Splat!
Shirayuki's foot slipped, and she fell onto the ground. The huge parachute behind her dragged her backward, carving a trench through the mud.
Fujiwara Chiya hurriedly rushed over and grabbed Shirayuki's hand, barely managing to stop her.
When Shirayuki got up, she was covered head to toe in mud. Even her clean face was now dirty. Seeing her like that, Fujiwara Chiya took out a handkerchief and wiped her face.
This was way too brutal!
The bad ground Byerley had found was different from the Arc's track. Its water content was extremely high, making it soft and slippery to run on. On top of that, the soil density was uneven. If she stepped wrong, her foot could sink right in.
As a training ground, this place deserved a negative score. But as a simulation for the Arc, it barely passed.
It fully demonstrated how unpredictable slipping could be for an uma musume.
The only issue was that there was too much moisture. The ground was not only bad, but also sticky. In some ways, it was even worse than the Arc's track.
Shirayuki was using this kind of ground to build adaptability.
That alone would have been fine. The real problem was that Fujiwara Chiya, not knowing his own limits, had tied a parachute to Shirayuki to increase the difficulty. The result was that Shirayuki fell, got dragged several metres by the parachute, and ended up looking like a mud figure. Her clothes were covered in grass juice and mud, and her face was also filthy, almost like a naughty child who had rolled through a field twice.
As he wiped Shirayuki clean, Fujiwara Chiya reflected on the running form from just now.
When turning, using the side of the foot made it too easy to slip against the ground. They needed to change the method.
Change it…
But how?
I don't have enough experience in this area at all!
As a trainer, he was still too young. There were some things he simply had not gone through before. If he could train several generations of uma musume before challenging the Arc, perhaps he could find a suitable training method much more easily.
A first-time challenge was still too deadly.
Fujiwara Chiya's pressure was not small at all.
He picked blades of grass out of Shirayuki's hair and looked seriously at the white-haired girl in front of him.
Her large blue eyes blinked as they stared at him.
Fujiwara Chiya took a deep breath, hugged Shirayuki, and gently stroked her ears.
"Let's work hard a little longer. For 'you,' this is a rare opportunity."
Fujiwara Chiya encouraged himself.
Shirayuki removed the parachute from her body. Like Fujiwara Chiya, she also took a deep breath, bent forward, and sprinted out.
When turning, keep the sole flatter. The pushing motion needs to be lower…
While watching Shirayuki's movements and feeling the shift in her centre of gravity, Fujiwara Chiya quickly adjusted her posture, making Shirayuki stay close to the drawn inner rail line.
Good. That's it!
Fujiwara Chiya clenched his fist.
This time, Shirayuki's movement was much better.
His training direction was not wrong!
But she was still too far outside. That would give opponents an opening. She needed to hug the inside line.
He controlled Shirayuki and moved her inward.
Closer.
A little closer…
At that moment, Shirayuki's foot slipped sideways again.
Splat!
The two of them fell at the same time.
…
"Shirayuki, were you raised outdoors or something? Why do you look like a mudfish?"
When they returned to Tracen, Gold Ship saw Shirayuki's appearance and burst into laughter, clutching her stomach.
The red-and-white training uniform was now blotched with green and black, forcibly transformed into camouflage. Her hair was also messy and stuck with twigs, as if she had rolled through a grass pile twice.
Shirayuki glared at Gold Ship, too annoyed to respond.
Today had been absolute suffering. She had fallen more times today than she had in all her time at Tracen combined. Fortunately, the ground here was ridiculously soft, so even falling did not hurt much. Otherwise, before the race even began, she would have sent herself straight to the hospital.
The feeling of losing balance also affected Chiya. Basically, every time Shirayuki fell, the man fell with her.
The final result was that this pair of uma musume and trainer looked like they had crawled out of the mud, tragic and heroic.
Gold Ship would probably laugh herself stupid once she saw Chiya too.
"Hahahaha! Trainer!"
Ah…
I can't deal with this.
Of course, embarrassment had long stopped bothering Fujiwara Chiya. He had embarrassed himself plenty of times in front of his uma musume and colleagues. He had already built up resistance.
What bothered Fujiwara Chiya was the slow training progress.
After an entire day, he still had not gained much insight into turning on bad ground.
Even if he did not rush for quick results, at this pace, breaking through before the race would be extremely difficult.
But his experience was not enough for him to find a solution under these circumstances. He could only keep testing things step by step.
That feeling of crossing a river by feeling for stones was the true reason Fujiwara Chiya felt irritated.
"Trainer humiliation photo, get!"
Gold Ship posed with a peace sign beside Fujiwara Chiya and took a selfie.
"Delete it."
"No way. I'm making it my phone wallpaper."
"Hey, if you don't delete it, I'll make you look like this next time too!"
"What!? Shirayuki isn't enough, and now you want to get little Gold Ship dirty too? Trainer… you perverted brute!"
Gold Ship shouted as she ran away.
Fujiwara Chiya felt even more exhausted.
He should go back, take a shower, and rest early.
Fujiwara Chiya thought about taking Shirayuki back to the dorm so they could massage each other and comfort themselves. On the way, they ran into Treve.
When Treve saw Shirayuki, her eyes widened.
"Shirayuki! What happened to you?"
She hurried over.
Who had made her adorable Shirayuki look like this?
"Change clothes with me. Bath. Um… Trainer, I'll take Shirayuki first."
Treve spoke slowly, one word at a time. The later part was a little fragmented, showing that her Japanese was still not especially fluent. But for her to reach this level in such a short time, Treve really was an amazing girl.
Fujiwara Chiya waved his hand and handed Shirayuki over to her.
When they arrived at the changing room, Treve helped Shirayuki remove her dirty outerwear while asking, "What did you do today?"
"Training."
"Racecourse?"
"Outskirts."
Treve did not understand that word, so Shirayuki changed her explanation.
"A very far place."
"Ah…"
She helped Shirayuki with the next layer of clothing.
"Treve! You don't need to help with that part…"
Why are you even helping me change this much!?
Treve tilted her head, confused.
They had already become this close, so why was Shirayuki still embarrassed about changing clothes?
Shirayuki was so strange.
But that was cute too!
The two entered the bathroom. Treve squeezed out body wash and helped Shirayuki clean her tail.
Not long ago, when Shirayuki helped her wash her tail, Treve had been so embarrassed she almost couldn't bear it. But now…
Treve could not help sighing at how innocent she had been back then.
In just a few months, she had become an adult.
Treve's small hands felt very comfortable as they worked through Shirayuki's tail, and Shirayuki hummed softly.
Treve asked how training had ended up making Shirayuki look like this. After piecing together Treve's fragmented words, Shirayuki understood what she meant.
"Training didn't go well."
"Didn't go well?"
"Mm. I still can't grasp the trick. I don't know what to do."
Treve did not fully understand, but she knew Shirayuki was troubled.
"Do you want me to help? I'm very good at running."
Treve pointed at herself.