With a horrified look on her face, Shijiaji scrambled backward, bracing herself on her hands as she retreated.
Offside Trap drew even closer.
The terror on Shijiaji's face had already shifted into outright panic and grievance. The horse girl who had remained arrogantly spoiled even in front of Symboli Rudolf now wanted nothing more than to drag her utterly exhausted legs away from this tireless monster as fast as possible.
"What's wrong?"
Shijiaji could not understand what Offside Trap was saying, but from her tone, she could guess the meaning well enough.
She shook her head frantically, then suddenly jabbed a finger at one of the horse girls behind her. The one who had been wearing a delighted "this is great entertainment" expression instantly went pale.
The moment Offside Trap's gaze shifted her way, that girl swallowed hard and ducked her head so low it nearly disappeared into her not-particularly-large chest.
"Trainer~"
Offside Trap looked at Teruizumi Shinji with helpless eyes. Unable to speak the same language, she now felt like a bully, to the point that the foreign horse girls were all hurriedly avoiding her gaze.
Shinji spread his hands, then walked up beside her and leaned close to whisper into her ear.
"I didn't expect them all to be such poor stayers."
The warmth of his breath made Offside Trap's earlobes turn red. She shot him a reproachful look and turned her face away.
Shinji chuckled softly, then finally turned toward the still-shaken Shijiaji.
"What happened?"
"What do you mean, what happened?" Shijiaji cried, eyes wide as she pointed at Offside Trap. "Didn't you see what she was doing just now? She still wanted to keep running with me!"
"Of course," Shinji replied matter-of-factly. "We've only done two sets so far."
"?"
Shijiaji felt as if the sky had just collapsed on top of her.
She had come today full of anticipation. She had even arranged with her companions that she would be the one to test Offside Trap's approximate level, and for that reason she had deliberately skipped going out to play and adjusted her condition in advance.
Even if it was only supposed to be a rough test, Shijiaji had still wanted to show off a little.
What she had never expected was that this master-and-student pair would drag her through repeated full 2400-meter runs with almost no real pause. And now this trainer was calmly informing her that the four full laps they had just run only counted as two sets.
So even a full simulated race no longer counted as one set of training now?
No wonder after the first and third laps, just when she had barely managed to catch her breath, they had hauled her straight into the next one.
Her eyes trembled as they dropped to Offside Trap's legs.
Those were truly a pair of iron legs. With legs like that, even a pig could probably be trained to at least G3 level.
"There are still another two or three sets left. Come on."
At Shinji's urging, Shijiaji's expression went vacant. Then she abruptly pointed once more at the horse girl who had been enjoying the spectacle from the sidelines.
"Her. Let her replace me. Different opponent, different style—it'll help more!"
"Me?" The girl who had suddenly been dragged into the line of fire immediately waved both hands. "I… I can't. I'm weak. I'm just here to fill out the numbers. I don't have any real results!"
Her speech was getting garbled, but Shijiaji's eyes lit up.
"That's bullshit! She's Dream Well!"
"Right, Dream Well," the horse girl said at once. "I do sleep pretty well."
"She's Good Dream—this year's Irish Derby and French Derby winner."
"I'm not! She is!"
Another horse girl, equally caught in the crossfire, sighed deeply and straightened up with great resignation.
"I'm the Epsom Derby one…"
"The Epsom Derby has more prestige than mine, doesn't it?"
Dream Well had just managed to latch onto Skyscraper when, after taking two full seconds to process what had happened, Skyscraper slowly rose to her feet. Dream Well brightened immediately. Among their group, this was the slowest-reacting horse girl of the lot. For one glorious moment, Dream Well thought she might actually have confused her.
Then Skyscraper asked, completely seriously, "Excuse me, where's the bathroom?"
"..."
Dream Well rolled her eyes.
Under Shijiaji's nearly tearful pleading stare, she finally steeled herself and stood up.
Looking at Offside Trap, Dream Well had no doubt that for the first two laps she could still display her own brilliance and leave behind this horse girl who had already run four full-course simulations.
Only…
The girl in front of her simply seemed not to know what fatigue or pain was.
By all rights, after training this hard, those legs should already have hurt so badly that she shouldn't even be able to lift them properly.
And yet Offside Trap looked completely normal.
"Maybe I'm overthinking this, and I don't mean anything bad by it," Dream Well said, turning toward Shinji. "But you really ought to take her in for a full examination."
Given his expertise in horse-girl physiology and conditioning, she could not understand how he could possibly design a training program like this.
"Maybe you have your own reasons," she continued, her expression grave. "But based on everything I know, I have to warn you. It's for her own good. I don't want to see an absolute world-class talent—someone whose ceiling clearly goes far beyond this—destroyed by the intensity of her own training."
None of the European horse girls could possibly know that Offside Trap's explosive growth came from the effect of the Dimensional Lord bond. All they could see was that after yesterday's training, she had returned today already noticeably stronger again.
That was the mark of genius.
Every day of training brought obvious progress. That kind of thing was astonishing.
Even Doremi, who usually did not speak much, had been moved enough by today's session to comment on it.
"I know," Shinji replied. "And you should understand this: I want her to break down even less than any of you do."
His expression was firm, and Dream Well's gaze softened.
Whatever else might be said about him, when he looked at his own horse girl, that expression in his eyes was absolutely real.
Even among those long-famous trainers, only a very few ever looked at any of their runners like that.
"Then let's do it."
With that, Dream Well beckoned to Offside Trap and started toward the track.
Only after receiving Shinji's tacit approval did Offside Trap move to follow.
Watching the three of them head back toward the course, a sharp gleam flashed through Shijiaji's eyes. She suddenly tipped her head back and looked toward her companions.
"Well? What did you all make of her?"
At her question, the bespectacled horse girl pushed up her glasses in her signature manner.
"Her fundamentals are unbelievably solid," she said. "So solid she doesn't feel like a horse girl at all. She feels more like a machine."
"That's her trainer's doing." Doremi's eyes settled on Teruizumi Shinji. She had not exchanged a single word with him yet, but she had been quietly observing everything he said and did. "He already has his own fully formed understanding of training. None of the other Japanese trainers I've seen have anything like it."
"You mean all the horse girls he trains from now on will be built in this style too?"
Shijiaji suddenly felt a headache coming on. The best trainers all had their own styles, and the horse girls they produced, while not identical, always carried the imprint of that style.
And horse girls like Offside Trap—meticulous in their fundamentals, terrifyingly complete, not reliant on tactics or favorable race flow—were the worst kind of opponents.
They were hard to target.
And even if you did manage to target them, they could still flip the whole situation through sheer force of ability.
"Based on the patterns of other top trainers, yes," Doremi said.
Then her expression darkened.
This trainer had a kind of presence that none of the others did.
She could not quite define what it was, only that it gave her the uncomfortable feeling that the usual historical patterns might not apply to him at all.
"Just look at the Autumn Tennōshō," Master Painter said with a sigh. "An eight-hundred-meter charge to hunt down a front-runner who'd broken clear. No one, seeing a runaway leader enter the final straight with nearly twenty lengths on the field, would ever believe a horse girl could close all of that in the remaining distance and still catch her."
"And if you were up against her," Master Painter asked, turning to Doremi, "how confident would you be?"
The silver-haired horse girl half lowered her eyes. She thought for a long time before answering.
"If it doesn't rain… I can't say for sure."
Doremi's answer made Rustic Lover laugh as if she had just heard the funniest joke imaginable.
"What's so funny about that?" Doremi snapped.
Seeing her annoyance, Rustic Lover hastily waved both hands.
"In Europe you were always the one dreading the rain. And now that you've come to Japan, you're actually hoping for it?" She grinned. Doremi's weakness on heavy going was no secret back home, and the remark drew a faint smile even from Master Painter. "Then you'd better pray the rain doesn't come too hard."
"And what about the rest of you?" Doremi pressed. "Seriously, Painter—stop wavering and enter already."
At that, the smile vanished from Rustic Lover's face. She fell silent.
After all, the horse girls who had come here would not necessarily have faced each other directly back in Europe. There were enough G1 races there that the strongest runners did not all have to pile into the same events.
So when they came to Japan, there had also been a part of them that looked forward to finally getting to go all out against one another on the track.
"I mostly came because of Little Ji," Master Painter said at last. "Honestly, I was thinking of this more as a trip than anything, and besides…"
"The course here isn't as if you haven't seen it," Doremi cut in. "Even if it pours, the worst it'll get is about what counts as slightly yielding back home. Ordinary rain won't make this surface heavy."
Doremi left it at that.
Whether it would even rain at all was still unknown, and discussing how much rain would affect the going at a time like this felt faintly absurd.
She turned her head toward the track, where the two horse girls had already begun their simulation run.
Her eyes lingered for a long while on the Japanese horse girl.
The resilience in that girl unsettled even her.
And that was what gave rise to the unease growing in her chest.
This girl…
She would be their only threat.
And their only real variable.
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)
Can Playing Games Save the World? 65
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
Uma Musume: I Want All 35
I Can Copy Unique Skills 36
A Guide to Aid in the Underwor 26
Summoning an Evil God, but the 27
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