The next day, Tang Han woke up in bed and stared at a ceiling he didn't quite recognize.
He felt around his body.
He wasn't wearing the Doctor's Coat.
His eyes snapped wide open.
Tang Han shot upright and retreated to the corner of the room, arms crossed defensively over himself, instantly assuming a desperate last-stand posture.
But after getting a clear look at where he was, he let out a long breath of relief.
Thank goodness. This wasn't a basement.
It was a room in the men's trainer dormitory.
But how had he ended up here?
"Luck, how did I get back to the men's dorm?" Tang Han asked.
Ever since that heart-to-heart conversation in her room, he and Luck had officially become allies. Tang Han would be the one charging on the front lines, while Luck would support him from behind and answer his questions. Together, they were now working toward gathering enough hope energy to save the world.
"Well…" Luck began explaining.
After irrational Tang Han had been blasted away by the shockwave from Misfortune's explosion, he'd collapsed unconscious on the ground.
Fortunately, Aoi Kiryuin and Happy Meek had been nearby. Seeing Tang Han unconscious, they immediately rushed over and picked him up.
Aoi Kiryuin also knew the academy rules very well. She understood that when a male trainer was injured, you did not send him to the academy infirmary. Instead, you were supposed to take him to the male trainers' side and have another male trainer escort him to an outside hospital.
But just as Aoi Kiryuin and Happy Meek were carrying Tang Han off to find another male trainer, Hayakawa Tazuna showed up.
Tazuna said she would take care of Tang Han from there. She took him off Happy Meek's back and carried him away—to somewhere no one was entirely sure about.
Hayakawa Tazuna was trustworthy, at least in Tang Han's opinion, but any woman was still a potential threat. If, while "taking him back," she had "accidentally" removed his Doctor's Coat, Tang Han's career as a trainer might well have ended on the spot.
Thankfully, at the critical moment, Luck summoned the delivery driver.
At the time, the driver happened to be on break from work, driving his AE86 while delivering tofu to his family. As he passed the gates of Tracen Academy, he just so happened to see Hayakawa Tazuna carrying an unconscious Tang Han out of the school.
Since the old man had previously seen the face beneath Tang Han's hood with his own eyes, he understood that Tang Han absolutely could not allow any human woman or horse girl to see his true appearance. So without a word, he pulled off a gutter-run cornering move, snatched Tang Han away from Tazuna, and sped him straight back to the men's dorm, where he handed him over to the dorm supervisor.
The dorm supervisor, with his thin but iron-tough body, carried Tang Han back to his room, changed his clothes, fed him hangover medicine, and looked after him for an entire day before finally leaving once Tang Han's condition stabilized.
And then, on the second morning—
Tang Han woke up.
That was the whole story.
"Trainer Kiryuin! Happy Meek! Miss Tazuna! Mr. Driver! Dorm Supervisor! Thank you all!" Tang Han was so moved his eyes started to grow moist.
How kind these people were. If they hadn't passed him along like an Olympic torch relay, he might really have been jumped by some passing horse girl back then.
"And me, and me! I helped too, you know," Luck protested.
Oh, right. He'd almost forgotten that it had been Luck who summoned the driver.
"Fine, thank you too, then," Tang Han said sincerely.
"Hehe~"
Honestly, now that Luck was no longer putting on an act to deceive Misfortune and had openly become his teammate, she was actually pretty cute. It was hard to connect her at all with the old Babaaru System persona.
Tang Han had lost all of Saturday to unconsciousness. Today was Sunday, still part of the weekend, so he had nothing else to do. He decided to keep reading and improve his skills as a trainer, all for the sake of one day leading Urara to victory in the Arima Kinen.
But before he started reading, Tang Han liked to check his phone for the time and see whether any major news had popped up recently.
So he pulled out his phone and opened the Tracen Academy official app.
The moment he entered the app, four pinned posts caught his eye:
"Shocking! Rain Suddenly Falls from a Clear Sky!"
"Shocking! The God of Honey Drinks Appears in the Cafeteria!"
"Shocking! The Three Goddesses Reveal a Mysterious Man!"
"(C101) The Gentle Touch of an Amateur… Passionate Horse Leaps… A Powerful Great Challenge!"
…
The first three posts were all related to Tang Han.
The first post was about the downpour caused by irrational Tang Han's battle with Misfortune's clone.
As for the second and third…
Tang Han had already heard from Luck that, while drunk, he hadn't just had an episode in front of the Three Goddesses' statue and made his "I'm handsome!" declaration of independence—he'd also run into the cafeteria and made honey drinks for a bunch of horse girls, leaving behind a mountain of security hazards for himself.
As for why Luck hadn't stopped him at the time, that was because she was still pretending to be a chaos-loving spectator and couldn't interfere openly. Besides, everything drunken Tang Han did had made the horse girls feel lucky and generated energy, which was exactly what Luck needed in order to blast Misfortune's clone to pieces in the end.
"…I need to come up with some way to clean up the mess I made," Tang Han muttered, scratching his head in frustration.
Then his gaze landed on the fourth post. The bizarre title made him curious, and despite himself, he tapped on it.
"Hello everyone! Today, I've got exactly what you all wanted to see."
There was a video embedded in the post.
Except it wasn't what anyone wanted to see at all. It was just a gray-haired horse girl wearing sunglasses doing street dance moves.
Below the video was a line of text:
(Anyone who clicked on this post will be counted as data for this experiment. Hoho, what filthy adults you all are.)
The lower right corner showed that more than six hundred people had already clicked it.
Poster: Fickle Little Boat-chan
"So it really was bait?!" Tang Han scratched his head, both annoyed and amused.
Annoyed because he'd been fooled.
Amused because he'd already suspected it was a trap, and yet somehow, in the end, he'd still been lured into clicking it.
A little while later, the bait post was removed by the official moderators.
"What a shame. Such a creative prank. I was actually thinking about taking a screenshot," Tang Han muttered, setting his phone down and preparing to start reading.
Just then, his phone chimed.
He'd received a friend request.
When he opened it, he found that it was from Rudolf Symbol.
"Rudolf? Why is she adding me?" Tang Han accepted the request, puzzled.
The moment the request went through, Rudolf sent a message.
Chat with Rudolf
Rudolf Symbol: Hello, Trainer Tang Han.
Rudolf Symbol: Sorry for the suddenness, but could you come to the student council room right now?
Rudolf Symbol: I need to have a proper talk with you about the posts.
"The posts?" Tang Han instantly got a bad feeling.
Was he about to get handcuffed for clicking on an illegal bait thread?
Join here to read ahead.
In Star Rail, Ultra-Beast Armored — Have I Caught "Equilibrium"? l (Chapter 80)
Uma Musume, But I Only Have Five Years Left to Live (Chapter 178)
Zenless Zone Zero: I'm a Doctor, Not a Bangboo (Chapter 139)
Ben Tennyson Wants to Join the Justice League ( 126 )
TYPE-MOON: Redemption Beginning with the Holy Grail War (Chapter110)
Yu-Gi-Oh! — Transmigrated into the White Dragon Girl (Chapter171)
"Is this chat group even serious?" (Chapter100)
I, Lord Ravager, Utterly Loyal! (Chapter184)
Can Playing Games Save the World? 65
Crossover Anime Multiverse: The Demon Hunter of an Unnatural World 77
From Junkman to Wasteland 66
Weekly Refresh of Overpowered 31
I'm Grinding Proficiency Like 46
From Kiana, Lord Ravager, Onwa 168
Honkai: Is This Still the Prev 42
Elf: My Starter Pokémon Is Inc 65
Warhammer: My Primarch Is Remi 156
From Demon Slayer to Grand Ass 105
The Way the Umamusume Look at 68
Uma Musume, but My Cheat Power 185
Naruto: Weaving the Future, Be 65
Zenless Zone Zero, but Kamen R 76
Multiverse Crossover: The Perf 66
My Cyberpsycho Girlfriend 65
Uma Musume: The Dark Trainer 160
Uma Musume: A Calamity Born fr 150
I, a Reincarnation-Loop Player 76
The Violent Girl Group Is Beat 97
Uma Musume: The Horse Girl Who 66
Uma Musume: From Beginner 116
Becoming a Horse Girl, I Will 75
Uma Musume: I Want All 93
I Can Copy Unique Skills 79
Summoning an Evil God, but the 55
Supernatural Multiverse 75
My Harem Is Indescribable 68
Jujutsu Kaisen: Heroic Spirit 70
"I'm just a Valkyrie passing through." 66
Uma Musume: Today Is Another Romantic Battlefield 69
Still playing traditional Honk 49
The Most Filial Son Under Heav 53
What Should I Do After Switchi 42
Reincarnated as a Demon, Skill 50
Hell-Difficulty Dungeon? 38
Transmigrated as Sukuna 35
Checking In in Demon Slayer 40
The Reincarnating Trainer of Tracen Academy 55
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