Training conditions are extremely important. Tracen Academy possesses a wealth of resources that other schools simply cannot provide.
Under the high-intensity training of horse girls, the turf training tracks are constantly being torn up and damaged, and restoring them requires a huge outlay of manpower and money.
Tracen Academy, however, has enough financial power and staff that its training grounds far surpass those of most horse-girl schools, allowing the turf tracks to be efficiently restored again and again.
As for rubber tracks, those are something only underfunded local schools would use. They fail to reproduce race-course conditions, the training effect is poor, and the risk of injury is actually higher.
On top of that, Tracen Academy has its own swimming pools and gyms, allowing horse girls to condition their bodies and undergo diversified training.
All of these visible high-end facilities demand an astonishing investment, and they are exactly what give Tracen Academy its overwhelming advantage.
Beyond facilities, Tracen is filled with elites. You can always find other outstanding horse girls to race against, and that is also an important shortcut to becoming stronger.
This is the reason all the famous-bloodline horse girls, without exception, enroll here. Even if their families have private training tracks and gyms, they still cannot replicate this kind of fiercely competitive environment.
Every truly excellent Japanese horse girl will join Tracen. This is the common assumption of the outside world.
…But.
Mochizuki Toru shook his head and gave an answer that made Agnes Tachyon's pupils suddenly contract.
"No. She won't be enrolling."
She really isn't coming to Tracen??
You had to understand: if you lumped together the second, third, fourth… all the other horse-girl schools, they still wouldn't measure up to Tracen Academy.
Could it be that Frankel was planning to base herself overseas instead?
But the problem was, even on a pan-Asian level, Tracen Academy still ranked among the very top institutions.
The scientist girl, shocked and completely baffled, was just about to ask more when…
A message alert chimed from the phone in Mochizuki Toru's pocket.
"Hm?"
Mochizuki paused, then took out his phone.
When he saw what was written on the screen, his expression instantly stiffened.
[Editor: Mochizuki-sensei, is your new manuscript finished yet?]
[Editor: Do you want me to drop by and pick up the draft?]
Crap.
The deadline chaser is coming?!
At one of the training grounds.
Daiwa Scarlet was sitting on a bench by the track, holding a rather thin book in her hands and leafing through it with interest.
The Devotion of Suspect X. It was Mochizuki Toru's debut work, as shocking and historically significant in the literary world as Frankel's debut race.
What was even more incredible was how low the entry barrier was. Even readers who had never touched any of the so-called "everyone-knows-these" mystery novels could fully enjoy this reading feast.
The Devotion of Suspect X tells a tragic story of ultimate love and sacrifice.
The mathematical genius Ishigami secretly has feelings for his neighbor Yasuko. When Yasuko and her daughter accidentally kill her abusive ex-husband who has come to harass them again, Ishigami proactively offers to help them escape conviction.
He uses his meticulous logical thinking to construct an unbelievable, flawless scheme that leads the police investigation completely astray.
The core of the plan is that, in order to fabricate Yasuko's alibi, Ishigami commits a separate murder, turning himself into the "true" culprit and becoming Yasuko's scapegoat in every sense.
His "devotion" is not just about taking the fall. He offers up everything he is as a sacrifice to protect that humble yet pure love.
In the end, the truth is exposed by an old friend of his, and Ishigami's sacrifice and deep feelings are revealed to the world in a cruel yet stunning fashion.
Though the book is marketed as a full-length mystery, in reality it is quite short, only a little over a hundred thousand characters. Daiwa Scarlet had only just opened it and slipped into reading mode.
Not far from her, Vodka was undergoing special training, running tirelessly as she pushed herself to become stronger.
"Ishigami… is he the protagonist? Or an important supporting character?"
Daiwa Scarlet's curiosity was piqued. She bared her little tiger teeth in a grin, her expression full of expectation.
Ishigami is introduced right at the start. He is a math teacher whose looks are plain and whose manner is cold, but his powers of observation are extraordinary.
This aloof science genius, against all expectations, begins paying excessive attention to his next-door neighbor.
She is a woman who married the wrong man and is now divorced, named Yasuko, and her gambling addict ex-husband keeps coming by to demand money.
After extorting money from her, the ex-husband even has the gall to act like a victor and makes crude jokes about her daughter.
"She's going to be a beauty when she grows up. I really can't wait."
"In another two or three years she'll be able to earn money. Any bar or hostess club would be happy to hire her."
The one who finally snapped wasn't the seemingly timid Yasuko, but her underage daughter, who grabbed a vase and slammed it down at the man.
But a child's strength was limited. Wounded and enraged, the man flew into a fury, lunged forward, and grabbed the girl, beating her savagely without the slightest restraint.
In her panic, Yasuko snatched up the cord attached to the heated table and looped it around her ex-husband's throat, pulling with all her might, until…
Death.
…
When she read up to this point, Daiwa Scarlet let out a slow breath, her ample chest visibly rising and falling, emotions stirred.
At the same time, she felt a strong sense of disbelief.
This was a two-hundred-plus-page novel! And a mystery novel at that!
Yet right at the beginning, the woman Ishigami secretly loves and her daughter commit a crime together??
They actually lay out the entire situation of the culprits in the first ten or so pages and disclose everything to the reader?
Traditional mystery fiction is all about hiding "who the culprit is." The subversive thing about this book is that it lays the culprit and the crime itself bare from the outset!
So how is the story supposed to continue from here?
Daiwa Scarlet was hooked like a fish that had bitten down on bait. She finally understood why this mystery had achieved such outrageous sales.
Very few mystery novels could tug at the reader's emotions and kindle their curiosity like this.
She continued turning the pages, her curiosity only deepening.
On the next page, the silent mother and daughter stare at the corpse on the floor, at a total loss for what to do.
And then, a knock sounds at the door.
"I'm Ishigami from next door. I heard a loud noise. Did something happen?"
They hurriedly cover the body. When Yasuko opens the door, she finds Ishigami wearing an expression whose emotions are impossible to read.
"No, nothing happened."
Yasuko, noticing Ishigami glancing past her into the room, instinctively tries to bluff it away.
"It was a cockroach… My daughter and I were trying to kill a cockroach, that's why we made such a racket."
But Ishigami's next words leave Yasuko, and even Daiwa Scarlet as the reader, momentarily speechless.
"Did you kill him?"
He does not go along with Yasuko's excuse, nor does he change the subject. He simply asks… did you kill him?!
After Ishigami leaves, the mother and daughter talk helplessly about turning themselves in.
Meanwhile, Ishigami makes a phone call and says the key line.
"If you want to call the police, I have no objection. But if you don't… I might be able to help."
"You can't deal with the body yourselves."
…
Daiwa Scarlet understood. This was absolutely not the usual type of mystery protagonist, nor the clever partner character who assists the detective.
"He's not the protagonist at all. He's the villain, isn't he?"
Ishigami, depicted in the novel as precise and cold in his logic, chooses to protect Yasuko, who is about to become a suspect, all because of his feelings for her.
The police will definitely come knocking to investigate.
What follows becomes… a showdown between the police and Ishigami! A story of layering schemes and breaking them apart!
Daiwa Scarlet admitted that she had been completely captivated by this unorthodox mystery.
No wonder Trainer Mochizuki could, with his very first novel, become a widely known young literary star through word of mouth and explosive sales!
Burying her head deeper into the book, Daiwa Scarlet suddenly realized how light it felt in her hands.
She had no idea how long she'd been reading, but she had already gone through more than half of it.
Now she finally understood why so many horse girls clutched copies of The Devotion of Suspect X as they ran up to Mochizuki Toru asking for his autograph.
Among them were not only minor race winners, but even champions of graded stakes, and horse girls who had won GI races!
At Tracen Academy, it was always outside fans, staff, and even trainers who went to horse girls for autographs.
Or rookie or just-debuted horse girls asking famous, long-established stars for their signatures.
Never before had there been top-class horse girls asking a trainer for his autograph.
And this completely inverted situation had been created by Mochizuki Toru.
What she couldn't understand before, now…
So good!
"I want Mochizuki-sensei's autograph too!"
She would go and beg him for a signature in a few days!
…
McQueen.
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N/T: Hi everyone, I'm Zuru, an inexperienced translator and non-native English speaker, so if you notice any mistakes in the text, please let me know in the comments so I can fix them. By the way, I have a Patreon. There isn't much there yet, but it would really help me if you could consider joining.
[email protected]/ZuruZ