The huge racetrack replaced the dorm room.
The comedic announcer’s voice entered Black Knight’s ears.
Tall spectator stands rose on both sides of the track, filled with rough, scribbled “spectators” whose true appearances couldn’t be seen.
“So this is the BOSS battle?” Although the scene changed rapidly and she entered the system space in the blink of an eye, Black Knight still maintained a calm mind.
She even observed the grass beneath her feet.
Yeah, it really is real grass, not fake grass.
That’s good.
“Hiss—haa…”
Black Knight opened her mouth and took a deep breath of the clean, sweet air in this space, feeling just how different it was from the air in that concrete-and-steel forest.
“This is nice. This place is huge…” As a kid who grew up among tall buildings, Black Knight actually liked wide grasslands quite a lot.
She even remembered that when she was little, after going with her mother to her grandmother’s house, just seeing the small patch of grass outside Grandma’s door made her super happy.
Especially since she was even allowed to run on the grass.
That made it even better.
—It was just a shame that the second time she went, that little patch of grass had been covered over by a concrete road.
Now, looking at this vast, boundless grassland, Black Knight felt her heart fill with freshness, like someone had sprayed air freshener straight into her lungs.
…That sounded a little off.
Whatever, as long as she was happy.
Looking around, Black Knight noticed a group of girls standing near her who were probably also Umamusume.
Their hair was all colors of the rainbow, their outfits each had their own style, and the whole scene had a thick 2D flavor.
Man, if not for the 2D beautification effect supporting all this, these weird colorful outfits would definitely make them the most eye-catching bunch of non-mainstream weirdos on some cringe internet site.
“But why are there so many people in this BOSS battle? Isn’t it a one-on-one?”
“Who told you it was one-on-one?!” Even though the venue had changed, the little light ball still existed.
After hearing Black Knight’s question, it very proactively flew out.
“We changed locations, so why are you still such a loser?” Looking at that familiar ball of light, Black Knight didn’t understand.
Why was this system guide still a ball even after changing environments?
“I want a good body too, but I’m broke! And because of you, you damn lucky European, I even had to pay out thousands of points! If you don’t pay me back, I’m definitely not letting this go!”
Remembering the private savings it had paid out, the little light ball huffed angrily again.
Only then did it unwillingly continue explaining the BOSS battle rules to Black Knight—no helping it, it still had to work.
If it didn’t work, it wouldn’t get money.
And if it didn’t get money, it couldn’t make up for its losses.
If it couldn’t make up for its losses, it’d be broke…
And if it was broke, it could only go back and inherit the family’s billions with its brothers and sisters.
Then all its big talk about earning money and supporting itself would be way too lame.
“Cough cough, then listen up. So-called BOSS battles are races that support 18 Umamusume participating at the same time. If you have more Umamusume, you can also have them replace the 17 Umamusume other than the main BOSS.”
“And every Umamusume other than the BOSS and the ones you arrange is randomly selected by the system. In other words, they’re not fixed. And those randomly selected ones naturally won’t listen to you either. They just run their own races.”
“Of course, actually, no matter what, what you need to do isn’t beat them, but beat the one and only BOSS on the field! That is, any one of your Umamusume must rank higher than the BOSS, and you can’t commit any malicious fouls along the way.”
“Mm… I think I get it. So I send out my own Umamusume. If I have 17, then all 17 gang up on the BOSS. If I don’t have 17, the remaining slots are filled by Umamusume the system randomly draws, right?” Black Knight thought about it and felt she understood the nature of this BOSS battle.
But still, if they allowed 17 Umamusume to “gang up” on one BOSS, then these BOSS-level Umamusume must have absurdly high strength.
One or two UR-level ones absolutely couldn’t compare.
As expected of protagonist-level combat power.
Truly terrifying!
Even 17 Umamusume together might not be able to outrun her!
“Okay, since you already know, hurry up and choose your starting position. This counts as a small perk of BOSS battles too.” After explaining the BOSS battle rules, the little light ball flashed to the side, telling Black Knight to hurry and pick her position.
Black Knight didn’t dawdle much either.
Although she found it weird that the starting point looked like a row of security gates, she was only here to give it a try anyway.
It didn’t matter where she started.
So she picked number 8.
After all, she really was here to throw the match.
As Black Knight stepped into the gate, that somewhat comedic announcer voice immediately rang out again: “Wuhu~ Then our brave warrior has entered the gate! Next, please welcome our Tyrant-sama and the other contestants as they enter their gates one by one~”
Along with footsteps, the randomly selected Umamusume controlled by the system also entered their gates one after another.
Black Knight immediately spotted Tyrant—noble like a king, yet carrying a trace of savagery—walking into gate number 1.
“By the way, who is that voice?”
“It’s an Umamusume named Faker. A BOSS-level unit—okay, okay, now let me tell you about that Tyrant’s situation.” The little light ball flew above Black Knight’s head and continued explaining the BOSS’s details.
“That Tyrant is known as the King of Front Runners, and she has a full six innate skills.”
“Six innate skills? Damn, my UR-level only has four, and she has six! As expected of protagonist-team-level combat power!”
“Don’t interrupt!” The little light ball extended a “light ray” and smacked Black Knight’s head, then continued—
“Tyrant’s core skill is [Domination], a skill that targets all Umamusume who fall behind her. Her first skill is called [Tyrant’s Advent], which gives Tyrant a golden body and extremely high speed when she exits the gate, making her impossible to target immediately.”
“And Tyrant’s skill [Punishment] is outstanding against interference-type skills. So it’s best not to use interference skills to mess with her, or you’ll just be asking for trouble.”
“Mm… so that means she has offense, defense, and control all in one?” Black Knight nodded.
He had to admit this was a really troublesome opponent.
No wonder she could be a BOSS-level unit.
If you didn’t have protagonist halo, it’d be almost impossible to beat her, right?
“Tyrant’s only flaw is that she can’t target Umamusume who run ahead of her. So as long as you can overtake Tyrant midway and then suppress her comeback, you’ll have a chance to beat Tyrant.”
“Overtake midway?” Black Knight nodded, then looked at her own skill called [Continuous Slash].
In other words, she could try to keep overtaking the Umamusume around her on the way, raising her own stats, and thus complete a mid-race overtake?
Then her Black Knight really might have a chance to beat Tyrant.
“Everyone, take your positions!” Black Knight still didn’t have a detailed plan, but that commentator started talking again.
“Okay, I’ll stop here. You can look at the system interface to confirm roughly which skills have been triggered by the Umamusume present.” After hearing the voice, the little light ball flew off Black Knight’s head, apparently not planning to keep going with her.
“3, 2, 1, gate open!”
With a “gate open,” the gates blocking all the Umamusume instantly opened.
Although it was Black Knight’s first time running too, she reacted immediately and stepped out with her first stride.
Then…
On the system interface in front of Black Knight, a whole bunch of skill icons in all kinds of colors instantly flew out—
[Tyrant’s Advent], [Nitrous Acceleration], [No Stealing the Start], [Early Gate Exit], [Scheme · Banana Peel], [Substitute Doll]…
Black Knight: “…?”
Damn, so this is what an Umamusume world race is like?
Look at all these red, orange, yellow, green, cyan, blue, purple skills.
This really is the Eight Immortals crossing the sea, each showing their divine powers!
Any kind of scummy skill can just get thrown out, huh.
And with skills flying around like this, it was almost like they were about to pin the other side to the ground and beat them.
This is the sportsmanship of this world?
Love it, love it.
Black Knight naturally wasn’t left behind either.
In an instant, a bunch of debuffs appeared on her—stuff like speed loss, doubled stamina consumption, fear, anxiety, dizziness, all applied in a full set.
Luckily [Absolute Calm] really was powerful.
After overtaking two Umamusume who suddenly seemed like they’d stepped onto ice and completely lost control of their direction, most of the negative effects on Black Knight disappeared.
But even so, a huge pressure still wouldn’t fade.
That was a buff placed on her after Tyrant pulled away from all the Umamusume like a wild wind.
[Domination]!
Like suddenly carrying a giant boulder, Tyrant’s enormous pressure instantly pressed down on Black Knight, making it clearly harder to move her legs, and her physical stamina consumption increased accordingly.
So this was Tyrant’s core skill?
No matter what, she couldn’t shake it off.
Her [Absolute Calm] seemed to have stopped working—looking at that debuff that just wouldn’t go away, Black Knight finally got her first taste of scumbag skills in this world.
“Wuhu! Our Tyrant-sama has taken the lead as number one! Following Tyrant is our highest-popularity contestant! Redstone Wyvern! She’s five horse lengths behind Tyrant! And third place, Reno Lightning, is three horse lengths behind Redstone Wyvern!”
“But Tyrant-sama’s Domination has already spread across the entire field! No Umamusume can escape from her rule anymore! Because she is—the King of Front Runners!!!”
Listening to that comedic commentary, Black Knight didn’t care how far behind Tyrant she was.
Because the experience gap was too large, right now she could only blend into the largest group of Umamusume, like a background character whose presence could vanish at any moment, running however she wanted.
But what she cared about now was just how amazing that Redstone Wyvern was, to actually stick behind Tyrant?
If two more support types were added, wouldn’t she take off?
She wondered if there’d be a Redstone Wyvern UP pool in the future.
If so, she’d go broke trying to pull such an amazing Umamusume.
————Below is not main text————
The protagonist’s imagination—”The protagonist team must all be as strong as Tyrant, or even stronger than Tyrant.”
Tyrant’s approximate stats—except for Late Surger and End Closer, everything is SS, and she has six mutually supporting innate skills…