Chapter 9: The loser finds out

Near the top left corner, it contained two images of the girl’s face, one showing her from the front and another from the side, like some blurry mugshot.

Below, more pieces of information were listed.

‘Wheel-name: H.E.L.L.F.I.R.E.’

‘True name: Unknown.’

‘Level: 27’.

‘Vehicle Inventory: Unknown’.

‘Servant Inventory: None’.

‘Achievements: Unknown’.

‘Rank: Mercenary’.

‘Support Gear Inventory: Unknown’.

‘Acquired Skill: Fireblast’.

“You’re peeping at my profile page, now?” the girl tittered again. “It’s not like you’ll find much there. They’re not that useful, in the first place.”

Haruto was the one to tilt his head this time.

“I don’t get it. You’re considerably above me and that other guy in the food chain of whatever this place is. Why would you help any one of us? Actually, why did you attack us in the first place? You’re not making any sense.”

The girl laughed again.

“Why would I help you? Don’t be so full of yourself, amateur.”

She turned around on her motorcycle, sitting sideways to face him with her legs crossed.

From the face she was making he could already tell a few more things about her.

(Here comes a big, long brag…)

“Whatever happens to you or the fatty you just executed is none of my concern. But…” she paused, clearing her throat. “Living a decent life down here requires you to do a certain amount of tasks they call ‘events’. I just so happened to come here to get a few jobs done when suddenly your amateur match started nearby and filled the city with fog. In those conditions, it was impossible for me to properly get anything done, so naturally, I tracked you down to put an end to your dumb quarrel. I can’t have you interfere with my dear life, now can I? By destroying the weaker link in your beginners’ match, I can resume my events in peace.”

“Events? As in, game events!? You tried to kill me just for some menial tasks you could’ve done at any other time?”

“If you actually knew anything about the Cyberway, you would understand.” she sniggered. “And I’m sure you will. You might just fit in with the rest of the nobodies. If you survive, that is. This place was built exactly for the kind of person you are. A loser.”

A loser.

The word echoed in his mind. It latched itself onto the back of his brain.

Loser.

What could he even reply to that? What did she mean? Haruto wanted to say something more… He wanted a handy comeback to give. Just anything he could throw back at her. Revenge. His fist was clenched, as though ready to get him into a fight. Even though he had never been in a fight before in his life.

Loser.

Haruto Maekawa, who just moments prior had been nothing but a regular highschool student, was now in a completely different location, and quaking in fear at the absolutely insane person that now sat leisurely in front of him, looking down on him as though one might look at an encaged animal in a zoo.

Loser.

He was terrified, and yet, his rage spoke louder.

But why?

Why did such anger overwhelm him so? It was true he had almost been blown to smithereens by that girl, and it was true she had just insulted him out of nowhere, despite them being pretty much strangers. She was an oddball, half the things that came out of her mouth sounded to him like nothing but nonsense, yet they only served to further fuel his fury.

He wondered, perhaps, if all the shrieking emotions this ‘Hellfire’ waked in him were nothing more than residue from previous circumstances. In other words, it wasn’t that the motorcycle girl had made him feel scared, or angry, despite him having almost died by her hands.

Truth was, by themselves, her taunts would have been quite insignificant in hindsight., much to his own surprise.

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The fear and hatred he felt had already been with him ever since he’d arrived in this new world. He just hadn’t realized it properly. Not like this. Not as he was now. It wasn’t that he didn’t know it was there, he just didn’t have a full understanding of it.

Loser.

That girl wasn’t the cause of his burning feelings right now. She merely fit the mold of the perfect target he would have liked to take it all out on.

Haruto had it all figured out, soon enough.

His fear, his hatred. The cause was deeply entrenched in his final living moments.

Who or what could be the cause?

The paramedics who had been too damn slow to even try to save his fleeting life?

Or perhaps [Redacted], who had strung him around with false promises and taken advantage of his general ineptitude at every turn?

(That’s not it…)

Loser.

It was the scarlet car which had hit him mercilessly while he lay on the road, naturally. If the Mustard Roller and it were built even remotely similar, then he could have been traveling at around 80-90 kph on a narrow, urban backroad.

Maneuvering around this ‘Chariot’ during that last race had been hard enough, and even at a speed like that he had to struggle not to crash against anything each time a turn came up, even though most of these streets were as wide and open as they got.

(That damn sports car…)

It had struck mercilessly into his body, flinging him around like a stick puppet. But of course he would be dead on the spot.

The damn scarlet sports car… Like a roaring flame itching to put an end to his pathetic life. Just like the crazy girl now in front of him, it ran through the wind like loose strands of hair. Wind that wasn’t there at all.

Loser.

Her scarlet strands ran up and down as well, carried by the wind.

The orange, scarlet motorcycle, standing idly by as she sat atop of it with her legs crossed, looking down at him like a circus animal trapped in a cage. Or perhaps a starving, raging bull, forced to perform and fight.

But if he had no choice but stay in this hellish world of cars and races, he would oblige. Much like a bull in a bullfight, Maekawa no longer thought. He no longer felt. He merely acted.

All he saw was the scarlet before him.

“Ohohoho… You simple-minded little brat…”

His fist clenched tight. His teeth screeched against each other. He took a step forward.

“You want to see what a real loser is…? I’ll show you a real loser.”

The girl’s eyebrows furrowed in confusion.

“... What are you…?”

“What did you call it? Duel match, wasn’t it? Let’s have one right here, then! Since both parties know the streets decently already, it shouldn’t be a problem for Little Miss Matchsticks, should it!?”

“Wha… Are you crazy?” the girl asked, barely containing a laugh. “You’re not even at level 2 yet, and you’re challenging a veteran? A madman such as you must surely have some kind of death wish!”

She seemed like she was about to decline, but her voice showed him clear delight, however. Crushing an amateur for a cheap confidence boost must’ve been very enticing from her end, if there wasn’t much to gain from it.

And Haruto knew, of course, she was inevitably going to accept. Because, while he did not know exactly what kind of world this was, he could tell just fine it attracted similar people, with matching characteristics, in some way or another.

‘She actually is like me’ was just what happened to occur to him at the moment.

Past her nonsensical rhetoric, past her bravado, past her almost theatrical treatment of the people below her, he could tell just from that brief conversation.

(She’s a loser, just like me.)

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