Support, also known as—a crutch.
As the name suggests, its effect is like giving a crutch to someone who can’t stand up.
With that crutch, someone who can’t even take a step can walk, and might even learn to run.
In various games, support-type characters are the most common and widely considered the most necessary, because a powerful support can make any damage dealer deal damage beyond normal limits.
Therefore, gamers have a saying passed down: “DPS comes and goes, but supports are forever,” expressing the importance of supports.
In almost any game, a support’s importance is enormous, because a strong support can both deal damage themselves and carry weak teammates to deal damage, even enabling already powerful teammates to deal even higher damage.
You can lack a terrifying damage dealer, but you absolutely cannot lack a particularly capable support—Merlin and Zhuge Liang from the neighboring game surely understand this deeply.
But in the world of Umamusume, a support-focused Umamusume shouldn’t exist.
Because this is a competitive world.
Every Umamusume’s training is to beat opponents, and every skill is to strengthen oneself and crush opponents.
After all, this is a competition without teams, and getting first place is what every Umamusume should strive for.
No matter how good the relationship is off the track, once on the track, they’re opponents.
And since they’re opponents, there’s no way they’d think about strengthening their rivals—after all, there’s only one champion.
So instead of strengthening your opponent, wouldn’t it be better to just keep strengthening yourself?
Moreover, in the Umamusume world, there’s a saying: “One horse leads, ten thousand horses fade”—so undoubtedly, support-type Umamusume don’t exist in this world, because such an existence would be almost entirely useless for her own racing.
But in this system, the current Black Knight, relying on emotion points she didn’t even know where they came from, pulled an Umamusume who didn’t seem to run for herself at all—Little Kangbai.
Her stats were quite mediocre, far below the Black Knight’s own.
If Little Light Ball hadn’t mentioned that the lowest stat was G, the Black Knight would have thought Little Kangbai was a low-tier character with a high-tier skin.
And Little Kangbai’s two skills—[Friend’s Sharing] and [Big Full Meal]—this skill combination didn’t look like anything that would make herself faster.
Especially the friend skill, which practically screamed “I’m a support.”
So Little Kangbai was the strangest Umamusume in the world right now!
Because her running wasn’t for her own glory, but more like helping other Umamusume achieve better results.
“An Umamusume like this can only be useful in system BOSS battles…” The Black Knight sighed.
Now all her emotion points were gone, she still hadn’t pulled Redstone Wyvern, and she didn’t know when the rate-up banner might end…
“Whatever, I just happen to need someone to scout the Central District for information—let Little Kangbai go. She doesn’t look threatening anyway…”
As for herself, the main Black Knight—of course, she’d continue training her own stats here.
Who knew when all the Black Knight’s stats would become SS…
…………
“Ojisan, two orders of fish balls!” A young voice called out.
The shop owner looked up but saw nothing.
Strange, was he hearing things?
There clearly was no one there.
“Ojisan, two orders of fish balls!” Just as the owner was puzzled, a small hand holding money finally reached up from below the front counter.
The little hand even waved the bills, giving the two fluttering bills some presence.
“?!” The owner finally stepped to the counter, bent down, and looked over it.
The little girl had pale blonde hair, a black-and-red fleece sweater, and a cute little backpack on her back.
She looked like a specially made doll—playful and adorable.
But she had a pair of small ears on her head and a fluffy tail behind her.
Clearly, she was an Umamusume.
“Oh! Sorry, little one, I… didn’t notice you at first.” The owner apologized and scratched his head awkwardly.
After all, if he said she was too short and he hadn’t seen her, he felt she might cry.
Judging by her height, she was probably around ten, right?
Who knew when she might burst into tears.
“Stop talking so much, Ojisan! Fish balls! Hurry up!” The little one kept waving the money, looking impatient.
“Okay, please wait—and as an apology for not seeing you earlier, these two orders of fish balls are on me.” The owner didn’t take the girl’s money.
He quickly and skillfully prepared two bowls of fresh fish balls and handed them over.
But why was such a small child alone without her parents?
That was worrying.
If she ran into bad people and got her allowance stolen…
“No! This is a matter of principle! I won’t take credit!” The little girl didn’t accept the free fish balls.
Instead, she forcefully tossed the money onto the counter from below, then clutched the two orders and ran off on her little legs.
“Hey! Little girl! Little girl! I need to give you change!” The owner picked up the money and realized she’d overpaid.
Thinking she was too young to know the value, he rushed out of the counter to chase her.
But once outside, she had already vanished.
Remembering she was an Umamusume, he figured he really couldn’t catch up.
With no other choice, he memorized her appearance, thinking that if she came back, he’d treat her to fish balls again.
The little Umamusume carrying two orders of fish balls was exactly the new card the Black Knight had pulled—the support-focused Little Kangbai.
Although she’d noted from the start that Little Kangbai was very short, actually using her made the Black Knight realize this little one was even shorter than she’d imagined!
About 1.25 meters tall—she had to stretch her arms as far as possible just to buy something and avoid being ignored.
It was hard to imagine how such a tiny thing had kept up with her on those little short legs.
“Feels like with a change of clothes and hairstyle, she could cosplay Klee…” Holding the fish balls, smelling the tantalizing aroma, Little Kangbai—whose stomach was starting to act up—sighed helplessly.
As expected, that skill called [Big Full Meal] wasn’t just for show—this Little Kangbai was really always hungry!
Eat, eat, eat—she just wanted to keep eating.
And why could such a tiny thing eat so much?
Where did all that food even go?
“Give me one! Give me one!” At that moment, Little Light Ball flew over, circling Little Kangbai, also wanting a fish ball.
The little thing was about the size of a fish ball.
One bite and it’d probably double in size.
“…Half!” Little Light Ball also looked at the fish ball’s size and ultimately decided eating a whole one was too much.
The two little ones ate their fish balls and walked down the street.
People kept looking at the cute Little Kangbai—after all, who doesn’t love an adorable 2D little girl?
“So, burp~ what’s your plan?” Little Light Ball, now swollen a full size larger, floated lazily behind Little Kangbai, asking about her future plans.
“Go race!” Little Kangbai answered without even thinking.
“This template is our scout. Since she’s a scout, she definitely has to race! If she doesn’t race, how will we know who the protagonist is?”
“…Besides, if we don’t race, we won’t have money. With the way I look now, do you think we can get a job?”
Little Light Ball looked at Little Kangbai’s height and found her reasoning sound—with that appearance, hiring her would be child labor.
Aside from certain shady places, almost no legitimate shop would dare take her.
But wait—with your current size, would the Racing Association even let you race?
Little Light Ball suddenly realized a serious problem, but before it could voice it, it found itself already being brought by Little Kangbai to the Racing Association building.
“Onee-san! I’m here to register for a race!” By the time they arrived, the fish balls were finished.
Though her stomach hadn’t given any feedback yet, Little Kangbai still tried her best to look energetic as she called out to the young woman behind the counter.
“Hm?” The young woman looked up but found nothing.
After a few seconds of confusion, she lowered her gaze and saw the tiny Little Kangbai.
…Ugh, why did it feel like this template’s height was constantly being targeted?
“Um, little sister, at your age, you can’t participate in races yet.” The counter girl smiled helplessly and indulgently.
“You’re very cute, but I can’t make an exception for you.”
“I’m not a little kid!” Little Kangbai shouted unhappily, then rummaged through her backpack and finally placed a document in front of the counter girl.
The counter girl picked it up with an amused, humoring-a-child attitude and glanced at it.
When she saw the age column, her expression turned as if she’d seen a ghost.
Then, upon seeing the association’s official certification stamp below, her expression became like a ghost seeing a breakdancing goat.
“No way… why is she this small?” The counter girl looked at Little Kangbai, then back at the age on the document, feeling her worldview taking serious damage.
—There exist Umamusume this young-looking in the world?!
Strange knowledge increased!
“How about it, Onee-san? I told you I can race, right?” Little Kangbai puffed out her chest proudly.
Though she had no curves to speak of, and her cute looks had stunted certain developments, she felt that having dignity was enough.
“Uh… please wait a moment. Let me input your information first.” Looking once more at the extremely cute and playful Little Kangbai, the counter girl temporarily suppressed the urge to pat her head and began entering Little Kangbai’s details.
“By the way, is Little Kangbai here for your debut race? Which race would you like to enter?”
“The nearest one!” Little Kangbai answered without hesitation again.
After all, only the nearest race would yield more information, more emotion points, and more money.
This template of hers was way too hungry.
If she didn’t work hard to race and earn money, she’d starve sooner or later.