Humming an aimless little tune, Terumi Shinsji leaned comfortably against the railing and watched Offside Trap gasp for breath below.
Only two or three days had passed since the Tenno Sho (Autumn), yet the horse girl had already resumed training—and not only had the workload not gone down, it had actually increased.
Now that he had finally bought Abyssal Rhapsody for her, Offside Trap had at last completed her set of five Dimensional Lord runes, unlocking the highest-tier bonus of that bond. The thought of what kind of performance she might deliver in the Japan Cup made Shinsji even more excited.
Next target is saving up enough energy to buy her a Perfect Cure.
His gaze darkened slightly as he looked at the system panel, where Offside Trap's tendonitis—once only faintly marked—had now deepened in color.
It wasn't that he wanted her to keep training and racing while injured. But this whole thing was like rolling a snowball downhill: once the tempo got interrupted or the momentum was broken, it would throw off the route he had already planned out to a significant degree.
His eyes drifted toward the raised platform overlooking the training grounds. From a distance, he could make out Tōjō Hana, Nishizaki Ryū, and several other trainers all watching his session from afar.
After that record-breaking performance in the Tenno Sho (Autumn), it was only natural that every trainer would become curious about the way he trained. Taking a horse girl who had once struggled even to win a graded race and raising her to a G1 victory in just a few months—based on that achievement alone, even if Terumi Shinsji declared that his skill as a trainer ranked in the top three in Japan, not many people would dare argue.
Still, he did not care about their scrutiny.
Even if he let them stand right in front of him and watch from up close, they would learn very little. Training was never just about what happened on the track. Diet, maintenance within fixed time windows, recovery—those things mattered just as much.
To Shinsji, what happened on the field was actually the part that demanded the least attention to detail. After all, one of the most direct advantages of having everything quantified was this: no matter how unreasonable a horse girl's training looked, as long as her numbers were rising fast enough, then it was good training.
"There are two sets left. You can take a slightly longer rest before this next one. I'm going to go see what those trainers are doing. Once it's time, just start running again on your own…"
After giving Offside Trap her instructions, Shinsji suddenly felt curious and headed up toward the platform.
He made no effort to hide what he was doing. He really did want to see what these trainers thought they could learn from his methods.
Climbing the long flight of steps, the first face he saw was Tōjō Hana's—wearing a baffled expression.
As the trainer long regarded as Japan's strongest, she had spent ages peering through binoculars, yet still could not make out what was supposedly so brilliant about Terumi Shinsji's training.
It resembled Black Numata's brutal demon-style training a little too much.
Could it be that the end point of horse girl training, in the end, really was just demonic overtraining?
Naturally, Shinsji had no idea that was what she was thinking. His eyes shifted toward Nishizaki Ryū instead.
The man looked awkward as he greeted him, the lollipop hanging at the corner of his mouth teetering between falling and not falling.
Shinsji had originally intended to use the Tenno Sho (Autumn) as proof of the outcome of the bet Ryū and he had made at the start of the year. But Ryū had insisted that since Silence Suzuka and Offside Trap had each beaten the other once, it should count as a draw, earning a round of laughter and curses from Shinsji for shamelessly trying to wriggle out of it.
What was worse, when Shinsji had considered changing the conditions of the bet—making it so that Offside Trap had to win the Autumn Triple Crown to count as having surpassed Silence Suzuka—Ryū had refused that too, shaking his head over and over and repeating that it was a draw.
Shinsji could do nothing with someone that shameless, so he decided to seize the chance to needle him.
"And what's our great master trainer doing here, watching my training?"
"What do you mean, great master trainer? Aren't you the great master trainer now?"
Ryū replied without the slightest embarrassment, dragging Tōjō Hana's thoughts back to the present.
A few trainers standing behind them—people Shinsji did not know—watched the exchange, noticed that he did not seem angry, and after hesitating for a moment, chose to stay.
"Oh? I'm a great trainer now?"
Pointing at Ryū, Shinsji bitterly regretted not recording all the nonsense the man had said while trying to duck the bet.
"Yeah. Obviously you are."
Ryū said this while carefully avoiding Shinsji's gaze altogether, forcing Shinsji to step into his line of sight on purpose.
"So? What did you learn?"
Tōjō Hana clearly had questions of her own, but because of her seniority—and because this sort of thing bordered on every trainer's personal trade secrets—she kept stopping herself.
Ryū, on the other hand, had already thrown dignity aside and simply pointed straight at Offside Trap below, who was almost done resting.
"How is she improving this fast? How do you structure the training schedule?"
"Just normal stuff." Shinsji's expression was perfectly sincere, as though he truly had nothing to hide. "Whatever seems weak, we train it."
"No secret combination training? No special way to link the drills together?"
As Ryū spoke, he slung an arm around Shinsji's shoulders.
"Come on, teach me. I swear I won't tell anyone."
"The moment I tell you, the whole academy will know by tomorrow. Do you really think I don't know you?"
Considering how Ryū had once gone around loudly preaching nonsense like "cut the grass and kill the hawk," Shinsji did not believe a word coming out of his mouth.
He turned his attention back to Offside Trap below, who had already started running again. Watching the horse girl pick up speed, he nodded in satisfaction.
At this point, Offside Trap no longer needed specialized training aimed purely at catching down front-runners. And with the Dimensional Lord bond fully completed, the Noble bond would no longer be needed during actual races. So Shinsji had deliberately shifted focus toward helping her completely master the rhythm that suited her best.
Once that rhythm settled into muscle memory, then he planned to start specialized training for disrupted race pace and messy race development.
At that point, he might need to ask Maruzensky for help…
Thinking that, Shinsji cast a subtle sideways glance at Tōjō Hana.
Honestly, given the current level of the Central Tracen Academy, there were only a handful of horse girls in the entire school who could still help Offside Trap train further.
And most of them were in Rigil.
Clearing his throat, Shinsji was just about to head back down toward the field when a surprised voice sounded behind him.
The language that followed was only understandable thanks to the system's assistance.
"Look at that horse girl."
Shinsji's brows knit at once. He turned sharply and saw a group of horse girls he had never seen before standing on the platform.
They ignored the cluster of trainers entirely and fixed their eyes on Offside Trap in the field instead, clear interest rising in their eyes.
Shinsji did not like the way they were looking at her.
Especially one of them. The way she looked eager, as though itching to make a move, gave him a bad feeling.
Today's training, it seemed, was about to be ruined.
He was just about to go tell Offside Trap to switch training grounds when that eager horse girl suddenly addressed him in somewhat odd English.
"You're her trainer?"
A cold flash passed through Shinsji's eyes. He paused for half a beat, then simply kept walking.
"Hm?"
Apparently intrigued by his attitude—something she clearly was not accustomed to—she took a few quick strides and moved right in front of him.
"She'll be running in the Japan Cup, right?"
Horse girls were arrogant by nature, but they were not stupid. Their eye for talent was sharp.
They had watched Offside Trap's training with their own eyes. Since this was a horse girl they had never even heard of before arriving in Japan, there was no way she could be some already-famous, long-established star.
In other words, she had probably only just started to rise.
"Never seen her before, but at least now there's finally one opponent here who might be a little less boring."
Having casually reached that conclusion on her own, the horse girl smiled at Shinsji, as though she had made a passing decision on a whim.
"I want to run a practice race against her."
The smile did not seem openly malicious, but it certainly was not kind either. It was the sort of smile tossed carelessly at someone unimportant.
"She's training."
Shinsji's tone remained cold.
The girl did not care. She wanted what she wanted, and that meant this race had to happen.
She stood planted directly in front of him. Tōjō Hana, as Rudolf's trainer, had already realized who these horse girls were and her expression had turned ugly.
She wanted to step in and stop this, but she had no standing to do so.
In Japan she was a household name, the nation's top trainer. But to these foreign powerhouses, she had no authority worth listening to.
Even if she was the trainer of Taiki Shuttle, who had recently made a name for herself in Europe.
In fact, it was precisely because Tōjō Hana had been to Europe that she understood more clearly than anyone else how capable these horse girls were—and how arrogant they could be when facing others.
She stepped beside Shinsji and tugged lightly at his sleeve.
It was a warning, a plea for him to back off.
Shinsji ignored it.
He tilted his head slightly and looked at the girl before him. There was an innocent smile on her face, but that very innocence made what she was doing now seem all the more vicious.
So she's the kind who was spoiled far too much as a child and never learned how to behave.
Having reached that conclusion, the coldness on his face slowly eased into a gentler expression—gentle enough that the girl mistook it for surrender.
She had already opened her mouth, no doubt intending to turn around and boast to the others, when Shinsji's next words made her eyes go wide. A flush shot from her neck all the way to her forehead.
"I was wondering how there could be such an ill-mannered little horse girl…"
Speaking in her own language, Shinsji's smile carried no obvious emotion—but from her perspective, it only seemed more and more malicious.
"You've already taken four blessings at such a young age. I suppose you must have won some very impressive races, hm? Well, that makes sense. After all, you'd better hurry and spend the fading afterglow of those achievements before premature decline fully sets in."
The girl's face was already twisting in anger.
None of the trainers understood what Shinsji was saying, but judging from the looks on the faces of the horse girls and their companions, it was obvious things had taken a bad turn.
"Without the Three Goddesses' blessings, you'd probably be nothing at all, would you?"
Shinsji smiled as he spoke, each sentence stabbing straight into the fear she least wanted anyone to touch. Her whole body began to tremble.
"You burned through all your potential in advance. Who knows whether anyone will still remember your name in the future?"
"After all, it doesn't take long to fade into mediocrity."
"Only an instant is enough."
He smiled at her.
"Wouldn't you agree?"
Join here to read ahead.
In Star Rail, Ultra-Beast Armored — Have I Caught "Equilibrium"? l (Chapter 80)
Uma Musume, But I Only Have Five Years Left to Live (Chapter 178)
Zenless Zone Zero: I'm a Doctor, Not a Bangboo (Chapter 115)
Ben Tennyson Wants to Join the Justice League ( 126 )
TYPE-MOON: Redemption Beginning with the Holy Grail War (Chapter110)
Yu-Gi-Oh! — Transmigrated into the White Dragon Girl (Chapter116)
"Is this chat group even serious?" (Chapter82)
I, Lord Ravager, Utterly Loyal! (Chapter144)
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Crossover Anime Multiverse: The Demon Hunter of an Unnatural World 77
From Junkman to Wasteland 66
Weekly Refresh of Overpowered 31
I'm Grinding Proficiency Like 46
From Kiana, Lord Ravager, Onwa 118
Honkai: Is This Still the Prev 42
Elf: My Starter Pokémon Is Inc 65
Warhammer: My Primarch Is Remi 111
From Demon Slayer to Grand Ass 80
The Way the Umamusume Look at 68
Uma Musume, but My Cheat Power 112
Naruto: Weaving the Future, Be 65
Zenless Zone Zero, but Kamen R 76
Multiverse Crossover: The Perf 66
My Cyberpsycho Girlfriend 65
Uma Musume: The Dark Trainer 95
Uma Musume: A Calamity Born fr 89
I, a Reincarnation-Loop Player 53
The Violent Girl Group Is Beat 61
Uma Musume: The Horse Girl Who 65
Uma Musume: From Beginner 61
Becoming a Horse Girl, I Will 37
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