Red is Three Times Faster
Red is three times faster.
After hearing my plan, Aile tilted her head and asked,
“……You mean trampling all over their territory. What exactly are we doing?”
“Vira said it earlier, didn’t she? The guy’s a speed freak.”
“Yes. She did……”
“So, Aile. You become a speed freak too.”
“……Huh?”
Watching Aile tilt her head like she’d misheard, I grinned. She lacked the social experience to know how to deal with lunatics like that, but I’d spent every day surrounded by them. I knew exactly what to do.
You beat a madman with another madman.
And no speed freak who claimed to love speed was ever purely chasing velocity. Every last one of them was a psychopath who got off on being faster than everyone else. This world probably wasn’t any different.
“You’re going to become a speed demon faster than that villain.”
That was all it would take. A defeated speed freak lost his madness. Without that madness, a lunatic had no reason to keep living. A villain who’d never been caught by anyone would simply vanish.
But Aile worried until the very end. Even if she won this ridiculous operation, what if Mosped refused to repent and kept acting like a speed freak?
“……What if I win, but he still keeps doing villain stuff?”
“If he keeps being a villain even after losing?”
“Yes.”
Fortunately, that case wasn’t worth worrying about. Because……
“Then I’ll personally make him regret not quitting the villain life.”
“Ah, got it.”
There was no need to show courtesy to a villain who didn’t act like a gentleman.
After planning Operation Aile Speed Freak, the first thing I did was gather information on the villain.
Where he usually operated, when he appeared, what kind of vehicle he drove—every detail.
Luckily, he was a villain, so the Hero Association had publicly released his information. When I searched the reliable Association wiki for “Mosped,” a mountain of data was already there.
[Mosped] First appeared on XX month, XX day of XXXX at M hour…… Escaped pursuit with exceptional driving skills…… Primarily uses a red Rocket Spider 091 for villain activities……
The wiki listed everything from the date Mosped began his villain career to his usual haunts, the vehicle he drove, psychological profiling from the Association’s analysts, and even a real-time location tracking service compiled from civilian tips.
At this point, I had to wonder why no one had caught him yet—maybe this villain was some chaebol chairman doing it as a hobby. But cases like our own evil organization couldn’t be that common. ……I wanted to believe they weren’t common.
‘If he really were one, Vira would’ve known.’
Vira might look like that, but she was an elite former bodyguard to a chaebol family and enjoyed Regalia’s full trust. She probably knew all sorts of secret information ordinary people didn’t, including details about chaebols with unusual tastes like Regalia.
If Mosped were actually a chaebol in disguise, she wouldn’t have cheered me on when I declared I’d deal with him—she would’ve stopped me somehow.
Yet Vira hadn’t tried to stop me or even given me a warning.
‘What kind of villain drives a supercar that doesn’t even exist……’
I looked up the vehicle the villain supposedly drove. Market price around two hundred thousand dollars. Not an impossible sum, but far too steep for an ordinary citizen.
The fact that he rode something like that so casually meant he wasn’t your average middle-class guy. Maybe not a chaebol, but definitely rich enough to drop hundreds of thousands on a car without blinking.
Just how many upper-class people in this world were so dissatisfied with society…… It was absurd, but I set the thought aside for now.
‘Twelve thousand five hundred horsepower? Can anyone even control that?’
Rocket Spider 091. A monstrous machine with 12,500 horsepower. A supercar built for heroes with superhuman physical abilities.
A quick glance told me it was the kind of thing people said could fly if you just attached wings. Naturally, no patrol car could ever catch it.
“—So we’re making flight our baseline too.”
“Nngh—?”
Aile, who had been dozing off while listening to talk about a villain she didn’t care about and cars she cared about even less, wiped the drool from her mouth and rubbed it on her skirt.
Of course, she had no memory of what we’d just been discussing. She blinked at me blankly.
“Fly? Who?”
“You.”
“……Me?”
“What’s with the surprise now? You flew around just fine when you were a magical girl.”
“W-well, that’s true, but……”
Apparently she saw flying by magic and flying on a vehicle as two different things. Aile wore a distinctly reluctant expression.
I decided to correct her misguided common sense.
“Think about it, Aile. What does a magical girl become when she grows up?”
“She retires…… and becomes a normal person……?”
“Wrong. When a magical girl grows up, she becomes a witch.”
“???”
“And witches traditionally ride brooms.”
Thus, the machine Aile would ride was decided: a broom. Not made of wood, but of metal, with two wheels and handlebars, but still.
“Here. This is a broom.”
“……Anyone can see that’s a bike.”
“No. There’s no such thing as a flying bike in this world. This is a broom.”
“Th-there’s no such thing as a flying broom either……”
“We’ve got one right here.”
While Aile glared at me like I was spouting nonsense, the flying hovercraft—no, the Witchcraft—was completed.
Making it hadn’t been difficult. I’d simply bought a commercial bike and modified it.
‘The rest was just ripping the bike apart and adding boosters and flight functions……’
Staring at her two-wheeled broom, Aile asked cautiously,
“Um…… Scientist?”
“What?”
“Usually these things have, you know, AI for perfect driving and stuff. This one too, maybe……?”
Watching Aile try to weasel out of it with the all-purpose AI excuse, I shook my head. Unfortunately for her, this bike had no AI.
“Aile. If you were going to leave everything to AI, you wouldn’t need to get revenge in the first place, would you?”
“Th-that’s true, but……”
“People need to put in the effort to win things themselves. You can’t start looking for shortcuts already.”
“……Yeees. I’m sorry.”
Seeing Aile completely deflated, I smacked her back a few times as if to say not to worry.
“You can win even without some stupid AI. Cheer up, Aile! You’re the evil magical girl!”
“But…… I don’t even have a license……”
“Who cares if you don’t have a license?”
“……Huh?”
“We’re villains, Aile. Have you ever seen a villain obey the law?”
Leaving Aile staring at me like she couldn’t tell if I was serious, I began special training with her. Not having a license wasn’t a problem, but she still needed the basics of riding a bike.
She had to at least know what the accelerator and brakes were. The issue was that I didn’t have a license either, so I couldn’t teach her to drive—but Vira solved that problem for us.
“—Come on, Aile. Don’t be scared! You won’t fall!”
“I-I think I’m gonna fall……!”
“A magical girl’s core muscles can even right a bike that’s ninety degrees tilted! Stop whining and stand it up!”
Vira taught Aile how to accelerate, how to brake, how to corner—every essential skill for riding a bike.
In just a few hours, Aile had improved enough that she could claim to have ridden a bike somewhere. All that remained was revenge.
“Aile. Next Friday. It’s going to rain.”
“……Perfect.”
The decisive battle was one week later. The same day it rained when she first met Mosped.
Vroooooom—! The 12,500-horsepower engine spewed fire. The Rocket Spider 091, roaring like it would devour the world, shot its massive frame forward.
In an instant, the frozen scenery around him vanished into the distance. This moment was the most thrilling for Mosped. Only this sensation—like his soul was being threshed by gravitational acceleration—made him feel truly alive.
‘Nice. How far should I go today?’
Even while traveling well over three hundred kilometers per hour, Mosped never collided with or grazed anyone. As an excellent racer, he felt genuine shame at the thought of causing an accident.
Even when traffic clogged the road, it didn’t matter. Look—the sidewalk was empty, wasn’t it?
After crossing two cities in the blink of an eye, Mosped began to feel bored and turned the wheel. For some reason, today’s drive just wasn’t doing it for him.
Had he even grown tired of this insane sprinting? If speeding couldn’t give him dopamine anymore, what was he supposed to chase now…… Mosped already felt his chest tightening.
Fortunately, his worries were unfounded.
—Vrrrrrr—. ‘……Huh?’
At some point, a motorcycle had started riding alongside his Rocket Spider 091. A futuristic bike, entirely jet-black, covered in jagged, thorn-like armor plates like some kind of robot.
‘Is she crazy?’
Mosped let out a hollow laugh at the sight of the woman in the black dress racing beside him. It wasn’t his place to say, but riding at three hundred kilometers per hour in a flowing dress that left her underwear completely visible definitely made her a crazy woman.
And that crazy woman got on his nerves. Without a sound from its engine, the woman on the black bike pulled ahead of him, glanced back, and wiggled her fingers.
Come on, come on—.
“—Crazy bitch!”
The gesture meant exactly what he thought: If you can keep up, then try. A provocation that struck at his pride.
Mosped grabbed the gearshift and slammed the accelerator. His red Rocket Spider belched fire and shot forward.
“It’s a race!”
The woman on the black bike grinned and twisted her throttle in response. Moments later, two shooting stars tore across the road.