The bells rang out, heralding the arrival of the new year.
By Sakuraba Ryo's side, White Narubi and Oguri Cap were already peacefully asleep.
They had said they wanted to stay up with him and ring in the new year, but for people with a normal sleep schedule, midnight was simply too late.
Watching their sleeping faces, Sakuraba Ryo started to feel drowsy himself.
And just then, the Loss System stirred.
[DETECTED: HOST ACCUMULATED LOSSES TOTALING 2 BILLION YEN IN THE PREVIOUS YEAR. A SPECIAL REWARD WILL BE ISSUED.]
[CLAIM NOW?]
"A special reward?"
This damn Loss System hands out special rewards too?
Sakuraba Ryo was instantly wide awake.
Come to think of it, he had spent the entire year diligently losing money. In the business of losing money, he was basically a top salesman.
If this were any other company, his year-end bonus would have been enormous.
So getting a little something from the System was not exactly unacceptable.
He might as well see what it was giving him.
"Claim."
[SYSTEM REWARD ISSUED.]
[HOST HAS OBTAINED TRAIT: INNATE PHYSIQUE.]
[HOST HAS OBTAINED SKILL: RIDING.]
"?"
What kind of skills are those supposed to be???
And what the hell is an Innate Physique...?
Why is the System rewarding me with a Riding skill??
Full of confusion, Sakuraba Ryo opened the skill descriptions.
[TRAIT: INNATE PHYSIQUE]
[A BODY BORN IN ITS MOST PERFECT FORM. IT WILL CONTINUE TO GROW STRONGER EVEN WITHOUT DELIBERATE TRAINING.]
[SLOWS AGING. GRANTS IMMUNITY TO TOXINS AND CURSES.]
"...?"
Uh...
Is something like this even supposed to show up in my story?
Looking at the skill description, Sakuraba Ryo felt like he could grab a sword and cosplay a member of the Demon Slayer Corps.
What am I supposed to do with a combat stat this high?
Still, slowing down aging was a pretty nice effect.
As for immunity to toxins and curses...
Sakuraba Ryo felt he had always conducted himself openly and aboveboard. It was not as though anyone was likely to poison him.
Which meant he had no real use for that toxin-and-curse immunity at all.
Ugh.
What a garbage skill.
Aside from slowing down aging, what use are you?
This dumbass system is trying to fob me off with another flashy little piece of junk.
Fuck you.
Cursing under his breath, Sakuraba Ryo opened the description for the second skill.
[RIDING]
[YOU WILL MASTER THE OPERATION OF ALL VEHICLES.]
The description was simple, but the shock it gave Sakuraba Ryo was even greater than the Innate Physique.
Holy shit!
With this, getting a driver's license will be easy!
Hell yeah!
Let me see what this Riding skill can do!
With a thought, Sakuraba Ryo activated the skill through the System.
[SKILL: RIDING ACTIVATED.]
The System's voice echoed in his ear, but Sakuraba Ryo felt absolutely nothing.
"Huh? That can't be right. Aren't I supposed to get some kind of memory-download sequence or something?"
He frowned. It felt like turning the skill on had made no difference whatsoever.
Then another prompt appeared.
[PLEASE SELECT A VEHICLE.]
Seeing that, Sakuraba Ryo finally understood.
Oh, so it was the kind of skill that only triggered once he was actually on a vehicle.
Which meant that if he wanted to test it, he would have to buy a car or something first.
What a shame...
Just as Sakuraba Ryo was about to close the skill, a faint glow at the edge of his vision caught his eye.
"?"
He turned his head, and what he saw made his jaw drop.
Floating above the sleeping faces of Oguri Cap and White Narubi were two red arrows.
And those red arrows were glowing.
"?"
What the hell is that???
Still in shock, Sakuraba Ryo fumbled the controls and accidentally turned off the Riding skill on the System panel.
The instant the skill was deactivated, the arrows above the mother and daughter vanished as well.
...?!
What the hell are you trying to pull, you damn system?!
The corners of Sakuraba Ryo's mouth twitched as an utterly absurd guess rose in his mind.
Silently, he turned the skill on and off again.
Watching the red arrows flash in and out above the heads of the two sleeping Umamusume, Sakuraba Ryo understood.
The Loss System had even lower standards than he had imagined.
What do you mean, it's classifying Umamusume as vehicles too?
Wow. That's low. Seriously low.
The system had finally lost its mind. Somehow, the Riding skill had ended up being linked to Umamusume.
How the hell am I supposed to ride an Umamusume?!
What exactly are you trying to make me do, dumbass system?
Sakuraba Ryo imagined what it would look like if he actually used this skill on an Umamusume...
On some bright sunny afternoon, he would solemnly extend a hand to the Umamusume in front of him and declare:
"White Narubi-san, become my vehicle. Let me ride you into a thrilling high-speed duel!"
No matter how I look at it, that's some perverted shit!
Even someone as gentle as White Narubi would probably slap him for saying something like that.
If I'm ever pressing F to enter something, it had better be a vehicle—not an Umamusume!
"Shitty system..."
Sakuraba Ryo genuinely had not expected the first day of the new year to greet him with a stunt like this from the damn thing attached to him.
"I'm done. Bedtime."
There was no point agonizing over those two underwhelming skills any longer. Right now, sleep was more important.
He needed to conserve his energy so he could go on losing huge amounts of money in the new year.
...
A few days passed after New Year's.
At Sakuraba Ryo's foot-massage parlor, always filled with a faint herbal scent and a sense of warmth, the afternoon sunlight filtered through half-rolled bamboo blinds and scattered soft patches of light across the floor.
The foot-massage parlor had also resumed normal business.
And at that moment, Norn Ace was huddled in the deepest corner of the front room, her back pressed against the cool wall, both hands clamped tightly over her burning cheeks as she let out a frantic scream inside her head.
In the quiet room, her heartbeat sounded unnervingly loud to her—thump, thump, every beat hammering against the drum of her embarrassment.
The images from the Christmas party kept replaying in her head against her will—the cloying sweetness of the liqueur chocolate melting on her tongue, her vision gradually blurring, and then... and then the feeling of herself throwing herself at Sakuraba Ryo without a second thought, wrapping herself around him with both arms and legs.
"Mm..."
A tiny, pitiful noise slipped out through her fingers, barely escaping her throat at all.
Pink hair spilled down over her lowered forehead, the ends trembling along with her slight shivers.
Her eyes, usually bright and a little languid, were squeezed tightly shut, though her long lashes shook badly.
I'm done for, I'm done for, I'm done for...! What the hell was I even doing back then?!
That whole full-body man-lock thing... and everyone saw it...!
Sakuraba-san must've been so troubled, right...? Does he think I'm a pain? That I'm way too forward?
No, no, no—that can't happen!
It felt as though a tiny version of herself was rolling around clutching its head and screaming soundlessly.
Every time she remembered clinging to Sakuraba Ryo like a koala, and even worse, burying his face in... in her chest and rubbing against him, a wave of heat mixed with utter humiliation and the faintest trace of sweetness surged straight to her head so hard she felt like she might start steaming.
She secretly opened one eye through her fingers and peeked toward the doorway, where she could just barely make out Sakuraba Ryo at the front desk, organizing equipment.
His expression was calm, his movements as composed as ever. Every so often, he would nod to acquaintances passing by the shop entrance in greeting.
He doesn't... look like he especially hates me?
N-no! Maybe Sakuraba-san's just too nice to show it!
How am I supposed to work with him after this...
How am I supposed to talk to him...
What if he actually thinks I'm awful inside?
Ugh, why is the opening of the new year so agonizing?!
The more she thought about it, the more panicked she became. Norn Ace buried her whole face in her knees, her pink hair almost wrapping her entire body into a fluffy red ball radiating pure dead-inside despair.
Only the tips of her bright-red horse ears, poking out through the strands of hair, continued to twitch and tremble, betraying the overwhelming emotions raging inside her with nowhere to go.
"Norn?"
Sakuraba Ryo's voice suddenly came from outside the doorway, accompanied by footsteps drawing closer.
"You hiding back here slacking off? The towel on bed three needs changing."
"...!!!!"
The pink fluffball in the corner jolted violently, then shrank in on itself even tighter, as if it desperately wanted to learn invisibility on the spot—or just merge straight into the wall.
He found me! And he's so close!
What do I do, what do I do? If I go out now, my face is going to be bright red and my expression is going to be super weird—
Sakuraba-san, please, just don't notice me right now—!
Looking at the pink "fluffball" in the corner that was practically blending into the shadows, Sakuraba Ryo raised an eyebrow, a trace of puzzlement rising in him.
This was not how Norn Ace usually acted.
If he accused her of "slacking off," she would normally jump right up and fire back in that lazy yet sharp tone of hers—
"Hah? Aren't you the one taking forever sorting stuff out, Sakuraba-san?"
Or she would just pull a face at him and go off to work anyway.
So why was she curled up so completely today...?
Even the tips of her ears were red all the way through, and from several steps away he could practically feel the intense don't come any closer aura radiating off her.
"Norn?"
He called her name again and took a cautious half-step forward.
"You... okay? Are you feeling sick or something? Your face is so red. Do you have a fever?"
"N-no!"
A muffled, hurried reply came from the fluffball. Her voice was sharper than usual and full of obvious panic.
"I'm fine! Totally fine! Nothing's wrong at all!"
"..."
Sakuraba Ryo fell silent for a moment.
That only made her seem even more suspicious.
He gave her a gentle reminder, but his tone had already softened, more concern than reproach.
"Yeah, yeah, I know!"
Norn Ace's voice was still buried in her knees, but her pitch rose as if she were trying to claw her way back to her usual self, only to end up sounding all the more bluffing and unconvincing for it.
"S-Sakuraba-san, just go do something else first! D-don't worry about me! In a bit... just a little bit! I'll be fine! Really!"
By the end, there was almost a pleading note in her voice, and she hunched in on herself even more, as though trying to hide away completely.
Looking at her like this, Sakuraba Ryo still did not understand what was going on, but he could tell that pressing further would probably backfire.
Girls did sometimes have these inexplicable emotional buttons. Maybe she was still embarrassed about what had happened at the Christmas party?
He could more or less guess that much.
"All right."
In the end, he nodded and chose not to ask any more. His voice returned to its usual gentleness.
"Then don't forget the towel. I'm going to check the reservation book. If you're feeling sick, call me anytime. Or just go rest early."
"...!"
A reply full of sheer relief came from the corner.
Sakuraba Ryo gave the motionless pink lump one more look, shook his head, and left her a patch of space where she could calm herself down alone.
When she heard his footsteps recede and the soft click of the door closing, the tension in Norn Ace's shoulders finally collapsed.
Slowly, she raised her head, revealing a pair of damp eyes still glistening faintly with the aftereffects of shame, and let out a long, silent breath.
For now... safe.
But... what am I supposed to do after this?!
The little person in her head had started clutching its head again.
She shook her head hard, trying to throw off the face-burning images, then forced herself to stand and dusted off her skirt.
Muttering under her breath as though clutching at a lifeline, she hurried over to the storage cabinet, trying to drown out the chaos in her mind with mechanical work.
Even so, the tips of her red ears took a long while to finally cool down.
And just as Norn Ace was trying to get herself under control, a crisp female voice came from the shop entrance.
"Uh... this should be the place Rudolf was talking about, right...?"
The Umamusume who pushed open the door had an incredible figure.
Her black hair had a slight curl to it, and even with sunglasses on, the lively gleam in the blue-green eyes behind them could not be hidden. She wore a trench coat on top and sharp-looking jeans below. From the way she dressed alone, it was obvious she was the cool, handsome type of woman.
The moment this handsome-leading-man type of Umamusume stepped inside and saw Norn Ace, her eyes lit up.
"Are you one of the staff here? Is this that famous foot-massage parlor in Kasamatsu?"
"Huh? If there isn't some other foot-massage parlor in Kasamatsu, then... yeah, this should be the one..."
"Oh, good. Then I didn't get the wrong place after all~"
The Umamusume scratched the back of her head with an easy grin.
"I figured a place like a foot-massage parlor would be outside the academy... I really didn't expect it to be right inside the academy itself. That definitely threw me for a loop."
"But hey, even if it took a bit longer, I found it in the end."
Clearly, this Umamusume had some complaints about the location of the place, but that did not stop Norn Ace from doing her job.
"Do you have a reservation, ma'am?"
"A reservation? Of course I do~~"
"I booked before coming all the way here~"
"I see. One moment, please—I'll confirm today's reservation list..."
Norn Ace glanced at the reservation sheet, and her eyes flew wide open.
"M-Mr. C.B.?!"
A Triple Crown winner!
An Umamusume who could stand shoulder to shoulder with Symboli Rudolf, the Emperor of Central!
Mr. C.B. had actually come all the way here for a foot massage??
"Hey now~ You froze up on me there~"
Mr. C.B. reminded her cheerfully.
Only then did Norn Ace snap back to herself.
"M-Mr. C.B., this way please~~"
---
T/N: ...system... i feel like you have hidden intentions
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