eyes in surround sound and color, something shocking - usually erotic or gross, one or the other - would start to play.

Of course, eventually a patch file was uploaded, and the incident was solved, but...

"- Most AmuSphere users should have installed "Imagine" by now. But if there were unknown security holes, and the victim's e-mail or IP address were known..."

"...I see, setup a sending timer ahead, then send the signal at the same time as the gun shot - something like that is possible."

Kikuoka weaved his fingers together, and nodded as he rested his chin on top of them.

"Then that part is cleared. - But it wasn't a cursed fatal bullet that was sent. Ultimately it's normal senses stimulation."

"In other words, enough feeling to stop a heart... Probably things like taste, smell... light and sound...Right? Let's talk about them one by one. First sense of touch, feeling on the skin."

I paused with the speech, and pressed my right thumb into my left palm. Earlier, what I had eaten was not chocolate cake as I had thought, but ice cream, I remembered I was shocked then.

"...What would happen, if you sent the full body to the limits of its cold tolerance? Like if you jumped into a bath full of ice water. Could that stop a heart?"

"Aah... Jumping into ice water could stop the heart, as the difference in temperatures would cause shock to the body, and body's blood vessels would contract, which would over-stress the heart... It couldn't be that."

"- Then, I guess we can't go down this line. Even if the brain feels the cold, the capillaries of the other body parts won't feel a thing..."

"Then, how about this?"

This time, Kikuoka rubbed his hands together while speaking. It probably was a mistake on my part, but Kikuoka seemed to smile heartlessly.

"Super small insects... Smaller than a beetle, somewhere in the long worms category. Something like a caterpillar or centipede, the feeling of being dropped into a hole filled with those. Of course, it'd be accompanied by video. Urgh, just imagining it gives me goose b.u.mps. "

With no other alternative, I too tried to imagine it.

While taking a leisurely stroll through a field, the earth suddenly collapses beneath my feet, and I plummet through the earth collapsing into a deep pit. A thin, long, creature slithers nearby, circling my body until it crawls up near my wrist towards my collar, and finally makes its way underneath my clothes...

"...Seriously, I've got goose b.u.mps."

I rubbed my hands together, and shook my head.

"But that degree of a shock, even that "Imagine Virus" could do it. All of a sudden a huge caterpillar or a Nomura's jellyfish falls from above your head. But there weren't any fellows who had their hearts stopped... I think. In the first place, the moment you enter a VRMMO, you're unconsciously prepared for unexpected situations. In some fields, a boss monster can suddenly pop out right beside you and if your heart stopped every time, it wouldn't make for much of a game."

"You have a point."

Kikuoka shrugged, picking up the cup and turning it slightly.

"...So, the next sense to be considered should be taste and smell. But how would that work? If someone suddenly tasted or smelled something disturbing... like the taste of kiviak [6] reproduced. That person might vomit. That kind of vomiting reaction might affect the body as well..."

"If that's the case, it's not exactly stopping the heart. But could the vomit material stop breathing? Also, what is a kiviak anyway?"

At that moment, seeing the excitement flashing in Kikuoka's eyes, I regretted asking. This man liked to talk about bad tasting things. Though obviously an elite, he did not have a girlfriend and this could be considered one of the reasons responsible.

"Oh, you don't know? Kiviak is an Eskimo food. At the beginning of summer season, they will catch small migrating sea birds called Appaliarsuk and stuff them into a seal skin bag with the meat taken out. Then the entire bundle is placed in a cold, dark corner for a few months, until the seal fat permeates the birds and they ferment nicely, or more specifically, become rotten. At that time, they take out the birds like melted chocolate, the internal organs taste like that kind of food. The stink is supposed to be worse than Surstromming[7], but once you acquire the taste, you just can't have enough..."

Clank! I glanced toward that loud sound and saw the ladies near us covering their mouths in disgust and they were leaving their table with due haste. Once again, I sighed deeply, and then interrupted Kikuoka.

"If you have a chance to visit Greenland, then please try it. Also, you don't have to explain that Surs whatever."

"Oh, okay."

"Don't be regretful. - And no matter what, eating disgusting things won't stop the heart. Let's go for the next... Video huh..."

The rich aroma of coffee erased Kikuoka's foul words and I continued speaking.

"Similar to the insect example from before, just a significant video probably can't stop a heart no matter how fearsome or cruel the images are. Basically, it might cause great trauma, I think, but it would be really difficult to investigate."

"Hmm. - you said significant right?"

"Yeah. ...for example, and this was long before I was born so I don't exactly know the details, but many children who watched a certain TV anime collapsed at the same time all over the country with symptoms of epilepsy."

"- That event. I was in kindergarten then and I saw it in real time."

Kikuoka said with a nostalgic feeling.

"I think it was the continuous flashing of red and blue lights in the show that caused it."

"It is probably that. If the same intense flashing lights video was sent, people would normally shut their eyes in reaction. That isn't possible if it was sent directly into the brain and some kind of shock happening is not entirely inconceivable."

"Yes, indeed so."

Kikuoka nodded his head, but then shook his head and continued.