Inside the academy.
A red-haired girl with twin ponytails, Daiwa Scarlet, was walking quickly with a plastic bag full of ice packs in hand.
Suddenly, a figure in a white lab coat came into view: Agnes Tachyon, strolling along at an unhurried pace.
On her way to the clubroom, Daiwa Scarlet's steps halted for a moment. She looked at the senior she idolized, who had just won a race two days ago, full of admiration.
"Congratulations on your win, Tachyon-senpai!"
"Your victory in the Yayoi Sho was beautiful. I'm sure you'll sweep the Classic Triple Crown without any trouble!"
Daiwa Scarlet was a fan of Agnes Tachyon, and one of the few horse girls who actually interacted with her.
Right now, Agnes Tachyon's name was like the rising sun. She had already cut down most of her generation's Triple Crown contenders early, through the Kisaragi Sho and the Yayoi Sho.
"Your debut race was a beautiful win as well. But… what's that?"
Agnes Tachyon nodded slightly, returning the compliment to Daiwa Scarlet.
In front of her was one of the few horse girls Tachyon genuinely cared about.
Trainer Mochizuki Tetsu didn't count. He wasn't a horse girl.
The next moment, Tachyon's sharp eyes shifted toward the bag of ice packs Daiwa Scarlet was carrying, a hint of doubt flashing through her gaze.
Normally, horse girls only used those after evening practice, to ease tired muscles.
But it was still early morning. What was she going to do with them?
Daiwa Scarlet let out a tiny sigh, her voice tinged with regret.
"My rival, Vodka… we made a promise before. Whoever loses first has to do the ice bucket challenge."
"I thought I'd be the one to beat her with my own hands first. I never imagined a complete dark horse would appear out of nowhere."
At those words, the cool brown-haired, red-eyed girl's pupils shrank slightly. The hands that had been in her coat pockets slipped out.
"Vodka… lost?"
"Who did she lose to?"
Daiwa Scarlet and Vodka's talent and potential were both highly regarded by Agnes Tachyon. In her eyes, it was practically guaranteed that they'd not only win a GI, but probably multiple GIs in the future.
In other words, they were destined to be rulers who would shine over an entire era.
From a timeline perspective, though, they'd only just debuted. How could one of them already have lost?
The race had been two days ago. Agnes Tachyon had spent all of yesterday rewarding herself with a full day of research and experiments, and hadn't paid any attention to Vodka's debut. She knew nothing.
"It was some monster called Frankel. She's… not even a student at Tracen Academy."
"What's truly terrifying is that she beat Vodka by five lengths. Completely crushed her."
As Daiwa Scarlet explained, the brown-haired senior's lips curled upward, her smile rising into a delighted, almost hungry arc.
A monster.
No doubt about it, an outright monster.
Among Agnes Tachyon's beloved research topics, "the maximum speed of a horse girl" was one of the core themes. Even if she acknowledged someone as a genius, that alone wouldn't necessarily make them worthy of being her research subject.
Especially a brand-new rookie, fresh from debut. Under normal circumstances, they simply didn't have the value.
But winning her debut by five lengths over Vodka… that was an out-of-bounds existence, something beyond normal parameters.
"Good. Looks like there's finally another horse girl worth paying attention to besides Opera O."
Agnes Tachyon's interest had been thoroughly piqued.
"Alright, I'll go back and watch the race replay. See you."
With that, the chestnut-haired girl in the white coat turned, waved a sleeve casually, and walked off.
Daiwa Scarlet hefted the bag of ice packs again and continued toward where Vodka was waiting.
…
Not long after.
The red twin-tailed Daiwa Scarlet gazed at her defeated rival with a regretful expression, her lips parting slightly.
Her tone was full of "hate iron for not becoming steel."
"All those things in the past… do you still remember them?"
In Daiwa Scarlet's view, she should have been the one to defeat Vodka.
Just like how Boros, from "One Punch Man," wanted either to defeat Saitama himself, or be defeated by Saitama.
So what was with this Frankel suddenly showing up out of nowhere?
It was like trading blows in lane with a rival who's neck-and-neck with you, only for some jungler to run in yelling "'scuse me" and one-shot them on the spot…
You said it was a 1v1 man-to-man showdown, and now the whole mood was ruined.
So even though she had technically "won by lying down," and Vodka was about to take on the ice bucket challenge, Daiwa Scarlet felt no joy whatsoever. Only a deep sense of regret.
"All those things in the past… all those…"
"When you say 'all those things in the past'…"
Those days gone by.
Vodka let out a sigh, a complicated look on her face. In her mind's eye flashed the image of Frankel stepping into the gate for the first time, and the moment that overwhelmingly beautiful, domineering girl swept past her.
Right now, Daiwa Scarlet was holding the bucket of ice above her, drawing out the final line.
"So… do you have any last words?"
Vodka was silent for a moment.
Elegant yet imposing, powerful and awe-inspiring… that was a horse girl unlike any she had ever seen before, a figure carved into her mind.
"You're not bad. I quite enjoyed that."
"Those who fall at my feet are not my opponents. I'll give you time to chase after me, until I disappear beyond your reach."
To lose to a horse girl like that… honestly, it didn't feel like a loss at all.
It didn't feel any more regrettable than losing to Daiwa Scarlet would have been.
"I have nothing more to say. Please proceed."
The next second, the bucket tipped.
Ice water crashed down over Vodka.
…
A short while later.
Agnes Tachyon, still wearing her white coat, pushed open the door to the clubroom with practiced ease.
Sunlight spilled in from the windows, shining over her figure and outlining the silhouette of a young girl.
Then the interior of the wide room came into view, like a stage split into two completely different sets.
One half was crammed with lab-style equipment: precise instruments arranged in apparently chaotic clusters.
The other half was a stark contrast: mostly empty space, with only a few bookshelves crammed full of volumes, stacked in dense rows.
From Japan's classical "The Tale of Genji" to Russian literature like "War and Peace" and "Anna Karenina," everything was there.
Not just that, there were manga and light novels as well.
Agnes Tachyon and Mochizuki Tetsu had split the clubroom in half, exactly like this.
All these books had been purchased or moved in by Mochizuki. The variety was so broad it could only be described as "from the refined to the vulgar," and he read them every day.
The handsome young man's expression was relaxed as he flipped through his book. His long, slender fingers turned the pages with steady rhythm. The only sound in the clubroom was the soft rustle of paper.
This scene fell perfectly into Agnes Tachyon's eyes as she opened the door.
She had grown used to this sight over the past few months. When she did research, he was almost always there with her.
"Good morning, Trainer Mochizuki."
When Mochizuki Tetsu looked up, closing his book for the moment with a slight nod, Agnes Tachyon walked briskly over to the computer desk.
She turned on the machine, opened the race portal, and started searching for a particular debut race.
It didn't take long.
Frankel's debut, that race where the awe-inspiring girl ran wild with overwhelming authority, began to play on the monitor in the clubroom.
"Frankel, huh…"
"Let me see just how strong you really are."
On the side, Tetsu Mochizuki, who had been about to return to his reading, raised his head again to watch the screen.
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N/T: Hi everyone, I'm Zuru, an inexperienced translator and non-native English speaker, so if you notice any mistakes in the text, please let me know in the comments so I can fix them. By the way, I have a Patreon. There isn't much there yet, but it would really help me if you could consider joining.