Chapter 81
Having already laid every card she held on the table, she could no longer press any harder.
Grabbing a passerby and declaring, "You have the makings of a Military Horse!" would only get her treated as some bizarre spirit.
"…Would extracting a soul-bound declaration that she shall live as a Military Horse for the rest of her life, even now, be… too much to ask…? It comes with rather sturdy equipment as a bonus, you know…?"
The spirit drew something from her inventory and held it up for display.
It was an exquisitely crafted set of restraints fashioned from strangely lustrous black metal and leather — the sort of permanent-duration equipment that, once donned, could never be removed for a lifetime.
At the sight of that lewd "Military Horse armor," Sonia's face flushed faintly. Living out her entire life as a Military Horse was a condition even Sonia found hard to accept so readily.
"Um… that… is a bit much… Forever is a little…"
"Ah! I just realized I haven't asked the most important thing yet! I'm sorry, Spirit!"
"The most important thing, you say. Speak, Sonia. Crunch… crunch…"
As though the crucial question had only just occurred to her, Sonia's golden hair swayed lightly. The spirit chewed with the ferocity of someone determined to wipe every carrot from the refrigerator, waiting for Sonia's question.
"About the training… do you know how long it takes? Even a rough estimate is fine!"
What mattered most was time. If acquiring the special privilege took ten years, she would be better off simply registering at a gym and working out steadily.
"Time…? Time, you say… Ahaha! Forgive me for laughing! This is precisely the difference between how spirits and humans perceive time — I hope you will be generous in your understanding. Since it is you, Sonia, I shall answer specially. Of course it will not take time, will it? No matter how long, everything will naturally be finished by tomorrow morning!"
"To… tomorrow morning?"
Evening was already drawing near. It was the hour when the tall buildings began lighting up one by one like artificial stars. The spirit's claim that everything would be done by tomorrow morning sounded utterly unreal.
"If Sonia puts in more effort, it will finish even sooner — so there is no need for such useless fretting. Huhu…!"
"Use… useless fretting… useless fretting…"
The spirit explained that the training would take place in her personal space — a subspace where time flowed completely differently from reality.
There she would receive training as a (female) Military Horse, obtain the special privilege, and simply return to Sky City.
The first stage of this glorious training was to become, at least on the surface, a perfect "female horse."
"A… female… horse… a mare… a maaaare…♡"
The moment she heard those words, Sonia's body trembled faintly. Concrete images stormed through her mind like a tempest.
The sensation of a cold, hard bit being forced into her mouth, pressing down hard on her tongue. From her jaw, stretched open to the point of aching, saliva would trail down in thin threads.
When she planted all fours on the floor — the cold surface transmitted through her palms and knees, and the humiliating gaze that left her ample hips completely exposed. At someone's low "Giddyup," her body would react before thought, crawling forward of its own accord.
Just those imaginings alone made Sonia press both hands firmly against her lower belly without realizing it. Fantasies mixing humiliation and pleasure filled her head, generating a hot heat.
"There is no need to tremble so, Sonia! …I cannot for the life of me understand why you are pressing your belly. Is it a habit, by chance? …There is no need to become some lowly mare packhorse that goes into heat every single day… but to receive training as a proud Military Horse, one must begin from the basics, so I hope you will understand. Sonia…"
How to stand proudly as a Military Horse, how to walk with majestic bearing, even the special movements only a Military Horse could perform.
The Horse Spirit had concluded that teaching all of this at once to Sonia — an ordinary human who knew nothing — would be far too difficult.
"E…even so, I'll give it a try!"
Before Sonia's enthusiastic words could even finish, the spirit cut her off with a serious expression.
She had not removed the carrot from her mouth, but inside that tiny head a systematic curriculum for turning Sonia into a perfect Military Horse was already being furiously designed.
Faced with the spirit's serious demeanor — which somehow still only looked cute — Sonia could only watch her in silence.
"…Good. Are you prepared, Sonia! This lady is prepared."
Like a narration double-checking a game protagonist's name before final confirmation, the Horse Spirit verified Sonia's will once more.
After briefly deliberating the "Sonia Military Horse Training Plan" in earnest, she finished all her designs, then nibbled away at her carrot until she fell asleep on the sofa — only to wake Sonia late at night, but all preparations appeared complete.
"As I told you just a moment ago, you need not worry about time at all, so set your mind at ease, Sonia! Of course it will be hard, but there is no chance of injury, nor of entering this lady's space and never returning!"
Muttering with a spine-chilling air of regret that she had not managed to extract a vow to live as a Military Horse for life, the Horse Spirit continued.
"In exchange, for the duration of the training, you must bid a temporary farewell to Sonia the human. Do you understand?"
"I… I understand!"
Before beginning the Military Horse training the Horse Spirit was specially bestowing, Sky City's D-class hero Sonia recited a slightly modified "Military Horse Declaration" adjusted for both their circumstances.
The depraved words calling herself livestock rolled off the tip of her tongue and set her ears burning hot.
"I, Sonia, will diligently and to the best of my ability complete Spirit's Military Horse training! During the training, as Spirit instructs, I will be not a human but a mare… nnh…♡ Do I really have to say this? I… it's so embarrassing…♡"
"It may sound like mere human speech, but that is unmistakably a Military Horse's first cry, Sonia! Once a Military Horse has begun to run, it never stops until its master commands it. Sonia!"
As if this was one point she would absolutely not concede, the Horse Spirit cried out firmly.
There was also the fact that even before entering the spirit's personal space, that small body had begun to turn transparent as if about to vanish — so Sonia stopped grumbling and continued as the spirit had instructed.
"A… alright… I'll just say it… I'll say it… nnh… a mare…♡ I, Sonia… for Spirit's Military Horse training, 'only for the training period'…"
"Originally I would have preferred you become a vanguard spreading the benefits of Military Horses as a Military Horse for life… but I shall respect Sonia's hero… work? Adventurer work! Continue, Sonia!"
"…During Spirit's training period, I will set aside my identity as a human… ugh… how did you even come up with a sentence like this…"
At Sonia's grumbling, the spirit casually remarked that every girl who had agreed to receive Military Horse training from her throughout the generations had made this declaration with the feeling of a soul contract. This was a specially modified version of the wording, taking Sonia's circumstances into account.
"I, Sonia, during the Military Horse training Spirit provides… bid farewell to my identity as a human… and declare here and now that I will become a mare in order to become a Military Horse… I declare… pervert…"
"Ahem… a pervert, you say… Without mares there would be no packhorses… Hmph… And without packhorses, who would pull the carts and till the fields? Monsters are dangerous, you know!"
To the Sky City hero who had just recited the sentence she herself had labeled perverted, the spirit stated the plain facts and lectured as if teaching that failing to account for cultural differences was a bad thing.
There might be ordinary fantasy worlds like Luce's homeland, but the region where Military Horses had been revered like guardian spirits was apparently a barren place with no creatures suitable for pulling carts — no horses or cattle.
(…It might actually be an incredibly vast… world?)
Recalling Earth's past, when the AI revolution and Gate Monster incidents had brought the planet to the brink of devastation, Sonia vaguely guessed at the vastness of that other world.
She recalled Luce proudly pointing to a single spot on a map of the fantasy world Floren and declaring, "This is our country!"
As if trying to catch Sonia as she began drifting into another daydream, the golden horseshoe medal in Sonia's hand began to gleam.
"I have witnessed well that vow to become a Military Horse! …No, that is not it. Ahem… ahem… At any rate, from this moment I shall raise Sonia first as a mare, and then as a gallant Military Horse, so follow well! …I request it!"
The Horse Spirit, dressed in angular clothes that looked half like performance costume and half like a uniform. Even though they had not yet entered the personal space the spirit would create, the Military Horse training directed at "Mare Sonia" seemed to have begun from this very moment.
"I… I understand…♡ Like this…?"
"You catch on quickly, Sonia! Just like that is what I request!"
The first order the Horse Spirit issued. It was "getting used to being naked." At those words, Sonia, without a moment's hesitation, shed everything from her skirt to her blouse onto the living room floor as if peeling off a skin.