Chapter 309: Only One Year Left—I’ll Become a Legendary Uma Musume! 2 [253]

When Flightline stepped onto the track, she was far flashier than Equinox had been.

In fact, this was also the first time Gotham Song had seen Flightline’s Racing Outfit.

Compared to Equinox’s, which carried a strong streak of Japanese folk styling and leaned somewhat shrine-maiden-like, Flightline’s looked unmistakably like a Western cowboy outfit.

All in all, Gotham Song could only give it one verdict:

It didn’t feel like Secretariat at all. It felt like Seabiscuit.

Which was honestly bizarre enough to be funny. Secretariat gave people the impression of an old-money aristocrat every single day—even if, once you got past the surface, she was a complete and utter lunatic brute.

In any case, just as expected, Flightline’s presentation drew a response from nearly everyone present.

The popularity voting for this race was even more one-sided than Equinox’s had been.

By comparison, Equinox’s opponents had at least managed to split off a few percent of the votes, but—Flightline’s opponents, put together, had only managed to scrape away one percent.

That was pretty outrageous.

Because that either meant Flightline’s rivals hadn’t managed to hold on to a single person outside their own friends and family—or there were traitors in some of those friends-and-family sections too!!!

Gotham Song didn’t think too deeply about it, though. She merely watched everything before her, watching Flightline reveal her edge to the entire world for the first time.

As the overwhelming favorite, Flightline stayed on the presentation stage for quite a long time, and that too was a distinctly American Umamusume custom.

When it came to the favorite, spectators always liked seeing her stay in front of them a little longer. So unlike in Japan, where most Umamusume stayed on the presentation stage for roughly the same amount of time regardless of popularity and the pre-race presentation itself was what got evaluated—

America was much more brutal about it.

You want popularity?

You want more attention?

You want to be more famous?

Then don’t stand around too long on the presentation stage. Go beat the stuffing out of the favorite on the track.

Yes. That was what the American racecourse atmosphere was like. For every Umamusume who wasn’t the favorite, it was basically understood that she shouldn’t linger on the presentation stage. Just go through the motions, then hand over the rest of the time to the favorite and let her show off as much as she pleased.

What a cruel, brutally realistic unwritten rule.

No wonder every Umamusume here pursued running strength with such pathological obsession.

In fact, across the whole world, America had always been the place where the idolization of Umamusume progressed the slowest.

The idolization of Umamusume was a fairly new idea in recent years to begin with. It was meant to give Umamusume a way to gain broader popularity beyond just racing, and to open up a whole new lane for them.

But in America, which had grown wild and untamed, there really wasn’t any soil for that sort of thing at all...

Come to think of it, did I forget to teach Flightline the Winning Live too...?

Eh, whatever. It probably doesn’t matter.

The Winning Live in America was even stranger anyway—sometimes it sat empty for ten days to half a month at a time.

With that thought, Gotham Song watched as Flightline stepped down from the presentation stage and entered the gates to wait for the race to begin.

"Oh my God, did you all see that? Miss Flightline wasn’t afraid of the gates at all! Even Miss Fighter and Miss Secretariat couldn’t manage that back in the day, could they?"

"Hey, what exactly are you trying to say with that? Still, it really is surprising that Miss Flightline showed no fear of the gates at all. In fact, there was a scene just like this yesterday in Japan during Miss Equinox’s race. It’s honestly hard to believe—are none of the Umamusume in Eternal Beat afraid of the gates?"

"This is no ordinary Umamusume!"

American race commentary, likewise, was much louder than Japan’s. At the very least, when it came to hyping up the crowd, it really was a lot stronger.

No ordinary Umamusume indeed.

An extraordinary one—with downright terrifying potential.

Hehe. What kind of reaction would she bring out? This really was exciting.

Gotham Song glanced at Fighter beside her, still seated there without saying a word, then fixed her attention on the gate lights as though she herself were the one about to break from the gates.

Red.

Red.

And then, at last—

Green!

The instant the gates flew open, a lithe figure burst out first in a sudden flash.

But—what threw the entire audience into an uproar was that the first one out wasn’t Flightline at all, but the second favorite in the race.

Flightline, meanwhile, broke second, almost as if she really had missed the start, then stuck herself right behind the leader, like she was waiting for a chance to chase her down and break through.

"What a surprise! Miss Flightline actually came out second from the gates, and the Umamusume in front is suppressing her hard—does she have no way to break through at all?"

"We have every reason to suspect Miss Flightline was caught off guard at the break, after all she’s in gate nine!"

Gate nine. The far outside.

For an Umamusume using the Runaway tactic, that was just about the most awkward post imaginable. On one hand, there was the stamina issue. On the other, even after the break it was hard to seize a good inside position. For both reasons, if a Runaway-type Umamusume drew the far outside gate, her chances of winning usually dropped sharply.

So the commentators saying that was perfectly reasonable.

After all, Flightline was from Eternal Beat.

After all, she was the junior of the legendary Umamusume Gotham Song.

After all—even before her debut, before her identity had ever been made public, she was already a famous speed legend in the small circles of American Umamusume.

So if people turned around and deliberately targeted her Runaway style, well, that did make sense.

Gotham Song didn’t laugh.

She held it in with all her strength.

Yes. For a Runaway-type Umamusume, the far outside really was a nearly unignorable disadvantage.

But that only held if—the Umamusume running out there really was a Runaway-type Umamusume.

While the whole crowd thought Flightline was at a disadvantage, only the second favorite currently running in first truly knew what the situation was.

What advantage did she have?

Or rather, just maintaining this lead already took everything she had.

The truth was, there wasn’t actually any true Runaway-type Umamusume in this race.

And yet, at this very moment, there absolutely was one Umamusume running as though in a runaway.

The problem was that the one setting the pace was actually a Front Runner—not a Runaway-type Umamusume at all.

And the difference between a Front Runner and a Runaway tactic was enormous. It was about as vast as the gap between Gotham Song and Equinox.

A Front Runner only aimed to maintain her advantage by setting the pace. She was never meant to stay out in front all the way to the end and win like that.

The leader had already become keenly aware of one thing:

if she kept setting the pace like this—if she kept running like this—her stamina absolutely would not hold. She would run herself dry and have nothing left.

So what was the real reason she was pushing herself so desperately, unable to relax for even a second?

It was that Flightline behind her—the one everyone in the crowd thought was the one at a disadvantage...!

Only when you were really running in front of that monster could you understand just how terrifying the pressure was, how violent the gusting roar carried forward by the air she shoved toward you truly felt.

If she catches me, she might really tear me to pieces.

The thought arose in her mind all on its own, and instinctively drove her legs to their very limit, trying to throw Flightline as far behind as possible.

At this point, she wasn’t just running to win.

She was running to survive.

But it was futile.

Or rather, the leader had realized something.

Miss Flightline... didn’t seem to be in any hurry to catch up at all.

No matter how fast she herself ran, Flightline remained steadily fixed in the same position, glued right there, maintaining the chase at the exact same distance the whole way...?

Could it be... was Flightline doing this on purpose?

"Miss Flightline still doesn’t look like she’s managed to break through! She’s still being firmly pinned in place by the pace-setting Umamusume in front of her! Terrifying! Could this race really be headed for an upset of this magnitude? Could someone actually keep Flightline behind her for the whole race?!"

Upset my ass, you sand-brained idiot. Are these commentators insane? Do they not have functioning brains?!

The leader realized something horrifying once she thought it through.

Did Flightline really want to run a Runaway tactic?

Had she really missed the break?

As the one being chased, her thinking naturally came more from the perspective of what was happening on the track. More than that, she could sense things the commentators couldn’t—something much more real. And in the few breaths before the strain of being pursued was about to wear her down, she finally understood everything.

Had Flightline’s slow break really been some transcendent accident?

If it had—if Flightline had truly intended to run a Runaway race from the start—then why, at this supposed disadvantage, was she showing absolutely no attempt to break through?

Breaking through meant exactly that: forcing your way out from behind, breaking past the blockade of the Umamusume ahead, surging to the front, and taking off.

Normally, in this kind of situation, if Flightline really wanted to run away from the field, then she should have broken out. Even from the far outside, she should have forced her way forward and continued carrying out her tactical plan.

That was the biggest question mark in this entire race. Without question.

The leader hadn’t felt even the slightest attempt from Flightline to break through.

Flightline just clung behind her without urgency, as calmly as if this were the most ordinary thing in the world, matching however much she accelerated with exactly the same amount.

If that was what a Runaway-type Umamusume was supposed to do, then the leader had only one response to that:

If that’s true, I’ll eat Miss Song’s fingers and thighs...!

Flightline wasn’t a Runaway-type Umamusume at all.

At least, in this race, there was no way she was.

Her style here was—to stick to the pace-setter, drive her to the limit, and then, either in the final stretch or the moment the leader ran out of stamina and slowed down, surge clean past her.

It was a Late Surger running up on a Front Runner...!

The moment she realized that, the leader knew she had already lost any right to fight for victory.

If things had started normally—if she hadn’t already been driven this far into the ground by the pressure of being chased—then even if she lost the advantage of setting the pace, as long as she conserved stamina, it wasn’t impossible that she could still summon one last burst at the end and maybe pull out the win.

But that was only in theory.

Obviously, the her right now had no spare strength left to keep accelerating. And especially now, when they were just about to enter the turn, the four hundred meters of curve ahead and the six hundred meters of long straight after that were a distance of pure despair for an Umamusume with no stamina left to fight.

Of course, that didn’t mean she wanted to give up.

She was still hanging on.

Still struggling.

A dying, gasping struggle.

A struggle that was, for all intents and purposes, utterly futile...

And then she heard the savage grin behind her.

Her body was so exhausted that she could barely focus anymore, but at some point Flightline had already come right up behind her. The distance between them now was close enough to be called breathing down her neck.

And from that breathlessly close range, Flightline’s feral grin came through without the slightest restraint.

All right. That’s enough distance. This is as far as your lead goes. From here on... this track is my time.

Get out of the way, former prey. I’ve toyed with you until you’re not even fit to be hunted anymore.

It happened in only an instant.

Or rather, the very instant Flightline started moving.

At the precise moment they entered the turn, the entire complexion of the race changed.

Flightline, who had been in second, suddenly blasted forward, throwing the pace-setter behind her. Her speed was violent—so violent that for one moment it almost felt as if the entire racecourse had frozen.

With sheer, overwhelming strength, Flightline snatched back all the supporters who had, moments ago, been cheering for someone else even though they had originally been hers.

And then, as if she meant to kill the race outright, Flightline surged harder and harder, fully unleashing the beast within her and announcing, on the stage of her debut race, that her era had arrived.

Dirt flew everywhere.

Countless grains of sand were kicked up effortlessly with every stride.

But even more eye-catching than that spectacular spray was Flightline herself, in a posture so overwhelming it was almost incomparable.

As for her opponents?

Forget catching her—getting anywhere near her had become an impossible dream. The Umamusume who had been setting the pace earlier was already so exhausted she barely had the strength to keep running at all. All that kept her from abandoning the race outright was pure grit.

There was no question about it.

Flightline was, through and through, a monster—the kind that could shake this era itself.

"Oh my God, so this is Miss Flightline’s true strength? Then everything before was just a smokescreen? What incredible speed! Flightline has already surged into the lead, and in front of her—"

"There isn’t a single opponent left at all!!!"

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T/N: heres ur updates :3 meeting the 4 chaps a week quota :3

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