Chapter 16: Ramp made of rubbish

Every few meters, both exterior and interior pieces would fall out, forcing the girl to swerve out of the way. The cart’s body was in pure shambles, and its tires were badly torn and punctured in several places, by now barely hanging onto their respective wheels. Not even something like that would stop it, though. All those remaining pocket boosters from prior would keep on propelling it forward, regardless of any of that, so long as they remained equipped.

The station was, of course, deserted, and not only that, but deprived of any significant objects or structures in its interior aside from the ones inherent to the building itself.

Haruto continued onward, seeing only the goal past those empty walls.

The two vehicles ran clumsily along the abandoned facility’s main floor and towards a triple set of long stairways right in front, bumping their damaged wheels against each of the dusty steps and past the tall, arched gateways, exiting straight onto a random platform without slowing down for a moment, their blind path leading them directly onto the the tall drop over the tracks.

The girl was able to turn perpendicularly at the last moment, keeping herself safe atop the platform. The golf cart, however, was no longer nearly as nimble, and fell right for the cruel trap.

The whole weight of the cart landed directly on the hard, uneven tracks below, lifting up a suffocating amount of dust and prompting Haruto to cough and wheeze wildly to the side. His eyes were still glued to the visage in front of him, however, as he turned the wheel as fast as he could and was able to line the cart up to the train lines’ length just before hitting the farther ledge head on, not letting go of the gas pedal for a single moment as he brought it back over to the rail track nearest to the platform the girl was on.

The flimsy cart continued to tremble, jump and clatter as it forcefully ran over each of the railings’ bumps and cross ties. The roof was shaking wildly in place, and Haruto knew it would eventually let go and fly away as he moved on. Below, each of the cart’s tires audibly popped and thorn, one at a time, until their ripping and wobbling sounds were soon replaced by the screeching of metal against metal.

It was that precise moment that convinced the boy his vehicle was truly falling apart, not that it would deter him from his mania.

By this point, the Pocket Boosters were really the only thing left to keep this heap of scrap moving. And Haruto was going to keep exploiting its dead carcass for as long as he could, too.

Slightly above, he could see the motorcycle roaring ahead on the platform, weaving through the pillars in its middle, focused solely on the path ahead.

Meanwhile, in front of him, all that could be seen was the darkness of the tunnel ahead, until it was soon cut off by a blinding light, and the echoing of a rather familiar rumbling sound in the distance.

(This isn’t good… I’ve got to get back up there…)

He glanced down at the timer in the corner of his vision. The weird ‘heart’ symbol had shown up again, signaling him his ability was ready once again. Or rather, it had been for a while. Not hesitating to use it, he swung his finger around, bringing it to the dark blue shape.

“Assigned skill activated: On-site crafting.”

It was only a wavering thought, not even a realized idea, but… Haruto’s manic mind kept him moving as the world held still around him one more time. He slashed away at the menus once again, only stopping when he was finally let out again, placing his aching feet above the dust of the tracks, not even noticing the light checkerboard patterns phasing in and out of sight, hovering around them like dying flames as he stood next to the cart, his head about level with the its barely enduring roof.

He put his hand over it, and barked his first command:

“Acquire!”

“Item acquired.”

The roof vanished at once, placed in his items list.

He then moved on to each of the four beams, retrieving them as well.

Then, miscellaneous rubbish. He took out a couple pieces from the back, then a couple from the front, leaving what he assumed to be the engine and little else around it completely bare, hoping only that he hadn’t hit any of the vehicle’s vital cables by accident.

Without another thought, he rushed to the platform’s edge, stopping just short of it. He opened the inventory, selecting one of the cart’s beams, and, looking over the list of options, selected a suspicious looking box, reading ‘Materialize’.

“Good. It’s right here, alright…”

Another window opened, asking for confirmation.

‘Are you sure you wish to materialize this item? There is no viable use for it at the moment.’

“Yes, just go already!”

He tapped yes, and the beam he’d previously reaped appeared at once in his hand, high above the tracks.

“No, not like this…” his voice wavered, about to lose its cool. “Acquire!”

“Item acquired.”

After recalling the item, he tried again to materialize it, this time placing his hand just a couple inches above the floor, about half his own height, with his hand turned sideways to it, as the beam would appear with the middle right between its grip.

Just as he’d hoped, the beam took form in a straightened position, its lowest portion buried tightly in the mess of dirt, ballast and dust he stood on.

“Now, for the other one…”

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He buried the second one beside it, and then, slightly ahead of them, buried the other two beams, which stood taller just short of the platform’s ledge.

With the rest of the miscellaneous crap, he was able to fill in some space around them, making it harder for them to move if one were to apply weight to it.

And finally, he placed the cart’s removed roof over the four beams again, heavily tilted in his direction, materializing it just close enough for the beams to pierce slightly through it, sticking it in place.

The finished result was no more, not less than the world’s ugliest jump ramp.

Once again inside the cart (or rather, on it, as there was no longer anything to be inside of), he waved his finger against the blue heart beside his head once again.

“Now then… Can you cancel a skill, or…?”

“Assigned skill canceled.”

“That’s it.”

The action around him slowly crawled back to its previous, fast movement, and all the while he spun the wheel to meet the ramp, too, as what was left of the golf cart started to move again as well. 

Barely managing to veer the cart in just the right angle to bring it onto the ramp, Haruto, floored the gas again, which served more for personal soothing than for gaining any actual speed anymore, and as the naked wheels bumped loudly against the last of the rails, pushing it upwards and onto its own plucked out roof, clattering and belching some more as it climbed upwards the feeble, sinking surface, barely keeping its balance, and exiting back onto the platform’s surface just before its own sheer, uneven weight could lead it into a messy topple back to the tracks below.

Haruto straightened up the cart, staring at the motorcycle that led the way just a few inches ahead.

Not a second after, the train came rushing without mercy, taking Haruto’s scrap-built ramp along with it for a ride.

The girl looked back at him for a single instant, seeming to doubt her own eyes at first, but soon shrugged it off again as just another of that day’s freakish events.

“Won’t make you wait much longer.”

Opening the inventory once again, Haruto would go for one more booster, attempting to equip it for more speed.

It wouldn’t work, though.

“Installation not possible. Vehicle incompatible. Excessive damage sustained.”

“Get bent, you useless system!!”

The boosters he had left were starting to wear out. It wouldn’t be long until they completely ran out, so he would have to finish that circus of a race sooner, rather than later.

Accompanying the tracks, the platform was starting to bend into a light turn, and becoming narrower as well. The tracks went further down after this, burrowing further underground.

The platform, meanwhile, went right over the lowering tunnel, connecting with a wide entrance, likely covered by glass panes eons ago, which led to yet another section of the station.

Following closely after the motorcycle, the golf cart’s enduring corpse shrieked along, one of its wheels finally giving in and snapping off from the cart’s body, rolling away to only god knew where.

The platform’s marble flooring was replaced by asphalt again once they’d passed the next area’s entrance. It should’ve been an area intended for vehicles. More specifically, it was an enormous parking garage, brimming with countless interwoven sections of muddled lots, filled with abandoned vehicles each and only theoretically separated by more broken glass partitions. And leading right out of the station along its left side was a massive exit lane, which the fireball girl went right for. Haruto, on the other hand, did not veer after her.

He could not, even if he wanted. The damn golf cart could not make such a tight turn, forcing him to take the lane just ahead and plunging him even deeper into the large parking garage as he was barely able to avoid crashing into vehicle after vehicle, fighting the cart’s controls to keep it straight in the proper lane.

While he was still stuck in there, though, Hellfire was gaining on him outside. That road she’d taken, according to the map, would soon develop into a steep incline and then veer tightly to the right of them, taking the girl directly to the goal without any more obstacles to detain her.

Meanwhile, Maekawa would only find himself struggling with section after section of that garage, similar in everything to a maddening labyrinth, going left and right and straight and right again until he nearly lost his already fickle sense of direction, failing turn after turn and scraping against one parked vehicle after the other as the nearly depleted boosters that remained tried to keep the shambled golf cart going.

If the map was right, the goal should be even a kilometer from him, at least speaking in latitude. If not for all those parked cars and walls around him… Well, not that there was any other way of making that incline safely and reaching the path to the goal. He had no way of knowing exactly how many meters separated his dot and the goal’s in terms of altitude, but just by their sizes alone his prospects weren’t exactly measuring up.

Even if he somehow managed to escape that place, he wouldn’t have any proper momentum left to cross that incline, let alone catch up to the girl…

In the end, he’d chosen to take that risk. He’d willingly taken this messy shortcut. He was now reaping what he’d sown.

“Am I… actually going to lose…?” realization struck him for a single moment.

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