Kyoto Racecourse, 3000 meters. Turf. Sunny. The Kikuka Sho.
A white silhouette wrapped in a massive wake of air pressure tore across the finish line like a bolt of lightning. In that exact moment, the entire stadium erupted into absolute madness. Because in that exact moment, Mejiro McQueen successfully captured the final jewel of the undefeated Triple Crown!
Mejiro McQueen was now unequivocally the brightest star in the racing world.
Even overseas horse girls and international trainers were beginning to pay close attention to her. Journalists desperate for an interview practically flooded the streets. Because of this, she rarely left her dorm anymore, and when she did, she strictly relied on the Mejiro family's private cars.
If she didn't, she would instantly be swarmed and trapped by rabid fans and reporters the second she stepped outside.
Currently, however, McQueen was occupied with a much more pressing thought. What exactly were the clear conditions for Story mode?
Would this simulation only end when she died of old age? If the objective was simply to achieve racing glory, she had already done it.
An undefeated Triple Crown was effectively the highest conceivable honor in the real world.
This question weighed heavily on her mind. It wasn't that she wanted to speedrun Story mode and leave, but rather she was genuinely anxious about how much time she had left in this world. What if she suddenly vanished one day without warning? None of this was under her control.
"McQueen, you are here."
When McQueen walked into the Team Sirius clubroom, a few people were already waiting for her.
"Teio. Are you fully recovered?"
"Of course! I am completely fine. If you don't believe me, ask Trainer!"
Seeing McQueen's questioning gaze, Trainer P nodded. "It is true. The doctors have officially cleared Teio for physical activity. I am currently trying to formulate a rehabilitation training plan to help her regain her previous form. Right now, her lap times are nowhere near her old records."
"Honestly, Trainer, you ruin everything! The great Teio would have fixed that in two seconds flat! You didn't have to announce it in front of McQueen!" Teio pouted, glaring at him in sheer annoyance.
"...I was actually considering asking McQueen to join your rehabilitation training."
"Very well, Trainer. You are forgiven."
Trainer P looked at the incredibly simple-minded Tokai Teio and sighed helplessly. She might have grown up a little, but she still had a very long way to go.
He turned to McQueen. "What do you say, McQueen? Do you have the time?"
Of course she had the time.
Because she couldn't break past her character card's absolute stat limits, she only needed to run light maintenance routines to prevent her attributes from decaying. Honestly, she had far too much free time. However, agreeing so easily felt slightly out of character for her.
"I have one condition."
McQueen stated her terms.
"I see. You want a serious, all-out match against Oguri Cap."
Trainer P wasn't surprised in the slightest. He had noticed McQueen intensely studying Oguri during their joint training sessions for a while now.
"Agreed. I can accept that condition on Oguri's behalf." That girl can be bought with a single meal anyway.
Thanks to McQueen's massive racing success, Team Sirius was currently flush with cash. Trainer P figured he could easily afford to treat Oguri to a luxurious feast. He could probably bribe her with a cheap all-you-can-eat buffet coupon, but as her trainer, his conscience wouldn't allow him to be quite that shameless.
"What do you want me to do?"
Since the deal was struck, McQueen was fully prepared to do her part. She gave him a look that clearly said, I will follow your instructions.
"Right. Let's head down to the training track first."
Trecen Academy's training facilities were staggeringly massive. Not only did they possess perfectly maintained dirt and turf tracks, but they had courses specifically tailored for every single race distance. The sheer efficiency of training here was lightyears ahead of any rural facility. This was the absolute gap in resources between the elite and the ordinary!
However, sometimes raw, unadulterated talent could violently shatter that gap.
Oguri Cap was the prime example. She was a genuine monster who clawed her way up from the rural dirt tracks.
Although Oguri suffered a severe slump when she first transferred to central Trecen, McQueen heard the senior horse girl had recently reclaimed her peak form. In fact, rumors claimed she was now stronger than she had ever been.
That meant, compared to the other timelines, the Oguri Cap of this reality had completely conquered her demons and broken past her own limits.
If the Zone truly existed in this world, McQueen was certain Oguri Cap's manifestation of it would be absolutely terrifying!
That was exactly why she wanted to witness it with her own eyes. She might be hailed as a monster by the media, but she knew the bitter truth. She didn't even possess the baseline requirement of a true monster—the Zone.
Not that she was obsessing over it anymore.
She had already realized that even if she never awakened the Zone natively, she could simply return to Simulation mode, grind her base stats to S or SS rank, and mathematically crush any Zone user through sheer numerical superiority and system skills.
Her lingering fixation was purely out of academic curiosity. She simply wanted to see what the Zone actually looked like—though, realistically, if she could steal the technique, she absolutely would.
"Alright, you two run a casual lap together to test the waters. McQueen, just maintain your standard baseline pace. Teio, do your best to keep up," P instructed. He needed to assess Teio's current absolute limit before drafting a detailed recovery schedule.
Watching McQueen stretch, Teio leaned in and whispered nervously to her trainer. "Trainer, are you sure about this? I don't know if I can hold myself back. What if I accidentally trigger that... thing from the Satsuki Sho again?" Her voice trembled slightly with genuine fear.
Trainer P remained perfectly calm. "Relax. You couldn't enter that state right now even if you tried."
Forget her current degraded physical condition. Even if Teio were in her absolute peak Satsuki Sho form, P highly doubted she could access that state on command.
According to his consultations with Symboli Rudolf, Teio had essentially grazed a state that mimicked the Zone.
She hadn't actually met the prerequisites to open the door. Instead, her agonizing desperation had violently drawn the power from behind the door directly into her body. While the resulting power spike was potent, it was fundamentally inefficient compared to a true Zone activation, and the physical backlash was infinitely worse.
It was undeniably a terrifying power.
But it wasn't something you could just turn on like a light switch. Even McQueen, who theoretically possessed the right qualifications, hadn't found the key to the Zone yet. A severely detuned Tokai Teio had absolutely zero chance.
Hearing Teio's worries didn't stress P out at all. Honestly, he almost wanted to laugh.
"Hmph! How dare you underestimate me, Trainer! Just you wait and see!" Teio snapped, thoroughly provoked by his casual dismissal.
P nodded secretly to himself.
Teio's physical body was completely healed. The only reason her lap times were so abysmal was because her subconscious mind was terrified of sprinting at full speed.
She might act like she didn't have a care in the world, but the phantom trauma of her shattered legs was absolutely holding her back.
It was a very common psychological hurdle for athletes returning from severe injuries. That was exactly why P brought McQueen here today. Teio desperately needed a massive, external stimulus to shock her out of her fear.
"Are you ready?"
Teio stared at the cold, arrogant Mejiro McQueen standing beside her. She silently clenched her small fists.
"I am ready!"
They both dropped into their starting stances.
The trainer's whistle shrieked. Both girls surged forward simultaneously.
Despite starting at the exact same millisecond, the horrific gap between them was exposed instantly. McQueen wasn't even using a single skill, yet she immediately pulled drastically ahead.
To the casual observers around the track, McQueen didn't look particularly invincible right now. In fact, seeing her cruise at this relaxed baseline speed made several spectating horse girls subconsciously think, Hey, I could probably beat that.
But the second they remembered the apocalyptic footage of the Kikuka Sho, they frantically shook their heads and banished the suicidal thought.
Symboli Rudolf had also arrived at the track after receiving a text from Trainer P. Her blatant favoritism toward Teio was no secret.
"As expected. It is a psychological block," the Emperor murmured, watching Teio struggle awkwardly on the turf. The situation was proving to be quite thorny.
After a moment of thought, Rudolf realized she didn't have a magical solution to cure PTSD. She could only place her faith in Teio's resilience, Trainer P's guidance, and the girls of Team Sirius.
The lap finished.
Tokai Teio was panting heavily, her face drenched in sweat.
On the other side, Mejiro McQueen hadn't even broken a sweat.
McQueen stared down at Teio. Feeling the crushing weight of that gaze, Teio silently hung her head, completely unable to meet McQueen's eyes.
My performance... was absolutely pathetic.
She couldn't even accept her own lap time. She was running slower now than she did during her debut race.
McQueen didn't say a single word. She simply walked over to the trainer to ask for her next set of instructions.
Trainer P glanced at the completely demoralized Tokai Teio and shook his head. "We will stop here for today."
He hadn't anticipated this outcome. He intended to use McQueen as a sharp stimulus to ignite Teio's competitive fire. The stimulus definitely worked, but it backfired spectacularly, driving Teio even deeper into a state of crushing depression.
McQueen ignored Teio entirely. She packed up her bag and left the track.
Watching Teio act this pathetic honestly disgusted her, but she had absolutely no idea how to fix it.
After all, she didn't possess the gentle, nurturing personality of the canon "Mejiro McQueen," nor did she have a talent for inspiring pep talks.
Honestly, why am I even worrying about Tokai Teio? At the end of the day, she is just an opponent destined to be crushed beneath my feet!
McQueen flicked her tail in extreme irritation. The suffocating, low-pressure aura radiating from her body was so intense that even the other Mejiro family girls didn't dare approach her when she returned to the dorms.
Teio's rehabilitation training showed zero signs of improvement over the following week. Even though McQueen stubbornly showed up on time every single day to act as her pacer, the psychological block remained absolute.
Seeing that grinding was yielding no results, Trainer P decided to temporarily halt the physical training. To help Teio relax and clear her head, he invited the entire team to attend a local festival being held nearby.