Uma Musume: Slacking Professionally

Chapter 261 261: Uma Musume: Slacking Professionally [261]

To this day, aside from the three people directly involved, no one knows what Daiwa Scarlet saw in Agnes Tachyon's lab that day.

Never mind outsiders—even Vodka, the fourth person in the room at the time, had only just come back to her senses and started to lift her head when Daiwa Scarlet clapped a hand over her eyes. She pressed down so hard that, for one brief moment, Vodka wondered if Scarlet was trying to gouge them out.

All she knew was that the next day, Agnes Tachyon failed to appear at the training grounds as scheduled. According to the others on Kitahara's team, she had taken sick leave. Apparently her leg had cramped up, and her throat seemed swollen too.

After that, time began to move on.

But unlike before, Kitahara's life was no longer quite so peaceful as it passed.

One reason, of course, was what had happened on Valentine's night, and on the day that followed.

Deep down, he still found the whole thing a little hard to accept. But since it had already happened, Kitahara had no intention of running from it.

A few days after he and Agnes Tachyon had, in every sense, completed their "exchange," he still could not quite put his mind at ease. He went to find Agnes Digital and Neicha, brought them to Agnes Tachyon's lab, explained the situation honestly, and gave each of them a full physical examination.

As for the results, there was naturally no danger whatsoever. If anything, far from being harmful, after everything that had happened, all their various stats had improved to differing degrees. Whether in daily training or everyday life, they were performing even better than before.

Hm? You're asking what was going on with Agnes Tachyon?

All one could say was that she was far too competitive. In order to get one over on Kitahara, she had pushed things a little too far and ended up wrecking herself for an entire day.

Incidentally, the reason Kitahara had agreed to conduct "research" with Agnes Tachyon at the time was not because of her threats.

It was because afterward, she spent quite a while acting spoiled with him, even deliberately putting on a pitiful act and asking things like, "Am I not good enough?" and "So you really don't like me after all?" Only then did Kitahara finally nod—though of course, she would absolutely never admit to any of that.

Back to the point. In truth, regarding the condition of the Umamusume who had been intimate with him, Kitahara could more or less tell just by observing them, and he had also received confirmation from the system. He had only come to check again out of an abundance of caution.

Once the examinations were complete, and all three layers of assurance confirmed there was no danger, he let out a breath of relief. After all, this was what he was most worried about now.

Only, before he could finish letting that breath out, three gazes converged on him after the examinations ended. Kitahara raised an eyebrow, and an ominous feeling suddenly rose in his chest.

And very soon, with the quiet sound of Eclipse locking the door behind him, that ominous feeling became reality.

"Guinea Pig-kun, there's always a high chance of coincidence in a single experiment. To ensure the accuracy of the data, I'll have to trouble you to work a little harder..."

Faced with Agnes Tachyon closing in on him, Kitahara failed to stop her. So he turned his gaze toward Neicha and Agnes Digital beside him, trying to get these two good girls to help him out.

Unfortunately, he had miscalculated one thing.

When it came to anything else, Agnes Digital and Neicha would gladly go through fire and water for him. But when it came to this...

"Mm. If there isn't enough experimental data, the research will be hard to continue..."

Agnes Digital turned her head away.

"I mean, I really do want to speak up for you, but scientific research really should be handled carefully, right...?"

Neicha guiltily averted her eyes.

Eclipse said nothing. After silently locking the door, she walked over to Kitahara and pressed him down onto the bed.

After that, "physical examinations" became a regular program. In order to ensure the Umamusume's physical safety, the frequency was temporarily set at once or twice a week—at least, that was what they claimed on the surface.

Aside from the now-regular "physical examinations," however, several other matters gave Kitahara quite a headache.

For example, the investigation into Karai Risa.

After leaving Agnes Tachyon's lab, Kitahara contacted Kamisato Daisuke directly. Using the connections he had built up at the URA through various circumstances, he very easily obtained the investigation results for missing Umamusume cases over the past few years. His expression gradually turned subtle.

[Kamisato Daisuke]: No need for case files or anything. I can just tell you the answer.

[Kamisato Daisuke]: In the past ten years, the worldwide disappearance rate for Umamusume has been zero.

[Kamisato Daisuke]: If you insist on counting something, there have been a few dozen attempted missing-Umamusume cases. But I believe you should be more familiar with those than I am, since you were basically present for all of them, weren't you?

No Umamusume had gone missing? Then where had Karai Risa's "experimental materials" come from?

After the investigation from the angle of disappearances turned up nothing, Kitahara thought for a while, then went to Chairwoman Akikawa and asked her for all available information on Karai Risa.

He knew that behavior might be noticed by her, but he was not worried. If someone else did it, she might suspect they were investigating her. But if he did it, he had the perfect excuse.

"I recently noticed that Trainer Karai seems quite capable. Maybe she could come help out on my team?"

That was right. Karai Risa had never stopped applying to join Kitahara's team, and as the team's head Trainer, wasn't it perfectly normal for him to investigate a new member before letting her join?

And not just within the academy. Kitahara also used Rudolf's channels to have the Symboli family look into her as well. But the more they investigated, the more confusing the results became.

According to the information from Chairwoman Akikawa and the Symboli family, Karai Risa's schedule had been extremely fixed and transparent—not just after coming to Tracen, but even back when she was at the Umamusume Research Institute.

Basically, she spent Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays holed up in the lab; Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Saturdays analyzing data and writing papers; and Sundays either resting in her dorm or going out to travel and relax. She had never had contact with any suspicious individuals, and she had rarely even left the area around the Umamusume Research Institute.

As for the Umamusume Research Institute itself, because there had been plenty of past cases where researchers nearly got themselves killed in curiosity-driven studies, they kept extremely strict control over all experimental equipment and personnel. Forget human-subject experiments—even the number of ordinary lab mice used in experiments had to be reported, and the slightest discrepancy would trigger an alert.

Outside the institute, Karai Risa had indeed worked on a few projects, but they were basically all public-interest projects, offering free research and treatment assistance to Umamusume and humans suffering from incurable diseases.

That did sound like it might have given her a chance to conduct experiments. The problem was that those treatments had been handled jointly by several researchers, with full records and video from start to finish. There was no room for falsification at all.

No one missing. No live subjects. A regular lifestyle. Even the very few times she went out had records and backups. No matter how one looked at it, everything seemed perfectly normal...

But then where had the experiment logs and data on her computer come from?

Looking at all the feedback in his hands, Kitahara sank into thought.

However, while the investigation into Karai Risa had reached an impasse, Kitahara had made progress in other areas instead.

For example, the group mentioned earlier—the one that had begun rising at the start of the year, had now reached a certain scale, and specialized in opposing him.

Nearly a month had passed since Valentine's Day. Just as he had expected, the voices smearing and attacking him had grown louder and louder. Both their influence and their degree of organization had climbed another level.

And, just as he had anticipated, once these people's influence reached a certain point, they did indeed discover the existence of "GraspVictory." Before long, they made contact.

Kitahara naturally did not refuse them. He even took the opportunity to release a wave of "information" that was half true and half false, and which fit their views. Using that as a foundation, he spent some more time and successfully worked his way into the center of the organization opposing him, becoming a core member.

Once he had become a core member, Kitahara's grasp of those people's information naturally became much clearer. Without much effort, he figured out the identities of the vast majority of the members inside.

Unfortunately, the Black Market remained as cautious as ever and showed no openings.

Although Kitahara had already grasped the identities of most of the members, he still could not determine which of them were the Black Market members manipulating things from behind the scenes.

In fact, Kitahara suspected that, given the Black Market's usual secrecy, there might not be a single Black Market member among the group he had identified. They might all be concentrated among those whose identities he had yet to uncover.

But that was fine.

Based on Kitahara's observations, this campaign to smear him would not end anytime soon, and its ultimate purpose was definitely not simply to attack him. He still had plenty of time and plenty of opportunities to cross swords with those people.

Moreover, in this contest, he was the side with the absolute advantage. No matter how many mistakes he made, even if he failed to uncover these people's identities in the end, he would not suffer any loss. At worst, things would simply remain as they were.

But for the members of the Black Market, even a single mistake would bring the game directly to an end.

Still, although Kitahara was not worried about his contest with the Black Market members, another Black Market-related matter truly did give him a headache.

"What are these people even thinking...?"

Looking at the photos of Eclipse in those reports, Kitahara sighed.

He had long expected that, in order to attack him, these people might dig up old accounts. But which little bastard had dug up Eclipse's old racing history?

And digging it up was one thing. These people had somehow decided that he was the one who had ruined Eclipse, claiming that his inhumane training had caused her injuries, leaving her unable to race to this day. They had even made it a major point of attack against him...

He personally did not mind that kind of thing. But based on his understanding of Eclipse, if she found out she had become a weapon for others to use against him, she would most likely get angry.

The problem was that the best way to resolve such rumors would be for her to enter a race and directly display her strength. But Eclipse had absolutely no desire to race. No matter which path he chose, Eclipse would probably be unhappy.

So, after thinking it over, Kitahara decided he simply would not tell her about it. Maintaining the current situation meant there would be no real impact on his side, while she could keep her current good mood. One could call it a win-win.

Aside from all these troubles, there was also the sports car customization on Maruzensky's side, the ominous feeling that the two old women seemed to be mysteriously plotting something again, and the increasingly delicate atmosphere within the team...

Propelled along by all manner of messy affairs, time arrived in early March.

And with it, the day of Tokai Teio's Yayoi Sho.

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