His opponent was a driver from a professional racing team. Had he really... found records from back then through the T3 Race?
"Back then" had only been two years ago...
"Well? Changed your mind? Let's have a Car Badge Duel. Otherwise, turn around and go home right now."
The race organizer was already calling the drivers to the starting line. Lilligant was trapped.
Even if she swallowed her pride and withdrew, Shan Sheng knew what had happened back then and would tell people.
Lilligant: I... I'll race you, but you can't tell anyone about my car.
Pidgey translated for her. Shan Sheng looked a little puzzled, but excitement quickly swept that aside.
"Come on! Let's stake our honor as drivers!"
The two race cars, their engines still warmed up, sat side by side at the starting line. Excitement filled the air.
Shen Qi left Dev's side, rubbing his sweaty hands.
He had said winning or losing didn't matter, but he still got nervous before a race.
He couldn't use the game interface to cheer Lilligant on now. He had to let her get into her own zone.
"Countdown!"
The head boat owner at Island 6's harbor shouted through a megaphone.
"Three... two... one!"
The checkered flag swept down, and the race began.
"Go!"
"Go, Tsareena!"
Everyone watching was an Island 6 resident. The Perilla Racing Team had sent only one woman in a tight-fitting athletic outfit.
That rather surprised Shen Qi. He didn't know what role the woman held on the team, but she clearly wasn't support staff, nor had she offered guidance like a coach. Shan Sheng had essentially come to the duel alone.
Vroom!
The engines roared, and a gap opened between the two cars.
"Why is Tsareena so far behind?"
"Something's wrong..."
Chapter 57: Summer vacation was about to blow up
With cars in the same class, it was normal for Lilligant to get off to a slightly slower start.
According to the rules, Pokémon could only apply buffs to the Skill Slot after the start. Shan Sheng merely had to have his Pokémon ready to act.
Lilligant was driving herself, so chaining moves wouldn't be as smooth, and she needed more preparation time.
Shen Qi had expected her to fall behind at the start, but...
"Something really is wrong."
The cars had covered two hundred meters of the mine's straightaway before Lilligant's power buffs fully kicked in. By then, she was nearing a turn. She barely reached the higher speed range before she had to brake for the corner, and her racing line was rather rough.
Once the two cars entered the turn, the spectators could no longer see them. Yet from that brief opening stretch, Shen Qi had the feeling... that Lilligant was distracted?
It was an absurd thought. How could Lilligant get distracted while doing the racing she loved most?
It hadn't looked like a mechanical failure just now.
If there really was a problem, a driver could withdraw for safety reasons.
Shan Sheng wanted to defeat Island 6's strongest driver. Winning against an opponent with a faulty car would mean nothing, so he would almost certainly allow a rematch.
"Uncle Dev..." Shen Qi knew cars, but his understanding of Pokémon racing wasn't as detailed as that of the veteran enthusiasts, so he consulted Dev and the other shop owners.
Dev shook his head. "It doesn't really look like car trouble. Saying Tsareena was careless at the start feels like a stretch... but I can't think of a better explanation yet."
Even the best drivers sometimes had disastrous starts. All they could do was hope Lilligant would make up the gap later.
"The first crucial series of turns!"
Like other amateur races, this one had no broadcast. The hosts or organizers stationed people at several key points, who reported the situation on their sections of the course by radio.
"They're nearing the turns, and Tsareena is only one car length behind! The gap is still closing!"
She was catching up!
Some islanders nearby raised their juice and drank a toast. The enthusiasts who truly understood racing knew the situation wasn't promising.
Tsareena wasn't a cornering specialist to begin with. She also had to prepare and cancel her own moves through the turns, making all kinds of adjustments to her buffs. There was no way she could do it as smoothly as a driver paired with a Pokémon.
And... with a gap of one car length, Shan Sheng would block her line.
Sure enough, just as Shen Qi had expected, the commentator shouted:
"Shan Sheng has blocked the outside line! Tsareena is forced to slow down!"
Lilligant had large four-piston brake calipers, new brake pads, and new tires. She could brake very late before a turn, maintaining her high speed for longer.
But Shan Sheng had taken the outside line...
The usual cornering approach for these high-powered sports cars was outside-inside-outside.
It was also called the "racing line."
They took the outside before entering a corner, steered inward toward the apex, then returned to the outside on the exit.
This lengthened the distance traveled through the corner, but it broke one big turn into two gentler changes of direction, allowing higher speeds and more straight-line driving.
They used more extreme speeds to make up for the extra distance.
It was different with the Little Sheep. Sometimes, when Shen Qi felt he was going slowly, he simply took an inside-inside-inside line, or inside-inside-outside.
With so little power anyway, he chose the shorter route.
With her outside line blocked, Lilligant would lose even more speed by switching to the inside. She was forced to enter the corner behind Shan Sheng's car.
Having failed to overtake before the turn, she naturally fell farther behind through it. Overtaking later would be even harder.
The second key section was a partly damaged road. Tree roots pressing in from both sides had narrowed it, while dense branches and leaves reached toward the cars, obscuring whether any solid obstacles lay behind them.
Shan Sheng slowed down, but Tsareena accelerated instead!
Lilligant was a Grass-type Pokémon and had a special sensitivity to plants. Although she couldn't extend her senses through vegetation, she drove through this section far more comfortably than Shan Sheng.
The gap narrowed, only to widen again in the third key section.
After the fourth key section, the race entered its second half. Following a brief stretch on the public road outside, the two cars began heading back!
The report from the observer up ahead made the commentator at the starting point stumble over his words.
"T-Tsareena... made a mistake on the return leg. She lost a great deal of speed through a corner. The psychological pressure must be too much, and it's throwing off her handling."
"Too much psychological pressure?"
The islanders present were a little puzzled... This duel wasn't really an amateur race in the usual sense. There were no rankings or prizes.
It was simply two drivers who had never known each other asking a third party to arrange a private duel in the countryside.
Besides, Tsareena came and went without a trace. No one knew who her Trainer was, and the drivers' code meant no one would follow her.
"Could it be... that Tsareena feels she's fighting for Island 6? With no chance to break through, she keeps blaming herself, and the pressure is getting to her?"
"That... makes sense. Otherwise, with her skill and experience, there's no way pressure would throw off her handling this badly."
"Ah, Tsareena doesn't talk to us much, but she still sees us all as her people."
"Even if she loses, we should cheer for her!"
"Exactly. We came to watch the duel, but we only added to her pressure."
The kindhearted islanders somehow came up with a reasonably coherent explanation. Only Shen Qi knew that definitely wasn't it.
Lilligant would never think she was representing Island 6 against an outsider. Something else had to be putting her under psychological pressure...
If she lost, she lost. Shen Qi was already thinking about how to comfort Lilligant.
There was no suspense at the finish. Shan Sheng's car crossed the line thirty meters ahead.
Even when drivers happened to meet on the mountain and raced under the unspoken chase rules, a lead of twenty meters at the finish was enough to count as a win, let alone in a properly arranged duel like this.
"Tsareena! You were already amazing!"
"It's all right! You'll be even better in the future!"
Despite losing, Lilligant received plenty of cheers. Shen Qi applauded along with everyone else. With so many people comforting her, surely she would feel a little warmer inside.
Shan Sheng received only the organizers' acknowledgment of his victory, with little encouragement from anyone else. His face brimmed with a winner's joy as he walked to Lilligant's car, rested both hands on the hood, and briefly met the driver's eyes.
Before Shen Qi could understand what he was doing, Shan Sheng received permission and crouched beside the car, working with Nidorino to remove something from its front end.
The headlights were too dazzling for Shen Qi to see what had been taken. Shan Sheng had barely walked a few steps away when Lilligant hit the accelerator and swiftly left.
Her mental state was clearly terrible. She hadn't even left Shen Qi a word.
"What's going on...?"
Shen Qi was still completely confused, but the expressions of several veteran enthusiasts beside him changed sharply.
"A Car Badge Duel!"
"I never heard they were betting their car badges."
Shen Qi asked, "What's a Car Badge Duel?"
"The winner takes the loser's car badge. Unless the loser wins it back, they can't have a car badge for six months."
Hearing that, Shen Qi felt as though the wonderful summer vacation he had imagined was about to blow up.
Chapter 58: An extremely favorable wager
"Why... why would they suddenly choose a Car Badge Duel?!"
To Shen Qi, the stakes of a Car Badge Duel sounded trivial. It was only a missing badge, not a revoked driver's license. Losing a bet of 100b would hurt more.
But Lilligant's car was a keepsake left behind by her former young mistress. It was beyond precious...
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