"Hello, everyone—welcome, new trainee trainers! I'm Hayakawa Tazuna, Tracen Academy's guide. Welcome to our warm and friendly big family. Next, I'll be showing you around the academy, so please line up properly, stay with the group, and whatever you do, don't get lost~"
At the gates of Tracen Academy, a pretty young woman in a green cap and matching professional outfit greeted the dozen or so new trainee trainers before her in a gentle voice. Her lively, adorable charm was enough to make the hearts of the men in the group skip a beat.
"...Oof..."
The male trainers let out strange little noises as they stared blankly at Tazuna.
In Japan, a group of men openly and shamelessly staring at a woman like that would be considered extremely rude. If this happened on a train, someone would probably already be reaching for their phone to call the police.
But Tazuna seemed long since used to it. Keeping the same professional smile on her face, she raised her little flag and began leading the new trainers around the academy.
Today was the day the newest class of trainers officially joined Tracen Academy, the largest horse-girl academy in Japan.
For certain special reasons, most of the incoming trainers were women, with only a small number of men among them.
On such an important day, everyone had dressed with care. The women looked elegant and refined, the men neat and handsome, all determined to leave a good first impression on their future coworkers—and on the horse girls of the academy.
Among all the new trainers, however, one person stood out completely.
He wore a gray-black trench coat with the hood up. Beneath the hood was a black hat, and together with the tall cylindrical collar that reached all the way to his nose, it formed an ultimate zone of darkness that concealed his face entirely.
Under the trench coat was a white overcoat that made him look vaguely like a researcher. Black gloves covered his hands, black long boots his feet. Not a single patch of skin was exposed.
And yet, despite how bizarrely he was dressed, the people around him showed no reaction at all, as though he simply did not exist.
[Doctor's Outfit]
Description: Clothing snatched from a certain Doctor. Wearing it can conceal one's personal traits.
Abilities: Hides appearance, eliminates scent, alters voice, lowers presence.
"So this is Tracen Academy..."
The man in black stood among the new trainers with his hands in his pockets, muttering to himself in a voice so distorted it was impossible to tell whether he was male or female.
His name was Tang Han.
A transmigrator. And now, a newly appointed trainee trainer.
He had only arrived in this world ten minutes ago, waking up in the back seat of a taxi whose destination had already been set to Tracen Academy.
All Tang Han had done was stay up late to finish watching the third season of Uma Musume, then happily close his eyes and go to sleep. But when he opened them again, he had somehow ended up in the back of a taxi.
He had tried to get out. Calling for the driver to stop got no response. The doors were locked. There was a barrier around the driver's seat, so he could not even grab the wheel and force the car to stop. Like a prisoner being escorted to serve his sentence, he could only sit there while being transported toward his destination.
At the time, he had not yet been wearing the Doctor's Outfit. He had still been dressed in ordinary casual clothes, and from the rearview mirror he could see that his face was the same as before. At first, he had thought he was still in his original world and had simply been kidnapped.
But in his pocket was a phone with the official Tracen forum app installed, along with a trainer ID card from Tracen Academy. Coupled with the fact that, through the window, he occasionally saw beautiful girls with horse ears and tails walking along the sidewalks, Tang Han had finally realized the truth:
He had transmigrated into the world of Uma Musume.
And in his mind, a strange system had appeared.
[Personal Information]
Name: Tang Han
Gender: Male
Traits: Appearance to horse girls: S / Voice to horse girls: S / Scent to horse girls: S
Evaluation: Horse mint in human form. Strongly advised not to appear near horse girls.
[Inventory]
Doctor's Outfit ×1 (limited duration: 1 day)
Random Horse Girl 3-Choice Summon Ticket ×1
Delicious Carrots (crate) ×1
[Main Quest]
Quest 1: Join Tracen Academy and become the trainer of a horse girl.
Reward: Doctor's Outfit duration extended by one week
Penalty: None
[Warning:] The system is not a system!
(The text vanished after 0.5 seconds.)
Please trust the system!
...
Tang Han had spent a full minute sorting through his thoughts.
Personal information. Inventory. Quest log...
"Got it. I get it now."
He let out a sigh.
The system had not spelled it out directly, but looking at his triple-S appeal to horse girls and the Doctor's Outfit in his inventory, Tang Han already understood exactly what he was supposed to do next.
Calmly, he took out the Doctor's Outfit from the system inventory and put it on.
Uma Musume had been a wildly popular IP in his previous world.
Legendary racehorses from his former life had been transformed into anime-style girls, creating a species known as horse girls. Blessed by the Three Goddesses, they ran joyfully across the racetrack.
And because all horse girls were beautiful girls, they were deeply beloved by gentlemen everywhere.
But that popularity had also spawned all sorts of cursed fan writings.
Basements beneath the Emperor's room. Horse-girl jumping. Tracen horror stories...
In those settings, horse girls were creatures of terrifying emotional purity—especially when it came to love. On top of that, their physical abilities vastly surpassed those of humans. If one of them fell for you and you were careless, the result was always the same:
You got dragged into a basement and "horse-girl jumped" until your pelvis shattered.
If Tang Han had guessed correctly, this was exactly that kind of cursed setting.
With a body that was basically horse mint incarnate, if he got dragged into a basement, he was absolutely doomed—and not just doomed, but doomed in the "full-body pulverizing fractures" kind of way.
The only thing protecting him was the Doctor's Outfit currently on his body, the one item capable of hiding his horse-mint constitution.
But it only lasted one day.
Running away was not an option. Tang Han knew nothing about this world, had no money in his pocket, and escaping all the way to some remote countryside was nearly impossible.
And even if he somehow did make it to the countryside, who was to say there would not be horse girls there too? If he got caught, he might not even be able to call the police.
So, at this point, Tang Han had only two choices.
Either wear the Doctor's Outfit, train a horse girl, and complete the quest—
Or wait for the outfit to expire and get dragged into a basement by some feral horse girl for the horse-girl jumping experience.
Tang Han had often fantasized in the past about becoming a harem king, about suffering the sweet agony of being trapped in a battlefield of beautiful girls.
But the agony of being torn limb from limb?
Yeah, no thanks. Absolutely not.
Just then, as Tang Han was lost in thought, the taxi came to a stop.
"Passenger, we have arrived at your destination. Please get out."
The driver, who had remained silent the entire trip, finally spoke.
Tang Han turned his head and saw Tracen Academy right in front of him.
The demon's den had arrived.
"So I can't survive unless I step forward...?"
Swallowing hard, Tang Han finally gathered his courage and opened the car door.
"Then bring it on."
One foot stepped out of the taxi.
But just as Tang Han poked his head out of the car, he happened to see a man climbing out of a window in one of Tracen Academy's teaching buildings.
The man was wearing a Tracen trainer's uniform. He was probably one of the academy's senior trainers.
Only, his face was full of terror, ghastly pale, like a man who had overindulged himself for three days and nights straight. He looked as though he had been through something unspeakably horrifying. In his hands, he was holding up a cardboard sign.
On it, written in blood-red strokes, were two words:
RUN!
But he had only managed to climb out for a moment before a monstrous force yanked him back inside. The look of sheer terror on his face before he disappeared filled Tang Han with utter despair.
"..."
Tang Han's foot paused in mid-step.
Dear God.
What do I do if I suddenly want to propose to the taxi driver and beg him to take me and flee?