Chapter 529: with translation of chapter title

NO. 112: Miss Akane Doesn't Understand the Pickup

Horse girls are undoubtedly eager to run.

Even if they can't run particularly fast, even if they can't win a championship, running remains their instinct.

Racehorse girls are just like ordinary horse girls, except they have the added aspect of racing.

That word essentially governs their whole youth.

Competition naturally entails having rivals and opponents.

Although racehorse girls, like protagonists in most sports manga, can find companions on the racecourse, the horse racing track is ultimately a one-way street.

The word 'single' refers not just to direction, but also to number.

Only one can be champion; even the best companions become rivals on the racecourse.

Yet opponents are also essential.

A stage without opponents is lonely; some strengths only manifest when there is an opponent.

The hardship of dreams often lies in the strength of opponents; only by needing to surpass such opponents do dreams shine so brightly.

Such a presence is indispensable even in heroic literature.

"But... how can you prove that opponent exists?"

Aomo whispered, since the library is ultimately a place to avoid noise, and the Clock Tower Library adds a dangerous source-energy element.

As the saying goes, 'He who carries a weapon invites murderous intent'; conflicts among the ascended often go beyond words.

"Mr. Lindon, you don't believe me?"

"No, I'm looking for evidence..."

Under the pressure of three gazes, Aomo whispered, the dark-red-eyed child examining the table's patterns before him, without looking at the wavering girl.

Locust wood is a common medium-to-high-grade timber, native to Ambe, later widely introduced across continents; it is not hard to find in East Yan and the Far East.

Good desks and old-fashioned writing tables are often made of it, commonplace and taken for granted.

Now, to say that beneath its ordinary exterior lies a high-quality material like maple naturally requires evidence.

"I, along with Miss Dongshang Reform and Miss Grace, have been listening to your account; they haven't doubted your words, so what reason do I have to doubt?"

He turned his head, looked at Dongshang Reform and Grace, and smiled at them.

"The racehorse girls who also inherit the horse racing spirit, and the gravekeepers who can sense spiritual bodies—your view of the horse racing spirit spoken of by the Desert Hero is strong testimony."

He raised his hand, lightly tapping the small cracks in the tabletop, gazing at the lighter wood beneath: "I believe the horse racing spirit known as the Desert Hero once remembered another important rival, and grew anxious over its long absence."

"But how can we prove it isn't just being capricious? I mean, the opponent you await may not yet have had its horse racing spirit drawn into this world, so the racehorse girl hasn't been born yet."

"This anxiety may also come from the frustration of 'you were born before I was, I was born after you had already grown old.'"

"No, impossible! She definitely exists… I am quite confident."

The excited voice was halted by Aomo's calm gesture, and the Desert Hero held fast to his view.

Aomo, seeing her so excited for the first time, merely lifted his eyes slightly toward the dimmed light screen that had grown dark from long disuse.

"Because of intuition?"

"Exactly!"

"Some coincidences, perhaps merely coincidences."

Listening to the Desert Hero's woes, Aomo almost immediately recalled last night's Baiyeer Turkey.

"A missing horse racing spirit, namely the one he had once seen in that world, a spirit that had shifted from horse racing to taking the form of a racehorse girl."

Aomo had once considered whether to notify the goddess, to use her name to contact the hospital and order a physical body.

"A spirit that has already shifted from horse racing to becoming a racehorse girl would not be suited to possessing an infant; mismatched spirit and flesh, it would be better to reshape a body, but reshaping a body still requires the spirit's data."

"Regardless, we must first make contact with that spirit again, and also ensure it is sufficiently clear, or rather strong enough."

Last time it was so faint that even a demon's eyes could not see it clearly; it was not far from the state of soul and spirit scattering in the East Yan linguistic context, and the final operation resembled something like 'uniting body with the Way.'

"If it weren't for his intuition that the other party wasn't dead, he should have directly rejected the commission's purpose."

"Intuition..."

Aomo sighed in his heart, sighing that he and the Desert Hero were not so different.

"Everyone is so rational, yet they all value intuition so highly…"

"It is also possible that intuition is being interfered with."

He turned to the other two listeners; the little witch furrowed her brows in thought, while the quiet gravekeeper lady merely gazed with her calm eyes at the friend in need of help.

Upon noticing Aomo's gaze, he then turned and asked softly, "Mr. Lindon, do you still not believe in the hero?"

"That remark sounded like a pun, making him silent for a moment, then he said, 'Naturally not; since we all intend to listen to the other's troubles, I must always stand in the client's position to think about how to fulfill the commission.'"

"Mr. Lindon!" the black-haired, bespectacled racehorse girl seemed somewhat excited.

"Evidence is always indispensable," a single remark from Aomo made the atmosphere again like a deadlock: "Even if not to persuade anyone, it should become the key to completing the commission; otherwise it remains like searching for a needle in the ocean."

He and Grace locked eyes: "Even if you are my teacher, it's the same, Miss Grace."

"The three elements of whodunit, howdunit, whydunit can also be applied here, but there is no saying for them; we have only intuition, so we can only expect intuition."

"Speaking of this, he slightly lifted his eyes, as the light screen brightened again, and the familiar opening appeared in the first line of the notice board."

【gunbattlenexusonline Operations Committee:

"Please, all infiltrators, pay attention to network data fluctuations; we just conducted a flickering update adjustment three minutes ago."

"「……? 」" -> none.

"Is this broken game still as bug-ridden as before?"

"A strange restoration and tribute."

"「——」" -> none.

The announcements have all been sent out, right? Now it's time to start the work.

Using the submersible cannon unit from SD Gundam Force to maintain the game world, gbn's game maintenance staff are also called firefighters, and the substance sprayed from the unit's gun muzzle is like a water-gun adhesive.

The gbn game world is a normal deep-dive system game world architecture, and its data maintainers are also divided into in-game and out-of-game.

The in-game ones will use in-game power to patch the world's loopholes, while the out-of-game ones are very plain—checking code, modifying code, strengthening firewalls to filter out viruses.

Roughly speaking, it's the work-cell ecology of internal medicine plus external use—if we liken the game to a human body.

"We made it, we made it, I'm saying, is this hacker attack a bit strange?"

The unlucky coder on the outside couldn't help but complain, and his miserable face also appeared as a driver-like avatar on the left screen.

"When has being attacked not been strange?" the internal technician who truly drives the 'fire truck' in the game retorted.

He then sighed: "It's a dilapidated game that's been operating for over ten years; it's really surprising that someone would want to attack it—could it be an old player annoyed by bugs back then?"

"That's exactly it—I also think it's probably not an old player, after all the data that got occupied this time is the character creation section, which is utterly baffling!"

"Not satisfied with the racial bonuses of adjusters, transformers, etc. Wanting a more perfect basic enhancement, they decided to modify the data..." While holding the adhesive device injected into the game framework, rinsing the distorted, deformed spaces in liquid form, the submersible cannon said calmly, "Have you checked the list of all characters registered back then?"

"Yes, the data analysts are currently discussing which character is most suspicious, but there's still no result—we can't just detain all the newcomers, can we?"

"It's not that we can't, but following the creators' game mode and operating model to clone the game, we can't possibly have the operations and tech department wastes learn everything."

"Player feedback is also important! If it turns out to be none of those, but some lame digital monster, that would be a huge mix-up."

"As long as we can find the culprit, there's nothing to mix up about."

"Alright, let's stop talking, the team leader came over to inspect, I'll shut up first."

——

At the same moment, the game plaza.

Having barely won the first round but then suffered a disconnection, Xintiao Qi and Bopang's game characters had just respawned from the plaza when they heard the surrounding clamor of protests.

It seems some player's reward was rolled back by the game, which has nothing to do with the two new players.

Bopang was getting ready to play the next round, while Qi couldn't help but first erase that embarrassing match record.

The two acted quickly; after briefly discussing the ground battle positioning, they had already begun preparations and then waited for the five-second countdown.

At that moment, Qi suddenly felt someone tugging at her clothes, turned her head, and saw a pair of horse ears.

"Ceti, ceti, the Observer's information, entwined, are you the Observer's afov?"

"Eh? The ears are speaking..."

Although the character customization increased her height, Qi still couldn't adapt to this height's field of view, merely surprised by this, and even failed to notice what the other person was saying.

Of course, when she really paid attention, she still couldn't understand.

Moreover, at this moment, she and Bopang, who turned his head upon hearing her, disappeared together.

Only that strange horse girl remained in place, dazed.