User blog:JustAlex93/A Rally Raid Driver in Zipangu Chapter 1

''Disclaimer: I do not own the rights to Monster Girl Encyclopedia. This fanfiction is written under the Fair Use Act, for non-profit entertainment purposes only.''

A Rally Raid Driver in Zipangu

By JustAlex93

Chapter 1: Beginnings
(Author's Note: This story is told in the viewpoint of the protagonist.)

Our story begins in the hot desert, where a heated rally raid racing competition spanning four days is being held, and I'm about to race in it. By the way, the name's Harland Westford, and I'm a rally raid racing driver. My beloved vehicle is a MAN 4x4 T4 class truck imported all the way from Europe.

Sometime before the day of today's race, some R&D company came to us, wanting to put some experimental upgrades in one of my team's vehicles. They chose my truck as the testbed, and they went to work putting those modifications on it.

My MAN now has a reinforced composite-material chassis, a biodiesel racing engine that packs plenty of horsepower and torque, a 7-speed semi-automatic transmission system with flappy paddles, a computer-controlled adjustable suspension system operated via buttons on the dashboard, new wheels with extremely durable airless tires and a new "cyber-disc" braking system, and a few other things, as well. Right after they finished up with the new additions to my truck, I took it for a test drive, and I was tickled pink. The new engine proved more powerful than the old one, I can adjust the suspension on the fly even while driving, change gears much better, the tires took a beating and came out without so much of a puncture, scratch or even a ding. Of course, there's still a couple or so things I still haven't tried out yet, but I figured that I would have a good opportunity during the race.

As soon as the light turned green, we screamed off of the starting line into the desert, with all of us racers kicking up the dust. Oh, and also, there's telemetric equipment on my precious baby, with monitoring being carried out by the boys. I'm also the only person in the truck, due to a computerized co-pilot system, along with a series of robotic servos that repair damaged areas of the truck when I tell them to. How? I use a laptop that has software necessary to give those servos the commands to do those repairs.

I was in 5th place overall in the T4 division by the 2nd day of the race, for I was gunning for the top three positions. Though, at one point before I left the service station that morning, one of the technicians from the R&D company handed me a large, heavy-duty briefcase. I asked him about what's in it, but all that I could get out of the guy is that I'll need to use whatever's in it when the time comes. Whatever that means, I've been starting to get the feeling that something crazy is about to happen, sooner or later. Nonetheless, I pushed on through the rally, and on the 3rd day, we all received reports of large dust devils in the area. Uh-oh! I'd best be careful or else I'll crash and burn! I have no intention of dying during a race anytime soon, not while I haven't brought my baby to her limit!

Anyways, I was driving through the desert and in 3rd place overall. I'm gonna go for it from here, and score me my top three finish in this race, which has been an incredible experience so far with the new upgrades. I was behind a sporty-looking T1 car, when I received a communique from my teammates, saying that there's a weird-looking dust devil that's crackling with electricity approaching my position. At first I didn't believe them, but when I looked out the driver's window, my eyes widened and I stepped on it, intending to get away. However, it was all in vain as my truck was soon caught in the vortex, and I was struggling for dear life to hang on to my freaking underwear. I also noticed a suspension control button on the dashboard labeled "High-Altitude Fall", so I pressed it and continued hanging on for dear life, hoping that the shock absorbers would be able to do the job if my truck comes falling out the sky somewhere. That, and everything was getting brighter and brighter by the minute, and I had to keep my eyes shut to prevent myself from being blinded.

When the light faded, I looked out the window to see what had happened, and to my horror, I found that I was falling from very high up into a forested area. However, I had also caught sight of something that I didn't think I'd see; It's a girl, but the thing is, she's got the wings and talons of a crow and is flying through the air. She's also wearing Japanese-style clothing. She didn't notice me, though, but I had to act fast. I tightened my harness as much as I could without hurting myself, steeling myself for the imminent impact. I could only hope that the suspension system holds out, when finally, a great impact occurred. After the ringing in my ears stopped, and my body no longer shaking like a tuning fork, I immediately went and had my laptop get the diagnostics program running for the truck's components to see if anything got damaged from that landing. While the program is going through everything, I decided to see what's in that heavy-duty briefcase, and when I opened it, I raised my eyebrow at what's inside of it. There's a Bowie knife, a single-burner propane camping stove, some rope, a camping axe, a few or so day's worth of food rations, cooking and eating utensils, a pan and a pot, a first aid kit, and some other things that oughta be useful for camping, or better yet, survival. And using the word "some", would only be putting it lightly. I then heard the laptop beep, indicating that the diagnostics program had finished scanning. The results said that the shock absorbers took a bit of a beating, but everything else is relatively fine, so I commanded the servos to do the automated repairs, which according to the computer, would take a couple or so hours.

I then heard my stomach growling. Boy am I hungry! So, I decided to take out the propane stove, before going through the food rations to see what I could make myself. Quite a selection, I thought to myself, as I then picked out a can of chicken noodle soup and a pot for heating the soup in. As I was heating the soup on the propane stove, I had also brought out a ration of French bread to enjoy the soup with. When the soup was ready and I was about to start eating, I heard some bushes rustling nearby. I took the camping axe, as I then called out with a warning tone, "I know you're here, so come out and face me! I have an axe and I'm not afraid to use it!"

Right there and then, a person came out of the bush. Like that tengu-girl (I know my Japanese mythology, mind you!), he's wearing Japanese clothing, and also has woodcutting equipment with him. This guy must have heard or at least seen my truck falling into the forest, and he had come to investigate.

"I am sorry, sir," he apologized with a polite bow, "I did not mean to intrude upon you."

"It's fine," I said to him, knowing that he means no real harm. I then asked him, "So, would you like to join me for lunch?"

The woodcutter thought for about a moment or two, before he replied, "Yes, I would be honored to."

With that, we sat down and had the chicken noodle soup together and talked with each other. He was curious about a few things because how out of place I am, and he asked me about what my truck is, along with where I came from and stuff. I gave him the answers he wanted, as honestly as I can manage.

What? Do you really think that I'd have the arrogance to try and make people think that I'm a god or something like that, just because I'm from another world? Didn't think so, smartypants!

The woodcutter wasn't really that surprised that I came from another world, because in this one, magic is one of the norms, along with these semi-human monster girls. I am also apparently in a region called "Zipangu". If I recall correctly, it was an alternate name for Japan. So, I am pretty much in a place that is much similar to Japan. And from the kind of clothes the woodcutter was wearing and his equipment, fuedal-era Japan.

And if this is truly world with magic and monster girls, then I am definitely in for something nuts! Imagine if I met a kappa, an oni, or even a kitsune! Chapter 1 End