The instant Kitahara said he didn't have a driver's license, the relaxed atmosphere inside the car changed on the spot.
After asking him again and again—confirming he wasn't joking, that he really didn't have a license—even without any hard evidence…
Maruzensky and Sirius Symboli both had this vague premonition that letting Kitahara drive might not be as simple as they'd imagined.
But even then, neither of them had grasped how serious it was.
Because in reality, as young ladies born into big families, they'd both already been exposed to driving before they came of age (twenty), and getting a license afterward was basically just going through the motions.
And then, right after Maruzensky drove them out to a wide-open area and had him "show a little" for real, that worry they'd just developed gradually faded away.
His movements, his speed, even the tiny details—everything was enough to prove he was a veteran with deep driving experience.
And unlike Maruzensky, because it was an open area and he was still adapting to the car, Kitahara didn't push the speed too high.
Even as he accelerated, he kept an excellent sense of stability and balance. The technique he showed in the process was impressive even to Maruzensky—she clicked her tongue in admiration, and her trust in him rose a few more notches.
"Trainer Kitahara, you've only just come of age, right? But you look really experienced. So before…"
"Before, out in the countryside. Roads were rough, but the good thing was—no cops. Enforcement wasn't strict."
"Then when did you start driving, exactly?"
"Seven or eight years ago. There was some kind of emergency, and I got shoved into it. At first I was kind of clunky, but later I gradually got used to it…"
As for what kind of emergency it was—seeing he didn't really want to talk about it, Maruzensky didn't press.
And then, just chatting like that, the car reached their planned destination.
A piece of private land Maruzensky had purchased.
Villa, track—everything was there. And it was remote: no other unnecessary vehicles, no traffic police.
Even though Kitahara had already shown pretty solid driving on flat ground—but according to what Hayakawa-san had reported, Kitahara's driving wasn't limited to "pretty solid."
So once she'd confirmed he really did have skill, Maruzensky simply brought him here, wanting to see what he could do on a real track.
Parking. Switching seats.
After sitting in the driver's seat, Kitahara tested the feel, then slowly started the car.
At the beginning, everything was normal.
Unlike Hayakawa-san's sedan, Maruzensky's was a proper sports car—custom-built and modified at great expense.
Whether it was speed or the difficulty of handling, it was far above that sedan. Even though he'd already adapted a little—for safety's sake, in the first stretch after starting, Kitahara didn't drive too fast. While gradually picking up speed, he kept adjusting to the feel of the new car.
The other two felt pretty good too—relaxed enough to chat while riding in Kitahara's car, even with the bandwidth to offer all sorts of commentary on his technique.
But as time went on, their conversation slowly died out.
Because after a period of adaptation—after he'd more or less gotten the feel...
The pressure he put on the gas pedal started getting heavier.
And heavier.
Vroooom—
The engine roared. The scenery outside kept streaming backward.
With the howl of the wind, the race car tearing along the track was like a red meteor, carving streak after streak across the ground.
To be honest, since it was his first time driving this car, Kitahara was being relatively conservative. Even once he'd adapted, he was still driving a bit slower than Maruzensky usually did when she went cruising (or, you know, racing).
But the problem was—once they remembered he didn't have a license, even if the speed was a little slower than Maruzensky's usual, the other two couldn't help feeling uneasy.
And they didn't dare call out to stop him at a moment like this, either.
The speed was right there. If they startled him with a sudden shout, and he got distracted...
The three of them might be checking in at the underworld tonight.
But it didn't take long—after a bit more time passed, they started regretting not stopping him earlier.
Because what they hadn't expected was: even though the speed just now was already high, he kept accelerating.
Before long, he'd surpassed Maruzensky's usual "cruising" speed, charging toward the pace she used when she was actually serious in a race.
A lot of people didn't know this—Maruzensky might drive like she's possessed…
But when she's the one sitting in the passenger seat, she's actually about the same as a normal person.
Maybe even more prone to motion sickness.
So once Kitahara pushed the speed up, even though her own racing speed was faster than this—watching the scenery whip by faster and faster, her face started turning paler by the second.
Sirius Symboli wasn't doing much better.
Even though up to now, Kitahara had been steady even at high speed...
The fact that this was already beyond Maruzensky's usual speeding pace, plus the reality that Kitahara didn't have a license, still made Sirius start wondering whether she'd be seeing tomorrow's sun.
And then—right when both of their faces were steadily bleaching out, and they were regretting ever getting in the car—
Kitahara, feeling like he'd finally gotten the feel down, took a deep breath, and then—
He stomped the gas.
VROOOOM!
...
Some time later.
As the vehicle slowly came to a stop, Kitahara's expression relaxed.
What a good car. It'd been ages since he'd driven this satisfyingly…
But it was someone else's car, after all. Considering wear and tear, and other factors—even though it had been more exhilarating than any run he'd ever done before, Kitahara still hadn't gone all-out. Whether it was speed or technique, he'd held back a lot.
Yeah… he really needed to get his own car.
Kitahara sighed, then turned his head, wanting to share the joy of that drive with Maruzensky—and ask about custom builds while he was at it.
But when he turned around, Kitahara froze.
Because he'd assumed that since Maruzensky drove so fiercely, and Sirius Symboli could even sit in her car, then his "little bit of speed" shouldn't affect them at all—if anything, he'd be lucky not to get laughed at.
Yet when he looked back, he saw that both Maruzensky and Sirius Symboli were deathly pale.
Sirius was still better off—she was a woman with a small aircraft pilot license, and from the Symboli family besides. Other than being a bit pale, she could still basically keep a normal facade.
But Maruzensky—while her face was white, her whole body was shaking. And the moment the car stopped, she immediately pulled out a bag and started vomiting.
Weird. Was I unstable just now? That can't be right… It was my first time driving this kind of car—if anything, I even sacrificed some speed to stay steady…
Kitahara couldn't really understand it.
"Um… Sirius-san, just now I—"
Right as Kitahara was about to ask Sirius what the hell this was, his phone suddenly rang in his pocket.
"Ore no—"
"Sorry. I need to take this."
The sudden call cut him off. Slightly puzzled, Kitahara pulled it out and saw the big, bold name on the screen:
Kudou Kazuya.
Weird. Why was he calling now? Did they finally identify that mysterious "buyer"?
But that didn't feel right either. With how that old fox operated—he might support his actions, sure, but there was no way he'd use something like a phone call, which could so easily become hard evidence tying him to an identity…
Still puzzled, Kitahara hit accept and put the phone to his ear.
"Hello, Trainer Kudou, is there some—"
"Kitahara Sota. I'm sending you coordinates—are you near them?"
Before Kitahara could finish, Kudou Kazuya's voice cut in—clearly urgent.
And before he'd even finished speaking, Kitahara received the coordinates on LINE.
"I'm not close, but I'm not ridiculously far either. What happened?"
"Something big."
Kudou Kazuya spoke anxiously. In the background, Kitahara could clearly hear the sound of a car starting.
"Trainer Kitahara—if possible, I need you to head toward that location right now. As for why… we'll talk while you're moving—"
Hearing that, Kitahara's brows tightened as he slowly started the car.
"Trainer Kudou, I'm already in a car. If I'm driving, I can't really talk with you. Tell me what's going on right now—as fast as you can. Only the most important parts."
"An attack!"
Kudou Kazuya shouted it, the urgency in his voice hitting its peak.
"A fuel tanker's been hijacked. It's heading for a nearby Uma Musume daycare right now—they're planning to detonate it there—"
"The fuck did you just say?!"
The instant the words landed, Kitahara slammed the gas.
Vroooom—
"Trainer Kitahara, what's goi—"
"I'll explain later."
There wasn't time to explain to the other two. Kitahara snapped his attention back to the phone in his hand, driving while speaking in a voice that was basically a shout.
"Tell me. How much time do we have?"
"Twenty minutes at most. I've already notified the police and Tracen, but they won't make it in time. And even if we evacuate the kids, they'll detonate somewhere else crowded—maybe even sooner—"
"I get it."
After hearing Kudou Kazuya's report, Kitahara quietly hung up. He recalled the coordinates Kudou had sent, and a flame slowly rose in his eyes.
"Twenty minutes…"
Even with a sports car and his skill, it would be hard to reach that location in twenty minutes.
And even if he got there, he'd still need to find the target—and guard against an early detonation.
But even so, Kitahara didn't go insane from the pressure.
He got calmer.
Twenty minutes—no. At most, fifteen…
If he followed normal roads, it was basically impossible. Which meant he needed some not-normal methods…
"Maruzensky-san. Is your car sturdy?"
"It's pretty sturdy. I use it for races, and sometimes accidents happen, so I reinforced the frame on purpose… Trainer Kitahara, why are you asking?"
"Nothing."
He said "nothing," but Kitahara still reached out and pulled several bottles of condensed stamina recovery potion—something he'd previously asked Agnes Tachyon to concentrate—from the system, then tossed them into the back.
"It's just… in a bit, I'm probably going to drive pretty hard. If you get hurt, drink one of those."
"Trainer Kitahara, what are you plan—"
"There's a steep slope ahead with a good angle."
Kitahara bit off the cap of a condensed stamina recovery potion and set it aside within reach, then continued.
"It can save us a lot of time."
"But the price is…"
"We're probably going to have to fly."
With that, along with a savage stomp on the gas, the red comet tore forward in a cloud of dust.
As if fear and despair had been left behind on the route.
...
From a very young age, Maruzensky had already shown a longing for speed.
While other girls were obsessed with dressing up and all kinds of socializing, she leaned toward training instead—watching every kind of speed-related competition she could find, and even starting self-training from childhood.
Then, when she got a bit older—before she became a pro racing Uma Musume—she'd already been exposed to vehicle racing, and fell deeply in love with it, savoring the thrill that came with extreme speed.
Later on, she became a professional race car driver, and also a professional racing Uma Musume—and no matter which field it was, she dominated everyone at a breakaway pace.
To the point that, in the end, she couldn't even find many opponents willing to measure up against her—anyone willing to let her vent what was burning inside.
So she could only coax and trick her friends in all kinds of ways into getting in her car, satisfying her cravings by taking them out for "a little cruise."
From childhood until now—even the first time she ever entered a race, blazing forward at a speed she'd never experienced before—she'd never felt fear.
If anything, that ultimate speed gave her an intense sense of fulfillment.
It could be said that from start to finish, when it came to speed, Maruzensky had only ever been the one making others feel terror and despair. She'd never been the one who was afraid.
Even earlier, when Kitahara had been driving at high speed, the reason her face had gone pale wasn't fear of speed at all—it was simply motion sickness, plus the fact that Kitahara didn't have a license.
But now—listening to the wind screaming outside the windows, feeling the engine's roar, and sensing the madness of this already-high speed being unleashed not on a normal road, but through mountain terrain...
...
Japan was mountainous, so a lot of tracks were built into the mountains.
And with mountains came rivers, blocking off routes.
Even the nearest bridge was still a fair distance from here, and getting to it meant making a huge detour—by far the biggest reason they'd lose time.
Once he understood that, the rest was easy.
Silently counting down in his head, Kitahara's eyes sharpened.
Unlike Maruzensky, he wasn't a legitimate race car driver, and he'd rarely had the experience of driving "normally" on normal roads.
All of his driving experience came from real combat.
And not the ordinary kind.
So when Kitahara drove seriously, he followed a principle different from every other driver.
Between two points, a straight line is the shortest.
Simulate. Calculate. Plot the route.
Drive. Search. Lock onto the target.
Then accelerate.
Accelerate.
Accelerate again.
Originally, with Kitahara's wild sprint—wild sprinting on a non-standard route—the two in the back seat were already shaking.
And when they saw the cliff ahead, the color drained from their faces in an instant.
"Trainer Kitahara, you're not seriously planning to—"
"Seatbelts. Find something to brace yourself with. Hold onto the potions I gave you—drink them the moment we land—"
Before he could finish, weightlessness hit.
The sound of tires grinding against ground vanished, and the world seemed to fall silent.
They were airborne.
And they were high.
Then came the fall.
The impact of it was so overwhelming that both Sirius Symboli and Maruzensky blanked out for a brief moment, so neither of them noticed that Kitahara had let go of the steering wheel.
Had he given up?
Of course not.
The moment he released the wheel, two objects appeared in Kitahara's hands—his biggest reliance for daring to pull something like this.
One of them was a small gadget Karai Risa had slipped him while chatting before, as a way to prove her capabilities.
A miniature anti-gravity generator.
This thing could, for a short time, within a certain range, temporarily erase the existence of gravity.
Even if gravity vanished for a moment, the car would still inevitably smash into the ground.
But at least, with this cushioning it, they wouldn't have to fully take the impact of falling from dozens of meters in the air.
And as for the other object…
It was an alarm clock.
A completely ordinary-looking alarm clock—the kind you could find everywhere on the street.
It was the most ridiculous item in his unlucky system, the second-to-last card in his hand.
Fortunately, that card never ended up being needed.
The miniature anti-gravity device Karai Risa gave him was even more useful than he'd expected. Even falling from dozens of meters up, under its effect, the impact they took wasn't that high.
Forget the two Uma Musume—when the vehicle hit the ground, even Kitahara only coughed up a mouthful of blood, feeling like his organs had shifted out of place.
But after downing a couple swallows of condensed stamina recovery potion, just a few seconds later he was basically back to full, and he charged toward the location Kudou Kazuya had marked at maximum speed.
Total time: 13 minutes, 54 seconds.
Then the target search began.
Maybe because time was too tight and they felt invincible, that fuel tanker didn't try to hide at all—it drove straight toward the location Kudou Kazuya had mentioned, openly and shamelessly.
But even after spotting the target, Kitahara didn't act immediately. He first confirmed through various means—reflections and the like.
That the people inside didn't seem like legitimate transport staff, and that there was even a bundle of explosives placed between the driver and passenger seats.
Only then did he fully confirm the target.
"Maruzensky-san."
"W-what… is it… Trainer Kitahara…"
Maruzensky's voice was trembling, but Kitahara didn't have time to fuss over it.
"Can you take the wheel for a bit?"
As he spoke, his gaze drifted to the tanker's cab.
Even though Maruzensky had been put through hell earlier, after drinking a few swallows of the condensed stamina recovery potion Kitahara provided, she'd recovered a lot.
Especially once they entered normal roads for the search, Kitahara had already dropped to a normal driving speed, which helped her recover even faster.
And when she heard Kitahara's request, even though she'd just endured a whole chain of torment, precisely because of that she understood how urgent this was. She didn't ask anything—she agreed immediately.
Slow down. Switch seats. Then inch closer to the tanker.
Because the sports car was a vivid red—and because of the violent traces left by their earlier run—the tanker driver noticed the thing approaching almost instantly, her expression changing drastically.
How was that possible? The plan should've been flawless—
But before she could think further, with a sharp whoosh, the sports car's door swung upward, and a figure leapt out—hanging onto her door from the side.
"Are you insane?!"
When the driver realized it wasn't an Uma Musume, but just an ordinary human man, she relaxed a little.
Good. Just a human. They were already close to the target location—if she didn't open the door, with a human body it would be impossible to threaten her.
Thinking that, looking at the daycare now visible to the naked eye, hatred flashed through her eyes as she stomped the accelerator—
CRACK.
With the shriek of twisting metal, the door—over half a person tall—was ripped clean off.
Then, before the shocked driver could even react, Kitahara waved his hand. A powder flew out from his palm and scattered across her face, and in an instant she lost consciousness.
After knocking her out, before the power he'd accumulated through all those "intimate activities" with Eclipse burned out, he tossed the door away, squeezed into the cab, seized the steering wheel—and slammed the brakes.
SCREE—
With a piercing screech, the fuel tanker finally stopped several meters in front of the daycare's gate.
"Haah…"
After stopping the tanker, Kitahara let out a long breath, his body slumping into the driver's seat.
He fucking made it in time…
And while he was slumped there, the battered red sports car stopped beside it. Sirius Symboli and Maruzensky jumped out quickly.
Climbing up into the tanker, they saw Kitahara slumped in the seat, wearing a face like he'd lost the will to live.
Seeing that expression, they both thought he'd been injured in what just happened and were about to ask—
But Kitahara spoke first.
"Maruzensky-san. I'll pay for the damage to your car. Just go through the normal process…"
He paused, then spoke slowly, his heart aching.
"Fuck… Kudou Kazuya, you people are animals. You drag me into shit every day, you don't give me a single yen, and now I'm paying out of pocket…"
"How much is this going to cost…?"
---
T/N: HOLY SHIT???????????????? KITAHARA IS CRAZY :SOB: CTRAZY HOT!!! LET ME UMA PYOI HIM!!