Offside Trap moved like a walking corpse, trailing numbly behind Terazumi Shinji. Even the plush toy in her arms no longer held any appeal.
She did not understand why. This should have been a happy afternoon. She had received a gift from her trainer. She was even going to drink one of her favorite beverages. She would have seen that faint surprise on his face, the quiet pleasure hidden beneath it when she treated him. They would have walked together through the crowd, and even if it was busy, it would have felt warm.
But all of that had dissolved into a daydream.
Sansho Drum's every word kept replaying in her mind, and she felt as though she finally understood why Shinji was so capable, yet had so little to show for it.
So that was it. He had once poured the most precious years of a rookie trainer's career into another horse girl.
For some reason, the thought made her chest ache. Part of that ache was for Terazumi Shinji, but another part seemed to be for herself. Mixed in with that heartache was fear. Offside Trap did not know what exactly she was afraid of, but the sour tightness in her nose made her desperately want to find somewhere quiet and be alone for a while.
[Negative emotion +1]
[Negative emotion +1]
[Negative emotion +1]
The system's voice kept echoing in his mind, but Shinji had no idea what kind of nonsense the girl behind him was spiraling into. From the results alone, however, he knew he could finally afford the rune he had had his eye on for a long time.
As he communicated silently with the system, Shinji failed to notice that Offside Trap, who had been following him in silence two steps behind, had now come right up beside him.
The girl, head lowered, seemed to have made up some kind of decision at last. She reached out and tugged at the corner of his clothes. Shinji halted and turned back at her in puzzlement.
Her eyes were red-rimmed. There were very few people on the path through Tracen Academy, and Offside Trap stared at his face with complete seriousness.
"Trainer."
"What is it?"
That gaze was enough to raise goosebumps on his skin. Shinji had to look away, shifting his eyes past her, to the road they had just walked.
"How far did you get with her?"
"…?"
For a moment Shinji thought he had heard wrong. But Offside Trap's little face was utterly serious, and the hand clutching his shirt hem was trembling slightly. She was using force. She was afraid he would run, afraid he would refuse to answer.
And yet she only dared grab his clothes. If his answer turned out not to be the one she wanted, then perhaps it would have been better for him to rip the fabric away and leave.
"We…"
[Negative emotion +20]
Shinji's eyes darkened as he stared down the road.
Ever since the Kyoto Daishoten, he kept hearing things about Sansho Drum, or seeing situations caused by her. That meant the past kept surfacing in his mind from time to time.
Probably because Sansho Drum had finished training camp and returned to the academy. Shinji disliked that. Even though those memories no longer hurt him, he still found them deeply unpleasant.
"We never did anything."
Shinji pulled Offside Trap over to the bench by the side of the academy path and sat her down. The empty road and the cool breeze brushing through the tips of their hair painted a trace of helplessness at the corners of his eyes.
"Do you want to hear it?"
"Yes."
Like a stubborn student insisting on understanding a problem she could not solve, Offside Trap kept staring straight into his eyes, refusing to miss even the slightest flicker of emotion.
"When I graduated, I ranked second in the national trainer examinations in Japan. I was hired directly by Central Tracen Academy. If you don't count the first-place candidate, who gave up on the profession entirely, then I was the top graduate of my year."
His words made Offside Trap's eyes widen. There were many people who took the trainer examinations. Ranking that high nationwide was no easy feat.
"Maybe I was just young and arrogant," Shinji said with a self-mocking laugh. Looking back now, that really was all it had been. He had thought too highly of himself and too little of other trainers. "So back then, I made up my mind. I was going to take the girls no one else wanted, the ones without talent, and win a G1 with them. I was going to prove that it wasn't only the horse girls blessed by the Three Goddesses who could win at that level."
"It was under those circumstances that Sansho Drum became my trainee."
As he spoke, an old scene rose in his mind again: that qualifying simulation, ten horse girls racing, Sansho Drum finishing second from the bottom by half a length, barely avoiding last place.
The girl had looked utterly devastated back then. Once the race was over, she had burst into tears.
And the saddest part was that no one had gone to comfort her. She had gone unnoticed by everyone—by the outstanding senior horse girls, and by the picky trainers alike.
At this point Shinji smiled again. "If the girl who came dead last had cried like that too, I might've picked her instead."
"Trainer likes crying horse girls?"
"No. She just looked pitiful when she cried, and I was still too inexperienced back then."
It was only because Shinji had appeared that Sansho Drum stopped looking so pathetic. He still remembered how one or two veteran trainers had tried to persuade him to reconsider, only for him to refuse.
And so Sansho Drum followed Terazumi Shinji and began her career in the Twinkle Series, while he officially took charge of his very first trainee.
"Including her debut, it took her four tries in maiden races before she finally made it through…"
Unlike certain legendary horse girls who lost on debut for special reasons, Sansho Drum lost for a far simpler one: she just wasn't good enough. She always lost without leaving an impression, hanging at the back the whole way, never able to break into the front group.
Judging from those early performances alone, she clearly wasn't suited for racing. Maybe the idol route, like Gold City's, would have been more appropriate for her.
During that stretch, Shinji had worked himself so hard over his trainee that he had started losing hair. Every morning when he opened his eyes, his first question was the same: how could he make Sansho Drum improve as fast as possible?
During that time, he devoured countless books. He read the works of famous trainers one after another. Many of them had never even been translated, so he had to spend enormous amounts of time translating as he read.
He had poured all of his energy into it, and Sansho Drum's seriousness had made it feel worthwhile.
When he counted back over the days he had spent with her, even now the beginning still seemed perfect to him. A driven young trainer and a hard-working trainee, after countless days and nights, finally doing everything they could to stand on the stage of a G3 race.
That was the first graded stakes race for both Shinji and Sansho Drum. They had spent a year and a half reaching it, and the result, unsurprisingly, was second from last.
But it had still been progress. From second-to-last in the simulation trials to second-to-last in graded company. Back then, Shinji had even said to her:
"Out of those ten girls from the mock trial, the fact that there's already another one qualified to run graded races means your batch was actually pretty strong."
Among the countless horse girls out there, being able to run in graded stakes already meant she had stood out.
"She had one major strength."
Offside Trap frowned slightly but said nothing.
"She worked hard. She knew she wasn't strong enough, so she worked hard. She gave everything she had in training."
At that point Shinji's gaze drifted toward the distant Three Goddesses.
He knew those three stone statues were probably still wearing the same fixed expressions they had always worn, but during that period, in his dreams, the Three Goddesses would sometimes appear before him with faintly mocking smiles, sneering at his overconfidence.
"But that was also her biggest flaw." Shinji's gaze grew distant. "I observed a lot of famous horse girls, and a lot with real potential. The more gifted they were, the less likely they were to train themselves into collapse. Of course they worked hard too. But only those without talent, the ones who couldn't climb, would truly give everything."
The horse girls with the ability to stand at the summit naturally thought about preserving their competitive lifespan. They had to consider condition, mental state, recovery, and every other factor.
But the girls without talent had only one goal: climb. However high they could manage, they climbed.
"… "
Offside Trap lowered her head slightly. Much as she hated to admit it, in that moment she actually felt some sympathy for Sansho Drum.
She had once been that kind of horse girl herself.
The lower you stood in that pyramid, the more clearly you understood: effort was only an admission ticket. Most of the girls inside that pyramid were already working hard.
"Later on… she lost plenty of races too. But in the end, she won a G3. While the true prodigies of her generation were already aiming for Spring and Autumn Tenno Sho doubles, Autumn Triple Crowns, and back-to-back Grand Prix titles, she achieved our first graded-stakes victory."
That had been the ending of his story with Sansho Drum. Looking at it that way, perhaps it had been a rather complete ending after all.
A green rookie trainer and a horse girl with no talent, finally managing a graded victory in the end. Put into a textbook, it would have made a pretty decent inspirational story.
Offside Trap said nothing. She could not find any trace of lingering hurt on the man's face, and that made the heart that had been heavy in her chest lighten a little.
She did not want him to be unhappy. She did not want that betrayer to still be able to stir his emotions.
"A while ago, she sent me a letter. I didn't read it. I guess it was probably an invitation to come watch the Autumn Tenno Sho." Shinji's words made Offside Trap's eyes sharpen instantly. "Whatever happened in between, after giving that much, she finally made it onto a G1 stage…"
There was no other emotion in his voice, just a note of reflection, but Offside Trap's brows still tilted upward. Fire lit in her eyes. She had heard how much Shinji had sacrificed.
She had also heard him say how hard Sansho Drum had worked…
But wasn't a horse girl's hard work simply the bare minimum? That wasn't something worth boasting about. Everything Sansho Drum did had been for herself. Compared to the betrayal that came right after she finally won a graded race, it was Shinji's sacrifice that made Offside Trap's chest ache.
"Trainer."
"Hm?"
"I don't think she'll ever get the chance to realize that dream."
Shinji looked at Offside Trap in surprise, but the sharpness in her expression only drew a smile into his eyes.
"It doesn't matter. All I hope is that my trainee is the one left standing at the end."
Hearing that, Offside Trap sprang to her feet in excitement. Every movement she made proclaimed her absolute determination to win the Autumn Tenno Sho.
Still seated in front of her, Shinji took a deep breath. In the cool breeze drifted some faint fragrance from somewhere.
Or perhaps it was simply the scent of the girl standing before him, and that was why his heart felt so calm.
Of course it didn't matter.
He had never come here to save every untalented, unblessed horse girl in the world.
He was only a trainer. His goal was to take the horse girl who belonged to him to the summit.
A faint light flashed in the man's eyes.
So the only one he would keep in his line of sight was the girl before him, still brimming with excitement—
Watching her.
And keeping watch over her.
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 (Chapter108)
"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 70
From Junkman to Wasteland 66
Weekly Refresh of Overpowered 31
I'm Grinding Proficiency Like 46
From Kiana, Lord Ravager, Onwa 99
Honkai: Is This Still the Prev 42
Elf: My Starter Pokémon Is Inc 65
Warhammer: My Primarch Is Remi 95
From Demon Slayer to Grand Ass 99
The Way the Umamusume Look at 68
Uma Musume, but My Cheat Power 92
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 47
Uma Musume: A Calamity Born fr 44
I, a Reincarnation-Loop Player 43
The Violent Girl Group Is Beat 26
Uma Musume: The Horse Girl Who 32
Uma Musume: From Beginner 26
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