BAD ENDING 004: The Tamed Mare
Sonia merely mumbled that she had “received training as a military horse,” burying her bright-red face.
“…I don’t know exactly what kind of training it was, but… that Riri is a trainer, after all… I think I have a rough idea of what kind of training you went through, Unnie…”
Riri murmured quietly to herself. “I… I’d like to receive training from that spirit too… I wonder what she even looks like…” she added, unable to hide her disappointment.
“How about it, Sonia Unnie?”
“Uh… it’s unique… isn’t it? You perform on the central stage in the order you finish the race… right?”
Once every story had been told, time had already begun to flow toward dawn.
The odds and ends that Luce—Sonia’s old friend, an adventurer from another world—had once brought over. Among them, a strange horseshoe medal. And from that medal, a cute little donkey fairy: the Horse Spirit. A D-class hero of Sky City who had spent an entire month receiving military-horse training inside a subspace where time did not pass.
After that bizarre experience, Sonia had deliberately allowed herself to be captured by some porters who had misunderstood the situation, nearly getting sold off in the process—only to end up rescuing a girl who was about to take the fall instead. And that girl, it turned out, was a genius trainer who had been hiding her true identity.
“If Unnie doesn’t mind… of course it won’t be as comfortable as your own nest, but you’re welcome to sleep here and rest easy. No! Please stay the night!”
Riri’s eyes sparkled with anticipation.
The Horse Spirit’s medal—which had passed through various owners before finally landing in Sonia’s hands—was the very object this girl had called a “treasure handed down through her family for generations.”
Riri could hardly tear her gaze away from the brown military-horse ears that now twitched atop Sonia’s golden hair.
“I’ll gratefully accept the thought, Riri. Besides, it’ll be morning in just a few hours, won’t it?”
“Aww… that’s a shame, but… I’ll trust Sonia Unnie’s judgment! Then… you’ll play with me until then… right?”
Seizing the opportunity to introduce Sonia to the charms of mare-idol racing, Riri dashed into her room and came back out.
In her hand was an old videotape. She slid it into the slim large-screen TV in the living room, then casually sat right beside Sonia and began gently stroking her golden hair with soft fingers.
(I don’t really know what a Triple Crown is… but since it has “crown” in it, it must be something good… right?)
“Waaah, golden hair… hehe… strong and powerful… Sonia Unnie’s hair… heheh…”
“…Riri…?”
Riri seemed completely captivated by Sonia’s hair. Sonia simply left her to it, offering up her locks while continuing to watch the mare-idol racing promotional video playing on the TV screen.
Mare Idol Racing. It had begun as a local athletic meet that doubled as idol promotion in one of Sky City’s smaller districts.
Word of mouth had drawn crowds in earnest, and now it was a steadily rising popular idol program plastered across the internet, taxi ads, and bus billboards alike.
Of course, even a D-class like Sonia could casually overpower ordinary porters, so the entry qualifications included a clause excluding “excessively strong heroes.”
“That made the standards too vague, so they set a special rule!”
To block the possibility of some S-class hero barging in and ruining the local revitalization program, the entry condition had been changed to “only girls with horse-like ears on their heads!”—or so the cheerful announcer in the video explained.
“Heuuu… Sonia Unnie’s golden mane… heuung…♡ J-just a little more… almost… hehe…”
“…???”
Having already received a decent sum for the commission of sharing her experiences, Sonia simply and silently “accepted” Riri’s soft fingers continuing to stroke her hair.
The video covered the history of how mare play—once practiced only in secret fetish clubs—had gradually become wholesome horse racing where people bet on which mare would win for the sake of local revitalization, until the idol performances themselves grew more famous than the races.
Of course, the “mare racing idol introduction video” deliberately glossed over the darker parts with deliberate ambiguity.
Idols who vanished without a sound the moment their results turned poor. The reality of being pushed into hard-to-see corner seats during the post-race performance stages.
The video vaguely papered over everything with glamorous scenes of the winning mares dancing like idols, then simply ended.
“How was it, Sonia Unnie…? Unnie… uugh, I’m sorry. This might sound rude, but… you’re not someone massively famous like an S-class hero, right? Have you… ever thought about… debuting as an idol…?”
“Ah… an idol?”
Putting together Riri’s profession, the way the two of them had met, and the contents of the promotional video they had just watched, it was all too obvious that the “idol” Riri meant was actually a “mare idol.”
Faced with the sudden scouting offer, D-class hero Sonia couldn’t hide her flustered expression. Even while making the proposal, Riri remained pressed right up against her side, stroking the golden hair all the way to the ends.
“Th-thank you for saying that, Riri. But a mare idol… I don’t think idols really suit me…”
“Hauuu… I figured as much, Sonia Unnie…? It’s such a shame…”
Only a few hours remained until morning in Sky City. Compared to the grand mansion and comfortable life with maid robots that Sonia dreamed of as a hero, her current stable life was modest—but she couldn’t simply abandon it.
At the refusal that left Sonia’s lips, Riri seemed deeply shocked; the hand that had been stroking the golden hair drooped limply.
“S-sorry?”
“No, Sonia Unnie. I’m the one who should apologize for making such an absurd request. Ahaha… I got too excited thinking we might be from the same hometown… I’m sorry, Unnie.”
“No… it’s fine. I wanted to try for a victory as an equal partner with a mare for the first time—that precious experience… but in the end, I only ever end up connected to trained mares. Well, it’s okay. From now on, Sonia Unnie just needs to change her mind.”
“…Huh?”
Riri’s final murmur had sounded like she was talking to herself, yet its content lodged clearly in Sonia’s ears. From now on, Sonia Unnie just needs to change her mind. The subtle coercion and strange certainty packed into those words.
Even someone as dense as Sonia instinctively sensed that this flow was heading somewhere completely different from the direction she had wanted.
An uneasy premonition ran down her spine. Sonia tried to rise from the sofa to cut through this awkward, dangerous atmosphere.
In that exact moment, Riri’s fingers traced a strange trajectory through the air. An elegant yet clearly purposeful motion, as if spinning an invisible thread.
Taming
A low voice that seemed to dominate the entire space.
“And be quiet. Don’t get up either!”
The instant the command fell, Sonia’s body locked solid.
As if time itself had stopped, every muscle lost control right in that half-risen, awkward posture where she had just begun to lift her hips from the sofa.
A powerful freeze signal seemed to have been issued throughout her entire nervous system; she couldn’t so much as twitch a single fingertip.
The body was still Sonia’s, yet the authority to move it no longer belonged to her.
The glossy black leotard-style training restraint suit that wrapped her voluptuous E-cup bust. That imposing volume filled Riri’s field of vision.
Without lowering the finger she had pointed at the trained military horse, Riri issued another command.
“And… I’m sorry, Unnie. I’ll apologize in advance. Because Unnie is a ‘person,’ not a mare. But… ‘Be quiet!’”
“What did you sa— mmm…?! Mmm… mmmph…?! …!!”
The second command was even more absolute. Sonia tried to spit out words of protest, but the air that should have become her voice merely swirled faintly inside her throat before vanishing.
Her vocal cords had been perfectly suppressed by an invisible force. Her lips could still move, yet they were nothing more than powerless lumps of flesh incapable of producing any meaningful sound. A shock close to panic burned Sonia’s mind white.
(M-my voice… won’t come out? Th-then… that method…!)
An overwhelming difference in power. Objectively speaking, in terms of raw physical strength, a D-class hero like Sonia overpowering the frail girl Riri would have been easier than eating cold porridge.
But the current situation was not a matter of physical force. Riri’s pointing finger and commands were directly dominating Sonia’s flesh.
Regardless of her will, her body was arbitrarily accepting those words as absolute law.