The crisp autumn air of six-thirty in the morning hit Satou Kazuma’s face like a splash of cold mountain water.
He stood near the perimeter fence of the Annex training track, holding a steel stopwatch in his right hand and a thermos of hot barley tea in his left.
He was wearing his signature green tracksuit, but something subtle—yet undeniable—had changed.
He wasn’t slouching.
For as long as he could remember, across two different lives, Kazuma had possessed the posture of a chronic shut-in: rounded shoulders, a slightly curved spine, and a perpetual forward head tilt from thousands of hours spent staring at screens or crouching over magical quest boards.
Now, he stood upright.
His chest was opened, his shoulder blades pulled back naturally.
Under the fabric of his cotton shirt, the sharp, bony frame of a lazy NEET had quietly filled out.
Lean, wiry muscle covered his shoulders, his core had hardened from holding windbreak shields against four-inch deep mud, and his calves were distinctly defined from sprinting side-by-side with a hyperactive pink torpedo.
When he had stepped onto the scale in his apartment that morning, he had noticed another terrifying anomaly: the bathroom mirror looked slightly lower than usual.
A quick measurement against his doorway frame confirmed it—his height had crept up from 165 cm to 168 cm.
Three full centimeters.
*My body is mutating,* Kazuma thought, his right eye twitching as he took a sip of hot tea.
*I am eating balanced protein meals.
I am sleeping before midnight.
I am walking three miles a day on dirt tracks.
MyLuck stat is forcing me to physically morph into an actual athletic coach!
If this keeps up, I’ll have six-pack abs by spring!
What kind of sick, twisted nightmare is this?!
A NEET losing his slouch is an absolute insult to my core identity!*
“Trainer!
Look!
I’m doing the high-knee dynamic stretch like you showed me!”
Haru Urara bounced down the dirt track, her pink twin tails springing rhythmically with every step.
Her knees were coming up to chest height with flawless, effortless form, her small feet barely disturbing the loose gravel beneath her.
Her cheeks were flush with health, and her brown eyes shone like polished amber in the morning sun.
“Good form, torpedo,” Kazuma called out, clicking his stopwatch as she passed his marker.
“Keep the pelvis level.
Don’t throw your hips forward.
We have forty minutes of low-intensity strides, then we go inside to review the Niigata race charts.”
“Aye-aye, Captain!” Urara squealed, executing a sharp u-turn without dropping her cadence.
Kazuma looked down at his clipboard.
Despite his constant internal screaming, his hands were meticulously updating her performance metrics.
He had graphed her stride length, her metabolic recovery rate in cold weather, and her foot-strike angle on dry dirt versus wet clay.
*The Niigata race track is flat and fast,* Kazuma analyzed, his mechanical pencil moving across the grid paper with cold, sharp precision.
*The dirt is finely sieved, which means high traction.
The field has twelve runners.
If she runs at top speed, her stride frequency will carry her two lengths ahead of the pack by the six-hundred-meter mark.
To prevent another disaster, I need to recalibrate the 3:3 cadence into a 4:2 suppression rhythm.
I will force her to lengthen her stride while dropping her step-rate by eight percent…*
He paused, staring at his own dense mathematical formulas.
He was tired.
His shoulders ached from his dumbbell routines, his fingers were stained with black ink, and the mountain of administrative paperwork sitting on his office desk was waiting to swallow his afternoon whole.
Then, he heard a loud, cheerful laugh.
Urara had tripped slightly over a small weed near the inner rail, executed a surprisingly athletic forward roll, bounced back up onto her feet without losing momentum, and raised both arms in the air like a gymnast finishing an Olympic vault.
“I saved it!” she shouted toward him, her smile so wide, so impossibly radiant and unfiltered that it seemed to instantly cut through the cold morning fog.
“Trainer, did you see my cool roll?!”
Kazuma stared at her.
A heavy, exhausted sigh left his chest, but the sharp, bitter irritation in his heart quietly melted away, leaving a strange, quiet warmth behind.
He would never admit it out loud.
He would rather take a kick from a dragon than say it to anyone in Tracen Academy.
But that goofy, bright, completely innocent smile…
it was a terrifyingly effective cure for his fatigue.
Watching her run without a single care in the world, unburdened by expectations, simply happy to be out on the track with him—it made the sore muscles and the endless stress feel oddly…
worth it.
*Fine,* Kazuma grunted internally, turning back to his clipboard, a faint, barely visible smirk tugging at his lips.
*I’ll build the physical frame of an Olympic athlete if I have to.
But I am still getting that fifth-place finish in Niigata.*
By 2:00 PM, the atmosphere inside the Tracen Academy Student Council office was thick with the scent of dark coffee, warm paper, and sheer, soul-crushing bureaucracy.
Satou Kazuma sat at a side desk near the window, a massive tower of yellowed folders, budget allocation sheets, and regional racing permits stacked beside his elbow.
Across the room, President Symboli Rudolf was reviewing official Grade 1 tournament applications, while Vice President Air Groove stood near the filing cabinets, rubbing her temples as she organized the incoming dorm budget reports.
“Here,” Kazuma said, setting a neatly stapled stack of documents onto Air Groove’s desk.
“I cross-referenced the regional dirt maintenance expenses for the Annex track with the central facility fund.
You had an eighteen percent accounting overlap in the autumn quarter budget.”
Air Groove blinked, holding the documents in shock.
Her dark eyes swept over the pristine, error-free calculations.
“Satou-sensei…
you reorganized the entire Annex facilities budget in two hours?
This was supposed to take the committee three days!”
“It was basic subtraction,” Kazuma grunted, stretching his arms behind his head.
His shoulders let out a low, satisfying *pop*—another side effect of his newly developed posture.
“You people overcomplicate numbers.
Just categorize by actual usage instead of theoretical allocation.”
“Remarkable,” Symboli Rudolf observed from her mahogany desk, setting her fountain pen down.
She adjusted her white gloves, her piercing green eyes lingering on Kazuma’s straight back and surprisingly sharp posture.
“Efficiency of that caliber is rare, Satou-sensei.
It seems your physical conditioning with Urara is refining your mental acuity as well.”
“My mental acuity is fine, my patience is dead,” Kazuma deadpanned, sinking back into his chair.
“I just want to finish my daily quota so I can go sleep under the Annex tree.”
Rudolf let out a soft, amused chuckle.
“A noble goal.
But speaking of trees…
did you know why the autumn leaf was so embarrassed when winter arrived?”
Air Groove instantly stiffened, a look of profound, agonizing dread washing over her face.
“President, please—not during work hours—”
“Because it was caught completely *un-leaf-ed*,” Rudolf delivered the pun with deadpan, absolute seriousness, her expression utterly solemn as she waited for the punchline to settle.
Silence hung over the office.
Air Groove closed her eyes, letting out a quiet whimper of pure, second-hand cringe.
Kazuma, however, did not cringe.
He looked at Rudolf.
He looked at her stone-cold, regal face, then down at his own desk.
Coming from a world where Kazuma had spent years listening to his own ridiculous party members say absurd things with absolute confidence, he actually appreciated the sheer, awkward bravery of a dad joke delivered by an all-powerful student council president.
It was dry.
It was terrible.
It was completely out of place.
And therefore, to Satou Kazuma’s twisted sense of humor, it was hilarious.
A sharp, breathless snort escaped Kazuma’s nose.
He buried his face in his hand, his shoulders shaking slightly as he tried—and failed—to stifle a dry laugh.
“That…
was terrible, President,” Kazuma muttered through his fingers, a wry, exhausted grin on his face.
“Truly dry.
Two out of ten.”
Symboli Rudolf’s eyes widened slightly.
A rare, genuine warmth lit up her face.
In an academy where everyone treated her with terrifying reverence, fear, or utmost formality, having a trainer laugh—even mockingly—at her dry humor was a breath of fresh, unburdened air.
“See, Air Groove?” Rudolf said smoothly, a tiny, satisfied smirk touching her lips.
“Satou-sensei appreciates fine literary wit.”
“He’s enabling you, President…” Air Groove groaned, pressing her forehead against a metal filing cabinet.
“You look like you haven’t slept in three days, Air Groove,” Kazuma said, standing up from his chair.
He walked over to her desk, casually picked up half of her remaining budget files, and added them to his own pile.
“I’ll handle the regional transport logs.
Go get a tea.”
Air Groove froze.
She looked up at him, her eyes wide with sheer, bewildered shock.
“Satou-sensei…
that is Vice President administrative work.
You don’t have to—”
“If you collapse from exhaustion, my Annex permits will take twice as long to get signed,” Kazuma interrupted flatly, reaching out with absolute, effortless casualness and giving her head a firm, comforting pat—exactly the way he patted Urara when she finished a hard run—before walking back to his desk.
“Just let me handle it so I can leave early.”
Air Groove stood completely still.
Her cheeks flushed a sudden, intense shade of pink.
Her horse ears twitched violently, pinning straight back against her hair as her mind completely short-circuited.
Across the room, Symboli Rudolf watched the exchange.
Her eyes narrowed slightly, a strange, unreadable gleam flickering in her green gaze as she leaned her chin against her hand, watching Kazuma casually scrub through administrative data with practiced, cynical ease.
Kazuma, completely oblivious to the catastrophic shift in the room’s atmosphere, kept typing away on his laptop.
He didn’t know it.
His lazy, cynical brain was completely blind to the terrifying reality he was creating.
In Tracen Academy, a trainer who was physically fit, incredibly capable under pressure, possessing a sharp tactical mind, capable of handling high-level administrative burdens without sweating, and—worst of all—naturally attentive and casual with his affection was not just a good trainer.
He was a prime, top-tier target for every competitive, high-ranking Uma Musume in the school.
By trying to avoid work, Kazuma had accidentally proven himself to be an administrative god.
By trying to keep Urara happy, he had built a body that looked capable of carrying a runner through hell.
And by treating the Student Council like normal, tired people instead of mythical figures, he had casually cracked through defenses that had stood for years.
The press called him a tactical mastermind.
His athlete worshipped him as her hero.
The Student Council viewed him as an indispensable pillar of stability.
And somewhere in the near future, the idea of “Team Kazuma” remaining a quiet, one-runner Annex project was about to be obliterated by a line of elite Uma Musume begging to join his stable.
“Done,” Kazuma declared, closing his laptop with a satisfying *snap* and stacking the signed files neatly on the corner of his desk.
“I’m going back to the Annex.
Don’t call me unless the building is on fire.”
He pulled his green jacket over his newly widened shoulders, grabbed his thermos, and walked out the heavy oak doors without looking back.
Inside the office, silence descended once more.
Air Groove was still touching the top of her head, her face bright red, staring blankly at the door.
Symboli Rudolf leaned back in her leather chair, tapping her gloved fingers against her desk, a small, dangerous smile resting on her face.
“Team Kazuma…” Rudolf whispered softly to the empty room, her green eyes reflecting the afternoon sunlight.
“How very interesting.”
Outside, walking under the autumn trees toward the Annex track, Satou Kazuma stretched his back, enjoying the crisp, cool wind.
*Niigata is in two weeks,* Kazuma thought happily, completely unaware of the swarm of elite Uma Musume who were already looking up his coaching record.
*The math is solid.
The cadence is set.
This time, nothing can go wrong.
Fifth place is as good as mine.*
He took a long sip of his barley tea, entirely blissful in his total, complete ignorance of the future.