Chapter 420: NO.3: Sixteen-Year Unprecedented Major Change

NO. 3: Sixteen-Year Unprecedented Major Change

I'm definitely broke: 【It's hard to believe, my summer training actually has to be a few days longer than others'】

Old data-obsessed: 【This is preferential treatment, Nishizaki-senpai; if it were my side, Jingū would wish it ended early】

Life, the important thing is participation: 【I really miss summer vacation; as long as it's summer vacation I don't have to face Urarara's report card……ah, do we have summer vacation?】

Not Tosei-in: 【Although the school is almost year-round without break, continuing training schedule regardless of summer or winter, there indeed is a summer vacation; by the way, according to the normal end time of summer training, everyone actually still has a three-day holiday】

Training Master: 【Really? I don't believe it! My summer vacation memory is definitely fake; I only saw horse girls pulling their cliques running on the beach, I here feel each day like a year, the network conditions on this coastal planet are even so bad that I can't play games!】

Cosmic Cat-Head: 【Don't play deep dive, regular computer games should still be fine, right?】

I'm Maybe: 【What do you say when the computer malfunctions? Old data-obsessed, can Senpai Iwama help take a look?】

Old data-obsessed: 【Ah, give me the room name, I'll come check later; hope it's not the monitor's problem, and seriously, will the distance threshold for next year's G1 basic race really increase?】

For survival, stay strong: 【Maybe? Today I found the Horsemanship Development Compendium; URA Association's competition regulations have changed 1,481 times from ancient times to now, and in the first ten years since its founding it changed 873 times】

I'm Maybe: 【? That's outrageous?】

Cosmic Cat-Head: 【I'm more curious where you got that famous forbidden book from】

For survival, stay strong: 【Hong Ying London Library, that desert heroine Miss brought me to find it】

I'm definitely broke: 【That's quite convincing, though maybe the topic has drifted?】

For survival, stay strong: 【I analyzed the basis for changes to URA Association's competition regulations; the first ten years and after that can clearly be divided into two categories】

【The former is laying the foundation, the latter is era change】

I'm definitely broke: 【Era change, then that matches what Ayaka said】

——————

「Era change? 」

Ailisuzhi, who was poking at the dish in front of her, lifted her head and slightly frowned: 「You asked me for those records earlier—was it for this? 」

It was clearly an ambiguous topic, but once it got tied to the distance threshold, this horse girl researcher became sharp-minded and quick to react.

She immediately recalled that, when she was groggy from being woken up and couldn't pull herself together, the other party had hoped she would send those record data in that noisy communication.

That data collected recent years' horse girl start, uphill, final sprint phases, etc.

Of course, this is normally something trainers would deliberately collect, not something horse girls should.

But since the horse girl is Ailisuzhi, you can only say 'actually quite normal'.

Even what she collected is more detailed than what Aomo himself scraped from the internet.

Besides speed and timing, her record data also includes plenty of information on the horse girls' arm strength, wrist strength, and so on.

These records concerning physique and complex source-energy adaptability at first glance seem unrelated to training, but that's only a first glance.

How can an athlete's various bodily metrics be separated from the sport itself?

However, Ailisuzhi's motive for collecting these isn't simple, after all she's a horse girl who can casually pull out a bottle of muscle-strengthening medicine.

And lately, she's been obsessed with drawing one or two tubes of Aomo's blood, even coming to fetch a few strands of hair.

Just as mysterious as Xi.

Aomo once suspected these two were secretly collaborating behind his back, creating clones and such, like some 'Absolute Ability' plan… or maybe 'Activate the new Linton trainer!' etc.

This line of thought is too classic even among transmigrants, but the natives also don't understand the transmigrants' fashion.

All I know is that whatever they plagiarize feels like the latest to me.

Because of this, I often bring up newly learned memes in chats with Bi Ze, only to be teased by him for being old-fashioned.

How to put it… being seen as a Martian by an alien still makes me a bit pissed.

But there's nothing to be done about it.

Works tagged with 'otherworld' once they involve plagiarism are just old stuff.

But there are also IPs like Ultraman and Horse Girls, which are long-updated and never feel outdated when mentioned.

These days, Bi Ze occasionally curiously asks Aomo whether certain horse girls he remembers have appeared, and what their status is.

Aomo also occasionally consults Bi Ze, or rather consults the transmigrant circle that Bi Ze can connect with.

——For some horse girls with insufficient information gathering, their reference material might perhaps be found among those horse girls as known by the transmigrants.

Being originally born from the influence of otherworld horse souls, horse girls naturally can also obtain corresponding references to 'fate', 'curses', and even 'temperament' from otherworld culture.

However, that's all just preparation not usable in the short term; what's truly imminent is still the results of my recent investigation.

——URA's competition schedule improvement standard.

This should also be a standard the association itself would publish before the public, but in Aomo's over-ten-year perception, URA Association and the secular public are indeed in this usual state of opposition.

Such warnings that should be built up and announced early, as recorded in the book, have always been without any foreshadowing.

Of course, limited to the public's eye.

Each competition change requires interdepartmental coordination; these people generally know about it, and there are also often rumors arising from leaked advance information.

「Exactly so, you can look at the specifics in this book. 」

He pushed that compendium toward Suzi's desk, Aomo crossed out the still-updating trainers' chat room, then glanced at the relatively calm Gui Yuan Zhi Tang chat room, before turning his gaze back to Suzi across the table who had picked up the book and opened it.

And also Chazuo, who had leaned his head over beside her, jointly looked curiously at the page.

「I've put a disposable bookmark on the records of regulation revisions; from page 515 onward you can see that URA Association's schedule changes never gave advance notice, and even the author himself mocks the association's attitude between the lines. 」

「What does that mean? 」

Xi, who was still flipping the menu nearby, also leaned her head over, and together with Aomo they looked at the two horse girls opposite with subtle expressions.

Suzi's fluctuating expression was already noticeable enough, but even Chazuo, who is habitually dull and usually mistaken for steady, showed a troubled look, making it seem like a big deal.

「It's just like when your usual curriculum is about to be overhauled, yet the Academic Affairs Department's textbook division hasn't given any hint. 」

Aomo calmly raised his hand and pushed back the nearby pink-haired head that had gotten too close.

It's already noon, also lunchtime.

Aomo, for once not cooking, simply told Xi to wake the two roommates and have them come over here for a meal; he had intended to treat someone to dinner, namely the Desert Heroine Miss.

But upon greeting them, he heard that the other party had already accepted a dining invitation beforehand.

That could only be said to be an ill-timed moment.

Aomo, not insisting, also understandingly postponed the invitation, but he did receive a reply that the other party would come visit in the afternoon.

After gladly accepting, he bade farewell and, bringing along the already-met Bofang, arrived first at this restaurant.

"Wow," Xi, whose head had been pushed back by a palm, sat up straight again, still facing the opposite person and asked, "Is this teaching material really not going to get flamed?"

The pink-haired high schooler enthusiastic about monster research, although they had a fair understanding of the occupations of their housemates and landlord, could still utter such a lack-of-common-sense remark.

"URA has never been a big deal," said Aomo, taking a sip of water, glancing at Xi's phone, "Have you finished ordering?"

"More or less, Bofang, want to add something?" Xintiao said, handing the phone to the quiet horse girl beside them who wasn't participating in flipping through the books over there.

She was an early-rising trainer who had met up with Aomo long ago, naturally learning this news earlier than the two companions who had only just woken up less than an hour ago; she had no intention of joining the discussion, merely burying herself in her phone, occasionally glancing at Aomo.

This made Aomo somewhat puzzled by the intent behind her scrutinizing gaze.

Upon seeing Xi hand over the phone, he instead shook his head and continued tapping the mobile game interface on his hand: "Just select according to everyone's needs."

The cyber horse girl isn't very interested in the cuisine of the Grand Hero restaurant, and neither is Aomo himself.

Although stargazing is merely a dish used as a symbol of stigma, setting that aside, the popular dishes of the Grand Hero cuisine are also hard to call excellent.

Aomo's palate, having undergone a decade-plus of Eastern culinary style baptism in the Boundary Gate District, can be said to have been fully assimilated, making him rather picky.

"Oh~" Xintiao Xi glanced at her phone interface, then looked at Aomo, nodding thoughtfully.

Just as he was about to greet the two people opposite, he instead saw Ailisuzhi lift her head and look over: "The times are changing… the speed and physique of racing horse girls are increasing year by year; this year, moreover, sixteen years have passed since the last adjustment, and the numbers have diverged greatly—did you confirm this based on that?"

"Strictly speaking, I first saw other trainers discussing this possibility; these fellow trainers from the Central senior cohort perhaps also have considerable connections within the URA."

The so-called 'uncle faction' and such are also not concepts limited to the gaming circle.

Aomo glanced at Chazuo, who was also looking this way.

Zhouri Ningjing is also a staff member of the URA Association, though she belongs to the Inquiry Committee, which specializes in PR and image cleanup work, unrelated to the department that formulates competition regulations.

But she must have heard some rumors, right?

"They're discussing it? Then that is indeed quite possible."

"Besides that, there is another existence that accounts for a large proportion of the possibility."

"... Dream Cup." Chazuo suddenly spoke.

It drew everyone's attention, and then, instinctively, she lowered her head slightly.

"Did I guess wrong?" she said, feeling uneasy.

Seeing her reaction, Aomo let out a helpless laugh and shook his head: "No mistake, it's the Dream Cup."

"The Dream Cup, which directly breaks most of the old rules, will be launched at year's end; this is undoubtedly the perfect foundation for promoting the new regulations."

"Even the usually silent and staid URA Association would not be unmoved by such romance."