Chapter 84: Even Giving It Your All Still Won’t Be Enough

“Ma… Master… this Mecha Girl is terrifying…”

Watching Purple Lightning take down four Mecha Girls in less than a minute, Stella swallowed hard. She had never feared even durability monsters like Snowpeak, yet seeing Purple Lightning now sent a chill straight down her spine.

“She really is,” Derek Su nodded.

He was talking about Purple Lightning’s innate special skill.

If Stella had Purple Lightning’s skill on top of her current Acceleration, he could win first place with his eyes closed. It wasn’t that Stella’s [Sovereign Engine] was weak—rather, Perfect Cornering felt as if it had been tailor-made for him.

Inside Snowpeak’s cockpit, Leon Li stared at Purple Lightning’s silhouette, a thoughtful look in his eyes.

An autonomous Mecha Girl…

Was it because she had no driver?

Had she been eliminated by her club—or abandoned by her pilot?

“Master, this Mecha Girl has exceptional talent, but her top speed might be lacking,” Snowpeak said, tilting her head slightly toward Leon Li. “Didn’t you mention before that you wanted a secondary Mecha Girl? After the race, you could ask if she’s willing.”

Leon Li felt there wouldn’t be much of a problem.

He was the RRC Club’s newly appointed chief rookie.

That title alone was enough to make many Mecha Girls flock to him.

But still…

“Snowpeak, this doesn’t sound like you.”

Snowpeak turned her gaze back to the track, her soft, steady voice drifting out calmly. “Which part do you mean?”

“Well… you actually taking the initiative to suggest I contract a secondary Mecha Girl.”

“Oh~” Snowpeak paused briefly, then replied indifferently, “Thirty times a day—ten in the morning, ten at noon, and ten at night. Master won’t have any spare energy left, so I’m quite reassured~”

Leon Li: “…”

He silently grabbed a handful of goji berries from the storage box beside him and crunched them down.

Natural herbs work best in combination.

Since Snowpeak had already said that much, then after the underground race ended, he’d go and try his luck.

...

After passing the Z-shaped hairpin section, they reached the back mountain behind the cemetery complex.

Ahead lay a long, straight stretch of road.

They had expected Purple Lightning to clash head-on with them next, but instead, after eliminating five illegally modified Mecha Girls and their drivers, she voluntarily shifted from the inner lane to the outer lane. Hugging the cliffside, she yielded both the inner and middle lanes to Derek Su and Leon Li, showing no intention of competing with them at all.

Purple Lightning’s speed was slow—far inferior to Stella and Snowpeak.

Though puzzled, Derek Su and Leon Li still overtook her without hesitation.

There was still about half the race left. Their duel was far from over.

Inside her cockpit, Purple Lightning watched Stella and Snowpeak disappear into the distance. No matter how hard she pushed, she couldn’t catch up.

Before long, even their taillights vanished from view.

Only she remained on the track, facing the icy night wind. Pain from her illegal modifications surged through her entire body, magnified with every collision and violent exchange. She clenched her teeth, messy bangs shadowing her eyes as cold sweat and tears streamed down her pale cheeks.

“Can’t catch up…”

“No matter what, I can’t catch up, right? With speed like this…”

Purple Lightning thought silently.

Why had she been abandoned by her driver back then?

When Chloe Qin was still a rookie driver, her cornering skills were terrible. At the auction, she had spotted Purple Lightning at first glance and contracted her—a Mecha Girl with average acceleration but exceptional cornering ability.

Purple Lightning had wanted to grow together with Chloe Qin. Back then, she was full of ambition. Chloe Qin seemed to genuinely like her, and to Purple Lightning, money wasn’t important—choosing the right master was. So she set her auction price at just ten million, less than one-fifth of what most top-tier Mecha Girls commanded.

There was training. There were modifications. Those days with Chloe Qin were genuinely happy.

They improved together, ate and lived together like sisters. Watching Chloe Qin’s skills steadily improve—until she no longer needed Purple Lightning’s assistance in corners—filled her with indescribable pride. They won many races through teamwork. Though slow, they exploited corners so well that they always raced with ease.

Until one day, they ran into the VVC Club’s ace—Caio Yang.

Caio Yang piloted Comet to victory at a speed they couldn’t even dream of matching.

From that race onward, no matter how perfectly Purple Lightning handled each corner, it was meaningless.

In the face of absolute speed, cornering technique amounted to nothing.

That race was like opening Pandora’s box.

She and Chloe Qin went on to lose two consecutive practice races.

They failed to even make the top twenty in the Greenfield Advancement Race. Even at the Silverstone Advancement Race—famous for its many corners—they barely scraped eighth place.

After that, Chloe Qin completely collapsed mentally.

She started nitpicking Purple Lightning constantly, blaming her for being too slow, saying that swapping out different purple modules was pointless.

One day, after returning from a training race, Chloe Qin smashed every trophy they had won together.

“A Mecha Girl as slow as a snail like you should just get lost!”

“Purple Lightning, I’ll never drive you again.”

What Chloe Qin said afterward no longer mattered. Purple Lightning couldn’t remember it clearly.

She only remembered curling up in a corner, hugging her knees, tears covering her face, unable to catch her breath as pain tore through her chest.

The next day, Chloe Qin brought back a new Mecha Girl.

Her name was Blazing Wind—exceptional in both cornering and Acceleration. From that moment on, Purple Lightning completely lost her chance to race.

She went to Chloe Qin, begging for one more opportunity—or at least to be set free.

But Chloe Qin responded with only a cold sentence.

“Freedom? Sure. Pay back the thirty million breach penalty first. After that, you can be as free as you want.”

Later, to repay the penalty, she entered Xavier Young’s black market.

She had no advantage in underground races. Against those heavily and flashily modified Mecha Girls, she couldn’t earn any money.

So she installed offensive modifications instead and entered the Duel Arena—the most profitable and also the most brutal event in the black market.

At first, with her poor Impact Resistance and Stability, she was beaten bloody again and again, sometimes left on the brink of death and dragged off the field.

Later, she gradually learned to fight using her agility, carving out a place for herself in the arena. The prize money was decent—on good days she could earn over a million, and even on bad days she’d still take home five or six hundred thousand. Though every duel left her body feeling as if it were about to fall apart, lying motionless for a day in that pitch-black room was enough to restore her to near full condition.

“A Mecha Girl without speed has no future.”

Purple Lightning felt the truth of those words more deeply than anyone.

Just like now—the track ahead was nothing but emptiness.

Even the roar of Stella and Snowpeak’s engines was fading from her ears.

...

On the road ahead, they were approaching the next observation point.

A C-shaped uphill corner with a steep incline, climbing more than thirty meters in elevation.

For the power-packed Stella, terrain like this was trivial.

Derek Su had thought the outcome of today’s race was already decided—that Leon Li and Snowpeak were out of tricks, and that he and Stella would have no choice but to tearfully accept a truckload of [Okamoto 001].

But then Leon Li and Snowpeak immediately pulled off another outrageous maneuver!