Arknightcraft Modpack
Chapter 628: Emergency Braking Technique
No matter what strange thing had suddenly happened, Steven was certain of one thing: he couldn't just stand there and watch. If he did, Irene would end up driving the car straight into the downtown district.
Without hesitation, he took a single step forward and exploded into motion at a speed that surpassed the car by who knew how much. Turning into a human lightning bolt, Steven caught up to the speeding vehicle. Only then did he slow himself down, matching the car's pace and maintaining a relatively stable distance alongside it.
The sight was oddly reminiscent of someone using a speed hack to catch up to another player's vehicle and then asking if they wanted to buy cheats too. Even Steven himself couldn't help but feel the urge to ask Irene, sitting in the driver's seat, whether she wanted a little upgrade.
However, when he saw the row of pale-faced passengers in the back seat—people who had clearly been scared half to death by Irene's earth-shattering driving skills—he suppressed the laughter threatening to escape.
Reaching out, he opened the door of the speeding car and forcibly squeezed himself into the passenger seat.
Compared to him, the rapidly moving vehicle might as well have been standing still, causing him no trouble whatsoever. The ease with which he boarded only deepened the shocked expressions of those sitting in the back.
"How did you do that?"
Pointing at Steven's casual, "walking into his own house" manner of entering the car, Exusiai clearly couldn't comprehend how he had gotten onto a speeding vehicle so effortlessly.
"I think that's not the important issue right now. The real question is: why did you let Irene drive? Little bird, does the Inquisition even require driver's licenses?"
Scratching his head in confusion, Steven's attention was focused on an entirely different matter. There was a whole group of Penguin Logistics employees sitting in the back, so how had it ended up being Irene behind the wheel?
And obviously, it wasn't just that she lacked experience driving—she looked like she'd never touched a vehicle before in her life.
"We didn't think much of it either! We just happened to get our hands on a car and thought it'd be fun to let your girl try out a vehicle that was completely new to her. Who would've thought those Siracusans would be so persistent and catch up to us so quickly?"
Exusiai shot back helplessly. It wasn't exactly something they could control. Who could have predicted that those people would stick to them like glue and refuse to let go?
As a result, she had instinctively told Irene to step on the gas. And now that they were already moving at high speed, stopping to switch drivers was no longer a simple matter.
"Oh, so it's basically Speed."
Steven glanced through the rearview mirror and, sure enough, saw a line of black cars trailing behind them, clearly not looking friendly.
He had no idea what the Penguin Logistics crew had done to warrant such dedication from their pursuers. Judging by that little bull guy among them, could it be that he'd somehow NTR'd their boss by being "a shota with a big spear"?
With random nonsense running through his head, Steven casually reached over and adjusted the steering wheel Irene was desperately gripping, preventing the car from plowing headfirst into a roadside food stall.
Perhaps it was because the engine noise was loud enough, or perhaps the people of Lungmen were simply accustomed to this sort of thing. The moment they noticed the chase, the street vendors and tourists calmly moved out of harm's way.
In fact, none of them seemed to think it disrupted the festive atmosphere in the slightest.
Of course, that was assuming Irene didn't decide to drive straight into them.
"Stop watching and help! Do I look like someone who knows how to drive this thing?"
It wasn't that Irene didn't want to respond to Steven, nor was she still angry at him.
The problem was that she currently had to devote every ounce of concentration to controlling the beast beneath her. At this speed, if they hit any obstacle, everyone in the car would be completely, utterly dead.
Only after Steven had helped stabilize the steering a little did she dare let out a breath of relief and call out to him for help.
"That's a fair point. But you can't expect a shut-in like me to have a driver's license, can you?"
Steven immediately grinned when Irene, of all people, actually asked him for assistance.
"But honestly, if you replaced this steering wheel with WASD controls, I might be able to do something. As things stand, my only advice is for you to press that thing under your foot even harder."
The moment those words left his mouth, Exusiai—who had only just begun to think that salvation had arrived—turned even paler than before.
"W-Wait, don't—!"
Before she could finish, Irene had already pressed the accelerator even harder.
The car, which had already been speeding along at a terrifying pace, surged forward yet again, reaching an entirely new level of velocity. The sudden acceleration caused the Penguin Logistics girls in the back seat to instinctively lurch backward into their seats.
As for Irene herself, she was completely dumbfounded.
This wasn't how she had imagined things going at all.
Why was it getting even faster?!
"You actually listened to him?! Didn't you hear him say he doesn't even have a driver's license?!"
Nearly thrown out of her seat by the acceleration, Exusiai shouted in exasperation. At this point, she didn't even know what to say anymore.
How could they possibly end up in a situation like this?
"How was I supposed to know?! But what do we do now?!"
Irene had completely frozen up. It felt as though her arms and legs were no longer under her control.
Watching the scenery outside the windows blur past like a spinning carousel, she experienced a sensation of speed unlike anything she had ever known. It felt less like driving and more like flying across level ground.
And as for what she was supposed to do next?
She hadn't the faintest idea.
"Relax. Based on my many years of experience playing Need for Speed, all we have to do is force-close the game before we hit anything. Then when we load back in, the car will be standing still. That's my ultimate emergency braking technique."
The only person in the vehicle who could still laugh and remain calm was Steven in the passenger seat.
He even had the leisure to continue rambling about jokes nobody else in the car understood, occasionally turning the steering wheel and keeping the vehicle balanced on the razor-thin line between driving and rolling over.
To be fair, he hadn't lied about the driver's license part.
He genuinely didn't have one.
The only license he might have earned was a KartRider license.
Unfortunately, this car clearly lacked nitro boosts and drift acceleration mechanics.
The reason he was able to control it at all was simply because his own reaction speed was faster than the vehicle.
When he ran normally, he was far faster than this anyway.
"Can you stop joking and make this thing stop already?!"
Exusiai felt like everyone in the car was about to take flight.
Perhaps because Irene had completely locked up, she hadn't shown the slightest intention of taking her foot off the accelerator.
As a result, they were still accelerating.
At this point, Exusiai had no idea how fast they were actually going.
"Wouldn't it stop naturally if we crashed into something?"
Glancing at the Sankta girl, who looked like her soul was about to leave her body, Steven finally suppressed his laughter.
"Irene. Just pick something you don't like and drive straight into it. I guarantee you'll be fine."
With that, he handed the decision-making authority back to Irene, who was still sitting rigidly in the driver's seat.
He genuinely had no idea how to make the thing stop.
At this speed, hitting the brakes was arguably even more suicidal than keeping the accelerator down. Crashing into something was honestly the safer option. At the very least, he could guarantee that nobody inside the car would be harmed.
The moment those words left his mouth, Steven felt a resentful gaze coming from the driver's seat.
Irene was staring straight at him.
Yeah...
Now that he thought about it, saying something like that was basically asking for trouble.
If he were the one driving, the first thing he'd crash into would definitely be the womanizing idiot sitting in the passenger seat, constantly running his mouth.
"Alright, alright, I get it. Then crash into me!"
Gritting his teeth, Steven put on the expression of a martyr marching bravely to his death.
Then, to Exusiai's utter shock, he actually opened the car door and jumped out of the vehicle, which was practically flying just above the ground.
He was flung away like a discarded rag.
A moment later, however, he transformed into a bolt of lightning, caught up to the speeding car again, and positioned himself directly in front of it.
Steven reached out toward the vehicle, which, thanks in part to his earlier advice, was now moving at almost lightning-like speed.
The girls inside the car wore expressions of utter despair, as though they had already foreseen their own deaths.
Yet the violent impact they expected never came.
Before the car could even reach Steven, it collided with a strange green, jelly-like substance that had appeared in front of him.
The tremendous force that should have accompanied the crash was effortlessly absorbed by the gelatinous barrier.
There wasn't even the slightest ripple.
The engine continued to roar and accelerate, but the car itself came to a complete stop.
Standing behind the green wall of slime, Steven spread his arms wide and flashed a smug grin, as though presenting a spectacular surprise.
This was the confidence granted to him by the Slime Block.
Did they even understand the value of something capable of infinitely dissipating impact force?
As the runaway vehicle finally crashed into the bizarre wall and came to a halt, the girls inside were at last safe.
But before they could even breathe a sigh of relief, the Siracusan gangsters who had been pursuing them all this time pulled up and surrounded them from all sides.
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Note: Character Illustration is in this Google Drive:
https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1iuyfwNVFHzIi9H4rWNT_lAm7jTSiah_M
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Tn: I updated the story daily, but if you want to see more chapter of this story ahead of time, please go to my Patreon.
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