The Demonstration Race
The construction, which had seen a massive influx of androids providing what was effectively near-infinite labor, progressed at an astonishing pace and concluded in just two months. During that time, the mare business relocation plan—prepared step by step—was carried out, and the facilities were moved to the newly built site.
“Director, the mares have all been transferred to their new stables.”
“Are they satisfied with the new facilities?”
“The response has been excellent. They especially love the dedicated spaces for mating that were built separately.”
“They must have been uncomfortable doing it in their personal stables before. I’m glad they like it.”
The stables, modeled after the dairy cow park, seemed to have received a favorable reception. I turned to the vice president, the exceptional talent Maria had specially sent me, and asked,
“What is the situation with the foreign facilities that secured mare business rights?”
“Most of them are under construction near the Holy Grounds, the closest location to Eden. Two rights were purchased in Kensers, one in Xenuma, and one in Ryuzan.”
“Tarykin is obviously out of the question, but I’m surprised Xenuma bought one. They still haven’t dealt with all the monsters yet.”
The Xenuma military’s all-out monster extermination campaign was dragging on far longer than expected. The monsters, which had previously shown only simple behaviors like charging blindly or clustering together, had begun launching surprise attacks and diversionary tactics, inflicting unexpected casualties. Several more monster mountains like the one discovered in the Sehud region deep in the north had been confirmed, and the sheer volume of monsters pouring out from them was slowing their advance.
“Although Xenuma is using civilian operators as a front, we believe the state is effectively running the operation. It appears their goal is to secure the physical enhancement technologies that will be applied to the mares.”
“Hmm… They wouldn’t need to go to such lengths. If they formally requested it, we would provide the technology.”
“The physical enhancement technologies currently supplied to the Xenuma military are limited versions that cannot be enhanced beyond a certain level. We restrict them due to the risks involved, but it seems they want to obtain the source technology itself and modify it independently.”
So that was why they had secured the rights even in the middle of a war. Typical of a militaristic nation—obsessed with strengthening their soldiers. The enhancement technologies applied to the mares were, strictly speaking, techniques used at the cost of side effects. While hormone control, drug administration, and mare procedures via nanorobots placed less strain on the body and became more effective with training, they had the major side effect of making humans more instinctual and simplistic. That was why mare brainwashing was performed in tandem, to effectively control those side effects.
“What should we do?”
“Since it has come to this, there’s no helping it. Don’t tell them directly—subtly hint at information about the technology. It’s better to inform them in advance than to have soldiers suffer harm from ignorance.”
“As expected, you are merciful.”
“Stop calling me merciful.”
“Yes, Lady Elisha.”
The vice president answered that she understood, yet she couldn’t wipe the smile from her face. When I took over the business and made a grand appearance in the media, for some reason the image of a “merciful royal” had spread. Even though I was merely acting and deciding according to my own standards, I was still praised as a merciful person.
“If things proceed as planned, we can hold the first demonstration race after the relocation. And…”
“And?”
“There is a common request from those who have heavily invested capital in our racetrack.”
The vice president furrowed her brow, openly displaying her reluctance.
“What is it? Tell me.”
“They want to see Lady Elisha run directly in the first demonstration race. However, this is…”
“What’s so difficult about that? I just have to run.”
“As royalty, you must maintain a certain dignity. The racing outfits for mares are generally quite revealing and inappropriate.”
“We can just make a new racing outfit. I am a former champion mare who won the mare race twice, after all. I think it would be nice to run myself to commemorate this new beginning.”
“Haa… I will instruct them to create the most appropriate racing outfit possible.”
“Thank you.”
Her loyalty to Maria was so high that her loyalty to the Eden royalty was also strong, and she had a strong tendency to detest anything that might harm their dignity. Still, she was someone who knew how to draw the line—voicing her opinion but not interfering more than necessary—and Maria cherished her as a capable subordinate.
That aside, if I participate in the race, the outcome will be far too one-sided. Should I hold back a little? Ah, more importantly, who should I have as my jockey? I wonder if the trainer is still working.
I felt energized by the prospect of a mare race after so long, even while buried under mountains of paperwork, and worked with a light heart. Time flew by in the blink of an eye amid the busy schedule, and the day of the demonstration race arrived. Under the vice president’s direction, my racing outfit, the carriage I would pull, and even my jockey had been prepared and presented before me.
“Eli! Ah, I mean, Lady Elisha. It’s been a long time.”
“It’s fine. Treat me casually. It’s been a while, Trainer.”
“Ahaha…”
The trainer laughed awkwardly, glancing nervously at the vice president who was glaring at her with wide eyes from beside me.
“Could you step out for a moment?”
“…Please refrain from any rude behavior.”
Only after the vice president bowed and left the training grounds did the trainer let out a deep sigh.
“Whew~ The vice president is so strict. She nitpicked everything from my speech to my behavior and scolded me.”
“Hehe, that’s also one of her strengths. By the way, you’re still working as a trainer.”
“Being a trainer is my calling. Speaking of which, look at you, Eli—you’ve become Eden royalty and the director of a racetrack before I knew it. I was really surprised, you know?”
“A lot of things happened that I can’t talk about. So this is the racing outfit.”
I picked up the racing outfit neatly laid out on the table in front of the carriage and examined it. It was a beautiful full-body suit made of black material embroidered with elegant silver patterns.
“That’s right. They told us to create the highest-quality racing outfit that minimizes exposure while still conveying the dignity and beauty befitting royalty. It’s a masterpiece made by several master craftsmen working together.”
“The texture is really nice. Wow, there’s even a hole in the rear.”
“One of the royals is symbiotically bonded with a tail creature.”
“Sorry about that.”
I set the racing outfit down and stripped right there on the spot. The trainer took my discarded clothes, folded them neatly, and placed them on the table. Standing there in only my dairy cow underwear, she looked at me admiringly and said,
“Ooh~ You look even more agile now that you’ve lost the extra weight from your prime. But you’ve got a lot more accessories, huh? Won’t they get in the way of running?”
“I’ve retired, and my body no longer responds to training. Still, I’ve practiced maintaining my posture consistently until it became second nature.”
“Yeah, I was really surprised when I first saw you. Your posture was so perfect. But unfortunately, in today’s mare racing, the textbook posture isn’t really the standard.”
“I know. Individual personality takes priority for each mare. But I think of it as my own unique trait as a mare from the underground city era.”
Among the mares I used to race with back then, not a single one is still active. Jerry and Terry have both retired, sold off to their patrons, and are living ordinary lives. Apparently, because they were trained in the underground city style, they had too many aspects that didn’t fit with the current generation of mare racing, making it impossible for them to continue competing, so they had no choice but to retire.
Thinking of Jerry and Terry, I picked up the racing outfit, inserted my legs one by one from the feet up to the tail, then slipped my arms in and pulled it snugly into place. It fastened at the back, so with the trainer’s help I finished putting it on. When I loosened up my body, it was indeed very easy to move in.
“It was worth the price. Even though it’s a full-body suit, it feels like I’m wearing nothing at all.”
“Some of the other mares wear almost nothing at all. Mostly the ones with smaller chests, though.”
“The larger the chest, the more support it needs to keep from bouncing. Well then, shall we try pulling the carriage after so long?”
The trainer fitted me with the waist harness, connected it to the carriage, then took hold of the reins attached to the decorative headpiece and climbed aboard.
“Unlike before, your eyes aren’t covered, so the mare’s own judgment and decision-making are important. Whether to follow the jockey’s lead or run according to your own judgment. That’s why quick decision-making is necessary in a race where the outcome can be decided in an instant.”
“Before, we followed the jockey’s commands without any will of our own. Now it’s become a cooperative sport where we run together.”
“Exactly. Shall we run, then? Hya!”
Unlike the old whip made of leather and hard material, a whip made of fabric with a soft core struck my rear. Feeling a strangely nostalgic emotion, I began moving my legs with powerful strides.
After a short day of practice, the day of the demonstration race arrived. The newly opened large racetrack was packed with spectators from various countries, with not an inch of space to spare.
“Good heavens, an 8,000-capacity racetrack is completely full? Just the ticket sales alone must be a huge success.”
“Hehehe, mare racing has become a globally popular sport, so this much is nothing.”
Kyubey and Maria, seated side by side in the special seats overlooking the racetrack, spoke.
“I finally had some free time and wondered what was going on, only to find a festival like this being held.”
“Aah~ I really want to go smash some monsters.”
Uriel and Shin, who had taken a seat because they hadn’t been deployed to close a dimensional gate in a long time, chimed in.
“Uncle Havid, who did you bet on?”
“Obviously on our Elisha. Who else would win besides my sister-in-law?”
“Right? I put my entire three months’ salary on Eli.”
“I didn’t have much allowance, so I could only bet a little…”
Havid and Jadin were also seated, discussing how much they had bet on whom.
“Oh my, something like that happened?”
“Krrk, that’s right.”
“That must have hurt. Ho~ I’ll blow on it for you.”
Dahgon and Isabel, who had somehow become extremely close despite the mystery of how they met, were stuck together chatting.
I had invited Elisa as well, but she hadn’t come because she was busy making Elrad Unit 1.
“I’ll head down now.”
“Do your best since you’re racing anyway! Win overwhelmingly!”
“Eli, if you lose, my three months’ salary flies away!”
“Show them the power of your full-body prosthesis.”
Everyone was pressuring me to win overwhelmingly, as if they knew I had been planning to run at an appropriate pace so as not to damage the mares’ morale by too wide a margin.
“If I take the lead overwhelmingly from the start, the other mares won’t get a chance to be called by name, so I’ll run moderately and then win. I’m really going now!”
Just as everyone was about to open their mouths, I opened the door and escaped outside.
When I came down to the players’ waiting area, the other mares who were preparing for the race turned their attention to me. The mares, dressed in colorful outfits with distinct personalities, stared at me with eyes full of goodwill.
“Let’s all make today a great race.”
“Yes!”
“Understood, Director!”
“Please take care of us!”
They all answered in loud, energetic voices. After connecting the carriage to my waist harness and putting on the headpiece to finish my preparations, I was stretching my legs—lifting and lowering them—while waiting for the race to start when my eyes fell on the shoes I was wearing. Not only the racing outfit but also the high-heeled racing shoes I wore were predominantly black with flashy silver decorations, giving them more of a decorative feel than functional racing shoes. Still, they were much softer and more stable than the hard underground city-era mare shoes, making them far more suited to their original purpose as running shoes.
Although high-heeled shoes weren’t suitable for running with a human body, the distinctive high-heeled shoes were one of the symbols of the mares, so they had been retained even in the sport’s modernized form. I glanced around to see how the other mares were doing and noticed that, while the degree varied, they all looked nervous. It was understandable—the cheers from 8,000 people were so loud they could be heard even in the waiting room blocked by walls, enough to make one’s body vibrate. Having experienced battlefields where hundreds of thousands of troops clashed, I wasn’t particularly tense, but it was natural for the other mares to feel nervous.
“Eli, we’re going with the plan we made yesterday, right?”
“Yes, let’s do it that way.”
“Got it.”
I gave a short answer to the trainer’s question and fixed my gaze on the slowly opening gate.
“The long-awaited entrance of the players! First up is none other than the director of the Eden Racetrack and Eden’s proud royalty, Lady Elisha Drivyk!”
“Wooooooah!”
As I stepped onto the track to the announcer’s introduction, a tremendous roar of cheers rained down. Waving my hand in response to the cheers echoing beneath the clear sky and blazing sunlight, I circled the track.
“As expected, such a beautiful figure that exudes royal dignity! It’s dazzling!”
“Now, the next player entering is…”
The female announcer took over the player introductions from the male announcer, whose commentary seemed to carry a hint of personal bias. Since they were active racers who had been competing at their peak as mares, each introduction was met with their respective cheering squads shouting and singing in competition, heating up the atmosphere. Stepping on the neatly maintained dirt of the track, I moved to the number one starting position and took my place.
The structure of the track had also undergone many changes with its sportification. Excessive curved sections exceeding 180 degrees and continuous uphill and downhill sections that threatened the mares’ safety had been largely eliminated, replaced by straightaways and gentle curves that emphasized physical ability and judgment. In particular, the straightaways—where mares could run at full speed while using their carriages to obstruct each other’s paths and compete to overtake—were highly popular.
While the players entered the starting gates one by one and prepared, the spectators’ voices rapidly died down, giving way to a quiet tension.
“The demonstration race, wishing for a monumental new beginning for the Eden Racetrack, will begin shortly.”
“Haha, the scale is certainly different, so the tension feels different too. Right now it’s only mares affiliated with Eden, but soon mares representing each country will be running on this track as well.”
“Ah, the ready signal has been received. And the starting signal has appeared on the display board.”
Three red lights used as the starting signal lit up on the barrier blocking the starting gate. The moment all three lights turned blue, the barrier would open and the race would begin.
“Now! Let’s all shout together! 3! 2! 1! Start! The race has begun!”
Along with the voices of the spectators and announcer shouting the start, the barrier opened and the mares shot out like bullets.