The Wolfpack strategy… So, URA is seriously thinking of giving Almond Eye a supporting player on the track, someone to face all the other challenges, just to let Almond Eye clinch more first-place finishes…?
This is absurdity pushed beyond all limits…!
For the first time ever, Gotham Song experienced the feeling of being so furious she could almost laugh.
Even back then, when she first learned just how far URA had debased Twilight Song's reputation, she hadn't reached this level of anger…!
Or rather, at that moment, Gotham Song's fury had been directed mostly toward URA itself—at the URA capable of pulling off something so absurd, so incomprehensible—but now…!
Now her anger was entirely aimed at this very behavior by URA itself.
Just how utterly abstract and repulsive was this?
Simply put, the stronger and more talented an Uma Musume was, the more easily she'd develop pride about her own status and strength on the track—and if such pride existed, it meant this Uma Musume undeniably had the potential to become legendary.
Almond Eye was precisely that kind of Uma Musume: young and inexperienced, yet powerful, fearless, never surrendering easily to any challenge. Even after utterly failing in the first two legs of the Triple Tiara, she still had the drive to pull herself back together.
In fact, based on the training reports, Almond Eye's losses were completely justified—or rather, if Gotham Song hadn't been involved, Almond Eye almost certainly would have won the Oka Sho.
And the Oaks? To be frank, Gotham Song still felt Almond Eye should have had a better shot at taking that one as well.
The reason was simple. Within the training reports, Gotham Song clearly saw why Almond Eye had ended up distrusting those trainers.
It was a very simple issue: those trainers basically hadn't provided her with any meaningful or substantial support…!
Almond Eye's daily training regimen was strenuous, but according to the training records, what exactly was she doing each day?
Morning was basic physical training. Then, at midday during her rest period, she conducted intelligence-gathering and analysis of possible opponents. In the afternoon, it was actual combat training.
However, as an elite trainer certified by Secretariat himself, Gotham Song immediately spotted the core problem.
The physical training was perfectly fine; no matter how strong an Uma Musume was, a consistent daily training volume was necessary. As for intelligence-gathering and opponent analysis, that was indeed crucial as well.
But the URA trainers had committed a huge error here:
They'd actually allocated an entire four hours for this activity?!
Gotham Song found this absurd. Normally, gathering and analyzing data on opponents would indeed take hours per opponent.
But…!
But this wasn't a job the racers themselves should be doing…!
Dancing Brave had done it back then simply because she disdained having a team, coupled with her personal obsession—she enjoyed meticulously dissecting her opponents before races.
In normal circumstances, however, there should be dedicated behind-the-scenes staff—or even the trainers themselves—doing the heavy lifting, gathering detailed opponent data, and then relaying it concisely to Almond Eye within a limited timeframe.
In other words, this task was necessary—but Almond Eye herself absolutely should not have been involved in it, nor should she have been making decisions here.
Gotham Song couldn't fathom why URA had arranged things this way. Any reasonable person wouldn't waste precious time by making a competitor do something that belonged off the track, would they…?
Surely they hadn't observed Dancing Brave's habits and then simply projected those habits onto Almond Eye?
Gotham Song had an even more outrageous suspicion—but she hesitated to confirm it. Yet, thinking carefully, no amount of suspicion toward URA's competence felt excessive.
So, what exactly was this suspicion?
Could it be that these trainers were just terrible at analyzing racers, completely incompetent, and merely dumped raw data in front of Gentildonna, forcing her—the racer herself—to handle the analysis?
Gotham Song noticed another line boldly highlighted in the training feedback report:
"Training Almond Eye's own intelligence-gathering abilities."
Training her intelligence-gathering abilities, my ass! Isn't this just a shameless excuse to openly shove this job onto Almond Eye herself?!
Normally, no matter how ridiculous things got, they shouldn't have reached this level. But this was URA, after all—whether such a thing was actually possible, Gotham Song honestly couldn't say.
Moreover, judging from the photos and files sent along, the parasites surrounding Almond Eye were clearly a bunch of elderly old bastards. Otherwise, when facing setbacks, they wouldn't have desperately turned to Europe for "inspiration" and attempted a support-runner tactic here in Japan.
Furthermore, as she flipped through their resumes, Gotham Song became even more certain of her guess: these trainers definitely knew nothing. They were purely relying on outdated theories, dragging Almond Eye's development backward!
The proof?
Out of these five trainers, the best results any had ever produced was just two measly G1 victories! Gotham Song even reasonably suspected that these achievements had been pure flukes of their era—or were simply due to the extraordinary efforts and talents of the Uma Musume themselves.
All in all, Gotham Song had more or less figured out why such things had come about.
Actually, when it came down to it, she herself was partly to blame. The reasoning was straightforward: URA's reputation had collapsed completely, so capable, ambitious trainers—even newly graduated ones with ambition—would rather work regionally than join URA. They were deliberately boycotting URA's recruitment.
The biggest beneficiaries of this mass exodus were naturally the Central and Regional Tracen Academies. After the mass departures, URA reportedly had no choice but to urgently recall a batch of trainers who had already retired.
Perhaps these five were just the least incompetent ones URA could find among a pile of absolute trash. Aside from seniority, they had absolutely no redeeming qualities—but they'd been thrown into positions of power just like that.
Gotham Song openly wore a deep expression of disgust. She knew exactly why these decrepit old bastards were monopolizing positions.
After all, in the country where she resided, seniority was excessively valued. Even if competent trainers remained in URA, they had probably been forcefully held down by these old fossils, hadn't they?
Feeling helpless, Gotham Song continued reading downward to the final section of the report, and once again wore an expression of speechless disbelief.
The last segment of Almond Eye's afternoon was practical combat training. Normally, this would have been perfectly fine—or rather, anyone would see this as absolutely correct—but…!
After seeing the detailed contents inside, Gotham Song could only sigh.
She'd thought having Almond Eye do opponent analysis was already god-level stupidity, but who could've known there were even greater masters out there.
Almond Eye's daily combat-training opponents were always basically the same handful, and even worse…!
Among them, there were actually two local-level Uma Musume?!
Even Gotham Song's toes could imagine the situation clearly—those opponents in her combat training must have been completely read through and thoroughly figured out by Almond Eye already, allowing her to casually and effortlessly crush them.
After all, Almond Eye was that powerful. Against those nameless Uma Musume, she brought a dimensional reduction blow in every sense when she started running.
So, what would Almond Eye's daily combat training rhythm look like?
It would probably feel like replaying the same clip over and over, with Almond Eye easily using roughly the same tactics each time, effortlessly winning, repeatedly and casually crushing those opponents clearly nowhere near her level… Yeah, probably something like that, right?
Gotham Song's mouth twitched slightly. How should she even describe the decisions and arrangements made by these five senile idiots?
Normally speaking, combat practice was meant to accumulate as much actual racing experience off-track as possible. In other words, the greatest requirement of combat training was realism…!
In this regard, Almond Eye's footsteps were truly and utterly dragged down by the people from URA. Did they even realize the daily training intensity within Eternal Beat's team?
Gentildonna, Vernal Equinox, Flightline, and Gotham Song herself were regular fixtures. Even Mejiro Ramonu, Secretariat, or Dancing Brave would occasionally drop in…!
Moreover, precisely because there were only four fixed participants—oh, now three, with Flightline having stayed back in the US to prepare for her dirt debut—the three regular Uma Musume alone brought unparalleled intensity to training sessions. The randomly appearing participants added unpredictability and track realism, providing a completely different level of challenge.
In other words, Almond Eye's training conditions had been thoroughly demolished by Gentildonna in every possible aspect…
And despite these conditions, Almond Eye still had a subtle chance of victory in the Oaks. Honestly… no wonder Almond Eye ended up depressed.
Forget Almond Eye—even Almond Eye just becoming depressed was already good. If Gotham Song swapped places with Almond Eye, who knew what drastic actions she might've taken.
Perhaps history's first documented case of an Uma Musume completely breaking off from her trainers and battling them to the death on the track would officially be recorded.
And even that might not be the worst-case scenario, right?!
This was a training report, a feedback document—something recorded to be reviewed by higher-ups among these trainers. Some people might still not clearly understand where the problem lay?
Well, would you honestly write down every single embarrassing incident from your work in full detail and submit it to your superiors?
Whoever did that would be an absolute talent. But if they really were that honest, a training program like this would never have existed.
Therefore, exactly how infuriating Almond Eye's actual experiences were remained an unknown factor until now…!
Seeing Gotham Song's expression, Symboli Rudolf, who'd become quite curious, got up from her seat, stepped forward, and asked softly:
"Song? What exactly is written there to make you react like this?"
"You'll know once you see it yourself…"
Gotham Song stuffed Rudolf's phone back into her hands. Miss Emperor asked nothing more, immediately scanning through it at top speed.
However, the more Rudolf read, the darker her expression became. By the time she flipped to the last page of the document, even her now considerably gentler personality failed to restrain the volcanic eruption of her rage.
Symboli Rudolf slammed the table heavily, wearing an extraordinarily ferocious expression, as if ready to devour someone alive. In this instant, she completely overlapped with Gotham Song's impression from years ago.
The Symboli Rudolf sitting here right now was exactly like when Gotham Song had first met her—a furious tyrant brazenly unleashing her rage.
"This is so absurd it almost makes me laugh from anger… No, we can't leave Almond Eye-san in URA—we have to take her away."
"Not only must we take her away, we have to take care of her properly, fully developing the talents of this exceptional rising star."
Symboli Rudolf said so. Gotham Song fully agreed with her. However, the two differed greatly on how exactly Almond Eye should be trained. Clearly, Rudolf, who excelled at squeezing the utmost potential out of suitable people—and who had wielded limitless power as student council president for so many years—briefly reverted to her former cold-hearted ruthlessness.
She even quite obviously intended to shove Almond Eye directly into Gotham Song's own team.
But Gotham Song, no longer the Twilight Song from back then, faced this totally different Symboli Rudolf with absolute opposition and resistance:
"I'm already at my limit managing Donna-chan, Vernal, and Flightline—I haven't even retired yet…!!!"
That single line dispelled Rudolf's idea. Afterward, the two fiercely debated and deliberated on exactly what to do with Almond Eye.
After an unknown stretch of time—and after finally preparing all necessary documents—Gotham Song suddenly realized something clearly, with a sense of helpless astonishment.
After her discussion with Symboli Rudolf, they'd decided to snatch Almond Eye away and transfer her into Central Tracen, replacing the wretchedly awful training resources around her, allowing her to finally enjoy a proper, normal life befitting an Uma Musume.
Of course, the decision itself wasn't inherently problematic, was it? To put Rudolf's mind at ease—and also as compensation for Gotham Song unconsciously causing Almond Eye's development to be delayed—Gotham Song would frequently visit the school to personally guide Almond Eye's training.
Then what exactly left Gotham Song stunned and speechless?
It was…
Holy shit, this decision of ours—to forcibly change Almond Eye's entire life situation—actually didn't get Almond Eye's consent at all?!
Just when did we… When did we become…
Oh wait, Rudolf was always like this, so…
Exactly when did I become this kind of person who only thought about herself?
Could it be because I turned into an Uma Musume and started eating way too many vegetarian things like carrots?
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