Chapter 136: The Stat Monster
“Derek Su, there’s something I need to tell you. Don’t get mad.”
Zane’s voice was low. “Lingwind and I just got overtaken by a Mecha Girl.”
Derek Su, already ready at the starting point, froze for a moment. He quickly reassured him. “It’s fine. Getting passed happens. Where is she now?”
“…She’s gone. Completely out of sight.”
“What?!” Derek Su was stunned.
Zane and Lingwind were definitely not slow. Among most competitors, they were already top-tier.
This race had fifty-seven clubs participating, including quite a few large clubs ranked within the top 500. Derek Su had already prepared himself mentally—running into monsters today was entirely possible, even Techmasters. So hearing that Zane and Lingwind had been overtaken didn’t surprise him.
But the starting interval was only one minute. For top-tier Mecha Girls or Techmasters, that gap barely counted as a difference at all. Vanishing completely, though—that wasn’t normal. Was the speed really that outrageous?
“Was it a top-tier Mecha Girl? Or a Techmaster?” he asked immediately.
“Neither.” Zane’s voice over the comms carried a bitter edge. “It wasn’t a top-tier Mecha Girl, and it wasn’t a Techmaster either. Lingwind didn’t sense any psionic energy. She caught up purely through speed and technique. I don’t even know whether she started behind us or not.”
Derek Su quickly checked the starting order.
The driver immediately behind Zane and Lingwind was from a no-name club—not very likely. But the next one after that had some weight behind it.
Lucy Luo, from the GPC Club.
That was a powerful top-200 club, with three Techmasters on its roster. When Derek Su saw Lucy Luo’s Mecha Girl, his pupils contracted.
Eternity-01.
That Mecha Girl?
The words of the Blade Path organizer’s boss echoed in his mind.
“That’s the fastest Mecha Girl I’ve ever seen. Like a blade moving through time itself.”
“…If you’re racing on the Panlong Mountain Circuit this year, you might run into her.”
...
“Eternity-01… didn’t expect to meet you this soon,” Derek Su murmured.
Before, he hadn’t really grasped what those words meant.
Now, hearing the helplessness and frustration in Zane’s voice, he understood. Zane wasn’t someone who got shaken easily. That meant only one thing—the speed of that Mecha Girl was so overwhelming that neither he nor Lingwind could even muster the desire to challenge it.
“It’s fine. You and Lingwind should be arriving soon. Just drive steady. Leave the rest to me.”
Derek Su didn’t want to crush Zane’s confidence. He’d seen how hard Zane had worked lately. But some gaps simply couldn’t be closed in a short time through effort alone.
“Stella, today’s going to be rough.”
He narrowed his eyes and placed one hand on Stella’s rear, silently passing on his resolve.
“Master, I’ll help Zane and Lingwind get their payback,” Stella said seriously, nodding hard. Her cheeks puffed out, sharp light flashing in her big eyes.
She could already feel it—the overall quality of today’s opponents was high.
Because of that, she’d kept a straight face the whole time, not even joking around with her Master like usual.
Vrooom—!
As they spoke, the roar of an engine rolled in on the wind.
The ninth Mecha Girl had arrived.
Logically speaking, Zane and Lingwind were ninth to start.
But they weren’t the ones arriving first.
Derek Su leaned out of the cockpit and glanced over. A blonde-haired, mature-looking woman stepped down from a dazzling white Mecha Girl. All four tires and the engine were still smoking. Support staff immediately rushed over with dry-ice extinguishers to cool it down.
“Ugh… I’m exhausted.”
The blonde woman slumped against the hood, her whole body going limp as if her bones had fallen apart. She stayed there until the Mecha Girl finished cooling, the tires were changed, and deployment mode was disengaged.
Beside her was a tall, slender white-haired girl with red-and-blue heterochromatic eyes. Her hair was tied in a high ponytail, and she wore a sharp black suit, looking neat and capable. She carefully supported the blonde woman over to a bench. With how attentive and professional she was, she looked more like a butler than a racer.
“So that’s Eternity-01?” Derek Su focused, his gaze locking onto the heterochromatic Mecha Girl.
A series of stats appeared in his vision:
【Drift: 70】
【Acceleration: 99】
【Cornering: 86】
【Charge: 74】
【Stability: 80】
【Impact Resistance: 71】
【Endurance: 90】
…
“Hiss—” Derek Su sucked in a sharp breath.
What the hell kind of stat monster was this?
And that wasn’t even counting special abilities or installed modules. Just going by these raw attributes alone, she’d probably feel better to drive than many top-tier Mecha Girls.
No wonder she’d wiped the floor with Zane and Lingwind.
With acceleration at 99, beating Lingwind wasn’t unfair at all.
“Master~~ ”
“Wha—what—what are you looking at, hm?”
Stella’s eerie voice drifted into Derek Su’s ear.
“Looking at the Mecha Girl,” Derek Su replied absentmindedly, still analyzing Eternity-01’s stats and completely missing Stella’s tone.
“Oh~? Is she nice to look at?”
“Yeah, kind of nice.” He meant the numbers.
“OW!!”
A sharp pain shot through Derek Su’s ear. He twisted around, but Stella had already let go.
She turned her back to him, cheeks puffed out in a sulk.
“Stella, you actually bit me! What are you, a puppy?!”
Derek Su covered his ear, still shaken.
Thankfully, after the hot spring fracture incident, Stella had started practicing controlling her strength every day. After a month of brutal training, she could stack over a dozen walnuts into an Eiffel Tower. Otherwise, his ear would have already been history.
“Master,” Stella said seriously without turning around, “you’re going to meet a lot of Mecha Girls stronger and prettier than me in the future. But no matter how strong they are, I’ll work hard to catch up. I’ll become just as strong as them. I won’t let you envy anyone else—I’ll make you someone other drivers envy.”
Derek Su froze.
Images surfaced in his mind—Stella practicing cornering and acceleration alone late at night.
No matter how hard she trained, her stat increases were tiny, just fractions at a time, not even one-tenth of what he could allocate with MP points.
But no one could deny her effort.
She wasn’t a perfect Mecha Girl, but she was trying to make herself perfect.
All so he wouldn’t lose face because of her.
“Actually, I’m already envied by a lot of drivers,” Derek Su said, straightening his back and sitting properly in the cockpit.
“That’s not enough!” Stella puffed out her cheeks, stubborn as ever. “I want to make Master proud of me!”
Time ticked by, second by second.
Finally, the sound of Lingwind’s engine reached them. Zane and Lingwind had arrived.
Derek Su glanced toward the side.
Eternity-01 looked like she was preparing to continue into the next segment. After a brief rest, her chassis had already redeployed.
The blonde-haired woman lay sprawled nearby, watching the crew perform a full inspection on Eternity.
This time, GPC had three competitors participating.
Originally there had been five—but Lucy Luo had chased two of them off.
She planned to run one-third of the entire course with Eternity-01, enjoying herself to the fullest.
And for the next segment, her opponent happened to be Derek Su and Stella.
They would be starting at the same time.
Author's Note
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