"She's pulling away already?" King Halo leaned forward in her seat, watching Seiun Sky extend her lead. "Isn't that a bit reckless?"
"Not necessarily." Hayato kept his eyes locked on the track. "She's got high stamina, so she can afford to push the pace early."
"But what about the others? They'll have to chase her down."
"Exactly. And that's the problem for them." Hayato crossed his arms. "To catch up, they're forced to accelerate. That burns through stamina way faster than just maintaining base pace."
King Halo tilted her head. "Base pace?"
"Around 60 kilometers per minute for trained Uma Musume. It's the speed you can hold for the entire race using just guts and proper breathing, even when your stamina's empty." Hayato gestured at the pack chasing Seiun Sky. "Most runners try not to exceed that during the race to save stamina for the final sprint."
"But Seiun Sky..."
"She has the stamina to maintain a higher pace without completely gassing herself. At least, that's the plan." Hayato's knuckles whitened as he gripped the railing. "Maximum speed would drain her in seconds. Even with her stats, she can't hold top speed for long. One pacing mistake and she won't even make it to the finish."
King Halo nodded, her eyes tracking the race intently. "That's why no one goes all out from the start. Without stamina in the final stretch, there's no way to execute the last sprint."
"Right. And once stamina's depleted, guts takes over." Hayato watched as Seiun Sky continued to extend her lead. "Guts can help with acceleration when you still have stamina, but without it? You can only maintain base pace. Try to accelerate on guts alone and you'll last a few seconds at most."
Down on the track, Seiun Sky looked completely at ease in the lead position, her high stamina stat letting her dominate the early pace.
The other Uma Musume cursed under their breath. "Didn't she say she was just going to run casually?"
And she was running casually, in her own way.
Seiun Sky even had the leisure to glance back at them over her shoulder. "Yoshi, just as I thought, small fries. Seiun's going on ahead now. Bye bye!"
She suddenly pulled on her power reserves, and her speed shot up to 120, rapidly widening the gap between her and the pack. She activated her Straightway Acceleration skill on top of that.
"Number 2 is pulling away! Seiun Sky has opened up the throttle, and she's leaving the field in the dust!"
The Uma Musume behind her all panicked at once.
What was happening?
Was she accelerating already?
Was she insane?
None of them could understand why someone who'd already secured the lead position would accelerate even further. Wasn't that completely unnecessary?
The Uma Musume, whose speeds didn't even reach 100 felt despair wash over them in that moment.
Crushing dominance. Absolute dominance.
"What kind of ridiculous speed is that?"
"At that speed, shouldn't she burn out completely after accelerating?"
"Seiun Sky kept accelerating, kept getting faster. So fast, unbelievably fast. This was a runaway strategy. Seiun Sky was going full runaway on everyone. She'd completely broken free from the pack."
"Eleven horse lengths. Eleven horse lengths now, and Seiun Sky's speed showed no signs of dropping."
"This is unbelievable! Seiun Sky has opened up an eleven-horse-length lead, and she's still going strong!"
Seiun Sky entered the first corner a full step ahead of everyone else.
She hadn't lost her mind though. She seemed to still have enough strength left to complete the full race. Could the Uma Musume behind her even catch up at this point?
As she entered the corner, Seiun Sky's stamina had already been completely depleted, so she switched to running at base pace and activated her Corner Recovery skill to gradually restore her stamina.
Seiun Sky's explosive runaway drew wave after wave of cheers from the crowd.
Losing your debut race meant being classified into the maiden group and having to participate in maiden races, which was a black mark on any Uma Musume's record. Practically humiliating.
None of the competitors felt good about this situation. Their nice debut race had been completely hijacked by a runaway horse.
"Damn it, I don't believe she can keep that runaway pace going forever. Just watch, once she's past the corner, she'll fall apart."
That was all the Uma Musume could tell themselves to feel better.
To prevent the gap from widening too much, they had no choice but to increase their own speeds.
The Uma Musume who couldn't keep up began falling behind, triggering chaos as the fight for track position became increasingly fierce.
After entering the corner, the Uma Musume at the very back, who were still running at base pace had fallen nearly ten horse lengths behind the second group.
The competitors' mental states were collapsing.
If this weren't just a single-lap race, Seiun Sky really could lap them multiple times. She might not even encounter some of them until the third lap.
The race quickly moved into the final corner, and Seiun Sky's speed dropped slightly. She started showing signs of exhaustion, sweat pouring down her face and her steps becoming uneven. Each stride looked tremendously difficult.
This gave the Uma Musume behind her a glimpse of hope.
"She's done for, isn't she?"
"Seiun Sky's speed was dropping. Was this the end for her?"
"Of course, a runaway strategy wasn't something you could just pull off that easily."
"It looks like Seiun Sky might be hitting her limit here! Her pace is slowing down!"
Even the announcer sounded disappointed.
Listening to the announcer's commentary, the Uma Musume could see that the gap between them and Seiun Sky was actually shrinking.
They all assumed she'd burned through even her guts completely.
Up in the stands, King Halo shouted in frustration, "What is that idiot doing? Doesn't she know how to control her stamina consumption?"
If you lost speed on the track, the consequences were obvious. Even a few seconds of slowdown could be fatal.
"No, she's fishing." Hayato held his forehead and sighed, sweat beading on his own brow as his fists clenched tight. He was just as tense as Seiun Sky down on the track, if not more so.
He'd been scared for a moment too, worried for her, but seeing that her condition status remained normal, he relaxed again. If something was actually wrong, her condition would have already changed to "poor."
"Fishing?" King Halo looked completely confused.
Even Silence Suzuka turned to Hayato with a questioning look.
Hayato pointed down at the track. "Just keep watching. You'll see."
Down on the track, several Uma Musume who'd been suppressed for too long couldn't hold back anymore. With their lack of race experience, all they wanted now was to surge to the front and reclaim the gap they'd lost.
Their mental states had already crumbled. They weren't even considering when they should actually be accelerating.
The sound of hoofbeats intensified as several Uma Musume accelerated almost simultaneously, fighting for forward positions.
With their sudden speed increase, they quickly closed several horse lengths on Seiun Sky. They were about to overtake her lead position.
So fast, the gap between Seiun Sky and the group behind her was shrinking rapidly.
But an astonishing scene unfolded. Seiun Sky accelerated, activating her Corner Adapt skill in the process. The gap widened again, and her speed was even higher than their sprint speeds.
"Wait, what?!"
If their sprint speed was 80, Seiun Sky's current speed was 130.
"Unbelievable! Seiun Sky accelerates once more. She's still holding back energy for the final push!"
"Seiun Sky had accelerated again. Did she still have energy left?"
"So fast, incredibly fast. The distance opened up once more."
The Uma Musume who had just accelerated realized something terrible. They'd accelerated too early.
They'd already burned through most of their stamina trying to chase Seiun Sky, consumed more fighting for track position, and now they'd started their final sprint prematurely. The consequences were obvious.
"Damn it, was she doing that on purpose?" One Uma Musume cursed out loud.
Seiun Sky, maintaining her lead position up front, laughed cheerfully. "Haha! Caught myself some big fish!"
As an excellent fishing expert, you couldn't get impatient with the big catches. You had to let the fish struggle for a while, wait until they were completely exhausted, and only then was it time to reel them in.
In that moment, she noticed something surprising. Her field of vision had become unusually clear and expansive, as if she'd entered some kind of strange domain. Within this domain, everything around her seemed to freeze in place.