In the end, every item at Worry-Free Sweets went through a price increase. Based on Gold Ship's market research, they settled on prices that would finally let the shop turn an actual profit.
When the first horse girl to visit that day noticed the change on the menu, she was surprised for a moment—then immediately congratulated them.
"Eh? The boss lady finally raised her prices? That's great! Honestly, I'd been seriously worried about whether this place could keep running like it was."
Perhaps out of sheer delight, she proceeded to buy two large bags of bread for herself before leaving the shop, humming happily under her breath.
It seemed the customers' affection for the place really did run deep.
After the price increase, every customer who came in offered congratulations. If anything, they now felt even freer to buy as much as they wanted, and the shop ended up posting its highest single-day sales volume since opening.
Dyna spent her time shuttling back and forth between Tracen Academy and the bakery, living a strict two-point routine. The clearest improvement her training had brought was simple: the point where she started running out of breath was noticeably later than before. At night, soaking in a steaming bath, she would pinch the muscle that had begun to form in her calves and admit that the texture felt pretty good.
Once winter arrived, she switched to long-sleeved and long-legged training wear. Beneath those layers, her muscles continued to change in quiet, hidden ways that only became obvious when she was in the bath each night.
Dyna's body was steadily growing stronger. Outwardly, though, she still looked like the same soft, fragrant, seemingly delicate little chestnut-haired bread roll she had always been. In paired training runs, she could now keep up with Opera O's pace, and even after finishing she no longer felt crushed by exhaustion.
The price of that progress was her appetite. It shot upward so sharply that cooking for herself was no longer enough to satisfy it, and in the end Dyna chose the simplest solution: eating at Tracen Academy.
After all, the card Rudolf Symbol had given her also worked in the cafeteria, and as far as Dyna could tell, it had no spending limit at all. Naturally, that meant she simply ordered whatever she wanted.
And after more than two months, she had come to know quite a few of the academy's horse girls. She got along fairly well with most of them, and before she knew it, she had accumulated a respectable stock of points—which she then poured entirely into herself.
This was the reward for her own sweat and effort.
That night, as usual, she lay soaking in the tub and looked over the attributes that had been improved through training and stat investment. For the first time in a while, she felt properly reassured.
Speed: C+ → B
Will to Win: G → E
Power: E+ → D+
Mental Fortitude: A → A+
Flexibility: B → A
Every crucial stat had undergone a qualitative leap. Even her most mysterious attribute, Will to Win, had risen a little. At the very least, she would no longer be a useless horse girl who turned into an oyster the moment she ran side by side with someone else.
Over those same two months, Dyna had watched every G1 race day she could. Nakayama Festa, fresh off her Arc campaign in France, ran in the Japan Cup, and, just as expected, sank to the bottom of the field, finishing fourteenth.
Dyna's view from the stands wasn't great, but she could still tell that Festa's mood remained poor long after the race. And that Japan Cup had featured an even more dramatic twist: after the race ended, the display board did not immediately show the winner's number. Instead, those all-too-familiar red lights began flashing again.
Another horse girl had been penalized.
The review lasted twenty-four minutes. In the end, Buena Vista was ruled to have interfered with runner-up Rose Kingdom by drifting inward, and their placings were reversed.
"During the race, Buena Vista appeared to secure the lead cleanly in the final straight. However, after review, it was determined that she angled inward and impeded Rose Kingdom's normal running."
It was the second time Buena Vista had been demoted for interference. The first had been in last year's Shuka Sho—again for drifting, again for exactly the same reason.
When she learned of the ruling, Buena Vista simply stood there blankly for a long time, until a staff member finally reminded her that she was no longer permitted to appear on the winner's stage. She instead had to head to the race review committee to undergo the relevant disciplinary procedures.
"This year is strange. And that horse girl's strange too. I've never seen anyone so unlucky," Oguri Cap commented while watching beside Dyna.
It was also from Oguri that Dyna learned the full, absurd extent of Buena Vista's misfortunes.
After winning the first two Triple Crown races, she had been demoted to third in the Shuka Sho. In the Queen Elizabeth II Cup, she ran into two front-runners who tore off twenty lengths clear of the field, and even at the finish she still failed to catch them, ending up third again.
Then she lost to Dream Journey in the Arima Kinen.
This year, she won the G2 Kyoto Kinen, went straight to the Dubai Sheema Classic and finished second, hurried back to Japan and finally picked up a long-awaited G1 victory in the Victoria Mile—only to lose the Takarazuka Kinen to a shock Nakayama Festa upset.
After enduring all of that, she finally reached the autumn Triple Crown of her older season and won the Tenno Sho (Autumn), only to be demoted again in the Japan Cup for interference. Any ordinary horse girl in her place would probably have collapsed into tears on the spot. That Buena Vista had not done so only proved how frighteningly strong her mental composure was.
In such a short racing career, she had experienced more legendary chaos than many other horse girls would see in five or six years.
Still, at least this time the Japan Cup ruling only reversed Buena Vista's placing. She was not suspended, and that meant she could still line up for the Arima Kinen.
As December arrived, Japan's attention should have been focused on only a few key events besides Hong Kong's Longines race day: the dirt Champions Cup, the Nakayama Daishogai, and the Arima Kinen.
But this year was different.
A surprising amount of public attention had shifted toward a juvenile G3 at Hanshin: the Radio NIKKEI Tanpa Cup Juvenile Stakes, 2000 meters on turf.
The two most popular entrants were, first, the France G1-winning horse girl nicknamed the Boss Lady, Dyna Light, and second, the undefeated two-for-two filly entering her first graded race, Triumphal Ballet.
Of course, almost everyone watching this race was really there for Dyna. As for the other horse girls, they were probably little more than supporting cast in her story.
This would also be Dyna Light's first challenge at a longer distance—a test with serious implications for whether she could handle the Triple Crown campaign the following year. If she failed here, then she might have no choice but to focus on mile races instead.
The reporters visiting the bakery had increased sharply lately, but since they always left carrying plenty of bread, Dyna was happy enough to answer their casual questions in return.
"To be honest, picking the Tanpa Cup was more a matter of necessity than preference... Among the year-end juvenile graded races in Japan, this was the only 2000-meter option available to me. Everything else was shorter than 2000, which didn't really match what I wanted."
That was Dyna's answer whenever reporters asked why someone who had already won a G1 was choosing to run in a G3.
It wasn't that Dyna wanted to go "fish-blasting," as people called bullying weak fields.
It was that Japan's juvenile schedule was genuinely too thin. There wasn't even a single 2000-meter G2.
With the race approaching, Dyna devoted herself fully to preparation. The bakery had been left entirely in the hands of Gold Ship and Oguri Cap, and Dyna felt she had reached a better state than ever before.
Two days before the race, she took the train from Tokyo to Hanshin, completed race registration, and collected the gym uniform, running shoes, and horseshoes she would be required to wear on race day.
For those final two days, Dyna did no training at all.
Instead, she focused entirely on relaxing.
She ate, drank, played, and enjoyed herself all over Takarazuka City.
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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