Rudolf had her answer ready for Kitahara's question.
"You do know how famous you are now, don't you? To be honest, the old woman in my family has been putting considerable pressure on me as well..."
"You saw how my family treated me during that matchmaking meeting. Frankly, it gives me a headache too..."
"I'm busy. Extremely busy. I have too much to do, no time for romance, and I've never planned on pursuing it."
"But with you, I think it could work."
She looked at Kitahara and patiently laid out her case.
"You're essentially the only man I interact with regularly. Our goals align, and we get along well enough."
"As this continues, the older I get, the more pressure my family will put on me. Going to more matchmaking meetings would also interfere with my work."
"Besides, we're already nominally dating. Even if we made it real, no one would question it... Why are you making that face?"
Rudolf noticed Kitahara's expression turning strange.
Faced with her question, Kitahara fell silent for a moment.
"Sirius brought up this argument when we were talking before. She said you would definitely find an opportunity to say all this to me."
Rudolf raised an eyebrow.
"And? What else did she say?"
"...She said you were trying to trick me into bed."
Rudolf inhaled deeply, her smile beginning to crack.
Damn you, Sirius!
I should have sewn that woman's mouth shut.
Seeing Rudolf starting to flush with anger, Kitahara hurriedly added,
"Of course, I didn't believe her. I trust that you're not that kind of person."
Silence.
Looking at Kitahara's utterly earnest face, the corner of Rudolf's mouth twitched.
If she could beat him in a fight, she would have dragged him into a basement right then and shown him exactly whether she was "that kind of person."
No, wait...
Rudolf suddenly realized something, and her expression turned solemn.
"You're right, Trainer Kitahara. I am certainly not that kind of person."
"I am an Umamusume."
Kitahara: "..."
Please, I'm begging you, stop making terrible puns. Even Teio is picking up bad habits from you.
"Pfft—!"
Nice Nature, who happened to be passing nearby, burst out laughing, casting an even darker shadow over Kitahara's heart.
But just as he was about to continue speaking with Rudolf, an energetic voice rang out.
"Honey, want to go out and have some fun?"
Maruzensky sprang out from behind him and wrapped her arms around Kitahara before looking at Rudolf.
"President, mind if I borrow your man for a while?"
"...Do as you please."
Rudolf sighed.
She had not quite known how to continue the conversation anyway, so Maruzensky's appearance helped ease the awkwardness.
Although he had commented on it countless times before, Kitahara's eyelid still twitched when he saw Maruzensky wearing a Tracen uniform.
Consider the known facts: Tracen was a high school, and the Twinkle Series lasted three years.
Rudolf's True Awakening had come relatively late, so she only entered the Twinkle Series some time after enrolling.
Then, after completing the Twinkle Series, she became Student Council President—and had remained in the position for years.
Yet even Rudolf would have to call her Maruzensky-senpai.
And despite that, Maruzensky was still wearing a Tracen uniform and even remained officially enrolled.
At the same time, she held a driver's license that only adults could obtain.
Well...
When it came to racing Umamusume, it was best not to ask questions.
"Then let's go."
Kitahara accepted her invitation.
He had been constantly busy lately and had built up quite a bit of stress. He genuinely needed to blow off some steam.
There was another way to blow off steam, of course, but one of Tracen's firm boundaries was not getting anyone pregnant.
So even after Umapyoi, Kitahara and the others always did their utmost to avoid certain outcomes.
They left campus and climbed into the sports car.
As Kitahara watched the scenery shift outside the window, his mind gradually relaxed.
It was not only the girls under his care who had helped him lately. Maruzensky had also done quite a bit for him.
After all, no matter how capable those girls were, they were still students.
Maruzensky might nominally have been a student too, but in practice...
Those who knew, knew.
In any case, while the girls trained hard on campus, Maruzensky and another Umamusume from the Symboli family had been helping Kitahara with certain investigations off campus.
And now, those investigations had begun producing results.
"There's something wrong inside the URA."
Maruzensky said it calmly as she drove.
"Some of them are plotting something extremely dangerous."
"I know. I've uncovered a few things recently too."
Leaning back in his seat, Kitahara sighed.
"Umamusume supremacism..."
It was an absurd situation.
After the scandal over his reputation, Kitahara had begun closing the net on the Black Market.
But as the investigation continued, the trail eventually led straight to the URA.
Kitahara had never expected that result.
What surprised him even more was that as the investigation deepened, he uncovered increasingly unbelievable things.
Such as the "Umamusume supremacism" he had just mentioned.
To summarize the ideology simply:
Humans were despicable. Umamusume were good. Therefore, Umamusume were a superior form of life, and the world should be ruled by Umamusume rather than humans.
Kitahara knew that similar jokes existed among the general public. He had even made them himself.
He had simply never imagined anyone would take them seriously.
Still, it was not truly surprising.
Although the Three Goddesses made the overall atmosphere of this world relatively peaceful, certain unavoidable dark sides still existed.
Ordinary people never encountered that darkness, so it provoked no reaction from them.
The problem was that the URA handled all of it behind the scenes.
And because of the unique nature of Umamusume, humans were responsible for ninety-nine percent of the incidents they dealt with.
Under those circumstances, it was hardly strange for such an ideology to emerge.
Put that way, the belief almost sounded reasonable. The problem was...
You people are so eager to place Umamusume above everyone else, but do the Umamusume themselves even know about it?
Have you never wondered why the Three Goddesses do everything they can to avoid interfering in human affairs?
And now that Kitahara understood the true nature of Umamusume, he knew even more clearly that it would never work.
The thought that these people were also connected to the Black Market only made his headache worse.
If they were acting out of malice, he could simply walk through the area and identify every culprit.
But if their evil had grown out of extreme goodwill, distinguishing them would be genuinely difficult.
Still, it would not take much longer.
He could not detect them through malice, but their previous actions had exposed quite a few of them.
As long as the investigation followed those leads, they would soon be able to close the net.
"Honey, we're here."
When the car stopped, they had arrived at a race circuit.
Driving race cars really was one of the best ways for Kitahara to relax.
He did not currently own a car, so he rode there in Maruzensky's, then the two of them switched places after arriving.
"Boss, you brought him again?"
An Umamusume poked her head out of another car and looked curiously at Kitahara before lowering her voice.
"I always see the two of you together. Are you... in that kind of relationship?"
"No."
Maruzensky shook her head.
Kitahara breathed a sigh of relief. At least this woman was dependable enough not to joke about them being romantically involved.
But the next second...
"He's my kept boy."
Maruzensky smiled brightly.
You fucking—!
---
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