Chapter 155
Translator’s Notes: Engrossed with reading a visual novel called Sakura Dreamers lately. While the target audience it aims at is a little young, it has some rather interesting looking grotesque monsters. Anyone who can read j.a.panese may want to try it out!
Chapter 155: Flaring Spectator’s Grandstand [Part 1]
"A so-called body double’s job is to race on behalf of the racing stars brought up by the team. This is an open secret among all racing teams. The trophy cup will never have a body double’s name, and naturally the award money even less so. The award money won by the body doubles are completely turned over to the racing team, before the person in charge of the racing team rewards them based on their personal feelings at that time just like a donation. If you win then you at least get a donation, but the unlucky ones who lost their lives directly gets nothing. They can only vanish in a puff of smoke and dust amidst the spectators ridiculing boos." Udoze lay on top of the steering wheel and said unhappily.
Although people like them obviously possessed superb racing skills, they could only live in secrecy. When they headed out, they wore helmets so that their real faces could not be seen clearly, just like the shadows of those bright stars. The ones the crowd saw and cheered for were always the racing stars who could stand on the platform and hold up the trophy while laughing and throwing air kisses at them. They did not know that the people who finished the race in their cars a moment ago were the gray and boring native citizens whom were regarded as inferiors, and were so poor that they could only stay in their humble stone built houses.
Countless native racers were buried in a race fighting for fame and glory that did not belong to themselves. As compared to the official racers of those racing team, they, the body doubles neither owned a car of their own, nor a compet.i.tion that belonged to themselves. They could only ever add bricks and tiles to another person’s life.
They were both humans. Life was cheap, and that was all there was to be.
In Acallela’s flying car racing compet.i.tion, there was once a body double who had died from an accident. However, in the media’s report they only mentioned that that racer was severely wounded and survived by chance of luck. Not long after, the racer had appeared again in a bombastic fas.h.i.+on. It was just that he had gotten a new body double. As for his previous body double, if they were lucky they would get a sympathetic burial fee. Otherwise, they would get nothing at all.
Udoze let out a rough smile that was not much better than a cry, "The most funny thing is that these unfair slave contracts were signed by no one but ourselves. In fact, there were many people who sharpened their heads and did their utmost to show off their skills to those people, hoping to get a slave contract. It is because even a pact as unfair as this one will met us several times higher the wage than some labor work."
"I heard that a compet.i.tion’s profit can reach up to several hundreds of millions." Cillin said.
"Yeah, it is several hundred millions. Even if they lose, the racing team will still have tens of millions of income, and if they win the money will be more. Several hundred millions is a common thing. The racers will get a few hundred thousand, and the lucky ones will get close to several millions. As for those racing celebrities, they will get several hundred millions of income. But for people like us? Several thousands&h.e.l.lip; or ten thousand probably on a good day." Udoze raised his head and looked outside the car window. G.o.d knows how many bodies were buried beneath those sand, all of them scapegoats.
"You never thought of leaving?" Cillin asked.
"Sure I do, but I couldn’t leave. If I’m going to leave I’m definitely bringing my mother with me, but according to Acallela’s law, a native citizen must submit five hundred thousand credits of processing fee each to leave. That five hundred thousand for one person, and one million for two people. This sum is seriously not much to those official racers, but it is practically impossible for us body doubles. We may even lose our lives to get that kind of money."
"I heard that there are bets for racing compet.i.tions. Have you never tried it?"
"Those are aimed at foreigners; a native citizen would be fined if they were caught betting. But we do use fake ident.i.ties to win some small sums of money in secret."
"Do you know about Hunters?" Cillin changed the subject and asked.
"Sure I know!" Udoze’s eyes shone brightly, "I once saw a bounty hunter before. He was really strong! I also know some Hunter regiments; last year there was a Hunter regiment who came to Acallela to check out the triphibian flying car racing champions.h.i.+p. Those racing team managers who normally looked at people with their nostrils all acted cautiously in front of them. The investors of the racing team ‘Storm’ were acquainted with that Hunter regiment. They are a very famous Hunter regiment, and I heard that they were ranked among the top five in Sector F. You must have heard of them before!"
"Oh? What are they called?" Cillin asked full of interest.
"They’re called ‘Golden Rose’!"
"&h.e.l.lip;" Cillin raked through the information inside his brain, and he went through even the latest top 100 names in GAL’s ranking in the authoritative publication ‘Hero’. Then, he said affirmatively, "I’ve never actually heard about them."
"Come on?! You’re a little too uninformed now aren’t you!" Udoze blurted with a look of disdain, "That’s the top five Hunter regiment in Sector F, you know. I heard that every one of their hunters were veterans of a hundred battles, and they had gone to countless planets and seen countless fantastic things of every description. They had killed quite a number of alien beasts too! In fact, there is a big statue in our racing team that is provided by them. At night, the statue would glow with dazzling five-colored light&h.e.l.lip;"
Five-colored light&h.e.l.lip; and you aren’t afraid that the level of radioactive elements would go past the limit? Cillin laughed involuntarily.
When Udoze talked of Hunter regiments, his depression just now was tossed to G.o.d knows where. He even made his descriptions with body languages, making threatening gestures and looking very excited.
When Udoze had finished talking to himself, he noticed that Cillin had already closed his eyes and fell asleep at the backseat.
While staring at the guy at the back seat, Udoze had the feeling that he was playing the lute to a cow*. He curled his lips and said, "What a strange person." then, he started the flying car and shook all the way back to the courtyard.
*meaning to preach to deaf ears
When Cillin got off the car, the horizon was already starting to glow with hazy light.
Patting Udoze’s shoulders once, Cillin said, "Do your best. We’ll go and watch the race the day after tomorrow and cheer you on."
Udoze tugged at the corner of his lips and said nothing. After locking up the top lid of the car, he then headed inside the house. Shadows who lived in secrecy like them would never hear their own names from the crowd’s cheer.
When he returned to the house, Tang Qiuqiu opened her eyes wide and stared at Cillin in dissatisfaction. She complained, "Brother Cillin, how dare you go out and play on your own."
"What can I do, don’t tell me you want to sit in that shabby car of his?"
Tang Qiuqiu shook her head strongly, "That guy’s technique is too poor!"
"Too poor? Not at all. On the contrary, his car handling skills are very good. Have you seen anyone else who can drive a shabby car with a calcium deficiency style Charley horse like that and go around safely?"
"That is true."
"Let’s go watch that guy’s compet.i.tion the day after tomorrow."
"Okay." Tang Qiuqiu let out a yawn, rolled up her blanket and continued to sleep.
The next day morning Cillin was gargling water when he heard a sweet cry from downstairs, "Miss~ Sus~ Ven~ To~"
Cillin immediately spat out the gargle water in his mouth and shook the goose pimples on his body once.
What kind of madness had gone over that stupid cat again?
When Cillin went downstairs, he immediately saw Mrs. Vento working on a handiwork at the first
Mrs. Vento was truly a handicraft veteran with many years under her belt. With just a piece of cloth, a pile of fine sand, a needle and a thread, she was quickly able to sew something that looked pretty good. Right now, a cat shaped doll filled with fine sand was being made quickly in Mrs. Vento hands. The shape of the doll was the gray cat’s appearance, and even the cloth itself was gray in color. This type of gray cloth was considered low quality cloth and was found very commonly at this place. Every family here had a lot of it.
In the past, Mrs. Vento made her handiworks with colorful or bright colored cloths. This was because those colors could attract buyers, and the amount of dolls that were made from gray cloth was pitifully few. Even if she did make one, no one would buy them.
However, the gray cat just happened to see Mrs. Vento making handiworks when it returned from hunting today. Suddenly, an idea popped up on the cat’s head, and it pretended to be cute asking for her help to make a cat-shaped doll for it.
No wonder it had cried out so sweetly just now!
The doll did look quite good, however. Although this type of cloth was coa.r.s.e to touch, it was also tough. Wind City also had a special kind of fine sand that very soft to touch, so after the doll was filled up with fine sand it had a very solid feeling to it. It was made at a 1:1 ratio too. Moreover, Mrs. Vento had very patiently sewn the eyes, the mouth and so on onto the doll. Normally, the eyes of a handmade doll like this was either stickied with different objects, or drawn. In comparison, the outcome was much cruder than a sewing machine’s. However, Mrs. Vento had obviously invested a considerable amount of effort into this cat doll. She had sewn the features of the cat thread by thread.
Knowing that the work wasn’t easy on Mrs. Vento, Cillin paid her a hundred GAL credits for the doll – the rest of Mrs. Vento’s doll were only priced at ten GAL credits.
Mrs. Vento tried to turn down the payment, and Cillin stuffed the money directly into the cloth basket and said, "Please accept it, Mrs. Vento. This cat is very troublesome. I have to thank you for your patience."
Mrs. Vento smiled and waved her hands, "No, it’s very smart. This is the first time I’ve seen such an intelligent cat that even knew how to talk."
While speaking, Mrs. Vento took out a fist-sized little cloth ball. Fine sand filled the inside of the ball, and the outside of the ball was sewn together with a few layers of cloth. It would not hurt even if it was tossed onto a person’s body. Mrs. Vento gifted the cloth ball to the gray cat as a toy.
The gray cat lifted the ball with a sweep of its tail, before tossing it into the air and played with it directly with his tail. This drew cheers from Mrs. Vento.
The relations.h.i.+p between the upper floor and lower floor had obviously improved by a lot for these few days. At first, it was just the gray cat running downstairs often to freeload on her food. Later, Mrs. Vento told Cillin and Tang Qiuqiu to have their meal downstairs directly. It would save her the effort from making a different portion later.
Cillin did not eat without pay. He took out some jerkies, and Tang Qiuqiu gifted some sweets to Mrs. Vento. These were things that could not be bought at this place. Both Cillin and Tang Qiqiu had also enjoyed a novel taste of the local food of Wind City.
In the blink of an eye, the day of the race had arrived.
SRH Chapter 155: Flaring Spectator’s Grandstand
The triphibian flying car compet.i.tion uses a point scoring system. First, there was a knock out compet.i.tion. Within a set number of compet.i.tions, racers must acc.u.mulate enough score points to rank among the top ten before they could enter the champions.h.i.+p. If they did not have enough score points, then they could only wait for the next season.
Only the top five of every compet.i.tion would score points. Number one would obtain five points, number two would obtain four points, number three would obtain three points, number four would obtain two points, and number five would obtain one point.
Today, Cillin and Tang Qiuqiu had arrived at the spectator grandstand as early as they could. They had purchased their tickets a long time ago, and Cillin had even placed a bet for himself and Udoze in pa.s.sing as well.
Udoze had savings of about a hundred thousand or so credits. It wasn’t easy to run into a highly trustable person like Cillin who was able to help him, so now that he did, Udoze bit down on his teeth and took out a hundred thousand from his savings directly. If he won this compet.i.tion, he would be able to triple the amount. Udoze was rather confident in his own abilities, so he was really going to go all out this time.
The spectator’s grandstand was spread out in the shape of a circle. There were two exits, the start line and the finish line. They were in the shape of an inverse trapezium that stretched really high up into the air. There was a huge holographic projection at the center of the circular spectator’s grandstand, and the media would also broadcast the compet.i.tion live as well.
Some people would think: if they could watch the compet.i.tion live, and at the spectator’s grandstand they would be watching a holographic projection anyway, then why were there still so many people who were willing to purchase an expensive ticket to enter the spectator’s grandstand?
The first reason to that was atmosphere. At the spectator’s grandstand, the crowd’s roars and pa.s.sionate emotions were infectious. The roars that echoed inside the circular spectator’s grandstand felt like they could shake the entire venue. The loud roars spurred the compet.i.tion’s atmosphere into action, and that speed and pa.s.sion brought about by surging hot blood was incomparable to watching live in one’s home.
Waving flags, flickering light screens, racing fans roaring the names of their favorite racers hysterically to utterly drain out their own emotions. As long as you were an audience on the spectator’s grandstand, then you would be infected by this kind of atmosphere and could not help but let out a throaty roar as well.
Tang Qiuqiu was obviously one of these people as she held up a megaphone and began to roar, "DO YOUR BEST, UDODO!"
She didn’t call out Udoze’s name directly because it would bring trouble to Udoze himself as a body double.
Udoze had told Cillin the flying car of the racer he was going to be replacing for, so when the fiery red and extremely dazzling flying car made its appearance, the atmosphere reached a level of climax. That racer was extremely popular. Of course, with the racer on the outside and Udoze on the inside, they combined to become the star racer in the audience’s eyes.
One should know that here at the spectator’s grandstand, one must use a megaphone even for normal speaking. Otherwise, it was difficult to make out the other party’s words over numerous other roars. Therefore, Tang Qiuqiu had been holding up a megaphone all the time.
What’s funny was that there was a big man who was also holding a megaphone and roaring a few rows to the front. After he heard Tang Qiuqiu’s roar, he turned around to roar at her, asking, "WHO IS UDODO?"
Tang Qiuqiu roared back while holding the megaphone, "UDODO IS A REAL MAN!!"
Cillin: "&h.e.l.lip;"
Someone tugged at Tang Qiuqiu beside her, "Little girl, which car is Udodo?"
Tang Qiuqiu blinked, "I don’t know. I just feel that it’s pretty exciting to roar like this!" once she said this, she began roaring once more.
The thing that made Cillin felt like weeping without tears the most was that the gray cat on his shoulders was also pulling at the megaphone, roaring right after Tang Qiuqiu’s roar. And so, such a voice appeared inside the venue.
Childish baby voice: "UDODO!"
Then it was followed by a strange mew: "MEOW——"
Another baby voice: "A REAL MAN!"
Another mew: "MEOOW——"
And that was how the loop went.
As the roar continued, Cillin realised that more and more people in the surroundings were joining in on this faction. For a time, ‘Udodo’, ‘a real man’ and man-made meows that sounded like the people were possessed by a cat demon filled the spectator’s grandstand.
Someone asked the person beside them after they heard this, "Who’s Udodo?"
"f.u.c.king h.e.l.l how would daddy* know!"
*meaning ‘I’, but in a slangy way
"Then what are you following them for?!"
"Didn’t you hear, it’s exciting to roar like this!"
So why were there so many people who joined in on the roar?
Number one, they did not see a person named ‘Udodo’ in the racing driver’s list, so following the cat meow at the back, they took it for granted and a.s.sumed that ‘Udodo’ was a modal particle in some Sector’s language. Number two, the roar ‘a real man’ was applicable in almost any type of situation and could be roared by anyone. Number three, the strange howling mew that sounded like one was venting their emotions was rather suitable to drain out one’s emotions. And so, Tang Qiuqiu and the gray cat’s roars had become popular.
Inside the flying car, Udoze sweatdropped. When he had heard Tang Qiuqiu and the cat’s peculiar roars, he was still thinking: Who taught them this? Then the main crowd joined in, and Udoze felt the impulse to tear up.
From just the people around Tang Qiuqiu, to one tenth of the people, and then one third of the people, and finally the entire spectator’s grandstand of people roaring in unison and in rhythm.
The people did not know what ‘Udodo’ meant, but Udoze himself knew about this. This was the first time so many were calling out to him, even if they did not know that ‘Udodo’ meant him, the body double in the shadows, and that they could not call out his full name. But it was enough. Udoze was already satisfied.
The wind grew stronger. Sang began to fly.
Very good.
Udoze closed his eyes and sensed the miniscule movements of the car within the wind.
"Di——"
A prolonged hoot resounded.
More than fifty flying cars a.s.sumed their respective positions at the start line from bottom to top according to the positions they had drawn earlier.
"Pop!"
A rapid blast officially set off this tide.
Amidst the crowd’s shouts, flying cars flew out of the starting point while striving to outdo one another.
Ancient lands, young winds, soaring pa.s.sion, hot blood and sweat. Listen to the crowd’s whistles, shouts and cheers, set off, and go fight like a true warrior!
A sandstone region, row upon rows of sand dunes, uneven mountain rocks and absolutely unrestrained wind and sand. In this kind of circ.u.mstances, the fiery red flying car was like a leader who pressed forward courageously at high speed.
Was he chasing the wind, or was the wind chasing him?
The car seemed to have merged into the wind itself, sometimes even flipping into the wind. However, it was always able to nimbly avoid any obstacles.
Udoze’s strength lay in his foresight and ability to judge. Although he did not have the prerequisites to drive a high cla.s.s flying car, he had always been driving that shabby old car that looked like it would pa.s.s away at any moment to dance along with the wind. That way, he grew more and more familiar with the mastery of the wind.
The shabby old car could not automatically balance the airflow like an official racing car, so the racer must rely on himself to drive, control, and make the decisions. That was why Udoze had better understanding of the temper of these winds, utilising its power to complete high difficulty maneuvers and even predict future obstacles and make a decision prior to it.
It was exactly because he was able to make a decision before other compet.i.tors that many times, when they were met with a difficult situation, they would refer to the movements of the red flying car Udoze was driving to surpa.s.s it.
Bang!
A racer estimated wrongly the height of a rock ledge, and the car scratched against it before flipping a couple of times in midair and falling into the sand dunes. The rest of the racers would not stop for the sake of this unlucky fellow, even if the person who fell into the sand dunes was at his last breath.
The spectators at the spectator’s grandstand would not sympathise with the driver, and they would only pay attention to the other cars still competing in the race. The media would not give a car that had been disqualified a camera shot either, because that car and its driver were losers.
The hologram at the center of the spectator’s grandstand was split into three different images. The best viewpoint of the hologram was reserved for the foremost cars, whereas the worst viewpoint was reserved for the cars at back.
Inside the image of the best viewpoint, the fiery red flying car was like in a league of its own as it cast off the flying cars behind it further and further away.
The racer of the car ranked at second place had wanted to refer to Udoze’s responses, but he was unable to achieve Udoze’s level of skill. The racers could not utilise the wind’s power to flip around and pull off a super flexible movement.
The red shadow of a car was like a masterpiece made with the help of G.o.ds. While flying along a near perfect median line, it sped through those extraordinarily difficult corners at high speed.
The spectator’s grandstand boiled up entirely.