-1754- Something was amiss

At this moment, Rozen was still unaware of what had happened to Shinon.

In the office, riddled with countless bullet holes from the relentless burst of M900A fire, Rozen stood up, clutching a dagger. He glanced at the fallen Yamikaze in front of him, then shifted his gaze away.

"Time to get down to business," he muttered.

Rozen began picking up high-explosive rounds scattered on the floor while retrieving the RT-20 propped against the shattered glass wall. Reloading the weapon, he slung it over his shoulder.

Then, he took out the receiver.

"Almost another 15 minutes have passed—right on schedule," Rozen noted to himself.

He had anticipated that after the first 15 minutes, Yamikaze, having discovered his location, would come to challenge him. Rozen planned to eliminate him within that time frame and then use the receiver again once the second 15 minutes had elapsed.

As expected, everything went according to his prediction.

The receiver's indicator began to light up, accompanied by a beeping sound, and soon a holographic map was displayed. Numerous light points representing players appeared in various corners of the map.

In total, there were 23 light points, indicating that seven players had already been eliminated. Only 23 contestants remained in the competition.

"Pretty quick," Rozen commented dispassionately before falling into thought.

"So, who exactly is Death Gun?"

This was the first question Rozen needed to solve.

While Yui and the others had discovered that the participant list didn't include Death Gun's name, Rozen, as a contestant, had also realized this.

It was clear to him that the opponent had concealed their true character name. The name Death Gun was merely a title and not their actual username.

The real Death Gun was hidden among the other 29 contestants besides Rozen.

At the very least, Rozen shared Asuna's belief that, given his participation, Death Gun—a surviving member of Laughing Coffin—would undoubtedly enter the tournament and infiltrate the list of contestants.

So, who could it be?

Rozen had already begun filtering his options.

"First, based on height, personality, and speech patterns, I ruled out most of the players."

In GGO, character appearances were immutable. The only adjustable features were limited to hairstyles, hair color, makeup, and the like. Attributes such as height and body type were entirely unchangeable.

Thus, while Death Gun could conceal their appearance and disguise their equipment, they couldn't hide their tall, lanky frame. Players who didn't match this body type were immediately ruled out.

Next was Death Gun's distinct stuttering, raspy voice, which couldn't easily be imitated.

While voice modulators could alter pitch, Death Gun's specific fragmented speech pattern was much harder to fake.

By using Mind's Eye to analyze voice vibrations and resonance, Rozen concluded that the speech pattern wasn't a deliberate act. Any attempt to fake it would have revealed inconsistencies.

As a result, players with distinctive personalities and speaking styles were also excluded.

Most participants in the BoB tournament were renowned top-tier players with well-documented backgrounds, making it easy to gather information and narrow the suspects.

Ultimately, only two players remained:

One was named Sterben, and the other, Pale Rider.

Sterben was shrouded in mystery. Even Yui couldn't gather much information about him. All that was known was that he never teamed up with others, rarely appeared in public, and seemed to have no conversations with anyone. Even his opponents in the preliminaries claimed they never saw him. Every time, he would snipe from an unknown location, leading to a quick loss.

Pale Rider, on the other hand, wasn't as enigmatic. His preliminary opponents had seen him. According to them, he was a tall, lanky player dressed in a peculiar blue-and-white camouflage suit, wearing a helmet with black armor that concealed his face. His weapon of choice was a lightweight Armalite AR-17 shotgun. He didn't utter a single word during matches, silently dodging attacks with astonishing agility and effortlessly defeating opponents, sweeping through five rounds with ease.

One was a sniper with an unseen appearance, no interactions, and remote elimination methods. The other was a shotgun user, fully armored, highly agile, and perfectly fitting Death Gun's body profile.

For these reasons, Rozen narrowed down his suspects to these two.

Yui didn't know that Rozen had already reduced the list of potential suspects to two and thought he was still uncertain about Death Gun's identity. She assumed this was why he hadn't used the receiver during the first 15 minutes to locate all players and confront the culprit directly.

Having isolated two suspects, Rozen could confront them one by one. There was no need to follow Yui's suggestion of checking each player systematically.

However, after the first 15 minutes, Yamikaze had immediately confronted Rozen, delaying his plans.

Now…

"It's time to move," Rozen said.

He began marking players on the holographic map to display their usernames.

The player Pale Rider was revealed to be in a forest, chasing another contestant.

As for Sterben…

"Not here?"

Rozen couldn't find Sterben's name on the map, a discovery that left him surprised.

"Could it be that Sterben has already been eliminated?"

If so, then Pale Rider was likely Death Gun.

However…

"What's going on?"

Rozen noticed something strange.

He found a player in a corner of the abandoned city where he currently resided.

That player was…

"Shinon?"

Rozen furrowed his brows deeply.

So, she came here?

But why, after arriving, hadn't she been drawn to the noise of his battle with Yamikaze? Instead, she was staying in that obscure corner.

Was she sniping?

From the height of the building Rozen was in, there was no location around that provided a good sniping vantage point. What was the point of staying in that corner?

The series of anomalies made Rozen realize something was amiss.

"Interesting," he muttered with a faint smile, his eyes narrowing.

He turned and left the office, exiting the building entirely as he headed toward Shinon's location.