He continued clicking.
He continued training.
After several turns, the year was nearly over.
Another story scene began.
Two horse girls trained on the academy’s enormous practice field.
This time, the exercise was a mock race.
“Trainer, were you watching me carefully?”
After the simulation ended, Silence Suzuka rushed over and stopped beside Zhou Yu’ang.
She placed one hand over her chest and waited for his evaluation.
“I watched.
You’re still using the Front Runner style.”
“Yes.
I won my previous race by running at the front, so right now I feel absolutely sparkling!”
Light shone within Silence Suzuka’s eyes.
She enthusiastically explained her thoughts about the running style.
She resembled a timid person who had finally discovered their defining strength and realized how exceptional they could be.
If the real Silence Suzuka is watching, she’ll probably run straight to the practice field and test the Front Runner strategy after this career ends.
Zhou Yu’ang silently considered the matter.
He looked at the Silence Suzuka before him.
The stream had an archive function.
If the real Silence Suzuka ever entered, she would certainly see this.
“So if Shizuka-san keeps running in front, will she always win so beautifully?”
Special Week stood nearby and gazed at her new idol with admiration.
“Well…”
Silence Suzuka’s confidence immediately faltered.
She turned toward Zhou Yu’ang, seeking the opinion of the Trainer who had promised to give everything for her.
“Trainer… that’s true, isn’t it?”
“Suzuka, how far did you and Special Week run?”
Zhou Yu’ang crossed his arms.
Rather than answering, he asked a question.
The Three Goddesses had explained that everything inside the game followed the same rules as reality.
Therefore, Silence Suzuka’s body was not an ordinary model that could act without consequences.
“Um… twenty-two hundred meters, using Great Escape.”
Silence Suzuka reported the distance and strategy.
Zhou Yu’ang lowered his eyes toward her legs.
She instinctively looked down as well.
She wore Tracen’s classic red-and-white training clothes.
Long red athletic pants covered her slender legs.
It was impossible to examine anything without lifting the fabric.
Or simply touching her directly.
“Suzuka, do you feel tired?”
Zhou Yu’ang asked.
The question seemed perfectly ordinary to her.
“Not at all!”
She answered earnestly.
Silence Suzuka loved running.
No matter how far she ran, her mind would insist that she was not tired.
But what about her body?
“Is that so?”
Zhou Yu’ang questioned her answer while walking closer.
He crouched and pressed one finger against her ankle.
Although this was a game, the instant he touched her, he felt softness, realistic warmth, and moisture against his fingertip.
He could even detect a faint, lingering scent.
He did not know whether the Three Goddesses had included such details deliberately.
The instant he pressed down, Silence Suzuka released a sharp, delicate cry.
“Ahh!”
Her voice was naturally gentle and quiet.
Caught completely unprepared by Zhou Yu’ang’s touch, she produced a fragile sound that immediately attracted attention.
Not only the real Silence Suzuka but every other horse girl listening froze.
[Horse Girl Enthusiast]: Ah… does that count as sexual harassment?
[Grade-Skipping Genius Girl]: Isn’t it merely an ordinary examination?
[Tracen Pun Master]: If he only pressed with one finger and didn’t touch her inappropriately, it should count as an examination.
Judging from Suzuka’s reaction, her body may be exhausted.
Running was the nature of horse girls.
Their legs and feet were the foundation of that nature.
Thus, they treated those areas with exceptional care.
[Maternal Demon]: Does that mean Silence Suzuka has fragile legs?
“Are my legs fragile?”
The real Silence Suzuka touched her own legs.
Her hands encountered firm, pleasant muscles.
No matter how she examined them, nothing felt wrong.
“Fragile?
Her legs aren’t naturally fragile.
Her running style makes them fragile.”
Zhou Yu’ang began explaining when he saw the worried comments.
The original Silence Suzuka had been euthanized because of a fracture.
That fracture had occurred because his body could not endure the strain of Great Escape running.
Those who did were almost always extremely durable and exceptionally tough.
The primary reason was simple.
The strategy placed enormous stress upon the horse’s body.
Mihono Bourbon from the anime’s second season and Kitasan Black, protagonist of the third season, were both Front Runners whose original horses possessed famously robust, highly trainable bodies.
The Great Escape strategy developed by Silence Suzuka’s team imposed even harsher requirements.
Without Great Escape, Silence Suzuka would not have suffered a catastrophic fracture.
But without using the weapon most suited to him, the original Silence Suzuka might have disappeared into mediocrity.
They had elevated one another.
The tragic ending, however, made the Japanese public—already fascinated by geniuses who died young—value Silence Suzuka even more.
“A Great Escape runner must produce explosive acceleration immediately and establish a lead.
That starting burst heavily burdens the body.
Late Surgers and End Closers begin more gradually.
They can use the opening moments to warm up and accumulate strength.”
“They also have time to observe their opponents and the changing conditions of the track, allowing them to adjust later.”
The body possessed inertia.
Suddenly beginning or ending intense motion could cause injury before the body adapted.
That was why athletes warmed up before exercise and avoided stopping abruptly after severe exertion.
“Silence Suzuka, you should spend more time studying how to apply the Front Runner strategy.
During the debut race, you weren’t blindly using Great Escape.”
Mindless Great Escape was one of the most cancerous possible strategies.
Zhou Yu’ang remembered many runners who used it.
During the Autumn Tenno Sho featuring popular horse girl Tokai Teio, two Great Escape runners appeared.
Mejiro Palmer and Daitaku Helios.
The two charged ahead recklessly and forced the pace increasingly higher.
Tokai Teio suffered because of them.
But both Great Escape runners also collapsed.
They failed even to place, finishing near the rear.
Then there was popular horse girl Twin Turbo.
In the anime’s second season, she demonstrated her refusal to surrender and inspired Teio to continue racing.
Silence Suzuka was different.
Yutaka Take—his jockey and the original world’s greatest Silence Suzuka fanatic—had once described Suzuka’s Great Escape as something unusual.
It was not a blind frontal charge.
It resembled an End Closer running from the front.
Silence Suzuka rushed into the lead early, controlled the race, accumulated power while setting the pace, and then accelerated again during the final straight.
Whether that description was merely Yutaka Take praising his beloved horse like a proud father was another question.
Still, if Silence Suzuka used Great Escape without thought, the probability of disaster would rise enormously.
Someone who budgeted carefully would live more comfortably than a spendthrift who exhausted every paycheck.
“You appeared to be searching for ideal moments to build power and then increase the gap, much like other running styles.
But your recent training was different.”
Zhou Yu’ang had only observed from the side, but his eyes were sharp.
He noticed that Silence Suzuka had realized the junior behind her possessed impressive potential and might overtake her over a longer distance.
Combined with Suzuka’s pride as a senior, her status as a running idiot, and the confidence produced by her debut victory, she had instinctively begun sprinting without restraint as she had during childhood.
During the debut race, however, she had accelerated after leaving the gate, while entering turns, along the straight before an uphill section, and while moving downhill.
She had not accelerated everywhere.
But she had not slowed either.
Zhou Yu’ang activated both communication channels and explained his observations to the in-game Suzuka and the audience simultaneously.
Not only the in-game Silence Suzuka but every viewer froze.
“These conclusions may sound excessive, but remember that the Three Goddesses created this game.”
Zhou Yu’ang switched fully to the streamer channel and addressed the comments.
The realistic sensation beneath his fingertip had already revealed much.
He refused to believe that a game the Three Goddesses had spent so long developing would suffer from the crude clipping problems common to Cygames’ work.
They were gods.
Would they really delete Silence Suzuka’s original shoulder cape simply because they were too lazy to prevent clipping?
“This world is completely realistic.
My analysis should therefore be accurate.”
Silence Suzuka’s recent twenty-two-hundred-meter run had nearly become reckless Great Escape.
Her body had suffered minor but manageable consequences.
If she repeated it next month…
Would the next turn force him to select Rest or Study?
Would training or entering a race apply a negative condition?
Damn.
Was this game’s method of punishing poor decisions too realistic?
[Tracen Pun Master]: Could you perhaps be an exceptionally talented Trainer?
After Zhou Yu’ang finished explaining, one highly intelligent viewer immediately posted a sentence that nearly sent him into depression.
[Tracen Pun Master]: There are only a limited number of exceptional Trainers at Tracen.
Damn it!
Stop!
Zhou Yu’ang knew perfectly well who Tracen Pun Master was.
Symboli Rudolf.
As president of Tracen’s student council, she possessed considerable authority.
The student council functioned like unpaid academy staff.
Looking through Trainer records would be extremely easy.
Given enough time, Rudolf could examine every Trainer individually like a whale repeatedly hitting pity until she opened the correct blind box.
Zhou Yu’ang’s trainee, Oguri Cap, had originally been discovered by Symboli Rudolf.
Worried that her talent would be wasted in the regional leagues, Rudolf personally traveled there to retrieve her.
That tyrannical action was jokingly described as Imperial Landlord Rudolf kidnapping a gray-haired maiden.
She had committed every imaginable evil.
Under normal circumstances, Rudolf is an unquestionably excellent person.
But what if this followed a strange-document scenario?
Rudolf might appear before him and say:
“You wouldn’t want your identity revealed throughout Tracen, would you?”
“The cafeteria budget is rather tight this month.
You wouldn’t want Oguri Cap to go hungry, would you?”
“You wouldn’t want something entertaining to happen to your salary this month, would you?”
If Zhou Yu’ang refused, Oguri Cap would no longer receive enough food.
He would lack the money to feed her.
Watching Oguri grow thinner by the day, he would grit his teeth and tell her to wait for his return.
Then he would call Rudolf and humbly address the person on the other end.
“My lord, it has been many days.
Have you missed your humble servant?”
A black luxury car belonging to the Rudolf family would carry him to her enormous mansion.
There, Rudolf would lock him inside a basement and subject him to indescribable ultimate humiliation.
Oguri Cap would remain at home, unaware of everything.
She would occasionally watch the street through the window, waiting for Zhou Yu’ang to return with food.
Then the doorbell would ring.
When she opened the door, she would discover black-suited men carrying enormous quantities of supplies.
They would dump the food inside, say it came from Zhou Yu’ang, and leave.
Oguri Cap would stand there helplessly, wanting to ask when her Trainer would return but receiving only their cold backs.
Driven by hunger, she would eat while crying.
Then she would save a portion, stare at the doors and windows, and wait for Zhou Yu’ang to return so they could eat together.
She would never know that her newly graduated rookie Trainer had suffered the brutal pressure of Rudolf’s criminal empire.
The evil Imperial Landlord would polish him smooth until he became Rudolf’s—
Tama-dammit!
Why is my imagination so active?!
Why was his brain producing such a bizarre story?
After imagining an extremely standard basement copypasta, Zhou Yu’ang wanted to slap himself.
“What gives you the right to assume my identity?”
He immediately refuted Rudolf with righteous indignation.
His tone carried the full force of “How dare you?”
Even Rudolf was stunned.
“He isn’t a Trainer?”
If he were not a Trainer, he should not have been capable of identifying a horse girl’s condition so easily.
“Surely he isn’t a horse girl.
There has never been a horse girl who became a Trainer.”
Rudolf became increasingly curious.
Possessing a strong will, she did not abandon the investigation.
[Hates Flashbulbs and Lunatics]: Didn’t you introduce yourself as Mysterious Trainer A?
Why call yourself a Trainer if you aren’t one?
A certain classmate of hers clearly wanted to investigate Mysterious Trainer A.
Even without Rudolf suggesting it, that classmate might eventually bring files and request help searching.
“Interesting.
I’ll look into who this Trainer is later.”
Rudolf welcomed talented Trainers who could assist Tracen’s horse girls.
Finding him should not cause any serious problems.
The Three Goddesses were benevolent deities who wanted horse girls to remain healthy and happy.
“I haven’t passed the qualification exam yet—cough.
Stop discussing this.
Continuing will damage the harmony of the stream.”
Zhou Yu’ang was not an idiot.
He immediately released a smoke grenade.
They should focus upon students preparing for the Trainer exam.
Stop looking among those already working at Tracen.
The academy employed only a few hundred Trainers.
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Thank you so much for reading until the end.
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