A few days later.
At Tokai Teio's invitation, everyone gathered in the system space for a meal.
Even someone as serious as King Halo had relaxed today. She stared at the sparkling water in front of her, which looked suspiciously like beer, and wondered if Kitasan Black had mixed real alcohol into it.
Otherwise, why did she feel slightly drunk?
Mejiro McQueen sat at the head of the table. Even now, she maintained the elegance of a noble family, as if those habits had already been carved into her bones. Even when she was relaxing, she still looked oddly stern. In truth, however, one only had to look at her wavering eyes to know that she was restraining her body's instincts, terrified that she might turn into Chubby McQueen.
Rice Shower and Kitasan Black were competing to see who could eat more.
Demon King Gold Ship was acting as the judge.
Tokai Teio's face was covered in sweat.
Please, think about her position as the chef.
This kind of delicate cuisine was not made for you to hold an eating contest. Still, even though she felt exhausted just watching them, she smiled when she saw the happiness all over Kitasan Black's face.
Everything was so lively.
Everything was so close.
But no one knew that there was someone else present, someone who was there, yet went unnoticed by everyone.
That someone was the Overlord, Rice Shower's second personality.
Though she was called a second personality, the Overlord possessed an independent self. She could even manifest as a spirit.
And in the worldview of umamusume, that was less like a second personality and more like a ghost.
But this had become routine.
The Overlord was already used to being ignored by them.
In everyone's eyes, she was Rice Shower, and Rice Shower was her. Even Rice Shower herself thought so.
Only the Overlord knew the difference between them.
She did not come out to interfere with the meal.
She simply stayed alone inside the mental space.
Within that dim mental space, the Overlord flipped through all the memories of the past. She watched Rice Shower grow step by step, becoming a hero who could bring dreams to people. She was happy for her, but at the same time, an unspeakable darkness hid within her heart.
Unlike Rice Shower, who thought of racing as something joyful, the Overlord's view was not so naive. To her, racing was war, and in that war, only the victor had the right to survive.
Now, watching Rice Shower lose again and again to McQueen and the others, she felt uncomfortable. It should not have been this way. If Rice Shower could accept her with her whole heart, then there was no way Rice Shower would lose to anyone. The Overlord was confident that the power she possessed was the strongest power of all, and that its essence was the symbol of invincibility.
Outside, Rice Shower and everyone else were still enjoying their family meal.
And within this deep mental space, the Overlord finished reading through every record of Rice Shower's past races.
The [Fusion] Rice Shower understood and the [Fusion] the Overlord understood were not the same thing at all. The essence of this power was evil.
Destroy everything. Devour everything. Use the world itself as food.
This was a power born to make her into a true Overlord, a power even more extreme than the one wielded by that Demon King.
But now...
Rice Shower had never truly faced that malice.
No.
Perhaps it was not that Rice Shower was afraid to face it.
Perhaps everyone had been wrong from the very beginning.
Perhaps this power had never belonged to Rice Shower in the first place. Perhaps it existed because of the Overlord. Rice Shower could only use it because the two of them shared the same body.
But if that was the case...
Then what am I?
The Overlord stared blankly at the spiral staircase that had suddenly appeared. It was a road leading even deeper, and an invitation from the abyss.
The sudden appearance of something like this inside a mental space was strange, but the Overlord realized at once that the answer she wanted might lie within. Besides, she was not afraid of an accident.
As the Overlord walked onto that staircase, outside, in the corner of the system space, a computer turned itself on. A notification window flashed across the screen, but no one noticed it.
The pop-up displayed a single line:
[New character "Rice Shower (?)" detected logging in.]
At the very bottom of the passage was a door.
The door was open, and beyond it lay a darkness that could not be seen through.
The Overlord did not hesitate. She stepped straight inside.
The moment she entered the door, her vision vanished. When she came back to herself, she was standing on an unfamiliar street. Everything felt almost fake.
"This is?"
The Overlord examined her surroundings in surprise.
This should have been somewhere in Japan.
But she had no memory of Rice Shower ever visiting this place.
In other words, the transfer location was random.
But...
Had she actually come to the real world in person?
Not as a spirit. Not by controlling Rice Shower's body. She had entered the real world as a physical being.
This was a rather novel experience.
A gust of wind blew past. The winter night wind carried a chill that made the Overlord feel faintly uncomfortable. She looked down at her own hands. Her five senses were clearly present, and the feeling was so vivid that she could even hear her own heartbeat. This was not Rice Shower's body, but an initialized umamusume body that resembled hers.
Though this body was still weak, almost like a newborn infant, this feeling was what it meant to truly be alive. She had never imagined that she, who had existed as a ghost and a second personality, would one day regain life.
Under the night street, a black-haired girl who resembled Rice Shower but was not the same stood beneath the moonlight. Her golden eyes shone with a noble gleam, like a volcano that would never cease erupting. The tail behind the folds of her clothes swayed lightly. Though she possessed the traits of an umamusume, the aura of this girl was closer to that of some far more terrifying creature.
Perhaps her own existence, and Rice Shower's special nature, had been the key all along. Their dual-personality condition had always been abnormal, and that was before even mentioning the fact that she, the supposed second personality, had possessed a ZONE like [Fusion] from the moment she was born.
Perhaps... there had never been such a thing as a second personality.
The Overlord, now free, had no intention of returning.
She planned to do what she had always wanted to do but could never accomplish before. She would debut as an umamusume under an identity that belonged only to her. When she judged the time to be right, she would appear before Rice Shower once more in this new form.
And now...
"I don't know where this is."
But she would begin ruling the world from here.
...
World No. 0.
At a regional race somewhere.
The regional umamusume were running in another race today.
Unlike umamusume from Central, regional umamusume did not have sufficiently professional training grounds or equipment. For small local Tracen Academies, simply managing to maintain the training track was already a difficult achievement. As a result, the only chance regional umamusume had to grow stronger was to train through actual races. That was why so many regional runners were battle-hardened veterans.
This was not because they wanted to race endlessly, nor because their Trainers did not know that they were, in truth, overdrawing the potential of those children.
They simply had no choice.
Aside from race venues, they had no suitable tracks for training. They could only practice while racing.
However, another major reason this situation was so common was that this was the original world, the world with the lowest world level. Both advanced technology and willpower-driven power were barren fields here.
Even though the previous dimensional tournament had catalyzed the pace of development a little, the broader environment had not changed much.
After all, during that earlier event, they had been eliminated immediately after participating in the first race. Since they failed to keep their participant status, they could not even use the training-ground or shop functions, much less grow stronger smoothly through the event.
The race currently underway was a 2000-meter turf race.
The runner in the lead was a red-haired umamusume.
The race had already begun.
The runners had passed through the opening section and entered the first corner. At that moment, a pitch-black figure suddenly appeared inside the starting gate. The nearby staff member's eyes went wide.
"Hey, little miss over there, get down!"
They had been about to put the gates away.
But the pitch-black figure did not answer. She simply took a starting stance inside the gate. The next instant, with an explosive crack of air, that figure chased after the runners on the track. It was an unexpected incident, but under the circumstances there was no way to stop her. Under instructions, the commentator could only force himself to keep calling the race. Hearing his words, the umamusume in the race also learned that an intruder had appeared.
"A mysterious umamusume has intruded into this race. Although her identity is currently unknown, the Association has permitted her intrusion. However, runner, please be aware: your race record will not count. After the race ends, remain where you are and accept a proper scolding!"
"Seriously? A mysterious intruder?"
"Wow, what a reckless runner."
"Now this is getting interesting."
"Hah. Entering this late? Interesting. You must be pretty confident in your strength. Let's see what you've got."
The race continued.
The commentator shouted, "Currently in the lead is number 8, who is running as a front-running Runner. Following her are numbers 11 and 9, then number 4... The mysterious intruder is lagging far behind. I don't know what she's thinking, but she is behind by an entire section of track. There is no hope left. Perhaps she only wanted a participation prize? Unfortunately for her, reckless behavior does not earn consolation prizes."
The mysterious runner did not seem to hear the commentator. She simply ran with her head down. From what could be seen, her strength was at the level of a pre-debut newcomer. Converted into a stat panel, her average would probably only be around 200. The umamusume in this race, meanwhile, all had average stats between 500 and 600. This was, after all, a high-level regional race, not some tiny race no one cared about.
"The race has reached the 1000-meter mark. All runners are beginning to prepare. We can see that number 8, who was leading before, has been marked by her opponents. This is dangerous. She used too much stamina earlier on the course, and her breathing is unstable!"
"At the third corner, the overtakes begin! What a shame, number 8 has been pushed down. She has no hope of turning this around now. Number 11 is leading, but number 9 is following on the left. Number 4 has a clean path ahead. Will she charge out here? As expected, number 4 wants to complete the overtake here, but number 11 is still sprinting with all her strength. They are entering the final corner. Will it be number 4 or number 11? Huh! Wait, something is happening behind them. This is..."
The commentator stood up from his seat in shock.
The pitch-black figure was now wreathed in black waves of aura. He had seen that form before in the dimensional tournament. It was the secret art mastered only by high-level umamusume: ZONE!
As far as he knew, in their world, only a small number of nationally first-rate professional runners had mastered that power.
"This is absolutely astonishing!"
"The mysterious runner has caught up despite being an entire section of track behind, and she has even mastered the power of a domain!"
Hearing the commentator's words, the umamusume ahead were stunned.
What?
A runner who had mastered ZONE had appeared in a regional race?
Was today April Fools' Day?
"Ugh!"
One runner after another suddenly felt their whole body lose strength, as if their power were being drained away. In that instant, the sound of footsteps from behind caught up to them like a death-seeking ghost.
[Fusion!]
If a stat panel could be seen right now, one would probably see the mysterious runner's stats rise from a little over 200 to 500 in a single instant, and that number was still climbing. It was only because the grade of these "materials" was too low that they could not support her breaking higher. After all, real-world stats were not just a string of numbers like in a game. The higher one climbed, the harder each step became.
If she wanted to break from 500 to 600, devouring runners of this level would probably require dozens of them.
But if she devoured a stronger existence, as she had done just now, then one would be enough.
The pitch-black figure was like a gust of wind.
Accompanied by phantom blue roses scattering through the air, she crushed the leading opponents in an instant. Abyssal darkness devoured everything. Under the dazed gaze of the entire venue, that figure crossed the finish line.
Then, like a ghost, she rushed out of the race venue and quickly vanished. The security personnel outside could not hold her at all.
Before this runner appeared, the Association had never imagined that such an abnormal competitor would exist. She had not come for the race, but for the runners themselves. After the race ended, many runners were sent to the hospital. Their physical health showed no serious issues, but many of them seemed to have suffered a significant drop in physical ability.
...
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