Six months passed.
In the library, King Halo set down the book on traditional medicine she'd been reading, pulled off her reading glasses, and sagged back against her chair to ease her fatigue. A moment ago, she'd felt something — a sixth sense, almost fated. She knew, in that instant, that the gears of the plot had started turning.
Time really does fly. And I still haven't digested half of Mejiro McQueen's knowledge. That woman actually uses her Training Mode time to read — because Story Mode and the real world run on different clocks, she uses Training Mode to close the gap. So underhanded, McQueen. Do you really want to defend the strongest throne that badly? You're merciless.
Only now had King Halo figured out: every time a new sister cleared Story Mode, Mejiro McQueen would sneak into System Space and use Training Mode to make up the time differential. Not only did she use those three years of Training Mode to digest the newcomer's inherited "knowledge" — she also studied whole libraries of new material in the Training Mode library itself.
And the Training Mode library was infinite. It networked knowledge from every parallel world. Even skill secrets outside their own skill pools were in there, if you were willing to hunt them down and learn. McQueen was the first to find this secret. Until now, only McQueen and Demon King Ship had used the feature. The other three had shown zero interest.
Because those three were, frankly, too low-purity.
King Halo pinched the bridge of her nose. She'd had her glasses on too long.
The deeper I dig, the more I despair — and at the same time, the more excitement I can't suppress. So this is why the Demon King fixates on you. I'm starting to understand the feeling. To reach the top, the obstacle sitting in that seat — you — is a challenge none of us can sidestep.
Mejiro McQueen...
She murmured her rival's name under her breath.
Beside her, a dark-haired girl looked up, puzzled. "Did she just say McQueen?"
Mejiro Dober — currently a reserve candidate at Tracen Academy.
Tracen Academy did accept reserve candidates, though very few. They hadn't appeared in the previous worlds because King Halo's sisters had all scorned exploiting such privileges. A certain slacker wouldn't have had the chance even if she'd wanted it. In this world, [Mejiro McQueen] and [Tokai Teio] were both reserves.
Once Special Week arrived at the academy, [Tokai Teio] would be drawn in by the race between Special Week and Silence Suzuka, and come out of hiding on her own. Then she'd team up with [Gold Ship] to kidnap [Mejiro McQueen], and the two reserves would end up joining the protagonist team.
But that was the anime's plot.
How this world would actually unfold, King Halo didn't know — because this world had two [protagonists]. Nishizaki Ryu from the anime and Trainer P from the game both existed here simultaneously. P hadn't inherited Team Sirius or Oguri Cap, but his protagonist's luck wasn't necessarily gone. The fact that he'd made it to Tracen Academy was already proof enough that he was still a protagonist.
On Nishizaki Ryu's side, he'd already assembled [Gold Ship], Daiwa Scarlet, and Vodka — the bickering trio. So he clearly had protagonist's luck too.
Which posed a question: in the anime, Special Week joined Team Spica. In the game, she joined Team Sirius. Where would this world's Special Week start her arc?
If it was game-route Special Week, her stats would run higher — game-route Special Week, after all, was the undefeated Grand General.
Still, either version, King Halo was confident she could beat her. This world no longer had her equals.
She'd felt pressure at first, sure — this world's tier was a step above Kitasan Black's world. But after six months of quiet accumulation, with less than half of McQueen's knowledge under her belt, King Halo was confident she was already untouchable here. Any protagonist could show up. It wouldn't matter.
King Halo caught Mejiro Dober's gaze and, as she stood up, turned and bowed politely to the girl. While studying Mejiro McQueen, she'd inevitably picked up some of McQueen's mannerisms — though she didn't need to worry about Dober spotting the connection. This world's [Mejiro McQueen] was the chubby, gap-moe version, not the real ojou-sama King Halo knew.
Mejiro Dober hastily returned the bow, but by the time she raised her head King Halo was already gone. She'd wanted to ask whether King Halo knew [McQueen] — a moment ago, King Halo's tone when she'd murmured that name hadn't sounded like she was talking about a friend.
That serious, solemn edge — it had sounded like someone reciting the name of a formidable rival. But Dober couldn't imagine how [McQueen] could have possibly offended King Halo. McQueen was still a reserve. There was no way she'd had the opportunity to cross a first-year like King Halo. Dober pulled out her phone.
Meanwhile, at a cake shop, a white-haired ojou-sama furtively enjoying her pastries saw the contact name flash on her screen and felt her heart lurch. Thank god it's just a text, not a call — otherwise I'd have to make up an excuse. Then again, it was just Dober. Easy enough to fob off.
Huh? Do I know King Halo?
[Mejiro McQueen] stared at the message, baffled. Impossible. She had absolutely no relationship with King Halo. Why was Dober asking such a weird question?
After a moment's thought she typed back: Acquainted, but not close.
Dober replied: Be careful. I don't know why, but she seems to have her eye on you. Did you offend her somehow?
[Mejiro McQueen] felt unjustly accused.
She hadn't even met King Halo — she'd only heard the name in passing. How could she possibly have offended her? If the setting weren't so public she'd have called Dober right then to press for details.
At that moment, a racing uma musume with a travel bag on her back sprinted past the window. [Mejiro McQueen] gaped. What is she thinking? Doesn't she know uma musume aren't allowed to run on pedestrian walkways?
The racer was gone in a blink.
A driver cruising down the nearby road watched the figure surge past his window and briefly questioned his life choices. His brand-new car couldn't outrun an uma musume?
Special Week blew past the car and kept charging toward Tokyo Racecourse. [Tokai Teio], walking to the same racecourse with a friend, spotted the blur and her eyes went wide. She'd never seen an uma musume sprint down a public sidewalk at that speed. Was the girl really not afraid of traffic police catching up?
As the racecourse came into view, Special Week's eyes widened to saucers. For a country girl like her, the place was overwhelming — food stalls everywhere, like a festival was in full swing. Amazing! So this is where the series races happen!
She couldn't help wandering off, lured immediately by the stalls. Country-born she might be, but her family wasn't poor — Special Week dove into serious snacking.
Her adoptive mother ran a farm. Not old-money by any measure, but the household was well off, and the adoptive mother had ties to Tracen Academy's leadership — enough ties to arrange a mid-term transfer into the academy for Special Week. That alone said her background wasn't ordinary.
When King Halo arrived at the racecourse and caught sight of Special Week stuffing her face at stall after stall, she smiled. King Stomach indeed. In every sister's memories, Special Week and Oguri Cap were basically interchangeable — every time anyone spotted them, they were eating.
Come to think of it, this should be Silence Suzuka's debut race. Let's see what this world's elite actually look like. In the Uma Musume canon, Silence Suzuka eventually rose to world-class stature, and the anime had shown her with overwhelming dominance. With this world's tier bumped up, Silence Suzuka might be genuinely strong.
If this world was running on the anime route, this would be peak Silence Suzuka — after her leg fracture in that timeline, she'd never quite returned to career-peak form. If it was the game route, she'd break that fate and successfully awaken her Domain.
King Halo's money was on the anime route. P seemed genuinely fixated on her and wasn't going around recruiting other uma musume, which meant the game route couldn't unfold.
Hm... maybe I can step in. It'd be a good chance to field-test my new abilities. King Halo fixed her gaze on Special Week — and numbers bloomed across her field of view.
1000, 800, 1000, 600, 600...
That was [Analysis Eyes] at work.
Apart from the final Wisdom figure, which wasn't quite reliable, she was ninety percent confident in the rest. Real variance wouldn't exceed 100.
Figured. This world's tier has hit some kind of ceiling. The next world's probably won't climb much further. Even untrained, the protagonist Special Week already has stats this high. King Halo estimated Special Week would graduate averaging S to SS across the board. Wisdom was the uncertain one — Wisdom didn't equal IQ, but raising it required accumulated scholarship.
Special Week's profile tagged her as a slow learner. Intuition did factor into Wisdom, though, so predicting peak-form Wisdom was guesswork. Wisdom tended to fluctuate anyway. Only cheat-tier players like her and her sisters could hold it stable.
Wisdom determined race IQ and skill proficiency. Higher Wisdom meant better in-race performance; too low, and performance swung wildly — even sky-high stats elsewhere couldn't save you from rookie mistakes that cost the win.
Special Week's Wisdom was definitely below passing — but that was normal. Her base stats were already strong, befitting a protagonist. Max out her Wisdom too and she wouldn't be a growth-arc protagonist anymore; she'd be an invincible one.
From what King Halo understood, most uma musume didn't have particularly high Wisdom — otherwise trainers would be out of a job. It was precisely because Wisdom ran low that uma musume needed trainers for coaching and race-day tactics.
Exceptions existed. Symboli Rudolf, Agness Tachyon — their Wisdom was definitely not low. High Wisdom didn't guarantee high intelligence in the broader sense, but the reverse held: high-intelligence uma musume always had high Wisdom.
She stepped into the racecourse and made for the stands.
Just as Special Week wandered in, King Halo spotted Silence Suzuka taking her position — lane eight today. Not a great draw, not a bad one either.
[Analysis Eyes] activated.
1100, 700, 1000, 900, 600...
The numbers jittered hard.
Silence Suzuka's Speed read 1100 at first, then at moments surged to the cap at 1200. Stamina started at 700 but dipped below at times. Power held fairly steady. Guts was ridiculous — it briefly dropped to zero, which was probably a glitch in her [Analysis Eyes].
She was still getting the hang of the new skill.
[Analysis Eyes] my foot. It's not a fraction as useful as the System. No wonder McQueen had stopped grinding the skill after picking it up — the practical value was limited.
For a trainer, it was a phenomenal ability. For an uma musume, it fell short of [Mind's Eye] and [Full-Field Perception]. Those two didn't give you exact stats, but they accurately read an opponent's overall strength — and could even anticipate the telltale signs of a rival entering burst mode.
[Analysis Eyes] couldn't do that.
But McQueen had used [Analysis Eyes] as the foundation for creating [Full-Field Perception]. King Halo wanted to try replicating the process. Kitasan Black's [Mind's Eye] was pure divine gift — no warning, no buildup, just sudden ignition. Trying to learn it left her with no handhold at all.
Same with Tokai Teio's [Second Brain] — pure talent. King Halo despised geniuses like them. Even their inherited experience was useless as reference. Compared to McQueen's notes, theirs was garbage eating up memory space.
Earlier, she had tried to digest the others' experience — but after seeing the contrast with McQueen, she finally understood McQueen's greatness. McQueen's abilities had traceable logic. From conception to execution, there was a complete, learnable thought process. Very friendly to anyone coming after. The others? Not so much.
Tokai Teio: "Huh? You have to learn it? Don't you just look at it once and get it? Why can't you do it?"
Rice Shower: "I don't really get it, but I can just fuse with it."
Kitasan Black: "Yeah, you just do this and that and it works. Can't do it? Stop thinking and let your instincts handle it."
King Halo had given up on learning from those three. Even unreliable-looking Demon King Ship was more useful than the lot of them combined.
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