The old man, over half a century old, looked at the document in his hand, then at the Umamusume sitting in front of him—long black hair, a beautiful face, yet cold and ruthless as steel.
After hesitating for a moment, he spoke—
“Then, Black Knight-san, are you sure you want to join Sukegahara Academy? Although I’m very happy that an Umamusume has finally come—but, are you sure?”
“Yeah.” The soul, or rather the current Black Knight-san, nodded, confirming her choice in front of the old man.
Although the soul himself was a bit of a goof, his acting was actually pretty good.
Plus, Ah Guang-chan had said these templates all had a “guidance” for behavior and mannerisms, so as long as he didn’t go too wild, he basically wouldn’t act too weird.
It was just that on the way here, Black Knight suddenly discovered this place… seemed to be Japan.
And he, a Chinese person, couldn’t speak any foreign language except Chinese.
At most, he recognized the twenty-six English letters.
As for anything else… let’s not even mention it!
So, amid Ah Guang-chan’s wailing cries, the soul successfully obtained the [Language Proficiency] skill, plus a ready-made suitcase.
But seriously, why did the system not come with built-in language proficiency if it was sending him to Japan?
Did the original host who was supposed to be chosen actually know Japanese really well?
Anyway, after obtaining language proficiency, a perfect suitcase, and a new body, and after going through some screening, Black Knight carried her luggage to this place called Sukegahara Academy.
Sukegahara Academy itself wasn’t any high-level academy.
You could even say its founder wasn’t anyone impressive—just a former trainer and his Umamusume who, after retiring, chose to build an academy near the trainer’s hometown.
Their main goal was to hope that kids who were far away and didn’t want to leave home could also get proper training, so they could later challenge all kinds of races.
The idea was good, but reality wasn’t so kind.
Because they hadn’t thought things through at the start, the academy was built in a remote location, and the number of students was already sparse.
On top of that, it was quite a distance from the nearest track, which made the academy’s enrollment rate even worse, almost completely turning it into an academy with no students.
Especially since if you wanted to participate in big races here, you definitely had to travel far.
So for the sake of their futures, Umamusume were even less likely to stay cooped up in a place like this.
As a result, Sukegahara Academy completely ran out of students and eventually became a place for the nearby elderly to gather.
Therefore, this old man was very puzzled by Black Knight’s desire to join his academy—you’re already such a big horse, so of course you’d want a better track and more glory, right?
Why come to this place?
He didn’t understand.
He really didn’t understand.
The old man truly didn’t understand…
But even if he didn’t understand, there was no helping it!
After all, she’d already come to him, and he couldn’t exactly refuse, right?
Besides, after all these years, finally an Umamusume was willing to come to this academy!
Even if it was just one, he had to show the academy’s best side!
The old man accepted the documents, then nodded at Black Knight: “Mm… then I understand. Next, let me take you to the dormitory to put your things down, Black Knight-san. You must be pretty tired after coming all this way.”
“Thank you for the trouble.” Black Knight’s tone was still ice-cold, like a freezing blade keeping people a thousand miles away.
On the way as the old principal led Black Knight to the dormitory, Black Knight saw more than once elderly people walking their dogs on the academy’s track, and some old people gathered together chatting about something.
The whole academy had no study atmosphere at all, only the smell of a retirement home.
Although the old people were each doing their own thing, the moment Black Knight passed by, all of them turned to look.
Their gazes were like they’d seen something unbelievable, almost popping out of their sockets.
“Hey, hey, is that… an Umamusume?”
“Seems like it! She’s got pointed ears and a tail, exactly like the Umamusume on TV!”
“She doesn’t look like an easy kid to get along with…”
“But still, Sukegahara and the others finally welcomed their first student after all these years?!”
“That’s so nice…”
The old people chattered among themselves.
Black Knight heard it all, but her face showed nothing.
After all, she’d told herself she needed to be a kuudere to fit the character.
If she went wild, it’d be too weird.
The academy overall wasn’t very big, about the size of an ordinary high school, just with an especially large dirt track.
But the environment was a bit better—at least much better than the schools Black Knight had attended before.
It was roughly an upgrade from a pigsty to a stable.
Mm, pretty good.
“Although our main campus lacks students (meaning right now there’s only Black Knight), we’ve always maintained the dormitory properly.” The old principal led Black Knight into the dormitory building already covered with ivy, and casually picked a room near the dormitory entrance for her.
The furniture inside was very similar to the cheap hotels Black Knight remembered from outside: a clean single bed, a desk, a wardrobe, a TV, and a small bathroom with bathing facilities.
A clear single dorm room.
You couldn’t say it was bad.
You could only say that for Black Knight, it was really satisfying—after all, this was way better than the collective pigsty from her old school.
There was even such a luxurious high-end thing as a single dorm!
“So, this will be your dorm from now on. How is it, satisfied?” The old principal proudly showed off the academy’s dormitory to Black Knight.
For so many years, he’d always hoped an Umamusume would come live in these dorms, so he’d kept cleaning them diligently.
And now, finally, an Umamusume had answered his expectations.
Thank the Three Goddesses!
“Very good.” Still short words and an icy tone, but there did seem to be a tiny bit of satisfaction in it.
Even her tail, which had been hanging down the whole time, swayed slightly.
Ah, she’s a kid who’s not good at socializing—the old principal thought, and began considering how to improve this child’s situation.
But… could it be that this child didn’t want to go to Central because she was too introverted?
That would be terrible.
Even Umamusume need friendship!
It seemed he’d have to think hard about how to change this child’s personality.
“Then, put your luggage down first and rest a bit. In a little while, I’ll take you to eat a full meal.”
In an academy that hadn’t operated for a long time, the cafeteria had long since become something close to a mahjong parlor.
Now this old principal had to take responsibility and take good care of this hope of the whole village.
So, let’s start with a whole-school cleanup!
Get all the old grandpas and grandmas moving.
For the sake of our academy’s new student, work hard!
Mm, he felt like he was somehow burning with passion!
As if youth had been injected back into his body!
……
“So why did you choose this remote place?” After the old principal left, Ah Guang-chan and Black Knight started a new round of conversation.
“If you picked Central, you could quickly join big races, collect emotion points, draw awesome cards, and reach the peak of horse life! Why pick a remote place like this first?”
Ah Guang-chan didn’t understand.
Normally, wasn’t the routine to show off in Central and earn like crazy?
Why did you start in some backwater?
This wasn’t reasonable, and it didn’t fit the power-fantasy formula.
“Unstable.” Black Knight shook her head, looking like Ah Guang-chan was still too young.
“You said it yourself—this world has things like protagonists, right?”
“Yeah, a world like this definitely has to have protagonists! So what does that have to do with you choosing a remote area?”
“In this kind of competitive world, the protagonist is definitely an extremely powerful existence. And around the protagonist, there are definitely equally powerful friends, classmates, teachers, rivals, and mini-bosses…”
Black Knight picked up a book from the desk in the room.
The book introduced the famously huge three Triple Crown undefeated Umamusume.
Then she pointed at the one in the middle—
“And that kind of place is exactly what Central is. That place is absolutely a small-fry grinder! A newbie destruction zone! The protagonist there might be BOSS-level, and nearby there’s definitely a huge bunch of experienced SSR and UR-level powerhouses.”
“Even though I currently have a UR-level Black Knight, I have almost no experience. In that place, I’d definitely get destroyed badly in races and earn almost no emotion points at all.”
“So I came up with a plan! I’ll advance and pressure Central from every peripheral region, using countless smurf accounts to dominate every edge area, then pincer Central with multi bread cheese sandwich, and step by step press right up to the protagonist’s face!”
“The edge areas don’t have protagonist factions, so I can develop like on Ten-Mile Slope first. Once my strength and influence are strong enough, I’ll slowly press into Central and then earn a huge wave! Super comfortable.”
“…Fine. Just remember to pay me back the emotion points.” Ah Guang-chan couldn’t think through all that.
It only knew direct crushing and going straight in, and it just hoped the other guy would remember to pay back the money.
Black Knight didn’t argue.
Anyway, Ah Guang-chan was just a pitiful wage slave.
What could you expect?
“Mm, then, Ah Guang-chan, can you start a BOSS battle now? Let me test that Tyrant’s strength?”
“Huh? BOSS battle? Why? Let me say first, I actually recommend you do BOSS battles after you have a bunch of people. Otherwise, under normal circumstances, you absolutely can’t beat that legendary Tyrant.”
“No matter what, I want to try—not just to test Tyrant’s strength, but also to test what kind of power the protagonist of this world might have, and even more to test just how capable this new body of mine is.”
The new body was strong.
Black Knight truly understood that.
And compared to her former body, it was unknown how much stronger it was.
But she still wasn’t used to this new body yet, so she urgently needed some training and exercise to properly adapt to this new form.
“…Fine, whatever makes you happy.” Ah Guang-chan wobbled, no longer objecting.
There was no danger anyway.
“Mm, then next I’ll prepare to pull you into the system’s simulation space—oh right, I’ll also mention here that the system provides training services inside the system space, and it’s completely free. That’s one of the few perks.”
“So in the future, you can have each of your characters train physically during the day. After their body gets tired, at night they can train in the system space, causing only mental fatigue. Then a good sleep in bed will fix it right up.”
“Then I really have to thank you.” Black Knight closed her eyes, unsure how to complain about this system being way too good at this kind of thing.
She closed her eyes and opened them.
The original single dorm room had disappeared.
There was no Lincoln-something sound effect, no coldness or shaking.
Black Knight found herself already in a place with clear skies and a huge grassland.
This was the system space?
Looked like that system really was poor.
It didn’t even make a teleport effect.
So stingy.
But soon Black Knight had no mind to care about that, because a voice full of comedic flavor quickly interrupted all her thoughts and drew her attention to her surroundings.
“Welcome to the Super Many Smurf Accounts System Running Ground! Now, let’s begin a new race! This round’s content is our 4500-meter, 18-super-Umamusume BOSS battle!”
“Please welcome the ruler of our track! The cruelest and most ruthless king of front runners! Your leader! Tyrant-sama!!!”
——————Below is not main text——————
Character Name: Black Knight
Character Rarity: UR
Track Aptitude:
[Turf SS, Dirt: SS]
Distance Aptitude:
[Sprint SS, Mile SS, Medium SS, Long S]
Running Style Aptitude:
[Front Runner D, Pace Chaser C, Late Surger SS, End Closer SS]
Stats:
[Speed SS, Stamina A+, Power S, Guts SS, Wit SS]
(The above data is theoretical and will fluctuate depending on the protagonist’s specific situation.)
————Own Skills————
Innate: [Final Duel] On the final lap, when not in first place, gain 50% of all stats of the first-place runner and use the skills they possess; when in first place, gain 50% of all stats of the second-place runner and use the skills they possess.
Effect lasts until the race ends, and during this process, except for the Umamusume whose stats were copied, no Umamusume can use any skill on you.
Innate: [Master’s Dance Steps] Cannot be blocked in any way by Umamusume ahead; also, running speed increases by 35% when cornering, and during cornering, stamina is not consumed but partially restored.
Innate: [Continuous Slash] Each time you overtake an Umamusume, all stats +5%, and inflict 3 seconds of silence on the overtaken Umamusume, preventing them from using any skills; can repeatedly overtake, maximum stack does not exceed 150%.
Innate: [Absolute Calm] When any of your skills trigger, there is a 50% chance to clear some negative statuses on you; also ignores the first five instances of aura pressure.
……
Black Knight: “The protagonist team is definitely way stronger than me…”
Author: “I think you all should know what I’m about to do~ (laughs)”