Illustrious placed her hands on the steering wheel, stepped on the accelerator, and with a roar, the car sped forward.
Turning her head, Asuna saw the dragon continuously approaching the car and was startled. "Drive faster, shake it off."
"Okay! No problem." Illustrious said easily.
She kept pressing the accelerator with her foot, and the car rapidly accelerated. Seeing the surroundings whiz past the car window, and feeling that the current speed was enough to outrun the dragon, Illustrious stopped pressing the accelerator further.
Seeing its prey escape, the wyvern immediately began chasing Illustrious, who was seated in the car.
"Eek! That wyvern is coming after us! Why is it chasing us?" Asuna was very confused by the wyvern. There were clearly other people around, so why was it stubbornly picking them to hunt?
"I don't know, but escaping is always the right move." Illustrious didn't quite understand the wyvern's logic either. Could this wyvern have a soft spot for beautiful girls? Otherwise, why would it specifically target them?
"Ah! There's a giant ape ahead! Turn left quickly!" Seeing a giant ape appearing in front of them, Asuna reminded her from the side.
After turning the steering wheel to dodge the car to the left, Illustrious continued speeding forward. "There are giant apes on the highway too. It seems there aren't as few monsters as we thought! I'm starting to suspect the entire city is filled with monsters now."
"Drive faster! That wyvern behind us is breathing fire!" Asuna urged Illustrious to speed up again.
"What? Breathing fire again? It seems I'll have to show it the prowess of the God of Racing from Mount Akina," Illustrious said with great confidence.
There were many curves ahead, but the car did not slow down. Illustrious continuously used drifting to clear the corners, causing Asuna to scream repeatedly inside the car.
These screams weren't from excitement but from fright. With every turn, Asuna thought Illustrious would fail the drift and crash into the guardrail. But miraculously, Illustrious's driving skills were superb; she cleared seven or eight curves at high speed without any accidents.
By the fourth curve, the wyvern couldn't keep up with the car. As it twisted and turned, it accidentally slammed into the guardrail. The guardrail was smashed to pieces by the wyvern's powerful impact, and the wyvern fell directly into the river below.
Seeing that the wyvern was no longer chasing them, Asuna patted her chest and said with lingering fear, "That's great, we finally lost it."
"Whoosh...!"
Only when it fell into the river did the wyvern remember it had wings. It immediately spread its wings and took flight, soaring into the air and rapidly flying toward Illustrious's car.
The wyvern's flight speed was not at all slower than Illustrious's car. In a short while, it approached the rear of the car. Staring at the vehicle, the wyvern began brewing a fire bomb in its mouth, and a one-foot-wide fire bomb had already formed.
"Boom!"
The wyvern spat out the fire bomb in the form of a fire beam, which blasted toward Illustrious's car.
Just as the fire beam was about to hit Illustrious's car, Illustrious happened to take a turn, and this fatal strike was dodged just like that.
Watching the flame beam fly past the car window, Illustrious couldn't help but break into a light sweat. "Not good, that wyvern has taken flight to chase us. Hold onto your seat; it's going to get very bumpy."
"Waaah!..." As Asuna turned her head to look at the wyvern, she saw a helicopter. With its military green paint, there was no mistake—it was a helicopter from the Japan Air Self-Defense Force. "Great! That's an Air Self-Defense Force helicopter! Illustrious, we're saved!"
The helicopter chased after the wyvern. Once within range, the pilot inside used bullets to fire continuously at the wyvern. However, because of its thick hide, the wyvern didn't feel the slightest bit of pain and continued its pursuit of Illustrious's car.
"Did the bullets kill that wyvern?" Illustrious focused on the road ahead, unable to distract herself to look behind, so she could only ask Asuna.
Finding that the bullets were useless against the wyvern, Asuna shook her head in disappointment. "No. It probably has a thick hide and very strong defense; the bullets have no effect on it."
"Clang, clang, clang..."
The wyvern dodged to the right, and the helicopter's bullets hit Illustrious's car instead. Illustrious and Asuna ducked down. Because they weren't paying attention to the road, the car accidentally rear-ended a vehicle in front.
"Bang!"
The car jolted. The area near the front headlight was dented, but the car didn't have any major problems and could still be driven.
"Damn it! Are the people in that helicopter trying to help us or kill us? Asuna, you take the wheel; I'm going to deal with that wyvern!" Illustrious said angrily after seeing the helicopter bullets hit their car.
"Eh? Me drive? I don't know how to drive!" Asuna was completely bewildered.
Ignoring Asuna's opinion, Illustrious swapped seats with her directly. Asuna took over the car. The car was moving very fast, and since Asuna didn't know how to drive, she could only rely on intuition to control the steering wheel. The car swayed under her control, moving forward in a serpentine pattern.
Seated in the passenger seat, Illustrious manifested a sword. It was the starter sword from sword art online. Even though they weren't in the game right now, she could somehow manifest the starter sword out of thin air in reality. She didn't know the principle behind it, but she had two weapons and a set of clothes in her mind; as long as she imagined them, they would appear in her hands.
With a thought, the clothes in her mind were equipped directly onto her body, and her original starter clothes disappeared back into her mind. After changing, Illustrious felt she had become forty percent stronger. This outfit was a drop from the giant ape Elite monster. The whole set was mainly red and white: a white shirt with a red short skirt, a red vest on top, paired with white silk tights. On Illustrious, she looked even cuter.
Illustrious changing clothes out of thin air greatly surprised Asuna. Normally, she would definitely have asked Illustrious how she did it, but as a rookie driver currently behind the wheel, she couldn't afford to be distracted.
The wyvern flying in mid-air, closely pursuing the car, began preparing to breathe fire again.
Fire spat directly from the wyvern's mouth. Illustrious shouted to Asuna, "It's going to breathe fire! Dodge, quick!"
"What! It's breathing fire again? Where do I dodge? Left or right?" Asuna asked in a panic.
"Agh! Anywhere! Just do whatever you want!" Illustrious was busy with something important, so she spoke with a bit of impatience.
"Oh! Got it." Asuna chose to dodge to the right.
Then she crashed—hitting a wild boar. After knocking the boar down, the car jolted violently, and the other front headlight was also dented. Fortunately, the quality of this car was truly excellent; it stubbornly refused to stall and continued moving forward.
"Agh! Do you even know how to drive?!" Illustrious complained to Asuna, her head spinning from the jolts.
"I told you I can't drive, but you insisted I do it! Why don't you do it then!" Asuna gripped the steering wheel, looking like she was about to cry.
"No! You keep driving. I have something important to do," Illustrious said, shaking her head.
"What important thing?!" Asuna asked, furrowing her brows.
"To kill that wyvern, of course! Damn it! It's been chasing me for so long; it really thinks I'm a pushover. I have to show it how terrifying a tiger is when it gets angry," Illustrious said fiercely.
Seeing its fire breath fail from the sky, the wyvern continued brewing a fire bomb in its mouth, planning to take out Illustrious's car with another shot.
The aura emanating from Illustrious and Asuna made the wyvern feel intoxicated. The wyvern had previously eaten a human wearing strange clothes. After eating them, its power increased. The aura that human emitted was exactly the same as the aura coming from Illustrious and Asuna. This made the wyvern crave their bodies; as long as it ate them, it could increase its power once more.
"Bastard, I won't let you breathe fire again. You've chased us for so long and still won't let us go. In that case, don't blame me for being ruthless. You can repent for your stupidity in hell." Illustrious leaned her upper body out of the car window and raised the starter sword. The sword erupted with blue light. When the light reached its peak, she aimed the starter sword at the wyvern's head.
"Sonic Leap!"
With a cold shout and a flash of blue light, the starter sword, wrapped in a blue glow, was thrown out by Illustrious.
"Clang-bang-boom!"
The blue-lit starter sword pierced through the wyvern just as it was about to breathe fire. After piercing the wyvern's head, although the sword's momentum weakened significantly, it didn't stop, continuing to fly into the sky before finally disappearing in mid-air.
The wyvern collapsed onto the highway. Before long, it turned into over twenty purple fragments. The purple fragments turned into purple light orbs; the orbs split in two, with half going into Illustrious's hand and the other half merging into her body. After they merged, Illustrious felt she had become a bit stronger again.
Seeing the wyvern annihilated by a beam of blue light from the Silver-Haired Girl, the two pilots in the helicopter couldn't calm down for a long time.
"Lieutenant Colonel Kikuoka! The target has been eliminated. What's the deal with that Silver-Haired Girl? How is she so powerful? We fired our bullets for so long and couldn't kill the wyvern, yet she could eliminate it in one hit." a pilot said curiously.
"Interesting! First, ferocious monsters running rampant everywhere, then medieval buildings suddenly appearing in various places, and finally, a Silver-Haired Girl in strange clothes killing a wyvern in one hit. What does all this imply? Hehehe! It seems the world is about to change." Observing the Silver-Haired Girl in the car below from the helicopter window, Kikuoka couldn't help but laugh.
Lieutenant Colonel Kikuoka's laughter made the Second Lieutenant feel a chill down his spine. Usually, when he started laughing, it meant someone was about to be unlucky.
"Did you capture the footage just now?" Kikuoka said in a deep voice.
"Don't worry, Lieutenant Colonel Kikuoka, it's all been recorded," the pilot said seriously.
"Good. Leave this place and go eliminate other mission targets," Kikuoka said with satisfaction.
"Roger, sir!" The pilot nodded.
The helicopter left Illustrious's car and headed elsewhere to continue eliminating monsters.
Illustrious swapped positions with Asuna because Asuna's driving was... well, something else. "I'll drive! You go back to your seat."
"Okay! No problem!" Asuna breathed a sigh of relief. To be honest, she really didn't know how to drive. If she had continued, she was afraid she would have crashed Illustrious and the car into the guardrail and into the river.
"I'm giving these clothes to you. Put them on, and your strength will increase by forty percent." After taking over the steering wheel, the car no longer moved in a serpentine pattern. Illustrious tossed the clothes dropped by the wyvern to Asuna, speaking very casually.
"These must be very precious, right? They're the clothes that dropped when you killed the wyvern; it's not right for you to give them to me. You should take them back!" Asuna handed the clothes back to Illustrious, refusing them.
"I don't want back things I've already given away! If you don't want them, then throw them away. After all, once I gave them to you, they belonged to you," Illustrious said flatly.
"Well, alright then. Since you put it that way, I'll give you a gift next time too!" Asuna said happily after accepting the clothes.
Looking at this outfit, Asuna's heart was filled with joy. This was the first gift she had received from Illustrious, the first friend she truly acknowledged. From childhood until now, Asuna had never had a close friend; those so-called friends who approached her did so only because she was her father's daughter.
Illustrious was different. Not only had she saved Asuna's life, but they had also fought monsters together, making them friends who had gone through life and death together.
"How can I change my clothes like you? Do I need to shout some kind of slogan?" Having just seen Illustrious transform and put on her clothes instantly like a magical girl, Asuna wanted to transform like that too.
"It's very simple. Just imagine putting the clothes away, and they will disappear. Then, the outfit will appear in your mind. Just convey your desire to wear it, and the clothes will transform onto your body," Illustrious explained.
"What? It's that simple? Let me try!" Doing as Illustrious said, a blue light soon emanated from Asuna's body. The blue light came and went quickly, and in no time, the clothes on Asuna's body became exactly like those of Illustrious.
"Although these clothes are a bit ordinary, they look very cute on you. As expected, pretty people look good in anything!" Looking at Asuna's new outfit of a red skirt and white stockings, Illustrious couldn't help but comment.
"What do you mean 'cute'! I won't fall for that!" Asuna said, blushing with embarrassment.
No, I think you're totally falling for it! Illustrious shook her head, feeling helpless at Asuna's obvious tsundere behavior. Can't you control your expression a bit when you say that? Anyone can see right through you.
Fifteen minutes later, Illustrious's car entered the yard of Asuna's home.
After parking the car in the yard, because the world had become so chaotic, Illustrious was afraid something might happen to Asuna. For her safety, Illustrious decided to live with Asuna.
"Asuna, let me tell you something. It's already very late today. Can I stay here with you? Don't worry, I won't bother you for long. I'll leave tomorrow," Illustrious requested of Asuna.
Illustrious planned to stay for now, and once she was settled, she would simply stay and refuse to leave.
"You want to stay at my house? It's okay, but won't your parents worry? They might be looking everywhere for you,"Asuna said. She was secretly happy when she heard Illustrious wanted to stay, but the thought of Illustrious's parents searching for her made her hesitate.
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