The high rise slowly climbed into the sky as the decor of the room that overlooked all of Glocken was decorated in gold, platinum, and marble, with red velvet furniture around glass or crystal tables. Needless to say, this was only a suite that the most prestigious of players in Gun Gale would ever see and even fewer could ever own but for the player calling himself Strelok, it was a beautiful place for his operations. Strelok's avatar that he used was an average height of 5'8", with golden hair that he had purchased himself to use, his own custom facial features that were chiseled and regal like a king should have, his eyes he had made red intentionally for the intimidation factor, and he wore the most pristine black suit that by GGO standards was something that John Wick would wear.

"...Bring him in." said Strelok as nearby some players with skeletal face masks went into a nearby room and dragged out a rather beat up player. The player had been paralyzed with darts probably a dozen times now and Strelok's men had saw to giving the player the most painful forms of punishment and torture one could do on a player in a game these days, which wasn't saying much but hey the days of Sword Art Online were long since gone and Strelok had to make do where he could.

But nonetheless, he sighed as the player was brought before them by the guards tossing him roughly in front of Strelok, the player unable to move but coughing as they bounced off the floor of wood. Strelok held in one hand an expensive glass, talking as expensive as some high-end guns for GGO, with virtual wine and in the other he simply held a screen that currently had the players information on it for him to look through. It appears Strelok's little insider had done a lot of good work to dig up this information.

"Look... Cheiba Siaka, was it? You do understand why you are here and not getting banned with the rest of your little group in the Wastelands for a reason, right?" asked Strelok as they walked around the prone, paralyzed player while sipping the virtual drink in their hand. The drink was actually nearly spot on for an alcoholic drink if one didn't mind never getting drunk off the stuff even in game. 

The player's username was not Cheiba Siaka but rather Pedroid but Strelok could hear the breath get caught in the players throat as the players very real name was brought up. Good old Ki55 doing good even after being away from real combat like in Sword Art Online, but the result was still goo as Pedroid, Siaka, asked Strelok, "What do you want?"

"Oh, I don't want anything." said Strelok with a sigh as he continued to walk around the player that was but helpless before him. "At least, nothing you could really give me..."

"T-Then why are you doing this?" asked the player as they tried to move but then Strelok slammed his foot into the players head and squatted down to show another screen to the player, showing several blogs, reddit posts, and chats that were going crazy with the realization "Laughing Coffin" was on Gun Gale Online.

Strelok gave a cruel smile. "Do you know what this is?"

The player could only stare at the screen as Strelok, still partially standing on the player's head, told the player, "This is not based.... this is not only cringe but also edgy as hell. I mean, come on, out of everything you could do, you just had to name yourself a form of Laughing Coffin? Seriously?"

"Have my guilds name gone so far down that only edgy teenagers begging for attention use it like some buzzword?" Strelok stood back up and removed his foot as he walked to his window nearby while the player was able to move their head and look at the figure before him.

Strelok came to the window as he looked down to the city below that was Glocken, as the hustle and bustle below looked so nice but would do nothing to help the tick of annoyance in Strelok's mind while he then looked back at the player and then told them, "Now... I have a simple question for you..."

"Were you part of the group attempting that stunt in Alfenheim?" asked Strelok darkly, his voice coated in venom and disgust as the player tried to wiggle but the paralysis was still mostly in affect.

"No! They were some other groups! I don't know any of them!" said the player but Strelok sighed and smiled as he said, "Really? Nothing?"

Strelok sent a screen over as it showed another GGO player's information that was a confirmed friend of Siaka as Strelok asked them, "Did you know they were going to try and murder that girl? Hmm?"

"What? He tried? I thought he was joking, ah ah playing edgy and all that! He didn't actually try, did he?" asked the player as Strelok sighed before walking over.

"Siaka, Siaka, poor Siaka. You see, not only did your friend attempt to do so, but he failed so miserably that he was arrested for it... Now, normally I'm all for a good little bit of random murder," said Strelok as he soon stood by the head of the player again as he stood over them with a smile that soon soured into a grimace.

"But I hate it when other player think they can just take the name of my Guild and use it how they like, dragging it through the shit as they try to be edgy!" Strelok took his right leg and brought it up only to slam it down on the player multiple times as he ground his heel in for good measure to bring the players screams out before kicking them again.

Needless to say, after a few minutes of this going on, Strelok had finally run out of juice, and he retired to a nearby couch as he sipped his glass of wine that he had expertly managed not to spill but as he looked back at the player slowly recovering his HP, Strelok sighed and then said to them, "Well... I'm so glad we had a little chat but frankly, much like your associates... us actual Laughing Coffin can't allow you all to sully our names any longer... and much like the other guys, your usefulness ends here even as entertainment."

Strelok watched the player look up in some confusion before they suddenly began to writhe and scream as Strelok watched their neck being parted ever so slowly before the players avatar finally shattered as something disconnected them forcefully.

Strelok smiled as then he looked at his two guards and told them, "For now... that is all... tell Ki55 that they need to start digging up on that new player I've been eyeing up."

The guards nodded and soon left Strelok alone to finish off the last of his wine.

"... and in other news, the body of a 35-year old man was found decapitated in his apartment after his neighbors said they "smelled something awful" coming from his apartment. Authorities are currently looking for any leads on this murder-"

"You know darn well they cannot be back so easily." said Agil from nearby as everyone from Kirito's group, plus some of Sinon's new friends with the Rangers were currently scattered around Gun Gale Online in Agil's virtual bar he owned on the game. It was very similar to his in real life but as Shisho and Klein looked back from the screen to Agil, Klein looked back at it he said out loud, "Yeah but it sure seems like something more than coincidence."

Nearby, trying to make themselves not freaked over what was last told to them by one of these "Laughing Coffin" members, Sinon was staring at her drink as Kommando next to her was getting worried enough that he was foregoing trying to hold her close and now was pacing the room enough for Agil to wonder if the floor would give out with how many steps the man was taking in the same pattern. It also didn't help Theodosius nearby either, sitting in his Ranger/Juggernaut armor as he watched his friend and leader pacing back and forth like a caged, feral tiger waiting for a moment to explode out.

So, Theodosius stood up and walked over to Kommando and just as Kommando took another step, Theodosius grabbed their shoulders and held them in place for a moment, just so Kommando realized he wasn't moving anymore. Kommando, understandably, looked at his friend which prompted Theodosius to sigh before he looked at everyone else and told them, "Look."

"Right now, we have a big problem as we all can tell and see. If this Laughing Coffin has come back, and if they are targeting one of us or people, then we need to do something about it. We need to find them, expose them, and ensure that they cannot come back as another threat to the people of the world." said Theodosius.

"Therefore... I think we need to get started about it. I'll start on my end with the other Ranger commanders to try and find some more of these undercover Laughing Coffin Guilds by either poking our guns into random places or looking up on the blogs and reddit's." said Theodosius as he looked back at the rest of them before he then seemingly teleported from the cafe and out towards an unknown destination.

With him out of the room, the rest of the group glanced at one another before finally Kommando said to them all, "He's right... I hate it but until we can uncover them... we all might as well begin to take precautions against anything that might happen. Including myself."

"We might be taking this a bit too far, we don't know yet that it is them-" began Reaper but then Klein said from at the bar, " Let us be honest... a murder like that could be anyone. For all we know, some new psychotic or mentally disturbed person has found themselves in a dark place and can only hurt others to escape it."

But Klein pointed at the screen as he then said, "But first it was Alfenheim... then it was here... and from what I heard, it was also some other servers... We never officially apprehended the Guild in real life... which means of those that survived, less than a dozen or so, are still at large. And what's scary is that they may no longer need to directly attack us as we saw with Death Gun, who had his brother try to kill the targets they had. This... this maybe another Death Gun incident waiting to happen."

The room was quiet for the emotions swirling around everyone: anger, despair, sadness, a myriad of emotions that all knew were connected with really less about Laughing Coffin and more dealing with those kinds of players: Player Killers.

Sinon could feel all the negative emotions swirling around her like the virtual drink in her hand as the liquid swirled around in the glass, she slightly tilted from side to side to create the effect before she finally sat up and said, "Well, we only have one or two options depending on who you talk to in here."

Everyone looked at her as she slowly spun her chair around to face everyone else before Sinon said, "First option is we hunker down and see where this goes. Means less gaming, more time out in the real world, but keeping an eye on the reddits and blogs and yadda yadda until we think the all-clear has arrived and go back to what we were doing. It's not a bad idea, I think most people would agree that to avoid whatever may be coming we should try and do our best to distance ourselves from where trouble is coming from."

"Or," said Sinon as she looked around, "We can grab these bastards by the throat and fucking throttle them for all the shit they put us through and remind them that they are only as powerful as we make them, in game and in real life."

The room was silent but now it was for a different reason, a different set of emotions as Lisbeth stood up from where she was and told everyone, "Well, Sinon, you sure know how to have a way with words, don't you."

Sinon simply smiled and shrugged. "Someone's got to put the big pants on and lead. But the question is where do we start?"

Everyone began to think for a bit before Shisho then asked, "Did the Beater Wolves have any other guild close to theirs?"

They all looked over and that is when Kommando said, "Nope. Pretty secluded and their base seemed pretty basic beyond that fucking Sturmtiger... but that Sturmtiger costs a lot of money for a guild to buy and operate."

"How much?" asked Agil.

"We're talking in real life, that thing could buy you a city blocks worth of housing at face value. In Gun Gale's term, that money could buy about 100's people equipment at high tier. Not just anyone can drop that sort of investment and even me and Theodosius do various things to try and get that sort of investment in our own ranks... which mean's that someone was giving them stuff and only a small group of people can do that outside of Guilds and even only so many Guilds can do that here in Japan."

Klein whistled and then asked, "So how do we find them?"

"Well.. next Guild we find... we're gonna have to see what they have... and if they have a big fucking item that costs a lot more than what they own, something abnormal for their quality, then we get to play Good Cop, Bad Cop."