CHAPTER SEVENTY FIVE

Another red energy spear shot towards Jason, who cursed loudly and whirled back onto the defensive. The slender Red Minerva did a quick stutter step as it ducked back. The veteran pilot swore loudly.

Initially, he'd thought that the Squire could only fire and generate its spear after a great deal of time and effort. After all, the Mech hadn't bothered attacking him until he'd reached the second lap.

Instead, it seemed like the spears came out almost instantaneously. It didn't take long for the Squire to charge up attacks. The machine had simply waited to catch Jason off guard.

The Squire hurled yet a third spear at Jason.

This time, the veteran pilot dove through the ground.

Jason wasn't sure if his machine would be allowed to dig - she hadn't been allowed to fly - but he didn't see any other option. There was no way he could move quickly through the Squire's heavy bombardment on the surface. His four-legged mode was fast, but it wasn't fast enough.

It was worth gambling to give himself a chance to race.

The Red Minerva shredded the dirt and terrain, and to Jason's relief, he was able to hide underneath the ground. The terrain above him screamed as the Squire's lightning spears and cannonballs decimated the upper layer.

The Red Minerva swiftly advanced. His partner melted everything in front of her with her acidic flame breath as she sliced through the earth. Her limbs moved in a pair of wide concentrate circles, just like an Olympic swimmer doing the breaststroke.

"Jason! Jason! Are you alright?"

Stephanie sounded extremely worried.

From her perspective, it must have seemed like he'd gotten totally vaporized. Beginners often relied too much on visual effects instead of the overall team radar.

"Yeah, I'm fine. I just hid underground."

The Red Minerva promptly started tearing through the earth as projectiles continued pounding above it. To Jason's shock, the Squire's pinpoint bombardment capabilities were excellent. The other machine concentrated their fire directly above his partner, tearing apart the earth and sending rocks streaking across the racecourse.

Normally, it was extremely difficult to direct heavy bombardment all at a single point, but his skillful opponent had no problems controlling the recoil of the Heavy Mortars.

On top of that, it seemed like the other machine was able to effortlessly track his underground position. Even though Jason was hiding, all the Squire's attacks were perfectly directed.

Unfortunately for Jason, he couldn't observe the surface while digging. Perhaps the Red Minerva was leaving cracks on the surface that revealed her location.

Jason scowled.

That wasn't likely.

He might have been leaving surface evidence, but the Red Minerva was optimized for stealth. It was more likely that the other pilot even had a good understanding of the Red Minerva's movement speed...

It was more circumstantial evidence for Jason's persistent theory that a rough handful of pilots controlled all the secret bosses. By now, the other player must have become quite familiar with Jason and his habits...

Stephanie cursed so loudly that Jason jolted a little. It was extremely unusual to see so much anger and frustration from the usually positive player.

"I'm useless! I can't hit the Knight...and it won't let me hit the Squire!"

Jason continued tearing through the earth at top speed, but it just wasn't fast enough.

The Red Minerva's excellent hearing allowed it to track the enemy Knight even from underneath the ground. The Squire's constant barrage made things difficult, but it was impossible to completely obfuscate the thunderous hooves.

Jason re-read the auditory information on his screen and winced.

The Knight was currently on the sixth lap. It'd traveled about twice as far as Jason had.

The machine's natural speed combined with Stephanie's ineffective attacks had granted his opponent an enormous lead.

In hindsight, Jason definitely should have been the gunner.

Initially, their team had expected the racer to have a more challenging role. Jason had anticipated jostling with the Knight of Friendship until the very end. He'd thought that his skills on the Red Minerva would allow him to cut corners and get ahead of his opponent.

Now, they realized that the shooter should have been the more experienced teammate. From what he could tell, the two players controlling the Five Star Bosses on the other end had already understood this eccentricity. The Squire pilot was excellent.

BOOM!

The ground thundered as the Squire finally broke through the terrain, striking the Red Minerva directly. The red spear lanced into Jason's side, slicing a huge gouge in his partner's waist and cutting off her left leg.

Jason shook his head and kept on digging. All he could do was continue charging after the Knight as he came up with his counter. As he clawed forward with his missing leg, Jason briefly considered activating his Overdrive bonus to heal from the missing limb. However, he knew he would need it for the battle at the top of the mountain.

The veteran pilot frowned as he processed his opponent's strategy.

He thought he'd been deep enough underground...

The Squire had wisely targeted the Red Minerva right when she was making a turn. The ground was slightly thinner on the elevated ramp that led from one ring to the next, and the heavyset artillery machine had punished Jason appropriately.

Jason promptly returned underground, but the Squire had already completely adjusted to his strategy.

His auditory screen repeatedly pinged as soon as he returned beneath the ground. According to the screen, there was a thunderous series of noises directly ahead of him.

Jason frowned briefly, but it didn't take too long for him to deduce why the Red Minerva's hearing was going haywire.

He pulled back on his thrusters and returned to the surface.

Shit...

The Squire was planning ahead.

Instead of bombarding Jason's current position, it set up a trap. First, the machine had weakened the ground in front of him. Next, the Mech would have waited for Jason to dig forward before obliterating the area and destroying the Red Minerva.

If it hadn't been for his Mech's excellent hearing, he never would have seen the trap coming.

Jason could no longer solely dig.

He had to proceed with a mix of surface running and underground burrowing, but the process would be slow and painful.

As Jason moved forward, he skillfully combined all Red Minerva's movement abilities.

The conventional two-legged stance was the best at dodging. He could use the modified goat legs at the base of his Mech to shift from side to side.

Meanwhile, the four-legged mode he got from the Watchdog gave him the greatest conventional speed. He could sprint forward for brief spurts, but the other machine would constantly interrupt him. Even then, the maximum sprint speed was slower than the Knight of Friendship's galloping.

The digging mode was the best at evasion, but it exposed him to surprise attacks. As a result, Jason could only use it every so often.

The veteran pilot ducked, dodged, and weaved, shifting his stance and positioning as he desperately tried to survive. After weaseling past the latest litany of attacks, Jason glanced ahead of him.

The Knight was on the eighth lap now, and he had just barely made it to the fourth. The other machine's lead had widened even further.

Stephanie continued attacking the Knight, but it ducked and dodged without any issues. After seeing the Squire's strategy, Stephanie quickly started imitating it. She directed the bazooka will ahead of the Knight. She blasted the explosive projectiles ahead of the swift-moving Mech before following up with the beam rifle to add to the impromptu barrier.

Although Stephanie was new, she was pretty smart. Jason once again found himself impressed by the other pilot and her learning capabilities.

However, the four-legged centaur had no issue crossing the dangerous terrain. Despite the ruined ground, the Knight of Friendship effortlessly crossed the hazardous terrain, swinging its body from side to side to avoid the red lasers from Stephanie's rifle.

Unfortunately, the horse had no issue walking through broken terrain.

Jason frowned.

He thought that the horse should struggle on bad terrain...

Jason hadn't spent much time studying horses or four-legged quadrupeds in general.

The Red Minerva typically walked on two legs, so he usually studied bipeds to gain additional build ideas. While Jason loved using his machine's new four-legged mode, he had no interest in permanently shifting to a lower stance. Walking on all fours had always been a back-up for him.

However, Jason could have sworn that horses struggled on uneven terrain. He seemed to remember something about calvary struggling during World War I trench warfare...

Stephanie's constant attacks had created countless trenches in the earth, but the horse had no problem navigating through it. Although the Knight of Friendship was a mechanical centaur rather than a real horse, Overdrive often translated real-life weaknesses into Mech's strengths and weaknesses.

As Stephanie continued attacking, her gunshots grew increasingly haphazard with each miss. Her last bazooka blast missed the track entirely. The explosive bullet went flying off the mountain.

In addition, the other player's words were getting louder and sharper. It seemed like the tilt was causing her to spiral dramatically.

"Man! I'm so sorry! I just can't do anything!"

Unfortunately, her yelling wasn't very helpful.

Jason wasn't used to a teammate yelling at him - he wasn't even used to a teammate in his voice call in general. Stephanie's angry comments were making it hard for him to think.

Jason remembered Steven saying that she often got discouraged or became self-conscious. Stephanie's primary concern was holding back her teammates, and she was worried about screwing Jason over.

Stephanie had been alright dying for Jason against the Green Envy, but against the Knight of Friendship, she felt like there was nothing she could do.

Jason clenched his teeth, and he felt a sudden stab of worry. The BAG Guild had clearly matched him up with Stephanie because they expected him to be a leader.

Sadly, he didn't feel like a leader.

He couldn't think of a single constructive idea, nor could he make Stephanie feel better. Jason's only thought so far - that he should have played the shooting position - definitely wouldn't make her feel better.

Jason instantly dismissed that idea.

There was no point lamenting their misunderstanding of the rules. They needed to find a win now.

He looked ahead of him, then nodded.

Jason was currently just a little past the start of the fourth lap. Meanwhile, the Knight of Friendship was crossing the halfway point of the eighth lap.

In short, there was no way they could win the race.

A miracle was always possible, but only a total idiot would build their plan around a miracle.

Jason had already learned from his battle with Vile that losing wasn't the worst thing in the world. It was much more important to learn and improve.

Instead of futilely trying to race, he had to plan ahead.

"Hey! Hey Stephanie!"

The self-proclaimed artillery novice suddenly jerked on the corner of his screen.

Before, her tilt and frustration had put her in an almost trancelike state. Jason knew the feeling - he'd felt the same way after losing Vile. He'd only returned to his senses after the skilled Fortress Master started talking to him.

"Hey Stephanie - weird question. Do you know why horses didn't do anything during World War I? I thought it was because they were always falling into trenches, but that can't be it. This dude is jumping across your obstacles like its nothing!"

Stephanie shook her head, and Jason saw her mind returning to the surface.

"What?!"

She started laughing.

"No! You're an idiot. I think you're thinking of vehicles. They had a hard time moving past trenches because their wheels wouldn't work."

Huh.

Now that she mentioned it, Jason thought she was right. Like a human, a horse could just jump over a trench or step around it. It could even walk through it. Something like a car would have a harder time.

The other pilot went on. She was still laughing pretty hard - it seemed like making fun of Jason had shaken off her tilt.

"Actually...horses didn't even make it into the trench. They just got obliterated as they charged forward."

Now that she mentioned it, that made sense.

Jason had mixed up a number of different stories, which was pretty typical for him. He knew a lot in the areas where he did concentrated research, but otherwise, he'd missed a lot of info in his classes.

He grinned at Stephanie in the corner of his screen.

"Get ready to hand over my armor. We'll obliterate this horse as it charges forward too."

Stephanie nodded.

"Yeah! Let's do it."

She let out a deep breath and shook her head.

"Man. Sorry I got so tilted earlier. I was just worried I couldn't help you."

Jason grinned despite himself as the Knight crossed the finish line.

"Don't worry about it. Let's take it out despite its buff! Our team is better at battles than races anyways."

A notification appeared on his screen.

YOU HAVE LOST THE RACE

Bzzt...

A lift emerged from the top of the hill, clanking loudly as it landed in front of him. Jason got inside, and it took him up to the jousting grounds.

He'd lost the first battle, but he hadn't lost the war.

This wasn't even their only chance to complete the mission. No matter who won the race, Jason and Stephanie had the chance to battle their opponents head-on.