Manhattan Cafe looked at Luocheng.
“Trainer, I grew up surrounded by things other people couldn’t see.”
“When I spoke to ghosts, everyone else probably thought I was talking to myself.”
“Your world may also be different from ours.”
“You see things we can’t.”
“You understand things we don’t.”
“Maybe that won’t ever change.”
Cafe’s voice remained soft.
“But even so, I hope you can live according to what you want.”
According to what he wanted.
What did Luocheng want?
As a player—
to clear the game?
He remembered the Trainer’s Handbook.
It listed schedules for many Uma Musume.
What if completing all their training routes was the actual condition for clearing this world?
Luocheng desperately wanted true human connection.
More than once, he had nearly given up.
Over a hundred days of isolation had worn him down to the bone.
That wasn’t a life anyone should have to live.
He didn’t know how much longer he could endure it.
So if there was even a possibility of change, he wanted to try.
He would complete every training route listed in the handbook.
That would be his objective.
As Luocheng rested quietly, his thoughts gradually calmed.
There really was something unusual about Cafe.
Talking to her settled him.
Even if she did nothing but listen, the restlessness inside him faded.
For months, he had saved up everything he wanted to say and poured it out to her at night.
Like a shipwreck survivor carving a face onto a piece of wood just to have someone to speak to.
Except Luocheng already had Cafe.
“Trainer.”
Cafe gently touched his brow.
“You’re not alone.”
Luocheng closed his eyes.
For once, he allowed himself to believe those words.
Eventually, he fell asleep.
Cafe continued stroking his hair.
Her Trainer was strange.
He claimed he came from somewhere beyond this world.
He said everyone here sometimes became dolls.
NPCs.
Game characters.
People without true consciousness.
And nearly every evening, he asked her the same question:
“Cafe, can you hear me?”
Perhaps, Cafe thought, when he said those words, he really was somewhere else.
Somewhere she could no longer reach.
The thought filled her with sadness.
She understood loneliness.
As a child, others had regarded her as strange because she spoke to beings no one else could see.
Even when she pretended not to care, those looks had hurt.
If Luocheng had been enduring something similar—
then who could he rely on?
Perhaps she was one of the only people who could understand even a small part of it.
Cafe carefully lifted him.
To an Uma Musume, carrying a human man was hardly difficult.
She brought him back toward the Trainers’ dormitory.
Something about the route felt strangely familiar.
As though she had done this before.
But when?
Cafe couldn’t remember.
The contradiction lingered in the back of her mind.
That night, she stayed nearby until she was certain Luocheng was sleeping peacefully.
[ END 401 Chapter ]
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