CH 184

“The trial will be over with this, huh…”

This is the last item needed to obtain Stardust Flare.

If I obtain the medal in this horse racing stadium and put it together with the medals that I obtained in Odds and Even, and Poker, my hand will be closer to the method to return.

That’s great and all, but…

“I feel like everyone is watching us.”

Within the peculiar heat of the horse racing stadium, I shrunk my body a bit as if escaping from the gaze of my surroundings.

The reason we are gathering this much attention is obviously because…

“What a face you are making. I don’t really want to, but I will be your partner until this race is over.

If you get it, puff out your chest more and—”

“Shut up! If you hadn’t entered with such a chuuni name, I would have been able to puff out my chest more!”

My self-proclaimed partner was saying quite the haughty words.

“I don’t get what you dislike so much, Speed God King!

We will now be trampling the peasants and rule over this land as their summit, so it is a fitting name for us.”

“Shut up, you airheaded chuunibyou! Also, our name is not Speed God King, but G-Speed King.”

I was told that the character limit was reached, so it cannot be used which was straight out of a game, so I had no choice but to change God for G.

But I always think of the black and wriggling thing when I hear G. <G (gokiburi) is normally how they refer to cockroaches>

It is true that I think it is a speed king, but I don’t really like it.

“Haah…”

I sighed away the rotten emotions.

The last match of the horse racing competition is about to begin.

This is going to be my…no, our last race we will be entering in.

If we are to say we are partners in the broad sense of the word…then yeah, it is not really wrong.

“To think the day would come when I would call you Partner. I wouldn’t have thought about it even in my dreams when I first met you.”

“Hmph. That goes both ways!”

But now that I think about it, the first time I met him was right when I came to Rihitel.

Speaking only of the time we met, he would be an old acquaintance on the level of Ringo.

Also…

“Well, it is thanks to you that we managed to get this far. I am grateful for that.”

I don’t really like admitting this, but if not for him, I would have taken a lot more time in these trials, and a lot more money.

“That’s why I told you that something of this degree is a piece of cake in the face of my true power.”

“Haha, so you say!”

We were having that chit-chat while we headed to the gate for participants of the horse racing stadium.

The gazes stopped bothering me at some point in time.

“Now, let’s go, Partner.”

“Hmph! Try your best to not pull my leg.”

I enter the horse racing stadium together with my reliable partner and think back on the details that led to this situation.

“…W-What was that just now?! That’s allowed?!”

Right after I obtained the medal from the casino with my big brain play, Sazan came at me fuming.

It was on a level where he forgot about his usual chuuni way of talking.

“O-Oi, what are you so angry about? I properly got the medal as a result, right?”

“That’s not the issue here… Also, with this, there’s no time—”

“Don’t mind it. Let’s go.”

Sazan was mumbling by himself there, but I ignored him and headed to the horse racing stadium which is the place for the last trial.

Despite everything Sazan said, he still followed me with quick steps.

“The next one is the horse racing stadium. Well, I just have to hit with a betting ticket of over 1,000,000E. Pretty easy.”

“Wa?! Can you win so easily in horse racing?”

“As if.”

Not only that, it has the same system of Poker where the chances of that horse you bet winning getting lowered.

Because it doesn’t save beforehand when you bet on it, the chances of winning are even harder than poker.

“T-Then, how…”

“I will bet on all the horses.”

“…Huh?”

I can’t see it, but the magic idiot probably is showing a stupid face below that mask, so I tell him straight.

“As I said, I will be betting 1,000,000E on all the horses participating. No matter how much the system tinkers with the probabilities, there will always be one in first place.”

Even Nekomimi Neko didn’t go as far as making all the horses you bet fall out of the race and having no winner.

It was a pretty great idea that utilized the full power of my surplus of money…or so I thought, but my temporary partner seems to not have liked it.

“D-Don’t! You must not do that!”

“Why?”

When I asked back, Sazan faltered for a moment, but he immediately increased his momentum and complained.

“C-Cause you will definitely be on the losing side if you do something like that!”

“I don’t really mind something like—”

“I mind! Also, if you do that, you would immediately get the medal…”

Sazan mumbled something at the end there, but when he noticed that I was looking at him dubiously, he spread both hands and shouted.

“A-Anyways! I won’t allow such wasteful spending in mine watch! That is the pledge of the great dark mage Sazan who has inherited the most precious blood of all!

T-That’s why…you MUST NOT do it!”

He proclaimed such a thing that sounded like a chuuni and also like a commoner.

“More importantly, look! Don’t you have a method that would take more time but would not incur losses?”

“Well…I do.”

“Eh? You do?!”

Even though he was the one who asked, he was still surprised by it, so I had no choice but to explain it to him.

“Players can participate in horse racing, too.

When you have free time, you can bring your own horse, take a test, and if you get a higher time than the one set, you can show up in that day’s first race as a special seed.”

“Then, if you bet on your own horse and win the race…”

“It would be easy to earn 1,000,000E like that.”

Moreover, the odds for when you are participating for the first time are always 5 times more regardless of the strength of your horse.

The max amount you can bet is 1,000,000E, so you can only earn as much as 5 million with this, but this is one of the ways to raise money in the Nekomimi Neko Wiki.

“The problem is the method to obtain a strong horse.”

There’s a good amount of places where horses are raised, so we can get one by buying from there.

You can get the horse to participate in the race if you obtain a horse, but the factors to raise one are practically unknown.

“The feed aside from the basic feed does provide changes in the parameters, so you could raise them like that in a way though…”

“Is there an issue with that?”

“Hmm. They can only eat once every day normally, but there are times when the strength increases by 5 but the acceleration goes down by 8, or times when the stamina goes up 10 but the max speed decreases by 15. It is all stuff like that…”

“That’s no good at all!”

Sazan sliced that mercilessly, so I barely managed to refute it.

“N-No, it is true that there’s not many factors that help to raise the horse there, but they are born with their own traits.

The horses are generated randomly once the game starts, but a high ranked horse is strong from the beginning, so we can manage somehow…probably.”

“There’s something like ranks on horses, too?”

“Yeah. To be more precise, it is something like this.”

Packhorse: All stats are terribly low. They are stupid, and it is more often than not that it won’t listen to your orders. It loves eating and it eats twice as much as a normal horse.

Mediocre Horse: Stats are on the low side. It is not that intelligent, so there’s times when it will ignore orders. It likes taking it easy.

Swift Horse: It excels in speed compared to a normal horse. If you give an order in the middle of a race, it will obey most of them. However, maybe because it is nervous, it is sensitive to sounds.

Warhorse: It excels in its stamina compared to normal horses. It will obey your orders, but it will take time until it can understand you. Its body is sturdy and takes naps often.

Famous Horse: Excels in all stats. There’s barely any time when it would disobey your orders. It is brave and possesses outstanding abilities.

Red Horse: It is faster and has more strength than Swift, War, and Famous Horses. However, it doesn’t listen to orders at all. It is wild to the point that it would slam other horses on purpose and loves it.

Sacred Horse: It has all stats at 999 (maxed). Not only orders, you can even have normal conversations with it as if it had a human AI. It even throws witty remarks and jokes. It is a bit cocky and loves pranks.

“In other words, if we pull a strong horse from the beginning…”

“Yeah, it wouldn’t be impossible to win the race!”

It is not a dream, but…

“Even the chance of winning with a Famous Horse is around 10%, and the random generation chance of a Famous Horse is lower than 1%. As for the Red Horse and the Sacred Horse, the chances are so low that I have not actually seen them, and I can’t tell apart what rank a horse is though!”

“That won’t work at all then!!”

That’s why I didn’t propose it at first -is what I wanted to say, but I endure it.

I actually didn’t want to say it, but it can’t be helped.

“I do have a surefire method. However, it will take close to a month to do this, so I don’t really reco—.”

“Let’s go with that!”

“…Eh?”

I was half-way in my words, but Sazan leaned forward, grabbed both of my hands, and looked at me with burning eyes.

He noticed my dubious gaze, moved away from me, and began explaining himself while waving his hands.

“Ah, no, you see…it is the surefire method that you thought of, right? In that case, it is most likely nothing decent, but it should be certain.

I do trust you on that front.”

“W-Well, thanks.”

There’s rarely any moments where Sazan praises me, so I ended up getting flustered there.

But it seems like the person himself hasn’t noticed the effects of his words and was simply nodding as he continued speaking.

“Also, taking time is most important, but…uhm…it would be better for it to not take money!”

“No, the price for the feed is pretty—”

“Then, I will provide that!!”

He was speaking over me in no time at my rebuttal.

I was wondering why the sudden motivation, but I was also somewhat happy that he was into it.

“And so, what do we do? Is there something you need to prepare?”

Sazan urged me on as if fearing that I would change my mind.

“Uhm…we will prepare a packhorse first, and then, we will gather around 100 of the same type of feed that has as much effect as possible…”

“Alright! I leave the horse to you! I will go buy the feed!”

“Wait!”

I grab the back collar of Sazan, who was about to run off mid explanation, and somehow manage to stop him.

“You said you are going to be paying for the feed, but now that I think about it, you are penniless! You didn’t even pay the entrance fee of the library!”

“I-It is okay! I have gotten some allowance.”

Allowance, he says…

“Who gave you something like that?”

He didn’t have that when we entered the library, so it is most likely a party member of mine.

I just hope he wasn’t deceived by some weird old man on the street.

I was worried and asked him, and he answered a bit embarrassed.

“I-It was Bear-sama…”

The Bear…

And here I was wondering where it was, and it was secretly doing something like that?

Or more like, that guy had money?

“Ah!”

The self-proclaimed dark mage quickly escaped from me while I was amazed by that revelation, and he once again ran off.

He moved to a point where my hand couldn’t reach, turned around, and shouted.

“A-Anyways! It can’t be helped, so I will support you with everything I have! That’s why you must not use all your money on gambling and waste it, okay?!

You should just think about obtaining the medal by seriously winning the race!”

“…Got it.”

I answered completely defeated by his persistence, and this troublesome and inseparable mage…seemed as if he was smiling below that mask of his.

“Well then, we meet up after 3 hours! I will buy some awesome feed, so you get the horse. Don’t mess up!”

But I didn’t have the chance to confirm this and Sazan ran off energetically.

I felt somewhat warm here and motivated myself again.

“Then, I should check the places I know.”

When I have decided on something, I will do it with everything I have.

I moved my feet, aiming for the destinations I have been thinking of with a speed that doesn’t lose to Sazan.

—That brings us to the present.

After finishing the troublesome procedures, overcoming many hurdles, I…we are standing in this horse racing field.

“What? Are you nervous after coming this far?”

I looked down at my comrade that was speaking to me as if teasing me and answered with a smile.

“No way. I was simply feeling excited because we will be able to knock the socks off everyone here.”

“You also got one nice mouth there.”

The first time I met him, I even thought he was annoying, but we now have comfortable conversations like this one.

It is different from Ringo, Mitsuki, and Ina.

There’s a peculiar atmosphere because it is him.

I once again looked down at my partner, and then I suddenly had a question.

The stamen or pistil, male or female; basically, a talk about gender.

I have been speaking to him as if we were both men, but now that I think about it calmly, I feel like I have not asked him face to face.

“Speaking of which, this has been bothering the whole time but you…”

“Hm?”

“No, it is nothing.”

But I swallowed the words I was going to ask.

(What am I thinking?)

There’s no point in gender in my relationship with him.

I am his Partner, and he is my Partner.

That’s all there is to know.

(Whichever the case, no matter where it rolls, I won’t be falling in love with this guy.)

I simply thought of it internally and laughed at it with my throat.

My reliable and bad-mouthed Partner looked at me in wonder and…

“…It is about to begin.”

It sensitively felt the change of the stadium and urged me on with a low voice.

I held the reins again to answer that voice of his and I grinned.

“Let’s leave them in the dust, Partner!”

My Temporary Partner didn’t say much at my words.

He simply looked at me teasingly just like the first time we met and neighed deliberately.

“Neigh!”

And in this way, my Partner who I scouted from the nostalgic horse shed that Ringo and I stayed at, the Sacred Horse, G-Speed King, won with a 50hd <Horse Distance> difference from the 2nd place and won the medal splendidly.

…After that, I showed the medal to Sazan, who had a whole ton of feed on both arms, with a smug face, and he got angry at me for some reason.

“You…! You…!”

It really must have been bad that I wasted the feed.

He threw the feed at me with tears in his eyes and I secretly decided to have the Bear increase Sazan’s allowance while protecting my body.

—-

Reference:

An easy way to raise a horse that even Sazan can do.