“How can this be?!” Toujou Kaisoku’s eyes went wide, her face a picture of outraged disbelief.
“In this day and age, there’s still systemic injustice preventing umamusume from taking the Tōdai entrance exam?!
I’m going to stage a sit-in protest at the government building right now!”
“It’s not that umamusume can’t take the exam—it’s that none of them do.
For one thing, most umamusume are, shall we say…
a teensy-tiny bit behind regular humans academically.
For another, the vast majority go to Tracen Academy for high school.
There are Tracen campuses everywhere, regional and central.” Satono Diamond rushed to clarify.
“And Tōdai is genuinely difficult.
For the average umamusume, Tracen Academy simply makes more sense.”
“…I see.
So it’s not that they’re banned from applying—they just can’t pass the exam?” Kaisoku rubbed her chin, signaling comprehension.
It was like when she’d set her sights on art school in her previous life, never imagining just how brutally competitive art students could be.
Before she’d graduated, a senior she knew already had over a thousand followers on Pixiv, the sort of prodigy who could pick up any style effortlessly—ranked first in sketching, first in the mural department—and then promptly ran off to Tibet to carve woodblock prints.
Apparently, the daily grind of climbing scaffolding left her looking so rugged that when she came back, someone mistook her for a civil engineering bro and nearly dragged her off for beers.
Worse still, a full day of painting murals earned her less than half of what a cement worker made in an afternoon.
Her artistic aspirations shattered on impact, she was now drawing cute sprites for mobile gacha games and posting daily laments on social media about being an unrecognized genius.
Though her beer-chugging form really was indistinguishable from a civil engineering bro’s at this point—if she claimed she wasn’t from the construction department, nobody would believe her.
Not that any of this mattered now.
There was zero chance Kaisoku was going to throw herself into the art school meat grinder in this life.
She’d thought she was going to become an artist, only to discover that art school was a hellscape of mutual destruction—and not just from fellow students.
AI could out-grind you too.
The whole road was paved in blood.
Ordinary people had no business trying to claw their way through that gauntlet.
As the saying went: the master opens the door, but you walk the path alone.
If art was that cutthroat, athletics had to be orders of magnitude worse.
Kaisoku made the perfectly rational decision not to gamble on her running talent.
Tracen Academy?
Not even a dog would go there.
Wouldn’t it be better to become a Tōdai elite?
Unlike Diamond or Kitasan Black—those two trust-fund princesses sitting on family fortunes—Kaisoku was carrying debt.
Betting her future on racing talent was a wager with a near-zero survival rate.
And so, after weighing every pro and con, calculating every gain and loss, and overthinking it from every angle, the girl settled on her decision: challenge Tōdai.
Attempt the carp’s leap over the dragon gate.
Even if Tōdai was out of reach, maybe Waseda would work.
The plan was simple—study hard, improve every day, and stop dreaming about footraces.
Besides, the umamusume racing world was all-or-nothing.
You either shone like a star or got buried without a trace.
You might even wreck your body for life from racing injuries.
The risk was simply too high.
“That’s right, there’s no rule against umamusume applying to Tōdai.
But it’s also true that no umamusume has ever successfully passed the entrance exam.
Occasionally one will choose the academic track, but choosing Tōdai specifically—that’s unprecedented.
I’d suggest you think it over carefully.” Satono Diamond counseled her with the patience of someone twice her age.
They were both middle schoolers, yet Diamond couldn’t shake the impulse that she needed to look after this girl.
“There’s no rush.
Take your time.”
“Dia’s right—we’re all umamusume!
Not even trying the track feels like a waste of what we are!” Kitasan Black said earnestly.
“And I just know you’d be an incredible racer, Kaisoku!
You just haven’t realized it yet!”
“Me?
Incredible racer?
You’re too sweet, Kita.” Kaisoku shook her head like a rattle drum.
“Who am I kidding?
I’m nothing special.
I barely even practice running.
There’s no way I’m any good!”
“You won’t know unless you try!” Kita and Diamond exchanged a glance, silently agreeing: it was time to shatter this girl’s unrealistic Tōdai fantasy.
“Why don’t we just hit the track and find out?”
“Huh?
I literally just ate…” Kaisoku said in a small voice.
“Running now would give me cramps.”
“Oh, right…
Then let’s go out and run tomorrow!” Kita realized she was pushing too hard and dialed it back.
“I’ll teach you all the fundamentals!
The full package!
Hands-on coaching!”
“You!
It’s bad enough you’re always all over Sweep, but now you’re going after my roommate too?!”
“Dia, your possessiveness is off the charts!
I just want to get along with Kaisoku!
I don’t have nearly as many ulterior motives as you do!” Kita protested indignantly.
“Besides, you’ve been hiding Kaisoku from me this whole time!”
“I wasn’t hiding anyone…” Diamond sighed.
“Before today, Kaisoku wouldn’t say a single word to me.
I was starting to wonder if I’d offended her somehow.”
“Huh?
Really?
She seems perfectly friendly to me though?” Kita couldn’t detect even a trace of social anxiety.
“Wait—is it because she and I just click?!”
“As if!” Diamond hauled Kita to her side and locked her in a cross armbar to prevent another attempted cuddle assault on Kaisoku.
Kita was only a middle schooler, but her weird boundary issues were already landing her in increasingly strange interpersonal situations.
“Toujou, don’t let Kita’s act fool you!
This girl is already notorious at school—an absolute player who falls for everyone she meets!” Diamond hurried to poison the well before Kaisoku became the next victim.
“That’s not true!
That’s just your bias, Dia!
Everyone’s just friends!
And they’re all amazing and adorable!
I just want to be good friends with everyone!” Kita defended herself with great seriousness.
“They all make my heart race!
Obviously I should nurture every single one of those connections!”
“That is literally textbook player talk!” Diamond brought a fist down on Kita’s head.
Kaisoku wasn’t sure if it was her imagination, but she could’ve sworn she heard a hollow bonk.
“That huuurt, Dia…”
“It’s your own fault, Kita!”
Kaisoku watched the two of them bicker with something like envy.
You could tell their bond ran deep.
She’d never had a friendship like that—not in this life, not in her last.
The concept of a childhood best friend was something she longed for but had never experienced.
“You two really are close…” She finally polished off her yakisoba, a wistful note in her voice.
“If it’s just being friends, I’d love that.
You did treat me to such an expensive restaurant, after all.”
“…Huh?
That was expensive?”
“I’d call this a budget restaurant, honestly…”
“…I take it back.
We are clearly not from the same universe.” Kaisoku clutched her chest in mock anguish.
She’d almost forgotten both of them were heiresses sitting on family money.
“Damn it, is it too much to ask that class barriers be overcome through sheer sincerity?!”
“Well, if you’d like, I can treat you next time too.
How about yakiniku?” Diamond suggested with a smile, and Kaisoku instantly pivoted from class warrior to capitalism’s loyal lapdog.
“Satono, you’re too kind!”
“That’s not fair…
Dia, aren’t you also just buying Kaisoku’s friendship with money?!
How is that any less sneaky?!”
“Hmm?
If friendship can be bought with money, I’d call that a bargain.” Diamond once again demonstrated her reality-defying worldview.
“And this level of spending is nothing.
I can cover however much you want—I do have a black card, after all.”
“Satono…
does your family need a freeloader by any chance?” After a long silence, Kaisoku spoke with half-serious conviction.
“I don’t want to try anymore.”
“Dia’s the real heretic here!” Kita protested.
“She has absolutely no right to call me out…”
“Approved!”
“Don’t actually approve it!”
The freeloading bit was just a joke, of course.
But Diamond and Kita really were remarkably down-to-earth for heiresses—excellent friend material by any measure.
For Kaisoku, though, the priority was still Tōdai.
As for Kita’s offer of personal coaching, she hadn’t taken it seriously.
Not until the next morning, when Diamond yanked her out of bed and physically deposited her into a black luxury sedan, did she reconsider.
“…Miss Satono Diamond. This chapter was copied from g.com without permission.
Is this a kidnapping?”
“No, this is perfectly above-board—” Diamond smiled.
“Besides, it’s just the Satono family’s private track.
Don’t worry.”
“The Satono family’s private track…
Why does just hearing that phrase make me feel…” Kaisoku sensed the yawning gulf between social classes in those words.
“It reeks of capitalist decadence.”
“Kita was so eager, I told her to wait for us at the track.” Diamond smiled.
“Also, I’m curious to see what you can do.”
“Hmph, maybe I’m a genius.” Kaisoku didn’t actually mind giving it a shot.
She was an umamusume now, after all—never running even once felt genuinely wrong.
But she wasn’t taking this too seriously either.
Racing paled in comparison to becoming rich.
“Just don’t get your hopes up.”
“That’s the spirit—I just know you’ll be amazing.” Diamond pressed her palms together, beaming.
“Approved desu!”
“You don’t have to approve everything…” the girl muttered.
“Oh, by the way—is Kita actually good?”
“…Put it this way: she’s definitely top-tier for middle school.
But she can’t beat Duramente.”
“Oh…
I don’t know who that is.” Kaisoku had never shown much interest in this stuff.
Her diary mentioned maintaining a training routine, but it never went into racing details.
She’d heard the name Kitasan Black for the first time only the other day.
“You’ll see when we get there.
And if you don’t mind, you’re welcome to use the Satono track whenever you want.” Diamond was nothing if not generous.
“It’s in the city center, super convenient.”
“…A racetrack.
In the city center.” Kaisoku fell silent.
“Am I wrong, or is the Satono family some kind of mega-rich dynasty?”
“Well—use your imagination.” Diamond didn’t elaborate.
Before long, they arrived at the Satono family’s track.
The facility was enormous—the kind of place that made you viscerally understand the wealth gap in this world.
Most people would consider themselves lucky to own a house in this neighborhood, let alone build a racetrack.
“If I ever hit rock bottom, you could always just keep me, right, Miss Satono?”
“If it ever came to that, I’d absolutely help you out.” Diamond’s virtue was her generosity.
Her vice was having no idea just how generous she was.
Kaisoku had a creeping suspicion that Diamond was destined to be swindled by some smooth-talking jerk someday—though on reflection, given Diamond’s personality, it was more likely she’d cheerfully kidnap the jerk and drag them home without the slightest awareness that anything was legally problematic.
Good thing I’m a girl…
at least I won’t end up as Diamond’s prey.
Probably?
And even if girls were fair game, Kita would definitely be higher priority.
The girl pondered this with genuine seriousness.
“Ah—it’s Kaisoku!
Over here!
Over here!” Kita was already warming up on the track.
The moment she spotted Kaisoku approaching, she waved both arms wildly.
“I’ve been SO excited—couldn’t sleep at all last night!”
“So this is the girl you wanted to introduce me to?
I was expecting someone impressive.” Standing next to Kita was a shorter umamusume, currently sizing Kaisoku up with a critical eye.
“Let me introduce you!
This is Sweep Tosho—she’s a good friend of mine!” Kita made the introductions with her usual enthusiasm.
“She’s here to watch too.”
“What actually happened is this idiot forgot she already had plans with me, so she crammed both things together,” Sweep Tosho immediately pulled Kita’s pants down, metaphorically speaking.
“Not that I had high expectations to begin with.”
“Sorry, sorry—you know my brain can only handle one thing at a time.” Kita’s single-threaded processor was apparently a well-known feature by now; neither Diamond nor Sweep looked remotely surprised.
Diamond herself had arrived a step later and changed into a swimsuit, and like Sweep, she clearly wasn’t here to run.
“There’s a pool on the other side—it can double as a training facility.
But Sweep and I are just here to splash around, not train.
Whenever you two get tired, come rest.
This place has showers, changing rooms, everything.
There’s even a sauna.” Diamond gestured around as she spoke, beckoning Sweep over.
“As the Satono family’s private facility, it’s fully equipped.
And the weather’s gorgeous today—the forecast says clear skies for days.”
“Is this a racetrack or a vacation resort…” Kaisoku marveled.
Then again, for a family like the Satonos, maybe this was just baseline normal.
“Well, I did promise yesterday.
Let’s give this a proper shot.”