In truth, the car had only two seats. Everything unnecessary in the back had been stripped out.
There was an old saying in racing circles: better to lose ten horsepower than add one kilogram.
Weight reduction was the most basic modification strategy.
Near the finish line of the earlier race, Yixiong had known he had no hope of winning. Otherwise, he would never have fully released his six-kilogram Magnemite.
[Hold on tight!]
That was usually what a guy said before showing off his driving skills with a girl in the car. Shen Qi had never imagined he would be the one in the passenger seat.
And besides...
He glanced sideways. Beneath the short skirt, lily-white legs moved, and a powerful surge pressed him back into his seat.
Ah!
What a fair accelerator, what a tender clutch.
Shen Qi's heart raced. He was probably the first Pokémon player ever to actually see Lilligant's legs up close.
In the game, she only appeared in her leafy princess dress.
[Lilligant noticed the boy's gaze, feeling shy and a little reproachful.]
Although Lilligant did not scold him, Shen Qi knew he could not push his luck. He hurriedly averted his eyes and looked ahead.
The car's engine was certainly something special, and its shock absorbers were impressive too...
Not just the shock absorbers-the entire suspension system, including them, was leagues beyond an ordinary grocery-getter.
With a setup like this, Lilligant's victory today was hardly surprising.
On a relatively flat stretch, green energy surged. The Grass-type move Growth entered the Skill Slot, boosting the car's power and sending its speed climbing sharply.
When the high beams illuminated the approaching bend, Lilligant canceled Growth's effect and slowed to take the corner, then boosted the power again upon exiting to pick up speed.
They crossed the bridge on the Water Path, passed Trail Mountain, the Green Path, and Marker Mountain, then entered the familiar Marker Woods as their journey drew to a close.
"So that's how it works."
After watching throughout the drive, Shen Qi reached a conclusion. "When I watched the race, I thought your cornering was a little weak."
[Lilligant did not get angry and listened quietly.]
"You're driving by yourself, after all. You also have to split your attention to use moves, so of course it won't feel as smooth as a trainer focusing on driving while their Pokémon handles the moves."
Especially when approaching bends, Lilligant canceled the power boost far in advance instead of pushing to the limit before braking, sacrificing a great deal of speed.
In the latter half of a corner, once the nose was straightened and aligned with the road, she could already have applied full power to exit at high speed. But Lilligant could not divide her attention to use moves mid-corner, so she only accelerated after exiting, once again failing to draw out one hundred percent of the car's performance.
[Shen Qi... are you a Racing Driver too?]
"No, I work in transport, so I'm always racing against the clock."
Having hauled seafood for so many years in his previous life, he had done more than race against the clock. He had practically gambled his life on overloaded trucks and speeding through the night.
There was no denying that it was illegal and extremely dangerous. But without doing it, people in transport could hardly make any money.
Hauling sand and gravel, steel, fertilizer... overloading and fatigued driving were things every truck driver had experienced.
That made an exceptionally keen sense of the vehicle and road conditions essential. It was a skill honed with his life hanging by a thread.
Even after transmigrating, when Shen Qi no longer pushed himself so hard, his round-trip hauling time was still nearly an hour shorter than that of his body's original owner in his memories.
"Lilligant, I'll practice with you another day."
[If Grass-type Pokémon had hearts, Lilligant felt certain her heartbeat would be audible inside the car.]
["Speedy Hot Girl," Romance scenario completion: 35%.]
She nodded gently. A flower crown had already begun growing on Lilligant's bun, and her skirt was returning to its original length.
[Another day, then...]
The race car was less than ten meters from Pokémon High School. Shen Qi could walk home in just over ten minutes.
"Um... Lilligant."
[Yes?]
"Could you take me back to Ruins Valley? I just remembered I drove there. I left Little Sheep at the starting point of the race."
[Are you messing with me...?]
Scenario completion dropped to 33%.
Chapter 12: It hurt, it hurt so much
[Honestly.]
At one in the morning, Lilligant stopped the car at the race's earlier starting point and gave Shen Qi a reproachful look.
"Heh, heh, heh."
Shen Qi chuckled awkwardly and used the headlights to find his Little Sheep in the pitch-dark wilderness.
Once Lilligant saw that Shen Qi had found his van, she turned the car around and drove off without lingering at all.
During the ride to Pokémon High School in Lilligant's car, Shen Qi's completion had risen from 30% to 35%, then dropped to 33% because of his blunder.
Overall, those two hours of running around had paid off. He just felt rather embarrassed about making Lilligant travel all that way for another round trip.
Jili-?
A round pink figure shuffled out of the bushes into the headlights.
"Chansey! Oh, right, you live here too."
A few days earlier, he had met Xia Yang on Marker Mountain and given a Chansey a ride home along the way. She had indeed gotten out at Ruins Valley.
According to the game's introduction, Ruins Valley mostly housed Pokémon that liked ruins and other traces of antiquity, such as Meowth, Persian, and Natu.
He had never heard of a Chansey living here, though.
Still...
Shen Qi crouched down. "Thank you so much."
Chansey looked puzzled: ?
"I could never clearly sense type energy. Even the Normal-type energy taught at the very beginning of our school courses was beyond me. But after eating your egg, I could sense Normal-type energy very clearly."
This was a breakthrough that opened the way to learning by analogy. In the future, Shen Qi could use his sense of Normal-type energy as a guide when sensing other types. Having crossed the threshold where every beginning was difficult, things would surely go more smoothly afterward.
"So, thank you, truly!"
Shen Qi silently added in his heart: Even though your egg tasted uniquely awful.
Jili!
Chansey gave a cry and, deeply moved, spread her arms to hug Shen Qi.
Unfortunately, she was spherical. Her belly pressed against Shen Qi, and her stubby little arms simply could not complete the hug.
Since Chansey wanted a hug, Shen Qi did not stand on ceremony.
He opened his arms and hugged Chansey. Whoa, it felt like holding an enormous water balloon, smooth, springy, and impossible not to want to poke.
Still, he was not familiar enough with Chansey to do whatever he pleased, so Shen Qi restrained those unruly thoughts.
Thinking about it now, Chansey might have been so moved because someone had eaten her entire egg and even offered sincere praise afterward.
After all... when he first encountered Chansey, a Primeape and a Hitmonchan had been beating each other up in the forest.
Later, both Pokémon had fled the woods in a panic with their mouths stuffed full, looking as though they were carsick and about to throw up. They had probably been caught off guard and fed an egg each by Chansey.
Only Shen Qi had eaten the egg in its entirety and remained immensely grateful afterward.
The human and the egg-shaped Pokémon embraced, each lost in their own emotions.
Outside Ruins Valley, the pink car turned around. Lilligant had initially been a little annoyed at Shen Qi's carelessness, but shortly after parting, she remembered that it was already past midnight. Shen Qi had come specially to cheer her on and now had to drive home alone so late. He might even be hungry.
The big Berry gift box awarded to the winner of the amateur race was still in the back of the car. After some internal struggle, Lilligant decided to return and share some with Shen Qi.
I... I'm not going out of my way just to share them with him.
I'm only worried that a growing boy might go hungry.
If he gets carried away when I get there, I won't give him any!
After driving back a little way, Lilligant realized something was wrong.
So much time had passed that Shen Qi should have driven out of Ruins Valley already. With them heading toward each other, they ought to have met very soon.
There were other routes out of Ruins Valley, but they all involved detours and were less direct than this road. It was unlikely that they had missed each other.
The closer she got to the race's earlier starting point, the more uneasy Lilligant felt.
If Shen Qi's car had simply broken down, it would only be a scare with no real danger. Please let him not have run into anything worse!
Thinking of it that way, Shen Qi was an ordinary student without a Pokémon, left all alone in Ruins Valley...
The more Lilligant thought, the more frightened she became. She began blaming herself for being petulant, and her speed rose another notch without her noticing.
The headlights swept over the area where Shen Qi had gotten out earlier. Little Sheep was still parked there, its fog lights glowing softly.
Where the soft glow of the fog lights met the race car's high beams, two figures held each other tightly, like the male and female leads on an opera stage, performing a dazzling romance beneath the spotlight.
Screech-
The car stopped, but Lilligant felt the space around her heaving and swaying.
It hurt, it hurt so much!
[Hmph! Men only slow down my racing!]
Lilligant cranked the steering wheel all the way over and slammed on the accelerator. The tires screeched against the ground, the engine roared without pause, and the race car swung through a U-shaped arc. Its taillights glowed crimson like a bleeding heart before their halo gradually faded away.
(Background music began: I headed north all the way, leaving the season that held you...)
"Holy shit! Lilligant! It's not what it looks like-!"
[Lilligant, she and I are just friends who only met recently!]
Before you continue