At Tracen, His Specialty Was Doing Time

That made life miserable for every player hoping for something sexy.

So, for entertainment, Umamusume players started writing twisted, yandere, out-of-character fanfiction. These stories became known as "weird documents."

Stories and memes about trainers getting locked in basements by yandere Umamusume soon exploded in popularity.

"Of course it's fun. Haven't you been having a great time playing the Umamusume mobile game?"

Darley pointed at Zhou Yuang, her face going deadpan.

"Go play Umamusume... No, wait. Go play Umamusume: Pretty Derby!"

"Still, having a bunch of Umamusume watch me play a mobile game beats being an idol."

Zhou Yuang folded his arms and considered it, but the Three Goddesses didn't seem pleased with his answer.

"Do you remember your ultimate goal in life?"

Darley spoke with an air of profundity, like some reclusive sage dispensing wisdom.

"Head down to the docks for some fries?"

To be fair, fries really were delicious.

"Wrong! Your brain told you to come to Tracen and get thirty wives!"

Darley, who never passed up a chance for amusement, shot down his plan to get fries.

You've already got one foot inside Tracen. We'll make sure the other lands in a basement.

"Just debut according to our plan, and you'll have thirty wives in no time."

"Why?"

What, you're just going to hand me wives because it makes you happy?

"It's simple. Umamusume push you in the morning, and you push Umamusume at night."

Darley's words plunged Zhou Yuang into thought.

That did sound like the life he wanted, but wasn't something off about it?

"Wouldn't that be sleeping with fans?"

Zhou Yuang pointed at the fan count on the panel. When all three goddesses nodded in unison, he pulled his hand back like lightning.

Even setting aside the strange looks the three of them were giving him, becoming a streamer to attract Umamusume fans and then marrying them sounded incredibly shady.

And they'll fall for me because they watch me stream from prison?

How does that make any sense?

"Wouldn't an idol doing that be a total breach of duty?"

"It's fine as long as the fans are willing. And what makes you so sure you'd be the one sleeping with them, rather than the Umamusume sleeping with you?"

Ordinary horse girls had three times an adult human's physical ability, and Umamusume were the cream of the crop even among horse girls.

They had exceptional resistance to drugs, too. How was a normal person supposed to beat an Umamusume?

I might as well lie down and accept my fate.

"That's still wrong. Normally, an idol would feel guilty toward their fans for dating anyone."

"Then why did you choose Oguri Cap? You should've gone looking for Smart Falcon the moment you arrived at Tracen."

Darley rolled her eyes at Zhou Yuang.

The Umamusume called Smart Falcon was a wholesome young girl who dreamed of becoming an idol.

In Zhou Yuang's hands, she would surely thrive as a spotless idol, then successfully change careers at thirty and become a grand shrine maiden.

Or rather, a grand shrine horse.

"Go make your debut!"

Imitating Darley's earlier pose, Baye pointed at Zhou Yuang like a general assigning troops.

Zhou Yuang could only stare at her in exasperation.

But with all three goddesses in agreement, he had no choice but to go along.

"What if an Umamusume catches me alone after I log off?"

Some Umamusume might genuinely become his fans if he streamed. Zhou Yuang was fairly confident about that.

Before taking a job at Tracen, Zhou Yuang had created an alias in online horse-girl communities. Without showing his face, he used a disguised voice to host a late-night radio show that helped Umamusume and trainers work through relationship problems.

He had built a modest reputation and gained quite a few fans. It had even earned him a little money, and the work was far more comfortable and interesting than a convenience-store job.

But this was a livestream, wasn't it?

Some Umamusume would surely get curious and want to meet him in person. Things would get awkward then.

Zhou Yuang eyed the chibi version of himself beside him warily.

"Easy. Just put on an avatar."

With a casual wave of Darley's hand, the chibi figure's head turned into a white bun with a T written on it.

"That's kind of ugly."

As Zhou Yuang complained, Darley opened an interface and showed him that he could customize the character.

Well, that meant he would have to spend hours designing a face, then five minutes recording his debut video.

"So I'm becoming a VTuber? I stream my prison time, use the rewards to raise real-world Umamusume, and gain fans and improve their real-world results... That doesn't sound half bad."

It sounded like a premise even a manga would hesitate to touch. Only publishers churning out disposable light novels would use something like that.

"Right. So give yourself a decent look... What are you doing?!"

Zhou Yuang was dragging the character-creation sliders around at random, warping the avatar's face into bizarre shapes. Baye, a former military horse and a strict instructor, couldn't take it anymore.

"At least make it look human!"

"Tch."

And here I was going to make an avatar that would leave the Umamusume speechless... then dazzled.

"I can hear you."

"All right. Do your best, Zhou Yuang."

The gentle-looking Godolphin offered him encouragement, then joined the other goddesses in commenting on every change he made to the avatar.

The little avatar swelled from a two-dimensional character into something three-dimensional, turned into an eldritch horror, then a crayon stick figure, before finally becoming a slender figure with no facial features except a big A.

"What in... (inhales) Tamamo's name is that supposed to be?"

After all her advice, the result was a standard tanuki trainer avatar with an A on its head instead of a T. Baye truly couldn't take it anymore.

What was the point of customizing it at all?

"Anyway, I can change avatars later. This'll do for now."

He had tried several times to make something ridiculous, but the three goddesses wouldn't allow it. He had no choice but to settle for something more sensible.

The other two goddesses had no intention of arguing over it any longer, either.

An interesting soul mattered more than a pretty shell.

"Then let's start the stream."

After asking the other two goddesses a few questions about the system, Zhou Yuang went live.

"Uma Musume! Launch!"

There's no one else here. I can say what I want.

At Tracen Academy, Streaming His Prison Time

There were no horses in this world. There were only horse girls.

Legend had it that horse girls had lived on this land since time immemorial.

They raced across the grasslands, shed their sweat upon them, sang of their youth there, and wrote their own songs there.

More than humans, they loved to run.

Running brought them undeniable joy, and they excelled at it.

Horse girls brought life to the world as messengers and carriers of goods. Before vehicles could render those roles obsolete, heaven offered them another path.

That path was racing: using their speed to bring excitement and joy to people everywhere.

To make people happy simply by running.

For some horse girls, running seemed to be the whole meaning of life.

Silence Suzuka was one of them.

She had long, silky orange hair, emerald-green eyes, and a slender, graceful figure.

From any angle, she looked like a quiet, gentle girl.

But she was an Umamusume who loved to run.

Ever since she was a tiny sprout, far short of an adult's height, she had been passionate about running.

Every time she set foot on grass, she felt an urge well up inside her.

Like a racer touching a steering wheel, an angler picking up a fishing rod, or a model enthusiast getting a new kit, she always found herself wanting to run the moment she reached the grass.

She ran across the soft, fragrant turf, feeling the wind rush past and watching the scenery fall away behind her as she sprinted.

Silence Suzuka was captivated by that sensation of speed.

If she could, she felt she could run all day.

Her love of running, coupled with the fact that she was a horse girl, had led her to enroll at Tracen Academy. She intended to become an Umamusume and keep running on the track.

Recently, though, she had run into trouble.

She had joined Tracen, a specialist school for Umamusume, because she loved running. From another perspective, however, it was a vocational school.

Being an Umamusume was a profession, too, and turning a passion into work was never easy.

She had eagerly studied how to run faster, but the lessons at Tracen left Silence Suzuka dismayed.

It wasn't that they were particularly difficult. She was among the better students herself.

Memorizing what was in the textbooks was easy.

Putting it into practice was another matter.

Before making their debut, Umamusume needed to be scouted by a trainer and sign a contract to join that trainer's team before they could enter races.

Tracen was lenient, though. Apart from problem students, no one was forced to find a trainer.

But Tracen was, after all, a school for raising Umamusume. Those without trainers learned how to train from teachers who taught the theory.

One teacher told everyone that racing wasn't about charging off and running mindlessly to the finish. They needed to control their pace and save their strength for a final sprint.

Different Umamusume had different talents, but discovering each one's running style was a trainer's job. The teacher had only given them a rough outline of the most conventional approach.

The teacher hadn't been harsh, but the advice troubled an Umamusume like Silence Suzuka, who loved to put her head down and sprint.

Silence Suzuka was obedient by nature. After hearing the lesson, she tried the conventional approach, but she felt she had lost some of her old passion for running.

And she kept losing practice races against the other Umamusume.

Sometimes she worried that she had no talent for running, or that she didn't belong at Tracen at all.

Considerate as she was, she kept her anxiety to herself and carried on with her days as calmly as ever.

Today, she came into the classroom and sat down to wait for the lesson. Then she suddenly noticed that all the Umamusume around her had stopped moving.

"Huh?"

Puzzled, she saw that her classmates were frozen in place like statues.

Some were seated, others were standing, and a few had been talking with friends. Even their hands were frozen mid-gesture.

"Is this some kind of prank?"