[DING! INVENTORY UNLOCKED! MISSION REWARDS HAVE BEEN SENT TO MASTER’S INVENTORY! PLEASE CHECK THEM!]
[DING! PROFESSION FUNCTION UNLOCKED! MASTER, PLEASE PROCEED TO THE RELEVANT INTERFACE AS SOON AS POSSIBLE TO CONFIRM YOUR PRIMARY BUSINESS INVESTMENT CYCLE!]
[DING! TEAM FUNCTION UNLOCKED! MASTER CAN NOW CHECK THE BASIC STATUS OF THE UMAMUSUME ON THE TEAM!]
[DING! CONGRATULATIONS, MASTER, A NEW MISSION HAS BEEN TRIGGERED! PLEASE CHECK THE MISSION FUNCTION FOR DETAILS!]
[DING…]
The instant Tamamo Cross signed her name and finalized the contract, one system notification after another chimed inside Akira’s head.
Ding after ding after ding.
Yet Akira didn’t find the sound annoying in the slightest. If anything, it sounded better and better with every chime.
Hello? More, please?
I can take it! Really!
If this thing could keep dinging nonstop for several days and nights and somehow boost this transmigrator to VIP 12 or something…
After enough consecutive system power-ups, he might shoot straight to the pinnacle of life. He might even shatter the void and ascend!
Mm. A grand dream indeed.
And quite an outrageous one.
Unfortunately, that beautiful fantasy came to an end when the notifications stopped a few seconds later.
Still, once the system had finished, Akira didn’t immediately turn his attention to everything he had just unlocked.
He decided to deal with the first Umamusume member of his Team before anything else.
She had been complaining about everything when they met not long ago, yet now she had gone and signed a contract with him just like that. Something about that clearly wasn’t right. At the very least, he needed to make sure she properly understood the relationship between them.
Even if his real plan was to use the system to lose money and get rich by taking the long way around, he still had to give her the attention she deserved.
After all, this precious little troublemaker in front of him was his God of Wealth—the key to losing money all the way to prosperity through the system…
Although Tamamo Cross had signed the contract without even reading it, its contents were actually quite simple.
Aside from clearly laying out each party’s obligations and certain restrictions, the main point concerned Tracen Academy’s revenue-sharing arrangement for Trainers and Umamusume.
And when the gray-haired Umamusume finally saw the numbers written there, even she couldn’t help clicking her tongue.
“Tsk, tsk. So the prize money gets split thirty-seventy, huh? Givin’ the school thirty percent still feels kinda rough…”
Holding her cup and sipping her drink through a straw as she finally examined the contract in detail, Tamamo Cross frowned slightly at the section concerning her own earnings.
“Huh?”
Hearing her belated—and distinctly mistaken—complaint, Akira took the contract back and looked it over carefully.
Phew.
The revenue split and the minor adjustments were all printed correctly. No problem there.
After confirming that he hadn’t made a mistake when downloading and printing the Academy’s contract template, he pointed at the relevant text.
“Uh, Tamamo, you’ve got it backward.”
“The seventy percent goes to the Academy. The remaining thirty percent of the prize money is what you and I split according to our agreement.”
“Oh, so that’s how it… Huh?!”
“What the heck?! This school’s that much of a rip-off?!”
After her new Trainer corrected her, Tamamo Cross initially nodded obediently in understanding. Then she thought about it for a moment and realized that, compared with what she had just been grumbling about, she was actually losing out even harder.
Watching her reaction, Akira had no idea how an Umamusume who had already debuted was only learning this now.
“Hey, hey, complain all you want, but keep your voice down. You don’t want Tracen hearing that one of its own Umamusume is publicly bad-mouthing the Academy, do you?”
Still, Akira could sympathize with her reaction.
After all, this so-called revenue split also limited how much money he himself could receive.
“Tamamo, ever since you enrolled, the Academy has probably covered your tuition, meals, clothing, travel expenses, and all kinds of other costs, right?”
At that, she merely nodded with a slightly blank expression.
“There you go. It’s not a charity, after all. They’ve got to balance their expenses somehow.”
Even though he barely knew anything about Tracen Academy or Umamusume, the answer was easy enough to figure out.
Yet his explanation only seemed to make Tamamo Cross more emotional.
Her fingers, still a little messy from eating, trembled faintly as she pointed at Akira with a visibly aggrieved expression.
“Th-Then what about you? Didn’t the President say you were a new Trainer too?”
“Me? Besides what I get through the Umamusume partnership contract, I also draw a salary from the Academy. I don’t think rookies get paid all that much, though.”
Seeing that she looked ready to cry, Akira had no choice but to keep consoling her.
“Try to look on the bright side. As a newcomer, you should have a fixed income and race allowances too, right?”
“And don’t worry. This kind of revenue split is actually meant to protect the Team. As long as we enter enough races and perform well enough later on, the share we can receive will go up too.”
Tracen Academy used a tiered revenue-sharing system.
Aside from recovering costs, its basic purpose was to ensure that rookie Umamusume still had a relatively stable income even if they performed poorly, while also preventing Teams from being placed under excessive financial pressure.
Prize money for rookie races was limited to begin with. But once an Umamusume accumulated enough race experience to leave the newcomer stage, or achieved results in certain important races, the Academy would adjust its share of that Umamusume’s contract accordingly.
Tracen Academy also had another arrangement that was practically perfect from Akira’s perspective.
The Trainer, or whoever was responsible for the Team, could assume full responsibility for the profits and losses of their Umamusume members!
The Team would instead cover the expenses normally subsidized for Tracen Academy students, but in exchange, the Academy would take a much smaller share of the revenue.
The only unfortunate part was that the Academy offered that arrangement only to Teams with stable operations and a sufficiently strong record.
“I see…”
“Your previous Trainer never explained any of this to you?”
The moment he asked, Tamamo Cross’s voice wilted.
“Course not. I had enough trouble just makin’ my debut. Why would I have cared about all this…?”
For an Umamusume student to formally debut and become a professional Umamusume, she had to enter a Debut Race and win.
If she failed to win, she could still enter other races afterward, but she would be restricted to maiden races.
At least as far as Akira knew, the Umamusume before him had failed twice. She had even switched from turf to dirt and suffered another failed debut attempt before finally scraping out a win in a maiden race on dirt.
A painfully difficult debut, followed by several consecutive losses.
She had finally managed to place in the top three recently, only for her Trainer to terminate their contract early at the end of the season.
Right now, Tamamo Cross’s only hope was the Trainer sitting across from her—Trainer Higashiyama.
Then Tamamo Cross suddenly remembered something else.
“Oh, right. How come you didn’t put that thing in here?”
“What thing?”
“Y’know, the part where the contract gets terminated if some condition gets met or whatever.”
“You mean a termination clause?”
The sudden question came just as the gray-haired Umamusume had grown dejected. Akira merely shrugged and answered casually.
“I don’t need one.”
“If you genuinely want to leave someday, then it’ll probably mean I wasn’t capable enough to make you want to stay. In that case, all I can do is thank you for working with me and reflect on where I went wrong.”
“And if you’re worried I might kick you off the Team or something, don’t bother. I’m a rookie too. I’m even more inexperienced than you are. If we lose, the bigger share of the blame definitely falls on me.”
At Tamamo Cross’s unexpected question, Akira simply spread his hands to show that he didn’t care.
After all, if an Umamusume turned out to be too outstanding, she would probably decide that he was nothing but a useless deadweight Trainer dragging her down, then leave of her own accord to find a better partner.
As for an Umamusume who performed terribly but still didn’t want to leave the Team?
Excellent!
Please send more of those his way!
As many as possible!
“So as long as I, Higashiyama Akira, have even a bite to eat, Tamamo, I’ll make sure you get your fill first. Then I can watch you race without having to worry!”
After trying to reassure her, he even finished with what he personally considered a rather cool and magnanimous declaration.
Akira expected some kind of enthusiastic, hot-blooded response.
Maybe she would even clap and cheer or something.
Instead, what followed was a sudden silence.
Hm? Was that too cringe?
At least make fun of me or something?
Somewhat confused, he lifted his gaze from the contract and looked at her again.
Only then did Akira notice that Tamamo Cross was suddenly gripping her cup with both hands. She had lowered her head and was quietly taking tiny sips directly from the cup instead of using the straw.
What was this?
Why had she suddenly stopped talking?
T/N: Tamtam is cute yknow~
This is a fan translation of 亏钱养马娘，但呼吸法是什么鬼？by 恰米的鼠鼠 Rights to the original work belong to the creator. Please support them by exploring their original work or sharing it with others if you can. Thank you for reading and supporting my efforts to bring this story to a wider audience!
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