Shinji Kitahara bluntly refused Agnes Digital's request to become her master.
It wasn't because he found her too dangerous and didn't want to get involved, but simply because he felt he couldn't teach her.
Putting other things aside, even veteran trainers had a hard time keeping up with his train of thought when they talked. If he got even a little serious, there was a real possibility of driving them mad.
Needless to say, Agnes Digital, a horse girl who had never received formal trainer training, would have an even harder time. It would be better for her to honestly find a conventional trainer to learn the basics from.
However, although he refused, Agnes Digital had promised to keep his secret. After thinking about it, Shinji decided to give her what help he could. Otherwise, his conscience would bother him a little.
"As for being a trainer, you don't have to be in a hurry. You're still an active racehorse, and it's only been a year since your debut. It's not too late to consider it after you finish the remaining two years. You can even learn the relevant knowledge after you graduate. That's all fine."
"And if you want to start preparing now, I can also offer you some advice and help. But I'm still in a learning state myself, so there's no need for an apprenticeship. We can just treat it as a normal academic exchange."
"Also, I'm not trying to pour cold water on you, but for a horse girl, especially a professional one, to become a trainer is more than just a little bit harder than for a human. You'd better be mentally prepared."
This might sound a bit strange. Logically speaking, a horse girl who used to be a racehorse should understand other horse girls better than anyone else. And compared to frail humans, a horse girl serving as a trainer would be much safer.
Unfortunately, this was just a beautiful fantasy.
Putting other things aside, if the situation were as simple as described above, then not all, but at least most of the trainers at the main Tracen campus should be horse girls.
But in reality, the total number of horse girl trainers in the entire main campus was no more than five. The rest were all human.
And, even these five horse girl trainers all shared a common attribute: they had never set foot on a racetrack and had been studying trainer knowledge and making various preparations since they were young. But even so, their path as trainers was far more arduous than that of other human trainers, and there had never been any legendary trainers among the horse girls.
As for the reason behind this, the URA had never given a clear explanation. Whenever asked, they would say it was under investigation, and to this day, there was no conclusion.
Shinji had some guesses as to why this situation occurred, but he couldn't be sure. And, even if his guess was true, then he also understood why the URA had always said it was under investigation instead of answering directly, which meant he couldn't just tell Agnes Digital the answer. So he could only give her a tactful reminder.
Then, after hearing his words, Digital thought for a moment, felt that he had a point, and didn't insist on the apprenticeship anymore. Instead, she prepared to use the matter of taking care of Tachyon to stay on his team for a while longer and see how things went.
Then, the two chatted for a while longer.
And as they were chatting, Shinji suddenly remembered that he hadn't asked her about her specific results since her debut, so he casually asked how she was doing as a racehorse.
Digital thought for a moment, pinched her chin, and said, "I don't remember the Open Class races clearly, but for the graded stakes, it's one G2 and one G1."
Shinji Kitahara: "..."
Then why the hell do you want to be a trainer! Isn't being a professional racehorse good enough?
One G2 and one G1. This might not sound like a big deal.
But in reality, forget G1, for the vast majority of horse girls, winning a single graded stakes, even a G3, was an extremely remarkable achievement. As for G1, forget about ordinary horse girls, even at the main Tracen campus, a place full of elites, most horse girls considered it the ultimate goal of their efforts. Winning just one G1 race was an achievement that could be bragged about for a lifetime.
But Agnes Digital had already won a G1 in just her first year of debut, and she had done it without an exclusive trainer.
However, her situation was different from Teio's. Although she didn't have an exclusive trainer, she would ask those trainers for guidance and help in adjusting her training plans and content when she moved between different teams, giving off a feeling of gathering the strengths of a hundred schools. In a way, it was even more effective than having an exclusive trainer.
But this was still ridiculous.
Although according to her own explanation, she had done a lot of research before the race and found that all the strong contenders had gone to other G1 races held at the same time, allowing her to pick up an easy win.
But the problem was, even if it was an easy win, a G1 win was not that easy to pick up. And, although she said it was an easy win, who knew what her definition of "easy win" was. Maybe she hadn't picked up an easy win at all; maybe she was just too strong, so she felt like there were no strong contenders.
As for her purpose in running that G1, it was also different from other horse girls.
Other horse girls ran G1 races for victory. She participated in the race mainly for the prize money.
Graded stakes, as the name implies, besides fame and honor, of course also have substantial material rewards. Although they were all G1, the prize money would vary depending on the fame and importance of the race. But in any case, it was an unimaginable number for an ordinary person.
According to Digital's account, she was short on money to support her horse girl obsessions at the time. She thought that if she could get a lot at once, she could free up more time to support other horse girls. So she went to run, and then she won. Then she turned around and used the money to buy a pile of support goods for the horse girls she had just crushed. She even took advantage of the gap before the winner's stage to run over and get their autographs one by one.
If any other horse girl had done this, they would most likely be seen as insulting their opponents. In a more serious case, they might even be flamed online or even banned from racing.
But when it was Agnes Digital, this matter seemed so normal. Even the other horse girls who participated in the same race had already been mentally prepared for this before coming. A few of them had even practiced their handwriting a few days in advance just to make their signatures look better.
To this, Shinji could only say that it was just like her.
Then, after they finished chatting, the two did not delay any longer and quickly returned to the training field.
When the others saw the two of them return, they didn't show any reaction. Perhaps if it had been another horse girl, even a background character, they probably wouldn't have been so at ease.
But the problem was, that was Agnes Digital.
She was so safe that Shinji had even considered asking her to be his charge. And she was the only horse girl in all of Tracen who could freely transfer between teams without restriction, the second freest horse girl on earth. The value of that was self-evident.
—Until they were eating together in the cafeteria after their morning training, and they heard Digital's new way of addressing Shinji.
"Kitahara-senpai, do you have any recommended books on trainer knowledge?"
Although she had failed to become his apprentice, because Shinji had promised to provide her with guidance and help, Digital felt that it was a bit disrespectful to always call him Trainer Kitahara. After thinking about it, she decided to call him Senpai.
In her perception, she was already a trainer-in-training, so calling him Senpai was both in line with her status and showed respect. It was the most appropriate title.
As for Shinji, he wasn't very sensitive to such things to begin with. Although he also felt it was a bit strange to be called Senpai by Digital, after seeing her insist, and after his refutations failed a few times, he just accepted it—it was just a title, after all.
It's just that the others didn't seem to think so.
Hearing Digital's new title, everyone reacted differently.
Eclipse's expression was as usual, eating normally.
Teio's movements paused slightly. Tachyon narrowed her eyes.
Oguri's speed of shoveling rice was a little faster than usual. Special Week's hair seemed to be growing slightly.
And Grass Wonder on the side, because she was in low spirits, didn't pay too much attention to what was happening around her. She just silently looked at the happy Special Week and Silent Suzuka opposite her, the light in her eyes gradually dimming.
A strange atmosphere began to spread. Even the surrounding horse girls noticed something was wrong and cautiously avoided them.
In the end, even Shinji realized something and his expression gradually changed.
Wait a minute, I seem to remember that in our previous conversation, Agnes Digital had said that her practical experience in being a trainer was very rich, but because she had not received a systematic education, she still lacked in the theoretical aspect.
But on my team, there seems to be an existence that is the exact opposite of her: perfect in theory, but terrible in practice.
And if I can combine these two a little, then wouldn't that be equivalent to having an extra assistant trainer on my team out of thin air? And a rather high-level one at that.
And, according to Tachyon's personality, she would most likely not refuse such an opportunity to openly study other racehorses and collect data.
Although he was confident that as long as they trained according to his plan, the horse girls on his team, if not becoming incredibly strong, would at least be able to perform at their proper level.
But the problem was, the plan was fixed, but people were flexible. No matter how perfect the plan was, there would definitely be accidents during execution. And at this time, the trainer needed to step up and, on the basis of the original plan, make adjustments and re-plan according to the situation. This was also one of the daily work contents of most trainers.
But the problem was, this method was not applicable to Shinji, and not just because of slacking off.
In fact, the reason Shinji didn't watch his horse girls train normally, slacking off and the other reasons mentioned before were all just minor details. The main reason was that he actually couldn't stand watching it.
Well, how should I put it?
When he watched them train, it was like an Italian watching pineapple pizza, a Japanese person watching macaroni sushi, or a Chinese person watching strawberry mapo tofu. It was just that uncomfortable.
It wasn't that they weren't serious, or weren't working hard, or weren't following his plan. On the contrary, whether it was effort, seriousness, or execution of the plan, they had almost done their best, and could even be said to have far surpassed other horse girls.
But the problem was, Shinji's standards were a bit too high.
Just like a person with good hearing would feel more uncomfortable than an ordinary person when they heard a loud noise, Shinji's overly strong observation ability, while allowing him to easily see through the problems of a horse girl, also brought him a huge mental burden.
From large things like posture and movements, to small things like the control of every single muscle, people are not machines after all. It's impossible to perfectly execute every instruction. There will always be all sorts of minor errors.
Forget about ordinary people, even those legendary trainers wouldn't care about such minor errors, and could even be said to be completely unable to see them. After all, this was just a normal physiological phenomenon of the human body and couldn't even be considered an error in essence.
But the problem was, Shinji's eyes were very good.
Errors that others didn't care about at all, in his eyes, were not just obvious, but could be said to be revealed in every detail. And once he took the initiative to look, that feeling of error and disharmony would drill directly into his brain, the feeling similar to hearing a cat's claws scratching on glass.
Shinji was sure he didn't have OCD, because if he really did, there was no way he could have lived normally to this day while facing this kind of torture every day. At the very least, he would have ended up being driven mad.
It wasn't that he didn't have the ability to correct these things. At least he could greatly reduce them.
But the problem was, if he really did that, and paired it with the plans and running form designs he had made for them, then as long as they didn't run into a teammate, they could basically lock in an undefeated record.
If Teio was undefeated, it could still be explained by her talent, and he could also blame it on the Symboli family. And in reality, they had no relation, and even the probability of her being undefeated was very low, so he didn't have to worry too much.
But if the other horse girls on the team also started to become undefeated, then he would really be doomed. Forget being targeted by horse girls, those few big families might even have thoughts like "If I can't have it, no one can," and then take various measures against him.
So he usually didn't pay much attention to the training, for fear that he would lose control and rush out to drill them. But if he didn't pay attention at all, there would inevitably be mistakes in the training, and there might even be accidents or other things.
And if he could have Digital and Tachyon help keep an eye on things, not only could it reduce the probability of accidents and improve the training effect, but he could also throw some of the usual tedious small problems to the two of them to solve, further reducing his own workload.
And this was just the effect on the training field. Outside the training field, if the horse girls under his name achieved amazing results, he could also directly shift the blame, saying it had nothing to do with him, and that it was all their two's credit.
Doing this could both help Digital accumulate fame and reduce the probability of him being noticed. It could even further reduce the probability of raising the affection of the horse girls on the team by reducing contact.
If this could be done, it would be one stone, six birds. A bicycle would directly become a rocket, right?
As for whether this would raise Digital's affection? Of course it would. He wasn't stupid. How could he not see that?
If it were someone else, Shinji would never dare to do this. But if it was Agnes Digital... that's the Agnes Digital!
Overturn? Impossible. He refused to believe that even this mudslide could cause problems!
After sorting out his thoughts, a smile appeared on Shinji's face, and even his gaze towards Digital brightened a little.
No, it couldn't be said that he was looking at Digital. He was looking at his own future.
His gaze passed over the tips of her pink hair, and he seemed to see a beautiful future beckoning to him. The road ahead was also bright, and an irrepressible smile appeared on his face.
Completely unaware of the storm gathering around him.
-------
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