weight room was small, smelled faintly of floor wax and rusted iron, and contained a single squat rack that looked like it had survived three different academic eras.
At 2:00 PM on a crisp Friday afternoon, Satou Kazuma was sitting on an adjustable bench, holding two fifteen-pound dumbbells at his sides.
His face was a alarming shade of crimson.
Sweat beaded across his forehead, trickling down his nose and dripping onto his grey t-shirt.
“Nineteen…” Kazuma hissed through gritted teeth, his arms trembling like twin birch twigs in a typhoon.
“Twenty…
Oh, sweet merciful heaven…
my deltoids are turning into liquid soup…”
He set the weights down on the rubber mat with a heavy *clunk*, slumping forward and resting his elbows on his knees, gasping for breath as if he had just emerged from a deep dive.
In his mind, his past life as a shut-in and his twenty-six years in this world merged into one singular, glaring truth: he had spent nearly three decades utterly neglecting upper-body strength.
He had built up his cardiovascular stamina running dirt laps with Urara, sure, but stamina meant nothing when it came to sheer physical mass.
He vividly remembered carrying her back from the gate three nights ago.
She weighed only forty-one kilograms—a featherweight by human standards—but carrying a sleeping, dead-weight Uma Musume while hauling two massive trash bags of stuffed animals and a heavy golden trophy had nearly snapped his lumbar spine in half.
*I survived giant squids, crazy cultists, and explosion magic,* Kazuma thought bitterly, wiping his brow with a towel.
*If I die in this peaceful world because my lower back gave out while piggybacking a pink horse girl, Aqua will mock me from the afterlife for all eternity.
I’d rather face a dragon than hear that blue-haired idiot’s laugh.*
“Trainer!
Look!
I’m a cannonball!”
*THUD.*
The heavy blue landing mat in the corner shook violently as Haru Urara executed a flawless, headfirst dive onto the foam padding, her twin tails sticking straight up in the air.
She rolled over, her short ears twitching, completely unbothered by gravity, momentum, or basic physics.
“Urara,” Kazuma called out, his voice flat.
“That mat is for high-jump landing, not diving practice.”
“But it goes *poof* when I land!” she cheered, sitting up with a giant grin, her pink hair full of static electricity.
She trotted over to his bench, eyeing the fifteen-pound dumbbells on the floor.
She casually reached down with one hand, picked up both dumbbells by their iron bars as if they were made of styrofoam, and began swinging them like maracas.
“Are these your mini-weights, Trainer?
They’re super cute!”
Kazuma stared at her.
He stared at the thirty pounds of solid iron dangling effortlessly from her tiny, dirt-smudged fingers.
*Right,* Kazuma reminded himself, his inner voice dripping with deadpan misery.
*She is an Uma Musume.
Her muscle density is three times that of an average human.
She could probably lift a compact car if she was motivated by a sweet potato.*
“Put those down before you dent the floor,” Kazuma grunted, taking the weights back and setting them safely on the rack.
“And I am not using ‘mini-weights.’ I am conducting a structured, progressive physical conditioning program.”
“Why?” Urara tilted her head, her brown eyes big and curious.
“Are you gonna run in a race too, Trainer?
Can we wear matching shirts?!”
“No, we are not wearing matching shirts, and I am never running in an official race,” Kazuma said, standing up and stretching his arms until his shoulder joints let out a muffled *pop*.
He couldn’t tell her the real reason.
He couldn’t tell her that he was paranoid to the point of madness.
His Luck stat was a wild, unpredictable monster.
If his “Fifth-Place Algorithm” failed at Chiba—if some freak accident, cosmic gust of wind, or sudden alien intervention forced her into First Place again—the media circus would explode.
The Student Council would swarm them.
The press would trap them in the paddock.
And if things got truly chaotic, Kazuma needed enough physical strength to grab her, hoist her onto his shoulder like a sack of potatoes, and sprint straight through a crowd of journalists to his moped without breaking his knees.
*A tactical escape option,* Kazuma affirmed in his head, pulling his green tracksuit jacket back on.
*It’s basic military defense.
I don’t need to win.
I just need to be strong enough to run away when my Luck stat decides to burn the building down.*
“Trainer, look!
Special-chan and the others are at the gazebo!” Urara pointed out the weight room window toward the central courtyard garden.
“Can we go say hi?
Special-chan promised to show me a picture of a giant turnip from her hometown!”
Kazuma looked out the window.
Sitting around the white wooden gazebo were Special Week, Grass Wonder, El Condor Pasa, and King Halo, drinking iced tea and reviewing their training schedules.
“Fine,” Kazuma sighed, grabbing his thermos.
“Fifteen minutes.
Then we go back to the Annex to go over the 3:3 breathing charts.”
“Yay!
Turnip time!” Urara squealed, bolting out the weight room door like an unleashed rocket.
The shade under the gazebo was cool and smelled of blooming roses.
“Urara-chan!
Over here!” Special Week waved frantically, holding up a paper bag full of rice crackers.
“We saved a seat for you!”
Urara slid into the wooden bench beside Special Week, immediately reaching for a rice cracker, while Kazuma leaned lazily against the outer pillar of the gazebo, his arms crossed, his green jacket unzipped, sipping his tea with the casual air of a retired park guard.
“Good afternoon, Satou-sensei,” Grass Wonder greeted politely, offering him a gentle bow of her head.
“Congratulations again on your victory in Kochi.
The entire dormitory has been discussing it.”
“It was just a regional maiden race,” Kazuma replied flatly, taking a sip from his thermos.
“Nothing to throw a parade over.”
King Halo set her tea cup down on its saucer with a sharp *clink*, her eyes narrowing as she looked at Kazuma.
“Nothing to throw a parade over?
Satou-sensei, you took a girl with the lowest time-trial metrics in academic history and turned her into a three-length winner in twenty-one days!
The faculty lounge is practically in a state of civil war over your methods!”
Kazuma paused mid-sip.
“Civil war?
Over what?”
“Over your six-month regional declaration!” El Condor Pasa chimed in, adjusting her red mask and leaning over the table with dramatic flare.
*”Si!* Everyone is talking about it!
The senior trainers believe you are executing a ‘Master-Level Concealment Strategy’!”
Kazuma blinked.
*A what?*
“They think you are deliberately keeping Urara-chan in the regional dirt circuits for six months to build her core stamina in secret!” Special Week explained, her eyes shining with pure awe.
“They say you’re going to keep her winning every single regional race—first place after first place—until her baseline stats are so high that when you finally enter her into a Grade 1 event, she’ll shock the entire country!”
Kazuma nearly choked on his tea.
He coughed violently, wiping his mouth with his sleeve, staring at the four girls in absolute, sheer horror.
*A Master-Level Concealment Strategy?!* Kazuma screamed in his own head.
*Winning every single race for six months?!
ARE YOU PEOPLE INSANE?!
I literally spent four hours last night designing a mathematical system to keep her in FIFTH place!*
“That is…
absolute nonsense,” Kazuma managed to croak out, his voice trembling slightly.
“Who started that ridiculous rumor?”
“Vice President Air Groove,” King Halo stated with absolute certainty, crossing her arms proudly.
“She told the student council board that your refusal of the Grade 3 invitation was the most brilliant display of patient athletic management she had ever witnessed.
She convinced everyone that during these six months, Urara will sweep every regional track in the prefecture!”
“She’s gonna win ’em all!” Urara cheered happily around a mouthful of rice cracker, completely missing the grand geopolitical tragedy unfolding around her.
“First place!
First place!
First place!”
“NO!” Kazuma yelled, pointing a desperate finger at Urara.
“No first places!
We agreed on fifth!
Remember the strawberry roll?!
Remember the 3:3 breathing?!”
Special Week and Grass Wonder exchanged a deep, knowing look.
“Look at him…” Special Week whispered to Grass Wonder in a loud, reverent tone.
“He’s still maintaining his cover!
He refuses to let anyone see his true confidence!
He’s protecting her mindset from the pressure of expectations!”
“Truly a master of tactical deception,” Grass Wonder agreed, nodding solemnly.
“He pretends to aim low, so that when victory comes, it feels natural and effortless to her.”
Kazuma pressed his palms against his face, letting out a long, muffled scream of pure, unadulterated administrative despair.
*Why?!* Kazuma wept silently behind his hands.
*Why does every single person in this academy have a degree in overthinking?!
I just want fifth place!
I just want my cheap lottery carrots and my afternoon naps!
Why are you turning me into a strategic mastermind?!*
“Satou-sensei,” King Halo said, her voice softening into something resembling genuine respect as she looked at his distressed expression.
“You don’t have to hide it from us.
We know how hard you’re working.
We saw you in the Annex weight room earlier, lifting weights until your arms were shaking.”
Kazuma froze, uncovering one eye.
“You saw that?”
“Yes,” King Halo nodded, a small, elegant smile touching her lips.
“A trainer who builds his own physical strength just to keep up with his runner’s growth…
It’s very noble.
You truly view yourself as her shield, don’t you?”
*I’m lifting weights so I can carry her and run away from press cameras, you crazy girl!* Kazuma screamed internally.
“Whatever,” Kazuma grunted out loud, pushing himself off the gazebo pillar and grabbing Urara by her collar like a mischievous kitten.
“Time’s up.
We have core stability drills at the Annex.
Say goodbye to the conspiracy theorists, Urara.”
“Bye-bye conspiracy theorists!” Urara waved wildly as Kazuma dragged her away down the gravel path.
As they walked away, Special Week sighed dreamily, holding a rice cracker to her chest.
“They’re so in sync…
Urara-chan is definitely going to win her next race.”
“Without a doubt,” Grass Wonder agreed, smiling gently.
“Satou-sensei’s luck and skill are unbreakable.”
Fifty yards away, Kazuma felt a cold, violent shiver run down his spine, as if a ghost had just walked over his grave.
The rain began on Tuesday evening, turning the secondary dirt track into a soup of dark, heavy mud.
Inside the Annex office, the single space heater hummed in the corner, radiating a dry, orange glow that made the small room feel like a cozy sanctuary against the wet, autumn chill outside.
Kazuma sat at his desk, a blue desk lamp illuminating a massive, floor-to-ceiling blueprint of the **Chiba Regional Dirt Oval**.
Beside his laptop sat two fresh notebooks, a pair of mechanical pencils, and a small plate containing three sweet potato cookies Urara had baked under the supervision of the dorm cook.
They were slightly burnt on the edges and shaped like crooked horseshoes, but they tasted surprisingly good with hot tea.
“Alright,” Kazuma muttered, tapping his pencil against the blueprint.
“The Chiba race is in five days.
Field size: ten runners.
Track condition: Heavy Mud due to the seasonal rain.”
Haru Urara was sitting on a cushion beside his desk, holding one of her new plush ducks from the arcade, her short pink ears twitching as she listened to his voice.
“Urara,” Kazuma said, turning his chair to face her.
“Mud changes everything.
Do you know what mud does to a race?”
Urara’s eyes lit up.
“It goes *SQUISH*!
And it gets all over your socks!”
“Yes, it goes *squish*,” Kazuma agreed patiently.
“And *squish* means heavy drag.
The front-runners who sprint out of the gate will drain their stamina twice as fast because their hooves will sink four inches into the wet clay.”
He brought up a digital simulation on his laptop screen, showing ten colored dots moving along a virtual track.
“This is our golden opportunity for the **Fifth-Place Algorithm**,” Kazuma explained, a dark, brilliant smirk returning to his face.
“In heavy mud, the front-runners will collapse by the 600-meter mark.
The late-surgers will get stuck on the outside curve trying to avoid the mud spray.
But you…”
He pointed his pencil at the bright pink dot moving smoothly along the inside lane.
“…you will be executing the **3:3 Precision Cadence**.
You will not sprint.
You will not chase.
You will stay behind Runner #4—a sturdy, heavy-set dirt specialist named Mejiro Bright-class regional runner who runs like a steady tractor.
She will break the mud for you.
You stay in her wake, count your breaths, and let the track do the work.”
Urara leaned forward, her chin resting on the edge of his desk, her big brown eyes reflecting the blue light of the monitor.
“In-in-in…
out-out-out…
behind the tractor girl?”
“Behind the tractor girl,” Kazuma confirmed, nodding with supreme satisfaction.
“And when we reach the final straightaway, you hold that pace.
You do not accelerate.
You let four runners stay ahead of you, cross the finish line in Fifth Place, collect our regional participation voucher, and we go to the station shop to buy those limited-edition strawberry cream rolls.”
Urara gasped, her tail giving a sharp *thwack* against the floor cushion.
“Strawberry rolls!
Two of them?!”
“If you get exactly fifth place, I’ll buy you three,” Kazuma promised smoothly, holding up three fingers.
Urara’s eyes widened until they looked like glowing dinner plates.
“THREE STRAWBERRY ROLLS?!”
“Three,” Kazuma affirmed, feeling a surge of absolute, unshakeable confidence.
He leant back in his squeaky chair, lacing his fingers behind his head.
The strategy was flawless.
The mud favored his low-intensity pacing model.
The field composition was ideal.
The incentive structure was bulletproof.
His Luck stat couldn’t possibly manipulate a heavy, rain-soaked mud track into a miracle victory—mud was a pure equalizer that stripped away flukes and forced runners into pure mechanical endurance.
“We’re going to pull it off, Urara,” Kazuma smirked, a comfortable warmth filling his chest as he took a bite of a burnt sweet potato cookie.
“A quiet, peaceful, beautiful Fifth Place.
The press will lose interest, the Student Council will stop bugging us, and we can spend the next five months doing light afternoon jogs and eating snacks.”
Urara looked up at him, her face full of pure, unfiltered, crystalline trust.
She didn’t understand the complex math on his screen.
She didn’t care about the Chiba dirt density or the 3:3 breathing cadence.
To her, Kazuma wasn’t just a trainer giving instructions; he was the person who sat with her in the rain, who carried her when her legs were tired, who ate her burnt cookies without complaining, and who always had a warm green jacket to hide behind when the world got too loud.
“Trainer,” Urara said softly, reaching out and lightly touching the sleeve of his green tracksuit.
“What?” Kazuma asked, looking down at her.
“I’m gonna run super good at Chiba,” she whispered, her short ears twitching with absolute, unbreakable determination.
“I’m gonna make you the happiest Trainer in the whole wide world!”
Kazuma froze.
He looked down at her earnest, glowing face.
He looked at her small, dirt-dusted hands clutching his sleeve.
A sudden, terrifying realization hit Kazuma’s brain like a bolt of lightning.
*Wait,* Kazuma thought, his heart dropping through his stomach into the deep, dark abyss of absolute panic.
*When she says ‘happy’…
she thinks First Place makes me happy.
She doesn’t understand that Fifth Place is what actually saves my life!
She thinks winning is a gift for ME!*
“Urara, wait—” Kazuma stammered, his cool confidence instantly evaporating into a cloud of cold sweat.
“Urara, no!
Fifth place makes me happy!
Fifth place is the magic number!
First place makes me sad!
First place gives me ulcers and paperwork!”
“Hehehe!
Trainer is so funny!” Urara giggled, bouncing off her cushion and grabbing her giant carrot plushie, completely ignoring his frantic explanation.
“I’m gonna go to bed now so I can be super strong for Chiba!
Goodnight, Trainer!”
She trotted out of the Annex office, humming her off-key carrot song, leaving Kazuma standing alone in the dim blue light of his desk lamp.
Kazuma stood frozen beside his desk.
He looked at the blueprint of the Chiba track.
He looked at the heavy mud forecast on his monitor.
He thought about the rumors spreading through the dormitory, the Student Council’s expectations, his own unhinged Luck stat, and an athlete who was currently burning with the innocent, unstoppable desire to make him “the happiest Trainer in the world.”
*”I’M DOOMED!”* Kazuma shrieked internally, clutching his head with both hands as his soul left his body for the third time that week.
*”THE ALGORITHM IS FLAWED!
THE INCENTIVE STRUCTURE HAS BACKFIRED!
SHE’S GOING TO RUN AT TWO HUNDRED PERCENT SPEED OUT OF PURE AFFECTION!”*
He sank slowly into his chair, staring at the ceiling as the autumn rain lashed against the Annex window.
Chiba was five days away.
The mud was coming.
His Luck stat was waiting.
And Satou Kazuma—twenty-six years old, owner of a sore lower back and a uselessly high Luck stat—realized that he was about to step onto a battlefield where even his own math couldn’t save him.
“I need more dumbbells…” Kazuma whimpered into the quiet room, reaching for his cold tea.
“I need to be able to lift a moped by Saturday…”