Red is Three Times Faster
Red is three times faster.
Two streaks of light tore across the road. A black meteor and a red comet. The two objects flashed into sight and vanished again in the blink of an eye.
Pedestrians on the sidewalk, ordinary drivers in their cars, heroes enjoying a day off—everyone jolted in surprise and stared at the vehicles that had just screamed past.
While the whole world gawked at the pair of rampaging speed demons, Mosped, who normally craved every scrap of attention, had none to spare. He had no room left in his head for anything except one thought.
Just a little faster!
He couldn’t shake that damned woman in the dress from his vision. The meaning was simple: he had not overtaken her even once.
The speedometer had already climbed past 400 km/h. Pushing any harder terrified him.
With a 12,500-horsepower engine under the hood, a chassis only 4.9 meters long was simply too light. Past 400 km/h the body began to shake violently. Any faster and the slightest 1 mm error at the wheel would send the car sliding off the road.
Mosped only unleashed this kind of speed on closed circuits. He never drove like this on public roads packed with buildings, cars, and people.
Yet—
“—Pfft.”
A laugh that should have been impossible to hear reached him. The bike girl flicked her finger backward again, then yanked the throttle as if everything up to now had been nothing more than a warm-up.
The narrow gap between them began to stretch. Watching her pull away, Mosped felt the speed demon buried inside him twitch, lift its head, and bare its teeth.
“Fine. Let’s die trying.”
He seized the twelve-speed shifter. Moments later his car began clawing back the distance.
Uwaaaaaaaa……!
Aile’s eyes darted wildly as she rode. She was barely keeping the bike upright using her magically enhanced dynamic vision, but even she knew this speed left no margin for error. One mistake and she would crash.
Experience. The lack of it was the problem. Aile had only ever practiced; she had never actually raced on public roads. Every situation had to be read and answered with raw reflexes alone. Unlike Mosped, who could predict what to do from hard-won instinct, she had nothing to fall back on.
And that inexperience was now biting her ankles.
Accident—!
A wreck had just materialized ahead. 0.03 seconds to recognize it. 0.04 seconds to begin braking. Then 0.1 seconds—
The red rocket spider 091 blew past her and took the lead.
He didn’t slow down!?
For a split second she wondered if he had missed the crash. He hadn’t. Mosped had seen the accident, seen her brake, and chosen not to slow at all. He had calculated that the single instant she hesitated was his only chance to reverse their positions.
Vrrrrroooooom—! The red comet’s engine screamed. The chassis accelerated even harder. When the rocket spider reached the accident site, flames erupted from boosters beneath it.
He jumped!?
As everyone kept saying, bolting a 12,500-horsepower engine into a car was absurd overkill. Mosped refused to let that surplus power go to waste.
He had modified the undercarriage with boosters. Using the engine’s output, they could lift the entire vehicle for a brief moment.
The left-side booster fired, launching the rocket spider into the air. It left the road, raced along the face of a building, cleared the accident, then fired again to drop neatly back onto the pavement and glide away.
Watching it, Aile unconsciously yanked her throttle.
Ah……
The speed demon inside her answered the sight of someone pulling ahead. Braking now would only guarantee a collision. To avoid a pile-up she needed another option—like the jump Mosped had just performed.
Unfortunately her bike had no jump boosters. A machine that could already fly through the sky had no need for such crude additions. She couldn’t copy his trick.
Instead, Aile kicked the ground with her own foot. A magical girl’s core strength lifted the motorcycle clean into the air.
You know a magical girl’s core muscles can even stand up a bike that’s fallen ninety degrees, right!?
The endless lectures from Vira during training finally paid off. Aile sailed lightly over the line of cars, landed on the far side of the accident, and shot forward again.
The race was not over. Not yet.
“Nice! Aile! That’s it!”
“Hmm… I still think running would be faster.”
“You muscle-brained idiot! Shut up and cheer!”
Inside Evils headquarters, Vira and Galrm were watching the race. One cheered, the other grumbled, but both were glued to the screen.
It was a razor-thin contest, the lead flipping back and forth. The sheer tension made the viewers’ hands shake.
Of course, one person watched the whole spectacle with complete calm.
“Why are you all so loud…? Even if you cheer, Aile can’t hear you from here.”
“Eight, you… Are you even human? Do you not have emotions? Aile could lose!”
“Lose? She can’t lose unless she deliberately tries to lose.”
The scientist, Eight, took a calm sip of coffee. The machine Aile rode was one he had modified personally. Knowing its performance, he literally could not picture her defeat.
“Well, unless some natural disaster happens… Ah!”
Crash—!
The handle of the mug Eight was holding snapped and fell to the floor. Everyone jumped at the sharp, ominous sound. Eight, however, simply began picking up the pieces with a blank face.
“Must be Chinese-made… There’s no China here, though…”
As he gathered the shards, he let out a small groan. A sharp edge had pricked his finger.
“Tch— I got cut.”
“…Eight?”
“Yes, Miss Vira? What is it?”
“Don’t you think this is way too ominous? Accidents keep happening one after another…”
“You believe in that kind of superstition? Color me surprised. You don’t look like the type.”
Eight finished cleaning up, brewed a fresh cup, and sat down. The moment his weight settled, one leg of the chair collapsed. Scalding coffee poured straight onto him.
“—Eight!?”
“It’s fine. Luckily it missed my face.”
“It got all over your clothes!”
“The coat is thick. So this is fine too, luckily.”
Watching Eight laugh it off as good fortune, Vira felt a growing sense of unease. Seeing someone that unlucky nearby had a way of making you nervous.
Please let everything end without any more problems… She prayed silently and turned back to the monitor. The race was almost over.
That crazy bitch.
Mosped caught sight of Aile leaping between cars in his rearview mirror and let out a hollow laugh. He was beginning to doubt she belonged to the same species. Jumping dozens of meters on that heavy bike? And then instantly regaining balance and closing the gap again? After acrobatics like that she should have been tumbling across the pavement.
—But she has weaknesses.
In just those few short minutes Mosped had already identified them. She lacked experience. On straightaways it was hard to notice, but every corner and every passing car revealed it instantly. Her cornering was so sloppy no true beginner would be that bad, and she flinched and reacted late every single time.
Of course her monstrous reflexes and the bike’s raw speed covered for those mistakes, but the weakness was still there.
After the tunnel ahead comes a continuous corner section. That’s where I’ll end it.
Whether by coincidence or design, this route was one Mosped drove often. The finish line was already decided: Dragon Hills, the overlook with a full view of D City. After every rampage he liked to rest there and watch the scenery.
I’ll show you a wall a rookie like you can never climb!
The moment they entered the vehicle-packed tunnel, Mosped drove straight onto the wall.
Hundreds of kilometers per hour, a 12,500-horsepower ultra-high-output engine, and the artistic technique that required perfect gravity control—it was one of his greatest skills: Inverse Gravity Drive.
Racing along the tunnel ceiling, Mosped glanced upward. While every other shadow was swallowed by his own, one silhouette refused to disappear.
It was a broom—no, a bike—flying through the air.
What the—!?
The bike was actually flying. Not jumping and gliding like before. It was flying like an airplane.
“Fuck—! What kind of bike flies in the sky!”
In his shock Mosped opened his mouth, then immediately clamped it shut and sucked in a breath. At these speeds, opening your mouth was suicide.
After equalizing internal and external pressure, he looked at Aile soaring overhead and slammed the gear lever higher.
His vision was blurring. The speed had grown uncontrollable. In his hazy mind only one thought remained.
I must win.
With a click, light flooded the end of the tunnel. Mosped fired the booster and flipped the car. Both the vehicle that had clung to the ceiling and the bike that had flown through the sky returned to the road.
Not a cowardly flight through the sky, but an honest contest on sacred asphalt. Good. Very good. Mosped smiled with satisfaction and pulled the shifter again.
Eighth, ninth, tenth. The speed climbed. Braking for a drift felt like a waste. He cooled the burning tires with rainwater and entered the corner section.
Right here—!
A technique he had never tried. A stunt worthy of the name. A gamble that bet his life on luck. Mosped shifted again. Eleventh, twelfth. The absolute limit of 12,500 horsepower.
At 1,255 km/h the nose of the car pierced the wall of air. The Mach barrier. The vehicle that had broken the sound barrier shook violently, convulsing. He used that very convulsion to slingshot around the corner.
I am the fastest—!
In a space beyond sound, Mosped raced through perfect silence. No one could catch this speed. No one—
As he exited the corner and Dragon Hills appeared in the distance, a pitch-black meteor shot past him.
Mosped saw light. An extremely black light. Darkness itself overtook him, leaped the hill, and raced into the sky beyond.
Dazed, Mosped hit a patch of rainwater, lost control, and rolled dozens of times before his crumpled car finally stopped on the hillside.
“Ah… aah……”
Staring at the black ray disappearing into the distance, Mosped instinctively understood. His run was over. He could go no farther.
The winner remains. The loser disappears. That was the rule of speed racers. Mosped quietly closed his eyes.
“You certainly did something entertaining.”
There was a superstition that foretold misfortune. I wondered if all yesterday’s accidents had been warnings. The thought was completely unscientific, yet it refused to leave my mind.
“…I didn’t do anything—”
“Oh? So you’re claiming Aile did all of this by herself? Wearing a magical girl outfit that can’t be maintained without you, riding a bike of unknown origin?”
“Th-that’s because Aile asked me to…”
“Hmm, hmm. I see! So Aile’s request outweighs my order to stay quiet. Is that what you’re saying?”
“…I’m sorry, Boss.”
There was no logical rebuttal. I wasn’t allowed to make one. I bowed my head and apologized. It had always ended there before, but this time the boss slid a document across the desk.
“Boss, this is…?”
“If you make a mistake, you must be punished.”
Mass-produce vehicles equipped with anti-gravity and flight devices based on the unit provided to Aile.
All necessary resources will be allocated. Begin immediately.
Reading the document, I frowned. It was an order to mass-produce the anti-gravity and flight-capable car I had built for Aile.
“This is going to be harder than it looks. Mass-producing it with current technology here will require splitting my head open with how much I’ll have to think…”
“Perfect. While you’re busy with that, you won’t have time to meddle in other things, will you?”
“Well, that’s true, but…”
Watching me squirm, the boss smiled.
“Get it done. You need to be worked hard.”
The tone reminded me of the one person I hated most. I snatched the documents and fled the office before my PTSD could flare up.
To think the boss would remind me of the professor…
Still, this was better than being worked to death under him. I sighed and headed for the laboratory.