Paper, camera, voice recorder…
After confirming his equipment was ready, Reporter Fujii slung his bag over his shoulder.
His colleague looked puzzled.
"Mr. Fujii, is there an important race today?"
As one of the few proactive types in the company, Fujii Senosuke was like a weather vane. Before every major race, he'd organize meetings and rally the team for coverage.
So, whenever Fujii Senosuke made a move, his colleagues would instinctively check the day's schedule.
But it only listed some low-profile dirt GII and GIII races—hardly worth a trip to the track.
"Nothing... no, there isn't." Fujii Senosuke hesitated for a moment, deciding not to mention his plan to attend the [Miyako Stakes].
The website he'd built for the 'Black Ghost' was still running smoothly. The matter of the warning letter was spreading on a small scale, sparking a minor wave of discussion on the site.
Most topics debated the authenticity of the information and speculated on the sender's motives for participating.
Thanks to this, the once small site with a few hundred users was rapidly expanding. Watching the daily visitor count climb, Fujii Senosuke was struggling to manage it all alone.
Fortunately, after a call with Miss Silence, she had offered to share the burden, taking on administrator privileges.
So now, the two of them managed the site together.
Verifying and supplementing information fell mainly to him.
To get the information firsthand, Fujii Senosuke decided to see for himself at the track.
Setting aside his role as site admin, he was also intensely curious personally.
"I just figured, instead of overtime in the office, it's better to go out and find real news material. Been cooped up for almost a week, finally get a day off, and it's more overtime." Fujii Senosuke offered a random excuse.
"Mr. Fujii... you've finally seen the light! I thought you were a workaholic. Even you can't take it anymore, huh?"
The colleague wore a look of deep understanding.
"Why are this year's [Kikuka-shō] and [Japan Cup] so close together? It's cramming all our work into one pile. Interview plans, talk schedules, project revisions—it's a headache. I really don't know what they were thinking; spacing them out by two months would've been fine..."
As if a floodgate had opened, the complaints kept coming.
"Yeah... true enough." Watching his colleague vent endless negativity, Fujii Senosuke's cheek twitched slightly.
"Hey, do you want to come along?"
"Me? Nah, I'll pass. No point adding to my own workload. Better to find a spot for a smoke."
Seeing the refusal, Fujii Senosuke didn't press further and hurried towards the station.
The distance between Tokyo and Kyoto wasn't short. Fujii Senosuke's company was located at the central headquarters—Tokyo.
Kyoto was in Kyoto Prefecture to the west, a straight-line distance of about three to four hundred kilometers.
Taking the Shinkansen would take roughly two hours; a round trip meant four hours.
If the letter sender's goal was to waste people's time and money, Fujii Senosuke had to admit—they'd succeeded.
Arriving at the platform, Fujii Senosuke waited anxiously for the Shinkansen to arrive.
Just then, a familiar figure caught the corner of his eye.
A black... girl?
His eyes widened.
Quickening his pace, Fujii Senosuke moved forward, but in the bustling crowd, the black figure vanished in an instant.
"Excuse me! Coming through, please!"
Weekends always brought surprisingly large crowds to the station. The queues of people waiting for trains were like insurmountable walls blocking his path.
By the time Fujii Senosuke reached the spot where the black-clad girl had been, she was long gone.
Had she left?
Or... had he been mistaken?
For a moment, he was sure he'd seen the Black Ghost from the racetrack.
But thinking it over, it was impossible for her to appear in such a densely packed place—she'd be spotted easily.
Maybe he really had imagined it.
Shaking his head, Fujii Senosuke grumbled to himself about getting obsessive lately. He turned to go back, but the spot he'd fought so hard to reach was already filled with the crowd.
"…"
Oh well, it wasn't like those few moments before boarding mattered much anyway.
As Fujii Senosuke stood on tiptoe, waiting...
"Wanna go now..."
Suddenly, a girl's voice cut through the noisy crowd.
"Mmm, Manhattan Cafe, rare for us to agree on something."
Another voice replied.
The familiar tone instantly connected a memory in Fujii Senosuke's mind—to the thread leading back to before the [Tennō-shō] race.
"As a species with a minority-group sense of security, stability within the community can only be maintained by keeping numbers within a certain range. But I've always suspected that, at current levels, this race's sense of security has far exceeded the threshold, leading to a decline."
Why not just say it's too crowded...
Manhattan Cafe couldn't help but side-eye Agnes Tachyon, who wasn't fond of long trips.
Once she knew 'Friend' wouldn't appear in that race, she'd lost interest.
But hearing that 'Friend' was also taking the train immediately recaptured Agnes Tachyon's attention.
Given that 'Friend' lacked proper identification or documents, and couldn't purchase tickets, it meant her methods for long-distance travel, aside from her own two feet, could only involve... that method.
The method Agnes Tachyon still couldn't explain.
Entering mirrors.
To be precise, entering any smooth, reflective surface.
Glass, water, metal plates, mirrors, etc.
It baffled Agnes Tachyon.
From a microscopic perspective, no object is perfectly smooth. Even single-atom-layer graphene has ups and downs at the atomic diameter level.
So, microscopically, it's no different from being rough.
The concept of 'smooth' itself didn't hold up.
And from a macroscopic perspective, it was even more inexplicable.
Those objects didn't possess the energy to warp space, and their structural characteristics were common. So, where was the mass of her body being stored when she entered?
This mystery plagued Agnes Tachyon.
Learning she could enter the train's mirrors and move with them had thrilled Agnes Tachyon.
She'd almost brought her research equipment aboard.
But even just observing the experimental result would be good enough.
Right now, Miss 'Friend' was somewhere further off, seeking out light-reflective surfaces, waiting for the train to arrive. If the train came within a certain range, she could find an entry/exit point in that 'world' and move through it.
So intriguing.
Without special abilities, Agnes Tachyon couldn't perceive that space directly like Manhattan Cafe could, and could only pester her with questions.
How does she actually do it?
Truthfully, nothing was certain yet. Even Miss 'Friend' wasn't sure if she could move with the train.
If it really worked, Agnes Tachyon had a sudden thought.
Tokyo International Airport had daily international flights, some with same-day returns.
So, if Miss 'Friend' wanted, she could travel abroad every day.
Even if she couldn't carry physical objects, don't forget—she was a conscious entity, with memory, capable of storing information.
If she was willing, she could obtain any intelligence she wanted!
Instantly, Agnes Tachyon was electrified.
She couldn't wait to see the results of 'Friend's' test.
"This is really..."
"Miss Silence! Miss Silence! What a coincidence seeing you here."
Interrupting Agnes Tachyon, a man with black-framed glasses and an earring called out as he pushed his way through the crowd.
--+--
T/N: While I am an inexperienced Translator, I have a Patreon! Webnovel will get 2 Chapters Every Day, and advanced chapters will be uploaded on Patreon.
It may not seem worth it now, but maybe in the future. Who knows!
[email protected]/AspenTL
If you guys wanna check it out.