Chapter 39: At last, we hit the road

His neck slightly crooked to the side, Haruto couldn’t help but to scratch the back of his head a few more times.

“..........What kind of name even is that?”

Suzuka had turned her back to him, trying to get her nerves in check.

The boy, meanwhile, simply kept ruminating in place.

“Okay… So… We’re in a heap of trouble, aren’t we?”

“... W-We are… Soon enough, they’ll find us again. They want to get back everything I stole, and then some. And they want my head. Probably yours, too. Without a doubt, word has gone around about you already.”

“I see… We have nothing to lose, then. Take me to the loot.”

She turned around, her mouth agape.

“... Eh?”

“You said you stored a bunch of stolen stuff from the mobs away, right? You stored the money, too, right?”

“Yeah… All the credits, and a few more items. I was saving it for later, once this whole mess died down. It’s been almost a month, though. It’s clear they won’t stop, and… I… I’d rather not talk about it out loud. You don’t know who might be listening. But I can show you the way.”

“Sounds good enough to me. Good money is good money. Even those items might be worth something.”

(If she tries anything sneaky, I can just turn her into a helicopter, hehehehehehe…)

As matchsticks sat back up on the motorcycle, he took his usual place right behind her.

“Let’s get back to Kataki. We went too far, and I didn’t get the car. We’ll need it, if we want to reach whatever place you hid your little ‘plunder’ without any complications.”

“Are you sure? I mean, it’ll still take some time to –”

“No doubt. You say they’re still after us, right? They’ll likely recognize any of your bikes right away. Besides, you might have that helmet to hide your face on the road, but I got nothing. Having a car to move around in solves the problem for the most part. And in any case, the more vehicles we have to dispose of, the better.”

“I suppose… You’re right…”

“Once we’ve that taken care of, we need to find somewhere we can fix this ‘liquid spear’ thing I stole from those guys. If we could somehow make it work again, it could be pretty useful. Oh, and also, if we could maybe find some place we could buy more parts for –”

“Geez, I get it, already! You’re confusing me with the controls, master! Kataki doesn’t have all that, but I know another place where we can find everything we need for the trip, so just lay low and let me show you…”

“I’ll be in your care, then.” he smiled, somewhat smugly.

“Just hang on tight. Stupid.” she grumbled back through her teeth, her voice drowned out by the engine’s loud rumbling.

In a moment, they were on their way.

 

***

 

“Oh, thank goodness you’re okay! I’d never be able to go on, I just can’t take the sheer thought of losing you, Suzu!!”

“I-I get it, so let go of me already!!”

“Not yet~!!!”

The moment they’d set foot on Jaya’s store, the crazed woman had taken the chance to ambush the redhead, glomping her tightly enough that the girl found herself struggling not to choke.

Glancing tiredly at the two’s off-putting struggle, Haruto had patiently awaited for the shop’s owner to calm down and hear him out. But after about a minute, realizing she’d likely stay like that all day if no one were to stop her, not to mention his servant was not looking too good there, either, he tried how he could to interrupt the altercation, waving a fast hand in front of Jaya’s face.

“Can you please stop? We don’t have time for chatter.”

Jaya suddenly came coming to her senses, as though she’d suddenly awoken from some deep hypnotic spell, soon letting go of matchsticks, clearing her throat.

“That’s right! I believe I owed you a car, didn’t I?” she shouted enthusiastically as she trusted her index finger to point directly at his face.

He felt a shiver run down his spine. Just a few more inches and she could have possibly poked his eye out.

She started up her dealer’s system, simultaneously dabbling with a bunch of different menus as he waited on some more.

“After you-know-who’s goons came looking over our little town, I figured it was best to stay inside and try not to provoke them, but then you disappeared from my processing tab and I didn’t know what to do! Did you get into a fight with those guys?”

“Something like that. We got too far from Kataki during that mess and I lost the connection with your system, so we came back to retrieve what we bought.”

“So it is. I suppose you came at a good time, since I didn’t have any clients waiting. People are still recovering from that scare from a while ago.”

After a few more seconds, one of the translucent tabs in front of Jaya produced a low ringing sound, and promptly closed up.

“It’s done.” she smiled, somewhat content. “If you check your inventory, it should already be there for you~.”

Doing as he was told, he took a look at the vehicle listings. Just as promised, the third icon had just taken form in the flat window. Midnight Gale.

“There it is.” he nodded. “Thank you, I suppose. If anything’s wrong with it, I’ll be sure to come back to give you a piece of my mind.”

“You’re always welcome! If you don’t take proper care of my Suzu, though, I won’t forgive you!”

They left the dealership right away, and with just a few flicks of his finger, Haruto materialized his new machine as soon as he got near the road.

Now that Pizza’s employees were gone, the streets had once again become filled with weird people just as before, properly assuring the two of them that things around there had gone back to normal.

The boy inspected the Midnight Gale. Looking from outside, at the very least, it looked just the same as the preview image in the inventory. Simple, but functional. While it would certainly not top the scarlet motorcycle’s speed, it surpassed it in conspicuousness, and would probably take hits better as well.

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Still, it wasn’t exactly a tank, or anything. Suzuka seemed to notice his long stare.

“Some car shops I know in the bigger cities have pretty good rosters of upgrades for vehicles. Armor, extra weapons, simple stat increases, we can think about all that once we’ve arrived at our next destination. So let’s get going, master.”

“How expensive would all that be?”

“Quite a bit. Not as expensive as getting a higher-ranked vehicle, at least if you get only a few essentials.”

“Fair.”

He got on the driver’s seat and started the engine as she sat down right beside him, staring suspiciously at his hands.

Things hadn’t gone as simply for him as he’d at first hoped, however.

Just as it had happened with his first garbage car, the car died down on him before he could even press down on the gas, shaking up and down for a moment with the well-known belching sound he’d long learned to dread before completely freezing up.

“Goddamit. Not this again…!”

What the hell was going on, now? He thought he could trust Suzuka with choosing cars, but once again he’d been left to handle another piece of scrap. Sure, no dust. It was brand-new, after all. It smelled new, anyway. The pedals seemed more responsive, and there was a lot less rust and grease throughout, but aside from that he was back to dealing with a crappy car once again.

Gritting his teeth, he twisted the keys again, pressing the clutch pedal.

The vehicle belched up again, and likewise the car died again.

“Grrr… This isn’t working right. That damn woman tricked us! What the hell were you thinking, Suzuka!?”

The girl, on the other hand, just kept on squinting her eyes, tilting her head slightly towards him.

“... W… What the hell are you doing, master…?”

“I’m turning on the engine!”

“... In third gear?”

“...Huh?”

She pointed down to the lever to his right, which stood pushed forward to the wrong slot.

“Oh, right. That. I forgot.”

After moving it back to the first slot, he attempted to get the vehicle moving once again, and this time, despite a bit more shaking and croaking as he let go of the clutch, he finally got it to move properly.

“Alrighty, then. Let’s get moving.”

Turning around the nearest corner, he noticed the speedometer slowly increasing in front of him, and, set on not wasting any more time, he started to move the lever further to the other slots, causing the car to creak and jerk once again, not seeming to want to respond to his commands. It seemed it was as much as a scrap heap as the other one, after all. It was really starting to piss him off…

“What the hell are you doing, Haruto!?” the girl suddenly yelled at him.

“Hey, I’m trying to drive here!”

Her shout had startled him, nearly making him lose sight of his moving direction. Thankfully, there were barely any vehicles moving around that tiny town’s streets, even at that time of the day.

“Master. Stop the car.” she demanded, authoritatively.

Her tone was hard as a rock here, so unlike the way she usually spoke. Couldn’t tell even a single hole in it.

“Hey, I know what I’m doing! Chill out.”

“No, you don’t. Stop the car, now.”

The second demand made him tremble a little. Begrudgingly, he did as he was told, stopping right along the curb as he let the blue car die down once again, and turned to stare at matchsticks, who was staring right towards him as well, eyebrows heavily furrowed.

“Aren’t you forgetting something?”

“What?”

“Handbrake.”

“What’s that?”

She pointed down with her finger, grumbling something he couldn’t hear under her breath.

There was another lever, behind the shifting stick, placed slightly lower.

“What’s it for…?”

“Locks the car in place. If you park on an incline without this, you can say bye-bye to the it.”

“Oh. I get it.”

He pulled the thing all the way up, just as she said.

“Good grief…” she sighed. “Did you ever even drive anything before coming here?”

“Ummm… No? Is that bad?”

“It’s…! Ughh… There’s nothing wrong with the car. You’re just terrible at driving!... But… But… But that doesn’t make any sense! You were…!! I mean… Oh… Oh, no… What am I gonna do, now…?”

He crossed his arms, his shoulders drooping weakly. It was gonna be a long ride.

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