The card had been thrown onto the grass, and it was still radiating heat. Dyna rubbed at her chest, the sting lingering. Thankfully there were no other horse girls nearby, and Triumphal Ballet was running with her back to her.
Otherwise, a horse girl sitting on a bench rubbing her chest would have looked far too suspicious.
"Hm?" Cody's Wish noticed the anomaly as well, but without a physical body she couldn't pick up the card from the turf. She could only lean closer and examine it. A few seconds later, the glow vanished, as though coming face-to-face with Triumphal Ballet herself had triggered some kind of resonance.
"So hot… I guess I really do need to make some kind of card case from now on. Ugh." After getting burned like that, Dyna was pretty sure she would never again put anything against her skin inside an inner pocket. Picking the card up off the grass, she brushed away the dirt and saw Triumphal Ballet's image flickering faintly on its surface.
Nothing like this had ever happened before. Even after she obtained Nakayama Festa's card and lived alongside her in France for that long, Dyna had never once been scalded by a card suddenly going berserk.
"Maybe it's because you actually used Triumphal Ballet's power before?" Cody's Wish guessed after a moment's thought. "Nakayama Festa also became part of your strength, but you've never really drawn on it, have you?"
"That may be true, but could it really be that convenient? If it burns me like this, I'm not going to dare use it again for a long time..." Dyna ran her thumb over the card's surface, over the image of Triumphal Ballet, then after some hesitation slipped it into an outer pocket instead.
She refused to believe it could still burn her through there.
Unless the card decided to set her clothes on fire.
Right now, training was the priority. An inconvenient object like this would just have to wait.
After Triumphal Ballet completed a full lap of the track, Dyna saw Wada and Opera O at Tracen for the first time.
"Good morning, Miss Dyna! How does it feel, training at Tracen for the first time?"
When he arrived, Wada didn't immediately launch into the day's drills. Instead, he started chatting with her. Nearby, Opera O and Qirui Jun were in the middle of their warm-ups, and that was when Dyna began to sense that something was off.
"It feels great! So much better than the grass by the riverbank! I've already run several laps and gotten completely used to this turf, so whatever training you've got planned should be no problem!"
Wada nodded and made a note in his notebook before glancing toward the fully warmed-up Opera O and Qirui Jun.
His plan for this period was to strengthen Dyna's competitive spirit when facing other horse girls. Now that she could train at Tracen, the best way to do that was naturally through more serious pace-work on a proper track.
What Dyna had no objection to, of course.
What she had not expected was just how draining that kind of training would be.
Ordinarily, a horse girl would only do a single serious pace session in the evening to cap off a full day of training, then eat dinner, shower, and sink happily into the soft bed in her dorm before getting up to do it all again the next day.
Dyna, however, was a complete maniac. After finishing one pace run Wada assigned her in the morning, she pointed at Qirui Jun and insisted on doing another one with her. She nearly scared the entire team into silence. No matter how much they tried to talk her out of it, she refused to budge, and in the end Wada had no choice but to allow a second run between Qirui Jun and Dyna.
After four to five hundred meters, a limp sheet of chestnut hair and limbs lay sprawled on the turf, looking as though she had more breath going out than coming in.
"Miss Dyna, are you all right...?" Qirui Jun crouched beside her and tried to help her up, but Dyna waved her off.
Rolling onto her back, Dyna stared up at the gloomy sky. "I'm fine. My body's tougher than it looks... I'm just too far behind everyone else on the basics, so this is the only way I can make up the gap."
Her legs did ache, but the pain was already beginning to shift into an itchy, healing sensation. In the corner of her vision, a line of text kept blinking.
Muscle soreness, strain. Estimated recovery time: 10 minutes.
After that kind of exertion, an ordinary person would need three to five days to recover. Dyna only needed ten minutes. This was something she had only recently discovered: the system's definition of a "race" was absurdly broad. As long as she ran alongside another horse girl and there was some element of positional contest, it counted as racing and triggered Rapid Recovery.
Otherwise, she never would have dared to do a pace run with Opera O and then turn around and do another one with Qirui Jun. Under normal circumstances, she would probably have been bedridden for a week.
"Really, are you sure you're okay? Even Deep Impact didn't do two pace runs in one day..." Wada muttered, rubbing his temples. Who would have guessed that the sweet, innocent-looking bakery owner had such a stubborn streak buried inside? If that was true, then some of his future plans might need revising.
He had originally intended to take her to the pool later and test her stamina there, but at this point it seemed wiser to let her rest.
"I'm really fine. My body's sturdy, I know it better than anyone. Even when Orfevre hit me, I barely got hurt, so a little training like this is nothing!" Dyna declared, thumping her chest for emphasis.
Wada and the others still looked dubious.
That morning's training session ended after Dyna's two absurdly fast recovery-enabled pace runs. Once her body had finished knitting itself back together, she packed up her things, left the academy, and threw herself straight back into work at the bakery.
"Um, Boss. I really think you should take a look at this."
Gold Ship was holding a stack of papers, which she handed over once Dyna had changed clothes and come downstairs.
"Hm? What is this...?"
Dyna skimmed it quickly. It was the monthly account sheet. Since the daily expenses were too many for her to process at a glance, she skipped straight to the summary.
Without question, the shop had run at a loss this month.
And not a small one.
Gold Ship spread her hands with a helpless sigh. "I know saying this kind of goes against your original intention, but shouldn't we really raise the prices a little? At the very least, running the shop shouldn't be costing you money, Boss."
"If we keep running in the red, then even if you can cover the shortfall with prize money from racing, doesn't that make the whole thing kind of ridiculous?" Oguri Cap added. She, too, thought the bakery needed to change.
Sitting on her stool, Dyna bit at her nail.
She had assumed that her pricing would at least balance out income and expenses, but after two or three months, once the shop became truly popular, they were somehow losing even more money. So the food business really was different from how she had imagined.
At last, she turned pleadingly to Gold Ship. "Um... Gold Ship, do you have any suggestions? If we do raise prices, how much would be reasonable?"
"At least forty percent. That'd give us a real chance of not losing money. And honestly, there's no need to feel that guilty about it. Boss, you do realize horse girls are the last people on earth who are short on cash, right? When it comes to food, they are absolutely not going to deprive themselves. Even after a price increase, our shop would still be one of the cheaper places around."
When Gold Ship was developing her yakisoba bread, she had done a little market research on the side. Part of the reason she was suggesting a price increase was also for the bakery's relationship with the neighboring shops. Prices that were too low could cause trouble in their own way.
Dyna folded up the statement and put it away, rubbing at her temple with a troubled look. "I'll think about it tonight. Thanks for the advice."
In any case, this was something that needed careful thought.
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 80
Uma Musume: A Calamity Born fr 74
I, a Reincarnation-Loop Player 48
The Violent Girl Group Is Beat 50
Uma Musume: The Horse Girl Who 47
Uma Musume: From Beginner 42
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