“Is that really the trainer of the Emperor?
He doesn’t look talented at all.
How did such an outstanding uma musume end up paired with such a mediocre trainer?” “What?
The Century-End Overlord?
You mean T.M.
Opera O?
She’s incredible, no doubt about that.
It’s just a shame her trainer is a complete nobody.
I thought someone who could raise an uma musume that strong would be impressive too, but nope.
Just some talentless guy who got lucky.” “Onii-sama… I’m sorry.
Rice is such a useless girl… But Rice will prove that Onii-sama isn’t mediocre.
At the next Takarazuka Kinen, Rice will prove it…” “I’m sorry.
I’m so sorry.
You worked so hard for me, Trainer, but I…” Sorry?
No.
The one who should really be saying sorry was me.
I’m sorry.
I wasted your talents.
I couldn’t even add one more shining brick to the brilliant stories you were already meant to build.
Worse, I ended up becoming dead weight dragging you down.
But maybe that was just the kind of person I was.
A guy with no talent.
Just like everyone said.
A mediocrity.
It was about time I accepted it.
I was never the kind of trainer worthy of amazing uma musume like you.
You all could have had better lives.
Maybe meeting me had been one giant mistake from the very start.
…
“Ugh…” Kitano Ryuichi jolted awake on the train.
For a few hazy seconds, the world swayed around him, all rattling rails, fluorescent lights, and morning commuters packed shoulder to shoulder.
Only then did he realize he had been dreaming.
A dream about his past.
But now, he couldn’t afford to keep clinging to those old lives anymore.
“Did I fall asleep…?
That’s rare.
Dreaming about the past, huh?
Not exactly what I need right now.” Kitano rubbed his face and let out a slow breath.
“Get it together, Kitano Ryuichi.
Face reality.
This time, you’re going to live a nice, ordinary life.” Kitano Ryuichi was ordinary.
Painfully ordinary.
Yes, everything about him was painfully, aggressively average.
Other than a face that was decent enough to be his one and only advantage in social situations, his life had been the very definition of forgettable.
From elementary school onward, his grades had always hovered around the bottom ten of his class.
He had never once placed in the top half of his entire school.
He wasn’t good at studying.
He was lonely by nature.
Deep down, he was soft-hearted, but thanks to all sorts of circumstances, almost nobody ever realized that.
Instead, he spent most of his childhood being bullied.
It wasn’t until high school, when he moved to another city and started fresh, that he finally escaped the miserable life he had endured until sixteen.
Not that his life changed much after that.
From high school to university, the tragedy of his interpersonal relationships disappeared, but he still never got a girlfriend.
His experience with the opposite sex remained a proud, shining zero.
His studies never stood out.
And after graduation, as naturally as water flowing downhill, he became an ordinary corporate drone.
Fortunately, his life took a turn at that point.
He got isekai’d.
Even better, he landed in the world of Uma Musume.
Honestly, Kitano was grateful.
If he had been sent to a world like Dark Souls, Monster Hunter, or Goblin Slayer, places that treated isekai protagonists with all the warmth of a meat grinder, he probably wouldn’t have had enough lives to survive the tutorial.
But just when Kitano thought his dull, wasted life had finally changed after crossing worlds, just when he thought he could show off like all those glorious isekai seniors before him, he discovered something.
The “cheat ability” he was supposed to have as a transmigrator?
Well, calling it godlike would be generous.
Calling it “technically there” was more accurate.
Oh, it had some use.
For example, he could “reset.” Yes.
A literal reset.
Whenever Kitano became so crushed, so completely hopeless, that he wanted to die, he would reset without hesitation.
Then everything in this world would return to the starting point.
Everything he had done here, every choice, every failure, every bond, would restart as if none of it had ever happened.
In other words, he had been given infinite chances to make mistakes.
At first, Kitano was extremely satisfied with this ability.
He knew exactly what he had to do after crossing into the world of Uma Musume.
He had to go to the legendary Tracen Academy.
He had to become the trainer he had always dreamed of being!
And then, in his first run, he was still trying to pass the Central trainer certification exam at forty years old.
Yes.
Even transmigration couldn’t change the fact that Kitano was a mediocrity from head to toe.
The trainers who made it into Central were one-in-a-million elites.
How was a talentless nobody like Kitano, average in every possible area, supposed to pass on his first try?
So in his first run, Kitano spent almost half his life trying to obtain a Central trainer license.
He watched senior after senior from the trainer academy get in.
Then junior after junior got in too.
Meanwhile, he repeated year after year, exam after exam, like some kind of academic ghost haunting the admissions office.
Only much later did he finally slip through by using one of Central’s special provisions, becoming the most ordinary trainer imaginable at Tracen Academy.
Of course, that was all from his first run.
By now, Kitano had no idea how many times he had reset.
His body and mind had been tempered again and again until his heart felt like steel.
And after so many runs, it wasn’t like he had made no progress at all.
For example, right now, he had managed to enter Central Tracen Academy at twenty-one years old.
A legendary speedrun time.
But that had nothing to do with Kitano’s talent.
Anyone who took the same exam over and over countless times would eventually pass.
Even if the questions changed every attempt, as long as the question bank never updated, even Kitano could brute-force his way into becoming a Central trainer by memorizing everything like an idiot.
This time, however, Kitano was completely different from the hot-blooded version of himself in his first run.
He had gone through countless resets.
He had taken charge of one uma musume after another.
And over that long, painful process, Kitano had come to understand one simple truth.
Enough already.
These uma musume were good girls.
A mediocre guy like him shouldn’t ruin them.
They would grow into greatness with or without him.
So he should stop dragging them down.
That was why, this time, Kitano still came to Tracen Academy.
He had not given up on becoming a trainer.
But the grand ambitions he once had were gone.
So was the ridiculous idea that he was some chosen hero.
Once you accept your own weakness, you become invincible!
At least, that was what Kitano Ryuichi told himself as he tried very hard not to think too deeply about how pathetic that sounded.
Yes.
Even after crossing worlds, Kitano accepted, with a faint trace of bitterness, that he was still a mediocrity.
After so many resets, after witnessing so many unforgettable uma musume lives and regrets, he honestly thought it was impressive that he hadn’t given up on this path entirely.
But this time, Kitano didn’t plan on “resetting” again.
This time, he intended to live an easier life.
A life where glory and responsibility might have nothing to do with him.
But at least it would be a life without jealousy, insults, and the gnawing condemnation of his own conscience.
“Tokyo, Tracen Academy Station.
We have arrived.
Passengers disembarking, please remember to take all personal belongings with you.” “Here again, huh… Tracen Academy.” Carried along by the flow of people, Kitano Ryuichi passed through a station he had walked through more times than he could count.
Once again, he stood before the familiar school gates, which looked, at first glance, less like an entrance and more like the front of a small palace.
“Okay.
I’m not too sure what point in the timeline this reset landed me in…” Kitano narrowed his eyes, quietly sorting through his memories.
“It feels like the more I reset, the further forward the timeline shifts… Though the Uma Musume timeline has always been kind of a mess anyway.” …Not that it had anything to do with him anymore.
Kitano Ryuichi had already decided he would not take charge of any especially outstanding girls this time.
He didn’t want to delay or damage their lives.
With that in mind, he arrived at Tracen Academy with the full, enlightened mentality of a man ready to slack off.
He gathered himself, took a slow breath, and stepped through the gates of Tracen Academy with a mindset completely unlike the one he had carried in all those previous lives.
There were plenty of uma musume running into campus today too.
Tracen Academy was a fully residential school, but there were still many uma musume who stayed outside for one reason or another.
As for whether those reasons were proper or not… Kitano Ryuichi had no comment.
He had seen plenty.
It was part of Tracen Academy’s corporate culture, basically.
A forbidden delicacy, one might say.
And yet, strangely enough, despite all the loops he had lived through, Kitano Ryuichi had never once experienced that particular piece of corporate culture himself.
Honestly, it made him wonder if he had some kind of anti-romance force field.
No luck with women in his previous life.
No luck after transmigrating either.
Even though in some of his runs, his relationships with his assigned uma musume had been pretty good…
So why had he never gotten that kind of chance?
At the gates of Tracen Academy stood a familiar green figure.
The sight of her was enough to stir old memories before Kitano could stop them.
But Kitano, veteran resetter that he was, would not make a single mistake.
Not even a twitch.
He treated her perfectly, flawlessly, as someone he was meeting for the first time.
“Good morning, Miss Hayakawa!” “Good morning,” Tazuna Hayakawa replied with her usual gentle smile.
“Morning, Miss Hayakawa!” “Good morning.” After a few uma musume passed by, Kitano found the perfect opening and stepped forward.
Like any nervous newcomer meeting her for the first time, he bowed politely and spoke with utmost respect.
“…Good morning.
It’s a pleasure to meet you.
My name is Kita—” “Ah, good morning, Trainer Kitano.” Before Kitano could finish, the green-haired woman named Tazuna Hayakawa smiled and greeted him as naturally as breathing.
And in that instant, both of them froze at almost the exact same time.
Kitano’s mind went blank.
Huh?
Why does Miss Hayakawa know my name?
Didn’t I reset?
Across from him, Tazuna’s smile stiffened by the tiniest fraction.
Huh…?
Why do I know this person’s name?
I’m sure this is the first time I’ve ever met him…