Chapter 18: To choose or not to choose

Whether he was dead, or alive, he couldn’t tell anymore. It’d been one jump. Well, a pretty tall jump, to be fair. But even so…

He’d gone past the finish line’s pointer, and then nothing.

Everything’d gone white. Empty. As if he’d landed in another void.

It dawned on him: he was dead, alright. Dead again. The scarlet car killed his body, and then the fall from the train station killed his soul.

That was, assuming there had even been a train station to speak of…

Had there really been a crazy fireball girl and an insane man in a gray car running after him?

Had any of those races been real to begin with?

For all he knew, it’d all been just another manic dream brought out by… that event.

He might still be dying, agonizing in some hospital stretcher, while his mind fed him all these fantasies and hallucinations just to keep him from the truth. To give him a safe space in his dying moments before he became nothing.

But if that was the case, then they, likewise, meant nothing.

Indifferent to that, he could feel his lost conscience drifting along, reaching places he knew, and ones he didn’t.

He saw a boy. A small, tiny boy, couldn’t be any older than four or five.

The kid sat in the backseat of a small car, clapping and laughing at something or some other.

In front, there was only one other person driving. A tall, rugged, middle-aged man, laughing back and talking merrily with the child.

Outside the windows, there was nothing. No road, no scenery, no nothing. Only empty, white light.

He recognized none of them, but he could tell the two knew each other very well.

Faster, faster, the kid would say. And the man would comply with a chortle. Then, the boy would laugh some more.

“It’s my turn now! It’s my turn!” the child would shout in delight. “I wanna drive!”

And as if to reprise and already long rehearsed role, the tired, yet amused man would bring two fingers to his forehead shaking his head sideways, letting out a quiet snicker.

“You know the rules. Only when you’re as tall as me!”

“That’s no fair! I wanna drive!” the boy would laugh again.

“Fine, fine.” would sigh the man. “I’ll let you play a little bit when we park. But only when we park. You’ll have to wait a bit.”

“Thanks, daddy! You’re the best.”

“Hah, I know!”

“I’m gonna be the biggest racer when I grow up! You’ll see!!”

“I hope so too, kiddo. I hope so.” he replied with a smile.

Seeming to suddenly remember something important, the man would turn just slightly to the boy, careful to keep his eyes on the road, and amid a flurry of giggles whisper something only the two of them could hear, barring the third unknowing presence eavesdropping on their conversation.

“Don’t forget, though: this is our little secret. Don’t ever tell Maki about it, or she’s gonna kill us! Promise me that, yeah?”

“Okay! I promise.” the little boy giggled back.

Those two sniggering fools in front of him seemed to lose their importance to him at that moment. He could only think about one thing.

Maki.

Maki?

Who was Maki? Why was he even getting hung up on that particular name?

He knew it.

He couldn’t say from where, when, or why, but he could recall the name Maki from some place… Someone he had met… Someone he had known…

He didn’t know any of those people before him. But he could recognize that singular name. It seemed to speak out to him. It told him something.

It belonged to…

(Who? Who does it belong to!?)

Try how he might, he couldn’t come up with even a face. He knew it belonged to a person, and that person had a face he should recognize. Yet, he could not visualize it, for the heck of it. It was as if the face he wanted to see had been sealed deep, in the lowest confines of his mind, never to be found again.

And just as the nameless, bodiless entity that he now was had started to steel itself, swearing to itself that it would not give up until it could remember, no matter what it cost, no matter how much it hurt, the whole scenery surrounding it started to crumble.

The boy’s face broke into cracks, which quickly spread throughout the whole of the car’s interior, and soon enveloped the middle-aged man completely, even though neither of them seemed to notice.

The small child shattered to pieces like a flimsy, unkempt glass pane, and the car soon followed. The man’s figure seemed to linger on for a moment, but it too shattered eventually, the countless, tiny shards of them all floating freely about in the void. The nauseating, checkerboard void that was also the sky. And cutting off that sky, there was the neverending, flat visage of beaten dirt and ballast as far as the eye could see. Running straight through the ballast came then an uneven pavement filled with old tar, on top of which he now stood.

His feet, covered in the eternally enduring loafers, still intact. The barely ragged school uniform covering his puny body.

Knowledge filled his brain, one bit at a time as he woke up from that ghoulish daze.

He was someone. And this was his body. His name was Haruto Maekawa. And he was in a lot of pain right now. Before he could think about anything else, he was already writhing about like a madman.

“Awww, my knees!!!! My poors knees…!!!! And my back… And my head!!!! It hurts so damn much what the hell happened!?!?!?!”

In just a second it was gone though. The pain lasted no more than a single moment before vanishing without a trace. He was fine again. Fine, yet confused.

“What is this place…?”

That sky covered in white and grey… The clutter of decaying buildings in the background…

Even the place he currently stood in was a complete mess of loose metal and plastic parts lying about. There was a singular, naked wheel still aimlessly rolling around through the roadside, carried by wind that did not exist.

“Where… am… Oh.”

Immediately, it all had come back. The races. Hellfire. The killer trains. Jacky Nohara. The crazy patrol cars. All those cars. Cars everywhere. [Redacted]. And the event which led up to all this. That event.

“Oh… But of course.”

How convenient. It seemed this world’s utterly inept system would at least be willing to revive anyone so long as it had a valid reason to do so. More power to it, he supposed.

He could feel a sour taste fill his mouth just from the sheer recollection.

He was having a bad day. A very bad day, which might just never end.

(And now that I think about it…)

There was a score left to settle.

He turned to face the sole other person who currently stood in that road.

You are reading story After being rejected, I was reincarnated into an insane Death Race at novel35.com

A redheaded girl in a rich girls’ school uniform.

Just as it had happened to the nameless figures in his mind, her trademark scarlet motorcycle had shattered like glass and disappeared.

And she, standing in place, despair filling her eyes as she stared straight ahead at him, had simply crumbled to her knees, her frail hands placed against the floor being the only thing now keeping her from completely plunging face-first into it. She seemed to cry. Or perhaps it was a whimper. He couldn’t quite say. Clearly, she tried to stop it, still attempting not to show any weakness, but couldn’t quite manage in the end.

He pitied her at first. Then he remembered the absurd amount of times she had tried to kill him.

“Erm… Take that… I guess…?”

A few moments ago, he might have mocked her, danced around her pathetic figure as he relentlessly mocked her on her failure.

But now…?

It might’ve been the violent crash he’d suffered, or maybe the demented hallucination just now…

Regardless, his manic mood had fallen just now, toppled helplessly like a castle of cards. He barely had any drive left to speak or walk, let alone go and brush up egoes.

He was exhausted. Not his body, but his spirit. There had been something in than vision…

Maki.

Now that he’d recalled that one name, he would never be able to get rid of it again. It would live rent-free in his head until the end of time.

“Let’s just get this over with…”

He walked up to the dejected girl, who would not even lift her own visage to meet his.

(Figures…)

“I… lost… No… I couldn’t… I couldn’t lose…”

(She’s still in denial. Not that I can blame her.)

Only then had he noticed the clear, glassy window floating next to him, following his every move.

‘Results’

‘1st place: Haruto Maekawa’

‘2nd place: H.E.L.L.F.I.R.E.’

‘New achievement: Wheels of steel!’

‘New achievement: Car abuser!’

‘New achievement: Car abuser X2!’

The experience bar showed him all the way up to level 7, with about half a bar left to the next one. It seemed racing against a higher-ranked opponent had boosted him up quite a bit more.

‘On-site crafting combo limit increased.’

‘On-site crafting timer increased.’

‘On-site crafting searching bounds increased.’

‘Impact absorption increased.’

‘Damage resistance increased.’

‘Added credits: +60,000’

‘Total credits: 65,400’

Haruto closed off all the noisy menus. There was one thing left to do, now.

“New soul acquired.”

“It’s time for the main course, now…” he muttered, barely interested in the matter anymore.

“Choose now, grasshopper. The fate of Suzuka Inaba lies in your hands.”

His brow lifted in vague surprise.

“That’s your real name, then…”

Then came the Final Judgement menu.

‘Liquidate Soul.’

‘+30 000 credits.’

And to the right:

‘Convert to Servant.’

‘-50 000 credits.’

Haruto squinted at the options.

Just like so, he had encountered a big dilemma.

On one hand, he was pretty much lost in that place. He had no reliable source of information and any tutorials in the Cyberway were either crap or non-existent.

It would certainly be useful to have around someone who was already savvy with the place, assuming he could keep them under control. Plus, torturing that arrogant girl some more should probably be fun once he was in a better mood. She could also provide him backup, and an extra pair of eyes. Seeing things from different perspectives could be beneficial on multiple occasions.

On the other hand…

The 30 thousand more credits would certainly come in handy. Losing even half of that, on the contrary, let alone 50, could be a big problem for him.

He was currently out of a vehicle, and traversing in that world would most certainly require one, which would not come cheap. On top of that, depending on what items he might need to buy and whatever else could be necessary to sustain himself in this so-called ‘Cyberway’, he might find himself quickly short on money if he didn’t store it correctly. Not only that, one mouth would be easier to feed than two. He had never been much of a people person, and the thought of having to travel with someone else nagging him the whole way bothered him immensely, even if the system provided him with some way to keep them in place.

He wondered, then… What would be the better choice?

 

 

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Welp, what do you guys think he should choose?

Help our poor boy, he hasn't been the same since his dream girl told him to get lost...  :P

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