The Real Daughter Just Wants to Pilot Mechas - Chapter 100

Jiang Momo got up and followed, eyes vacant, seemingly deep in thought.

Ling Yelin clearly noticed she was distracted and didn’t rush off. “What’s wrong? Do you want to watch a bit more?”

Jiang Momo shook her head. “They’re just a bunch of low-grade mechas. Not much to see.”

From her observation, the strongest mechas in the matches there were only B-grade. That was why she had asked Wu Yue earlier if it was the only battle arena.

Wu Yue was startled and immediately grabbed Jiang Momo’s sleeve.

But it was too late.

At that moment, the match had just ended and new mechas were being prepped. The audience’s attention wasn’t on the arena. When someone heard what Jiang Momo said, they stood up on the spot.

“What do you mean, ‘just a bunch of low-grade mechas’?! Are you here to cause trouble?!”

The man had a loud voice, instantly attracting a lot of attention. All eyes turned their way, many with unfriendly looks.

Ling Yelin, standing in front, was the first to bear the brunt. He stepped half a step back and turned slightly to glance at Jiang Momo, looking a bit nervous. “We didn’t bring bodyguards this time.”

“No need for bodyguards.”

The planet’s gravity was about the same as the Capital Star’s. Even if it came to a brawl, she wouldn’t need a mecha exoskeleton.

Jiang Momo grabbed Ling Yelin’s wrist, yanked him behind her, and shielded them both with her body.

Ling Yelin was a bit taller than Jiang Momo but right now, he could clearly feel the steady warmth and sense of security radiating from her grip on his wrist.

By all the principles he had been raised with, he should be the one standing in front of the lady. But at that moment, he realized that it actually felt pretty good to have someone to rely on.

Ling Yelin was perfectly content to be a salted fish behind Jiang Momo. Jiang Momo lifted her chin slightly and scanned the crowd that was standing and closing in on them. Her eyes darkened and she rolled up her sleeves.

Those people didn’t look like regular spectators.

As her sleeve rolled up, a tiny pendant-like object on her wrist caught everyone’s attention.

“That’s… a mecha space button?” the loud man from earlier spoke again.

Jiang Momo glanced at her wrist. It held the A-grade mecha she had made for Yan Chang. She had planned to give it to him before leaving but hadn’t been able to find him, so she stuffed it in her pocket and brought it along.

As for why it was now on her wrist? She had just taken it out to break the deadlock.

As expected, the moment they saw the space button, everyone’s focus shifted.

The loud man wouldn’t let it go. “Even if you have a super B-grade mecha, you can’t insult our arena like this!”

He had just seen it. That flashy man behind her had won over a million from their bets. And now they wanted to walk away clean? No way!

“What do you want?” Wu Yue asked.

“By our rules, she has to get on the stage and face a gauntlet match. Only if she loses can you all leave,” the man said.

Here, stepping onto the stage was equivalent to signing a life-and-death waiver. Whatever happened was final. And once he tweaked the betting odds, he could make another fortune.

Jiang Momo nodded. “Got it.”

She walked past the loud man toward the arena and signaled for Ling Yelin and Wu Yue to follow.

Wu Yue caught up to her, grumbling, “This is my fault. I shouldn’t have brought you here. That guy’s clearly the owner of the arena. Local thugs like him won’t let us go without skinning us.”

“Relax. I’ve got a plan.” Jiang Momo pointed to the main entrance. “You two go stand over there in a bit.”

The loud man sneered behind them and motioned for his lackeys to take the two to the farthest corner from the main gate.

Jiang Momo watched as the two of them stood where she had planned in advance, then summoned her mecha and stepped into the arena.

“A-grade mecha!” someone in the stands shouted. The place erupted.

Jiang Momo: ? These people living in the Chaos Star System act like they’re battle-hardened but they haven’t even seen an A-grade mecha?

Just as she was thinking this, Little Eight popped out from the interface in front of her. [Are you really planning to fight?]

“Of course not,” Jiang Momo said. “I can’t control an A-grade mecha precisely.”

As they spoke, the opposing mecha trembled its way up. It was a B-grade.

“There’s no contest at all! The A-grade is a guaranteed win!” someone in the crowd shouted and others chimed in and started placing bets.

Jiang Momo stood still for a while, facing off with the opposing mecha for three to five minutes. The whole scene was tense. Then, just when the time was right, she raised her hand. “I surrender!”

The loud man: ?

The crowd: Huh???

Jiang Momo was facing the direction of Wu Yue and Ling Yelin. While everyone was still stunned, she activated the thrusters on her feet, lunged forward to knock down the opposing mecha, scooped up the two of them from the ground, and blasted straight out of the arena over the safety net.

At the town’s edge, she set them down, jumped out of the mecha, and put it back in the space button.

Ling Yelin couldn’t believe it. “That’s it?”

Jiang Momo stuffed the space button back in her pocket. “What, you think we have to follow their plan?”

Wu Yue was shaken. “You can do that? I just saw them changing the betting options, saying the bet was on how many rounds you’d win before losing. No one even bet on zero!”

“Exactly. That’s why they’re not chasing us. They probably won’t come after us later either.” Jiang Momo shoved her hands into her pockets. “So, where to next?”

“It’s getting dark. Let’s go to sleep first. We’ll figure things out tomorrow,” Wu Yue said, still a bit dazed and windblown.

Jiang Momo nodded. “Alright. You said E Mingjun used to be your neighbor. Is it across the street or next door?”

“Across the street,” Wu Yue said. “But he hasn’t been back in years. The house is abandoned now.”

Wu Yue led the two of them through narrow alleyways and finally stopped in the middle of a street.

Ling Yelin looked curiously at the dilapidated bungalow on the left, then at the beautiful two-story villa on the right, and exclaimed, “This house has been abandoned for years and ended up like this? Vines are even climbing the walls.”

Wu Yue: “…The one with the vines is my house.”

“Did that super alpha come back recently to renovate his house?” Ling Yelin teased.

Wu Yue didn’t think so. “E Mingjun is wanted by every interstellar pirate group in the Chaos Star System. The bounty on him is almost on par with the one on the interstellar pirate hunter. There’s no way he could come back. It must’ve been taken over by someone else.”

Jiang Momo gave the pretty house a careful look before following Wu Yue into her home.

The next morning, Jiang Momo woke early and ate the breakfast Wu Yue had prepared and left on the table. Her keen ears picked up a vaguely familiar voice at the door.

“Seriously, sending me just to deal with some nobody? I have no idea who this unlucky guy pissed off.”

Jiang Momo opened the door. The vice-captain turned at the sound and his previously fierce expression immediately turned fawning. “You’re here too!”

Jiang Momo looked down and saw the face of the loudmouth man from yesterday, his hair clutched in the vice-captain’s hand.

The vice-captain chuckled and handed the man off to his subordinates, motioning for them to take him away. He turned back to Jiang Momo and explained, “They’re all our own people. It’s just a joke, don’t think too much of it.”

“Oh, so it wasn’t to get revenge for me?” Jiang Momo looked slightly disappointed.

The vice-captain slapped his forehead in sudden realization. “Oh, so it was to get revenge for you! That makes sense. Our captain always tells us to behave but today he suddenly changed his tune!”

Jiang Momo didn’t comment on that. “Aren’t you going in?”

She had scouted the place the night before. There were no signs of habitation on the ground floor, so there must be a special entrance.

The vice-captain didn’t think too much about it and walked inside. Jiang Momo touched the mecha exoskeleton hidden in her sleeve and followed naturally.

She knew it. Those three coordinates from yesterday had to be left for her by someone. And now, she found them.

The vice-captain entered the living room and felt around behind a wall painting. A large door in the middle of the room opened instantly.

“We don’t come to HQ often. Only the captain usually stays here,” the vice-captain said cautiously, keeping Jiang Momo on the inner side of the staircase. “Please be careful with your step.”

Jiang Momo descended steadily.

Below was a huge, bright room with a conference table in the center big enough to seat over a hundred people. At the head of the table sat a burly man, inspecting someone who had been pinned to the floor.

“Captain!” the vice-captain called cheerfully.

The man addressed as the captain wore a metal mask. He had thick black shoulder-length hair and a muscular frame so exaggerated that his black tight suit looked like it might burst. At the vice-captain’s loud greeting, he impatiently looked up, eyes full of bloodthirsty hostility, until they landed on the person next to the vice-captain and his pupils shook violently.

Jiang Momo’s head was full of question marks.

E Mingjun trained himself into this in just a few weeks?

E Mingjun calmed quickly after a moment of panic.

He was wearing a short-term muscle suit to change his appearance and also wore a mask. Jiang Momo couldn’t possibly recognize him. Even the interstellar pirates who had him as their top target hadn’t recognized him.

“He’s your captain?” Jiang Momo turned to ask the vice-captain.

“Yeah.” The vice-captain looked confused, glancing warily at E Mingjun.

Judging by how she acted, could it be that their captain has an unrequited crush?

Trying to salvage his captain’s dignity, the vice-captain said, “Our captain is undoubtedly the number one figure in the Chaos Star System right now. He really cares about you. I messaged him right after I ran into you yesterday and he immediately sent people to protect you. He got you a seat at the Mecha Arena, covered your retreat, and today, he even sent me to avenge you. Plus, he’s got tons of photos of you from all sorts of angles. He’s definitely been watching out for you all this time…”

Under E Mingjun’s increasingly icy gaze, the vice-captain’s voice grew quieter and quieter.

Crap, the more I talk, the more the captain sounds like a creep.

Panicking, the vice-captain’s mind scrambled to fix things. He didn’t want to be punished with toilet duty. “Uh, never mind all that. Since you seem to really like mechas, our captain has a super S-grade mecha that’s amazing. Do you want to see it?”

E/N:

The vice-captain: Our captain has been watching you all the time!
Also the vice-captain: He’s definitely not stalking you!