Chapter 67: Dare You Crash?

Jade-786 charged straight into the corner without the slightest hint of slowing. Just as she was about to smash into the guardrail, a muffled boom burst from the jet nozzles on the rear hood. The violent airflow even made the shipping containers used as barriers shudder.

Relying on that thrust, Jade-786 forcibly corrected her trajectory. The jet system worked just as well through the S-shaped consecutive corners—left and right nozzles firing at precisely timed moments to stabilize the body. It was obvious that after installing these illegal modifications, Jade-786 had done plenty of real-world testing herself.

“Great, that bastard is cheating!”

Derek Su slammed the railing, furious.

Illegal modifications damaged a Mecha Girl’s exterior. He had wondered earlier why Jade-786—usually so uninhibited—was so tightly covered today. Turns out she was afraid of being found out, trying to put Stella on guard in advance.

“But… the agreement doesn’t explicitly say illegal modifications aren’t allowed.” Xavier Young pulled out the contract and checked it again and again, sighing helplessly. “Still, I really didn’t expect this Mecha Girl to go to such extremes. Even if she wins by relying on illegal modifications and becomes your secondary Mecha Girl, you probably wouldn’t accept her anyway, right?”

“Hmph. Even if she beat me without modifications, I wouldn’t accept her.” Derek Su snorted, crossing his arms. Right now, Jade-786 was rapidly closing the gap with Stella thanks to the illegal modifications.

If Stella were defeated by Jade-786, she’d probably take a serious hit, wouldn’t she?

Jade-786 knew full well that using illegal modifications was shameful.

But so what?

She stared unblinkingly at Stella’s taillights.

“As long as I become Derek Su’s secondary Mecha Girl, I have a hundred ways to make Derek Su focus all his attention on me. I can accept any damage to my body!”

She was truly going all out. Illegal modifications were unimaginably painful, especially at the moment of activation. For a Mecha Girl, it was like forcibly grafting incompatible foreign objects onto her body.

Imagine shoving a pair of mechanical arms, dripping with blood, straight into flesh. Even if those arms could function, wouldn’t every operation be torture for the body?

The only advantage Mecha Girls had after undergoing illegal modifications was that their bodies could gradually recover. Still, unless they were aiming for an official race, most Mecha Girls who had been illegally modified were almost unwilling to remove them.

Cheating was addictive. Enduring a bit of pain was nothing.

With the boost provided by the illegal modifications, Jade-786 quickly drew level with Stella.

“Stella, I’ll show you my resolve! Even if I have to endure the pain of modifications, I’ll become Derek Su’s Mecha Girl!”

“Pfft!” Stella shot Jade-786 a look full of contempt. “You’re just drooling over my master. Get lost!”

She even casually pulled out two pineapple husks and hurled them at Jade-786’s windshield.

Jade-786 was livid, but she also knew that trading insults with Stella at a time like this was pointless. She refocused her attention on the track.

After several segments of fierce pursuit, despite Stella doing everything she could to block her, Jade-786 finally managed to overtake.

Illegal modifications were no joke. The downsides were huge, but the performance boost they offered was terrifying.

Compared to special modules that were so expensive they made people flinch, modifications could achieve similar—or even better—results for just a few hundred thousand, sometimes even tens of thousands.

After overtaking Stella, Jade-786 let out a small sigh of relief. This didn’t mean she was guaranteed to win, but it was a good start, and at least in terms of momentum, she had suppressed Stella.

...

“Ah… Stella’s been overtaken.” Lingwind clasped her hands to her chest, her face full of worry as she silently prayed for Stella.

She could feel that this race—though it looked like nothing more than an assessment—was incredibly important to Stella.

Stella must be protecting something that mattered deeply to her.

Seeing Stella get overtaken by Jade-786, tension flickered in Derek Su’s eyes, and he clenched his fists without realizing it.

It wasn’t that he was afraid of what would happen if Stella lost. He was afraid this would become a thorn in Stella’s heart.

Would Stella lose?

...

Facing the absolute speed suppression brought by the illegal modifications, Stella lifted her head inside the cockpit.

She thought of her debut race, gritting her teeth and pushing with everything she had, determined to crash through the finish line even if she ended up bloodied and broken. She thought of stepping down from the auction platform, her body covered in wounds—other Mecha Girls were greeted with flowers and applause, while all that awaited her were cold, mocking stares. She thought of cowering in a warehouse, icy wind pounding against the windows, watching another Mecha Girl finish a race replay in despair before extracting her AI Core.

She should have been the one abandoned. The one sent back to be recycled.

Her consciousness erased, saying goodbye to this world forever—after existing in it for less than seventy-two hours.

It was Master who pulled her out of the abyss. It was Master who gave her a second life. Without Master, there would be no Stella racing down the track today.

No matter what, she refused to let Derek Su lose face!

What right did the Mecha Girl who once abandoned Derek Su have to stand in front of her Master again?

Absolutely not!

“Absolutely not!!” Stella roared, eyes wide.

Violent, raging emotions surged through her, and her engine let out a strange noise like the low growl of a beast.

Emotions could influence a Mecha Girl’s racing state.

Lumina had risen again by overcoming her inner fears. Lingwind had carried everyone’s hopes to defeat the pilot-assisted Broken Moon.

On this special track filled with corners, Stella’s raw speed wasn’t particularly outstanding.

But now, a pair of silver light wings gradually appeared on both sides of her chassis. The wings extended backward all the way to the rear, spreading left and right like a fledgling eagle taking flight.

In that instant, Stella’s speed skyrocketed. She tore through the hairpin ahead like lightning. Unfortunately, the distance was too great for Derek Su to see her status panel. Otherwise, he would have been stunned to see a flashing red “+15” appear next to her cornering attribute.

And Stella’s speed was still climbing!

“What is this?” Derek Su froze, rubbing his eyes to make sure he wasn’t seeing things.

“That’s Overclocking mode.” Xavier Young crossed his arms, staring intently at Stella on the track, his expression grave. “When a Mecha Girl’s emotions reach an extreme, there’s an extremely small chance she’ll enter Overclocking mode. In this state, her overall performance temporarily increases, allowing her to pull off maneuvers that would otherwise be nearly impossible.”

“Overclocking?” Derek Su murmured. “I’ve never even heard of that…”

“That’s normal. The probability is just too low.” Xavier Young shrugged. “Many veteran drivers and Mecha Girls don’t know about it either. Only those who’ve spent years competing on provincial-level tracks have heard rumors. I used to think it was just a legend—until I saw it with my own eyes today.”

“Has any other Mecha Girl ever overclocked before?”

“Yes.” Xavier Young recalled. “On the second national-level track—the Wind and Snow Extreme Path—a Mecha Girl once overclocked. She was carrying her driver across the ice fields, and the driver was on the verge of freezing to death. To finish the race as quickly as possible and save the driver’s life, that Mecha Girl overclocked. What should’ve taken an hour was completed in under thirty minutes.”

At the words “almost froze to death,” Derek Su’s mouth twitched.

Just how insane were national-level tracks?

No wonder Zane said those top racers were all built like oxen.

Trying to challenge tracks in such extreme environments without a solid physique really wasn’t an option.

“What happened after that?”

“The driver still froze to death. That Mecha Girl never appeared again. Many people analyzed that it was Overclocking; others said it was a special Module. My master insisted it was Overclocking, but someone deliberately covered up the information. As for where that Mecha Girl went afterward… just thinking about it is terrifying~”

Xavier Young hurriedly hugged Lumina beside him, putting on a frightened, fragile expression. “That’s so scary! Sniffle, sniffle!”

“Master, don’t be scared. Be good~ I’m here~”

Poor Lumina was still sitting in a wheelchair, yet she had to hold Xavier Young like an older sister, patting his back to comfort him.

Derek Su: “…”

...

On the track, Jade-786 was completely stunned when she saw Stella catching up again.

“What are those light wings? An anomalous Module?”

Jade-786 ground her teeth, unable to imagine that Derek Su was not only that rich, but also that doting toward Stella.

He even bought her an exotic Module!

If she hadn’t left Derek Su back then, the one with the exotic Module would be her now!

The more she thought about it, the angrier and more jealous she became. Yet she couldn’t stop Stella from closing the distance.

At the final corner before the finish line, the gap between Stella and Jade-786 could only be measured in centimeters.

Jade-786 knew she had already lost. Even if Stella didn’t overtake her in this last stretch, she couldn’t pull ahead by thirty seconds. She glanced at the rearview mirror—she could see less than half of Stella’s chassis. Her experience as a Mecha Girl told her clearly that Stella behind her was ready to overtake in the final corner.

But—

“Don’t even think about passing me!” Jade-786 lowered her gaze. At the very least, she had to fight for her pride on the track.

To force Stella’s hand, Jade-786 deliberately delayed her braking as she entered the final corner. She planned to risk combining cornering with the illegally modified jet boosters. This approach introduced countless uncertainties, and she didn’t have the ability to calculate everything perfectly. The body could easily lose control.

Both she and Stella were now cornering at speeds exceeding 300.

If control was lost at that speed, the entire vehicle would be sent flying.

“Delaying your braking point to make me give up?”

Stella puffed out her cheeks. She reached back for a pineapple but grabbed nothing, and with a surge of anger, she entered the corner almost side by side with Jade-786.

The final corner was a consecutive hairpin—left first, then right.

Because Jade-786 deliberately delayed her braking, Stella did the same, but her entry speed was still higher than Jade-786’s.

The inertia from the turn pushed Stella’s rear wheels closer and closer to Jade-786. At the closest moment, sparks even flew as the two Mecha Girls’ tires scraped against each other.

Everyone in the stands watched, hearts in their throats.

If the two Mecha Girls collided at this speed and then smashed into the guardrail, it wouldn’t just be an accident.

Fortunately, the collision didn’t happen. Stella had already cut her line into the second right-hand turn, and with her higher speed, she was about to seize priority on the exit.

Jade-786 took a deep breath.

This was her last chance.

She now had only two options.

Either floor the accelerator and lose control, crashing into the barrier—or use the jet boosters to forcibly correct her body and fight for the exit position. But at this moment, Stella was like a roadblock, sealing off every possible route.

At the instant they crossed paths—

She saw a flash of icy sharpness in Stella’s eyes.

Though Stella said nothing, Jade-786 read a single sentence in that gaze.

“Do you dare crash?!”