Chapter 17: I Can Win!

The sudden burst of acceleration sent Stella’s chassis completely out of control. Even with her tires screeching violently across the track, she couldn’t rein in her rampaging frame.

Derek Su grit his teeth. In this moment, Stella felt like she had gone right back to the days when her Drifting stat was only 7 points.

He wasn’t driving a car—he was wrestling a berserk bull.

From Stella, he sensed dizziness and confusion. Clearly, the girl had been thrown senseless by his earlier maneuver.

Derek Su could only sigh inwardly. He didn’t blame her—handling the machine was his job as the driver.

Stella could get dizzy. He couldn’t.

The world spun wildly, scenery whipping past his field of vision in a blur.

Then—boom!—the chassis slammed into something. The collision created a brief pause, just enough for Stella’s runaway frame to catch a breath. At that instant, Derek Su locked onto the track ahead. Just as he had calculated, the impact—while dangerous—had realigned Stella’s trajectory.

Stella snapped awake with a sharp jolt of pain in her rear.

“Full throttle—exit the corner!”

Derek Su’s steady voice rang through her ears. Her mind was blank, but she instinctively followed every command.

The engine howled. The chassis swayed left and right before stabilizing. They exited the corner nearly side-by-side with Comet, their speeds almost identical—easy to make up.

“Whoa, whoa—no way!” Caio Yang’s mouth dropped wide enough to shove in a whole watermelon. “How the hell did that work?!”

Comet was completely stunned. Everything had happened too fast for her to form words.

All she could do was replay the scene over and over. She hadn’t seen the whole thing—just a glimpse—and even that made no sense.

Only the man in the helicopter and the viewers watching the Banag Circuit screens had seen the full spectacle of that hairpin turn.

“That little brat! Trying to give me a heart attack?!”

Mr. Liang hurled his iced tea bottle at the ground. He clutched his chest with one hand and steadied himself on his knee with the other, breathing hard.

“Way too reckless! It’s just a training match—so what if you lose? Why show off like that? When they get back, they’re getting a proper lecture!”

He took a long breath. Despite the scare, he couldn’t help but admire Derek Su’s brilliance.

“Using the track barrier to correct the car’s angle… He’s miles better than I ever was.”

Moments earlier, Derek Su had punched the throttle right as he entered the corner, sending Stella into a predictable spin. She spun a full 360 degrees, sliding toward the barrier. On the second rotation, the rear of her chassis struck the track fence at just the right instant, stalling her momentum for a split second. Derek Su seized that moment and hit the gas, letting the tires regain grip—and Stella shot out of the corner with only minimal speed loss.

Pulling that move off was effectively the same as defying gravity.

It required track intuition, precision driving, and lightning-fast reflexes.

Normally, drivers freeze up during impact, making it near impossible to perform such a maneuver in that instant.

Miss the timing, and the mecha girl would stay in a fully uncontrolled slide. Forget exiting the turn—she might not even finish the lap.

But Derek Su pulled it off.

Given Derek Su’s near supernatural cornering earlier, Mr. Liang couldn’t even tell if that maneuver was luck or absolute control.

“But even so, beating Caio Yang and Comet from VVC Club won’t be easy.”

While the crowd buzzed over the 360-degree spiral maneuver, concern surfaced in Mr. Liang’s eyes.

Everyone thought Derek Su and Stella had the win locked in. Based on their earlier performance, their straight-line speed clearly exceeded Caio Yang and Comet’s.

Even if they exited the turn at the same pace, a fully throttled Comet still wouldn’t outmatch Stella.

But there was one crucial detail the crowd didn’t know—one Mr. Liang did.

Caio Yang wasn’t just any racer. He was a Techmaster.

“A Techmaster, huh… I just hope Caio Yang has some shame. If he uses psychic energy on a rookie in a training match, that’d be embarrassing.”

Mr. Liang shook his head. But racing was war. He couldn’t predict—or stop—what Caio Yang or Comet might do.

...

At the Banag Circuit—

Even after the blow to her rear, Stella’s straight-line acceleration advantage showed immediately.

Both mecha girls had similar exit speeds, but Stella’s frame surged forward in a steady, resolute overtake. No matter how brutally Comet’s engine screamed behind them, it made no difference.

“Master, we’re going to lose! Do something!” Comet stared at Stella pulling half a car length ahead, eyes full of frustration.

“You want me to use psychic energy?” Caio Yang scratched his head. “Isn’t that kinda unfair? He’s just a rookie—and his mecha’s cornering is garbage.”

“But I don’t want to lose! Especially not to a scrap heap!”

Comet grit her teeth. “A rookie? You think someone with driving like that is a rookie? He’s a monster!”

“Well~ I’ll give you that. That driver is ridiculous.”

Caio Yang smiled and reached out to stroke her back, smoothing her “fur.” “But it’s just a training match. If word gets out I used psychic power, how am I supposed to keep my dignity as your master?”

“I’ll wash your underwear for one day!” Comet bit her lip hard.

Stella was already a full car length ahead, weaving left and right to block every chance of overtaking.

“One day means one pair of underwear. Every time I use psychic power, I feel empty and lonely for ages~” Caio Yang pouted.

“Th-three days!” Comet snarled.

“A week!” Caio Yang grinned wickedly. “Wash my underwear for a week, and I’ll use spirit skills to carry you right now!”

Comet was clearly unwilling—but the finish line was already in sight.

She screamed, nearly hysterical, “A week!”

“Deal!” Caio Yang committed fully, slamming both hands onto the control stick as rings of faint blue energy surged up his arms and into Comet.

So what if teammates teased him? So what if the coach scolded him? So what if it stained his record?

All he wanted was for the icy, aloof Comet to wash his underwear for a week.

His perfect life would begin!

“Shadow Shift!”

At Caio Yang’s low shout, Comet’s frame twisted into a distorted, shadowy phantom—her speed leaping dramatically.

She ignored Stella’s blocking entirely, even phasing through Stella’s chassis as the two mecha overlapped.

When Derek Su noticed a translucent Caio Yang drifting up from his rear flank, his expression twisted magnificently.

“What the hell are you two?!”

For a moment he thought he’d run into a ghost—Caio Yang and Comet looked straight out of a haunted-car movie.

“Sorry, bro~” Caio Yang said with a shameless grin. “But to make my mecha girl wash my underwear for a week… sometimes you gotta bully the newbies~”

Derek Su: “…”

Stella also sensed Comet phasing past her.

She locked eyes with Comet’s phantom form—sparks flying between the two mecha girls.

Stella: “Trying to pass me? Not happening!”

Comet: “Heh, still too green. Beating you is easy~”

The senior’s mocking gaze and provocation hit Stella like a slap.

She broke eye contact and focused solely on the track, roaring—a sound so fierce it drowned out both engines.

“I’m not junk!”

“I’m not a killer car!”

“AAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHH—!”

【Sovereign Engine initializing…】

On Derek Su’s display, all he could see was Stella’s back—and the message floating above her head.

“Hey! Stella, calm down! You’re gonna blow the cylinder!!”

He vividly remembered her current blowout rate: eighty percent.

But Stella didn’t hear him. Her focus was entirely on the track rushing by and the finish line closing in.

“I can win!” she told herself.

“I can prove myself! I won’t shame my master!”

Comet’s eyes widened. She couldn’t understand how Stella was unleashing such terrifying speed.

Caio Yang’s advantage from Shadow Shift was rapidly shrinking.

One hundred meters from the finish line.

“Comet and Caio Yang are in the lead!” The commentator’s excited shout echoed through the storm. “We can see VVC Club’s Caio Yang and Comet have activated their psychic abilities! Even though this is just a training match, the track is a battlefield—kill or be killed! Even pro racers must go all out!”

Fifty meters from the finish line.

“What is this?! Stella and that man are catching up! The two mecha girls are overlapping!”

“Can Stella overtake in the final split second?!”

Ten meters from the finish line.

“I can win!”

A burning heat swelled in Stella’s chest—like a fireball lodged inside her.

The gap between her and Comet had nearly vanished.

“I won!!”

BOOM—!

The Engine Module exploded.

In the last flicker of consciousness, Stella crossed the finish line—wearing a brilliant, triumphant smile.