The Saint's Corpse can bestow blessings upon those it acknowledges, granting them a power called "happiness."
That's right.
Not luck.
Happiness.
Luck is the means that leads to happiness; happiness is the final result people ultimately desire.
Funny Valentine, standing within the cracks of the wall of light, stood right in the middle of this happiness.
The earth, mountains, lakes, seas, and forests all gathered toward him, like the most loyal of children.
Anything unfavorable to him simply could not come close.
As long as Funny Valentine hid within the cracks of the wall of light, every attack meant to harm him would be thrown far away, and somewhere in the world, a random "lucky" spectator would be selected to die on the spot.
Even though he couldn't understand why Diego now called himself Ryosuke, how the two people in front of him had come back from the dead, or how they had mastered the power of rotation, still…
"I don't care."
Funny Valentine withdrew the hand that had been struck by the stone ball earlier. Another flash of light appeared, randomly transferring the injury on his hand elsewhere.
At a factory thousands of kilometers away, a worker was accidentally pulled into a machine and died.
"Diego..."
"It's Ryosuke."
"Fine, Ryosuke."
Funny Valentine's gaze was calm and arrogant.
"Humans are born equal, except for me, who stands within absolute happiness. Some people are born to be leaders, and some are born to be commoners."
"Limited resources and limited happiness should be held in the hands of leaders, in the hands of the talented. Only then can they be used to their fullest, allowing the nation to be peaceful and stable."
"Stand down, Ryosuke."
"This is the last chance I will give you."
"I have already shown you power. If you dare take another step forward, I will deem you to be 'trial sacrifices' on the path to a new world."
Johnny stared blankly at Funny Valentine, shrouded in the golden light curtain.
President, acknowledgment by the Saint's Corpse, the protection of happiness… all of it converged around him. That sense of powerlessness, crushed by fate, wrapped around Johnny once again.
Because the president acknowledged by the Saint's Corpse was justice, while they, instead, became the evil ones.
'Can we really defeat an opponent like this?' Johnny whispered in his heart.
If there truly is a god in this world, please tell me the answer, the god did not answer Johnny.
What answered him was a thrown stone ball.
The stone ball brushed past Funny Valentine's ear and slammed heavily into the rapidly spinning wheels of the speeding train.
With a thunderous crash, the rotational force contained in the stone ball erupted. The wheels let out a shrill, piercing screech, and the train violently derailed. The carriages collided with each other and rolled across the ground.
At the same time, Ryosuke leapt down from behind Hot Pants, grabbed her tail with both hands, and swung hard.
With a dinosaur's dynamic vision, in the instant the train derailed and overturned, Ryosuke and Hot Pants saw... like eggs tossed out of a frying pan, Steel and Lucy were flung into the air as the train rolled.
"Go!"
Ryosuke unleashed all of his strength. Ripple lightning burst from his entire body as he swung with all his might.
A pink dinosaur shot past everyone like an arrow released from a bow.
By the time Funny Valentine reacted, Hot Pants had already smashed through a carriage, snatched Lucy up in her jaws, then charged into another carriage and wrapped her tail around the dying Steel.
The wall of light allowed D4C to evolve into Love Train, granting Funny Valentine happiness within the wall.
However, that was the limit of it.
His strength, speed, and reaction ability had not increased by much.
D4C's stats were Power, Speed, Durability, and Precision, all A.
Perhaps because of Valentine's overly cautious personality, his actual combat performance was even worse than Scary Monsters, which had only B-rank power and speed.
So it wasn't until Hot Pants, swaying her huge pink butt, burst back out through a window with Lucy and Steel, that Funny Valentine finally reacted.
"Damn it!"
For the first time, President Valentine's composure vanished.
His body uncontrollably retreated backward.
He was protected by the wall of light, and naturally, he was also constrained by it.
All the light was emitted outward with Lucy as the center. As Lucy moved farther away, Funny Valentine was forced to move in the corresponding direction as well.
The greater the distance between Valentine and Lucy, the weaker the corresponding protection of the wall of light. Perhaps if the distance became great enough, the Saint's blessing would disappear entirely.
Naturally, Funny Valentine had no desire to test that theory. He chased after them along the wall of light at a speed no slower than Hot Pants'.
He could not allow his "goddess" to be taken by anyone.
"Don't space out! Chase!"
Ryosuke shouted, activating Scary Monsters and entering a half-dinosaur form, mainly so his hands could still throw stone balls. Ripple energy surged through his entire body as he took the lead in pursuit.
Gyro and Johnny, who had been completely dumbfounded since Ryosuke's appearance, finally snapped back to their senses.
'What in the world was all this?!'
'A chivalrous, brave Diego who could use the Golden Spin.'
'An arrogant Hot Pants who had turned into a dinosaur.'
'Could it really not be the Saint's Corpse making them hallucinate?'
The two exchanged a glance.
Since the start of the SBR race, they had encountered far too many bewildering enemies. Right now, the best course of action was, put aside all unnecessary thoughts, chase them down first, kill Funny Valentine, and talk about everything else afterward.
"Chase!"
Both were top-tier riders. Urging their horses into a sprint, they quickly caught up to Ryosuke.
"Diego, Ryosuke!"
Gyro shouted. "What's your plan?!"
Gyro Zeppeli came from a family of executioners. He had seen countless people, nobles, criminals, generals, foot soldiers. In Ryosuke's eyes, he saw a kind of power that was hard to put into words.
That power… Gyro felt it was extremely familiar. In his urgency, he couldn't recall it right away, but instinctively, he felt that this man who called himself Ryosuke was someone he could trust without reservation.
Ryosuke pointed at Funny Valentine's retreating back.
"The protective effect of the wall of light weakens with distance."
Gyro reacted immediately. "You mean, this is our best window to attack?"
Ryosuke shook his head slightly and stared at Gyro.
"Not us. You."
Across the infinite parallel universes, only Funny Valentine and Big Bunny D4C could freely travel.
But besides them, there was still one other "thing" that traveled along with them, gravity.
Without the restraint of gravity, a flesh-and-blood Funny Valentine would collapse during spacetime travel and cease to exist.
"…As long as we can use 'gravity' as a weapon, we can break through that wall of light."
Ryosuke looked at Gyro.
"In other words, the Cavalry Spin."
This was Ryosuke's plan.
To complete this trial, there were two ways.
First, learn Lesson 5: the Cavalry Spin.
How to learn it?
With Ryosuke's level of insight into the Golden Spin, there was no way he could just figure it out on his own in the middle of a fight with Valentine and break through on the spot.
He would definitely have to learn from Gyro.
This was the kind of thing you couldn't learn just by reading the manga. Ryosuke needed to use a dinosaur's dynamic vision to carefully observe Gyro's every movement, then imitate and replicate it.
Once he learned it, he'd blow the president away in one hit.
But here came the problem.
What if… he still couldn't learn it?
Then came the second, more underhanded, skipping-the-homework method.
Ryosuke and Hot Pants would focus entirely on support. As long as they kept Gyro and Johnny alive, they could treat the two of them as Cavalry Spin launchers.
Anyway, as long as the trial was ultimately cleared, Ryosuke could, with the system's help, advance to Lesson 5.
Right now, Ryosuke was going to pursue both paths at once.
While Gyro attacked, Ryosuke would simultaneously learn the technique.
"I understand."
Gyro wasn't the type to dawdle. Besides, even if Ryosuke hadn't mentioned it, the Cavalry Spin was his final, and only, trump card.
Of course he had to give it a try.
He lowered his body slightly. As the horse ran, it gradually became light and fluid, until at a certain moment, the horse's posture also matched the Golden Rectangle.
"Now!"
A steel ball shot out from Gyro's hand.
Because it was his first time using the Cavalry Spin, the rotation of the steel ball wasn't perfectly flawless. It veered slightly off course and brushed past President Funny Valentine's hairline.
Taking a few strands of hair with it.
It worked.
Even if it was only a few hairs, Gyro had indeed hit him.
"So this is what the 'Cavalry Spin' is."
Gyro asked, "Did you understand it?"
Johnny thought for a moment, then nodded slightly.
"I think I more or less get it."
After that, the two of them looked together at Ryosuke.