Kohiruimaki Karen

Kohiruimaki Karen (小比類巻 香蓮), known as LLENN (レン) in Gun Gale Online, is the main character of the Gun Gale Online spin-off series.

Real World
In the real world, Karen is a 183 centimetres tall woman with long black hair. Due to her lack of interest in fashion, Karen usually wears rough and simple clothes.

Gun Gale Online
In Gun Gale Online, Karen has a very short, less than 150 centimetres tall, and slender avatar with a slightly rounded face, big pupils and somewhat dark-tawny hair in a boyish short cut. She wears a combat uniform that consists of combat trousers that resemble cargo pants and a long-sleeved combat shirt. She also has long and narrow pouches equipped on both sides of her thighs, wears high-laced short boots and a knit cap. Her entire attire and even her gun, a P90, are dyed in a dusky pink tinged with brown to tone down the brightness.

Personality
As Karen is fairly tall for a Japanese woman, she was frequently teased for her height and thus developed a complex about it. Karen stopped interacting with most people, aside from her family and close friends, and became an introvert secluding herself to reading and music.

Karen is a serious and persistent woman. She spent days converting from one game to another until she found one where she got an avatar that suited her tastes.

Background
Karen is the youngest child of a family of five children. Karen's parents hailed from Aomori, but moved to Hokkaido where they started a successful business. After finishing secondary education, Karen tried her luck by taking examinations at a prestigious university for girls in Tokyo and, unexpectedly, was accepted to the university. Karen thus borrowed a room from one of her elder sisters and began her solitary life in Tokyo, hoping that something would change. However, her wish did not come true.

One day, while visiting her parents, Karen came across an article about virtual games. Although the author of the article had a strong opinion against such games, the mention of the games allowing the player to experience an alternative self caught Karen's curiosity. Thus, Karen contacted one of her close friends from her home town who was playing a game.

The friend, named Miyu, was pleasantly surprised about Karen's new interest and she taught Karen what she needed to know. Karen decided to play the game that Miyu was playing - ALfheim Online, but as soon as she saw how tall her Sylph avatar was, the AmuSphere forcedly logged her out due to her abnormal heart rate.

As Karen no longer wanted to play ALfheim Online, but had already created a character, Miyu advised Karen to use The Seed's conversion option to transfer her character to another game that was based on The Seed. Thus, Karen began trying out a variety of games that had a free trial until she found a game that gave her a very short avatar. The game she found was Gun Gale Online.

Squad Jam
For three months, Karen only logged in to Gun Gale Online to enjoy her short avatar. But eventually, LLENN decided to try playing the game seriously. Thus, she completed the game’s tutorial and began hunting monsters. After she saved up enough credits from killing monsters, she decided to buy submachine gun and spend the rest of her money to buy some new clothes. As LLENN desired to wear girlish clothes, she looked around for cute clothes, but could not find any. Instead, she discovered the option to change the colour of her equipment and decided to dress entirely in pink and even decided to paint her guns in pink too.

One day, while waiting for a monster to trigger her trap, LLENN noticed that three men were walking towards her. As it was normal for players who meet in the field to attack each other unless they were acquaintances, LLENN worriedly considered her course of action. As the men came closer, LLENN realised that they were unaware of her presence.

As soon as the men were only ten metres away from LLENN, the monster that LLENN was hunting triggered her trap and caused an explosion. The men, startled by the explosion, began to panic and LLENN used the opportunity to attack them. To her surprise, she killed the men without them noticing her. She soon realised that her pink equipment easily blended in with the environment, explaining why none of the men noticed her.

From then on, LLENN became addicted to the thrill of ambushing players, thus, although she continued to hunt monsters, if she noticed some players heading towards her, she would ambush them instead. Eventually, LLENN discovered that some players were annoyed by her ambushes and had begun forming a subjugation party to identify her. Feeling guilty, LLENN stopped ambushing players and decided to only hunt monsters.

Soon afterwards, LLENN was approached by a female player named Pitohui. Seeing that Pitohui was a woman, LLENN agreed to be treated to some tea. After a conversation over tea and cake, LLENN told Pitohui about looking for a new live-ammunition gun to buy, thus Pitohui led her to a good shop she knew. There, Pitohui recommended a P90 and LLENN, amazed by its design, decided to buy it despite it being expensive.

Later on, LLENN and Pitohui formed a squadron consisting of just the two of them. Whenever the two were both online, they went hunting monsters together. On one such occasion on January 18, 2026, Pitohui informed LLENN about a new team tournament, called Squad Jam, that would be held in a few weeks. After Pitohui explained the background for the tournament and informed LLENN about the registration deadline, she asked LLENN to participate in it. Since Pitohui herself could not participate, she told LLENN about a friend of hers that she could team up with and told her to decide whether or not she would participate before the registration deadline.

Back in the real world, Karen deliberated on whether she should participate in the tournament and whether she should continue playing the game or not. As she could not settle on a course of action, Karen asked her friend Miyu for advice. Considering that Karen would regret whichever choice she made, Miyu advised her to decide via a coin toss. Miyu then reminded Karen about Kanzaki Elsa's concert that would be held on the same day as the tournament and told her that her chances of getting tickets for it were fifty-fifty, thus Karen decided to use that to decide whether she would participate in the tournament or not.

On January 27, 2026, as Miyu was unable to get the tickets, Karen messaged Pitohui that she would be participating in the tournament. Three days later, Karen logged into Gun Gale Online to meet with Pitohui and her friend. As Pitohui's friend was late, they talked about the rules for the tournament and, after they were done, Pitohui revealed that LLENN was going to be the leader of their team to LLENN's shock.

2nd Squad Jam
On February 3, 2026, two days after the first Squad Jam, Karen encountered the members of SHINC in real life, revealed to be girls from a rhythmic gymnastics club from a high school affiliated with her university. Ever since their first meeting, Karen and the girls began having longer and longer conversations with each other despite their busy schedules. Therefore, two weeks after the tournament, Karen surprised herself by inviting the girls to her apartment. Although she was initially worried over her actions, her invitation was enthusiastically accepted by the girls. After gathering refreshments for her guests, Karen acquiesced to their request to use her television to watch a recording of the Squad Jam. Embarrassed by SHINC's praise over her usage of a suitcase to ambush an enemy team, she ascribed her performance to her avatar, but was told that she, as the player controlling the avatar, was equally worthy of the acclaim.

Gallery

 * See Kohiruimaki Karen/Image Gallery

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