Time rewound to two months earlier.
The foot-massage parlor.
"Mm…"
"I really do need to expand the business after all."
Holding the parlor's account book, Belno Light fell into thought.
Ever since Sakuraba-san had left the shop in her hands, she had been taking the job seriously the entire time.
But because the owner himself was the first to slack off, the business had actually been running in the red all along.
It did not take Belno Light long to realize that if they kept relying on Sakuraba-san's massage skills alone, there was no way this shop could grow.
They could not keep scraping by every month on the occasional cash windfalls Sakuraba-san brought in on the side, could they?
No.
She had taken over this shop to help Oguri.
She had to run it properly.
That said, Belno Light did not actually know how to expand the business…
Just then, someone knocked on the door, and a man in black stepped inside.
"Huh? Dad? What are you doing here?"
Belno Light blinked. Wasn't that her father?
How had he found the time to come see her?
"Of course I came to check on how my precious daughter's doing over here~"
The man smiled as he rubbed Belno Light's head.
"But it looks like something's bothering you. Want to tell me about it?"
"Mm…"
Feeling the warmth of her father's hand, Belno Light looked up and told him about the foot-massage parlor's current predicament.
As he listened to her explain how Sakuraba Ryo had been running the place, the man's brow slowly rose.
A foot-massage parlor inside the academy, but its hours of operation depended entirely on whether the owner personally felt like working?
No wonder all the quiet promotion he had done for the place in Tokyo had not helped much. So the real problem had been at the top.
When the beam above is crooked, the rafters below will be crooked too.
He had managed to send plenty of customers from Tokyo to this shop, but Sakuraba Ryo had fumbled things so badly that the place simply could not handle that many clients.
Still… did someone really not want to make money?
Belno Light's father turned it over in his mind for a long time, but still could not figure out why Sakuraba Ryo would adopt such an obviously self-destructive business strategy.
Unless…?
Suddenly, an idea flashed through his mind.
"Belno, you said your manager is an investor, right?"
"Y-yeah? I'm one of the Umamusume he invested in too…"
"I see!"
The man slapped his thigh and burst into hearty laughter.
"Belno, why do you think he made you the acting manager of this shop?"
"…To give me a chance to help Oguri Cap."
"Nope, Belno-chan."
The man tossed the question right back at her.
"If he wanted to give you a chance to help Oguri Cap, then why hand you a half-dead shop like this? And why would he personally limit its business hours?"
"A good investor doesn't invest in a project he has no faith in. He put all kinds of unreasonable constraints on this shop, yet at the same time handed full management authority over to you without hesitation."
"Belno, what do you think that means?"
"…"
Once her father pointed it out, Belno Light also began to feel how strange the whole thing was.
It was true.
Normally, when people ran a shop like this, profit was the goal.
But ever since she had taken over, Sakuraba Ryo had never once asked her to confirm any profit target…
It was almost as if he had no intention of making this shop profitable at all…
But how could that be?
Who would not want their own shop to turn a profit? Unless there was some goal even more important than profit.
And every time she saw Sakuraba-san come in to work, he always wore a gloomy look on his face.
Maybe that expression was not simply because he did not want to come to work…
Maybe he was disappointed in her?
"…Is Sakuraba-san testing me?"
After thinking it over, Belno Light arrived at the conclusion that seemed most likely.
"Exactly!"
The man clapped his hands together in satisfaction.
"He probably noticed your talent for management, so that's why he arranged for you to run this place. Hah, I'll give him this much—he's got a good eye."
"And nine times out of ten, all those strategies holding the shop back were probably obstacles he deliberately put in place for you to overcome."
"That would explain why he chose you to help run this shop."
Belno Light's father patted the girl on the shoulder.
"That guy probably has a lot of faith in your ability to revive this place, and he's been hoping you'd show him results."
"I-is that how it is?"
Belno Light still felt a little uncertain, but if that was not the explanation, then something else about all of this still felt off…
But…
So Sakuraba-san has been waiting for me to produce results all this time…
Then haven't I just been disappointing him these last two months—?!
Aaahhh—
What am I supposed to do…?
"Belno, don't panic. You're my daughter. Times like this are exactly when you need to learn how to ask for help, right?"
Smiling, the man rubbed Belno Light's head again, telling her to calm down.
"Dad…?"
"There's no shortage of business sense in the family~"
...
At some point, no one knew exactly when, an urban legend quietly began to spread through one corner of Tokyo.
If, on the streets of Tokyo, a chestnut-haired Umamusume with short curls came to talk business with you, it was best not to refuse her.
Otherwise, for quite some time afterward, bad luck would follow you.
That bad luck included getting harassed by the yakuza.
Or having the police show up at your door for inspections under bizarre pretexts.
But if you agreed to do business with her, some mysterious major corporation would supposedly take a liking to you, and from then on your fortune would flourish.
Because of that, the urban legend was also known as [The Chestnut-Curled Lucky Cat Lady].
There were also people who claimed that some dark kingpin had been born in Tokyo's underworld.
Someone was trying to make money by building a monopoly with one foot in both worlds—!
But for some reason, those voices suddenly disappeared too.
All that remained was a rumor, inscrutable as ever, drifting through the city.