Behind the finish line at Leopardstown Racecourse—
The post-rain air was damp and cold, mixed with the raw, muddy tang of churned soil and trampled grass.
"…Congratulations to the new ruler of the Irish Champion Stakes—Oguri Cap!!!"
The hoarse roar from the broadcast still echoed, but up in the stands, tens of thousands of spectators fell into a brief, stunned silence.
Every face was tilted up toward the massive electronic scoreboard.
The name in first wasn't the queen they all knew, Somalz.
It wasn't the so-called genius, Elmaamul, either.
It was a string of unfamiliar letters—
Oguri Cap.
And it wasn't a narrow win.
The red digits on the board screamed the margin plainly: 14 lengths.
Even second-place Elmaamul had beaten Sixton by a full 1.5 lengths.
The result made one thing brutally clear: this horse girl from the Far East was on a completely different tier from everyone else in this field.
Clap, clap, clap—
After that short, frozen pause, someone started applauding.
Then the applause became a gust, sweeping through the grandstand in an instant.
Whistles. Gasps. Shouts. Cheers—until it all merged into a single boiling roar.
This was Europe. The crowd here worshipped strength.
When absolute power was laid bare, allegiance stopped mattering.
"O-guri!"
"O-guri!!"
Soon the scattered chanting fused into a wave. The pronunciation was still awkward, clumsy around foreign syllables—but the heat of it slammed down onto the track all the same.
…
On the turf—
Sixton slowed to a stop.
The brute known as the "Steel Chariot" was heaving, her chest pumping like a bellows. Every breath rasped in her throat.
She lowered her head, staring at the thighs she'd always been proud of.
The dense muscles were twitching uncontrollably.
A clear sign she'd burned herself dry.
She'd truly given everything in this race…
And yet she hadn't taken first.
She hadn't even taken second.
Sixton lifted her head. Her gaze cut across the mud-smeared ground to the front.
That gray-white figure was already easing down into a jog, still light on her feet—her breathing not even particularly ragged.
Sixton opened her mouth, but nothing came out.
She looked down at her arms, thick as tree trunks, then back at that smaller silhouette ahead.
"…You've gotta be kidding me."
She wiped mud from her face, eyes gone a little blank.
She'd lost on speed.
Lost on strength.
Even lost on stamina.
That massive gulf—so undeniable it hurt—made her doubt, for the first time, the body she'd hammered into shape with everything she had.
…
Not far from Sixton—
Elmaamul didn't even have the energy to look around.
She panted in a wrecked, ugly rhythm, and the crimson in her eyes had dulled to ash.
Her vision swam. The grass in front of her seemed to sway.
Her ponytail twitched as Elmaamul shook her head, trying to straighten—
"…Huh?"
The world tipped sideways.
And with it, her body.
Her gaze slid from the grass to the stands, and finally to the cloud-choked sky.
Thump.
A strong hand caught her from behind, holding her up. Beside her, Sixton cracked her shoulder with a click.
"What, it's only 2000 meters. You're gonna crumple like this?"
She said it like that, but she still lowered Elmaamul carefully onto the grass.
It was wet. It was muddy.
But after running this race, neither of them cared anymore.
"Hah… haha… yeah, sorry about that…"
Elmaamul tugged her lips into a smile, but the hollow emptiness in her body left her unable to summon even a shred of strength.
Sixton stood over her with arms crossed, scowling.
"If you beat me, then act like it. Your body's too weak. When we get back, train properly."
"Otherwise if you lose to some trash later, it's my face you're embarrassing. You get it?"
"…Yeah."
…
Far behind the main pack—
The former top favorite, Somalz—the one everyone had expected—dragged her exhausted body across the line at a walk.
Her once-luxurious, pristine court uniform was now caked in mud, so filthy you could barely tell its original color.
Wet blonde hair clung to her cheeks, making her look especially battered.
She lifted her head, looked once at Oguri Cap taking in the crowd's thunderous cheers—
then looked at her own placing and the gap.
"…Thirty-five lengths."
No bitterness.
Only a deep, heavy helplessness.
"This track is like a swamp… and she runs it like it's flat ground."
Somalz let out a breath and shook her head.
She understood perfectly.
Today wasn't tactics. It wasn't luck.
It was simple.
That horse girl from the Far East was stronger than all of them.
At least on this course… stronger than she was.
Her compatibility with Leopardstown's turf was catastrophically bad.
She'd barely run a little over a thousand meters, and it felt like she'd already done three thousand. It was absurd.
But Somalz was a horse girl whose growth had long since finished.
She wasn't going to belittle herself.
She knew exactly what she was worth.
As long as she wasn't forced onto this course, she was—without question—one of Europe's true top runners.
"From now on…"
"I'm never coming back to Ireland."
Somalz pressed a hand to her forehead and sighed.
—
Out on the track, Oguri Cap slowed to a stop and turned around, looking faintly lost.
The stands were a wall of sound, like a tsunami crashing down.
The ash-gray girl who had just conquered Europe's powerhouses merely flicked her ears out of habit, her eyes still clear.
She thought for a moment—about what she'd seen at Central, about what the Chasing Light horse girls usually did.
Then, a little awkwardly, she raised her right fist high into the sky.
"OOOOOOOOOO—!!"
In an instant, the roar inside the stadium swelled even louder.
Everyone there, in that moment, witnessed the most shocking Far Eastern horse girl in history.
…
Leopardstown Racecourse—the VIP box on the top floor.
Thick soundproof glass dulled the outside roar into a heavy, muffled hum.
Fine Motion's pretty little eyes were wide and round, fixed on the scene below as if she'd forgotten how to blink.
Down there, the ash-gray horse girl they'd judged to have an extremely low chance of winning—
was standing at the finish line, swallowed by camera flashes.
"Mola."
Fine Motion called softly, her voice still carrying a child's dazed disbelief.
"I'm here, Denka."
Behind her, the maid Mola bent slightly at the waist, her expression solemn.
"Earlier… what popularity rank did you say she was?" Fine Motion asked.
"Ninth, Denka," Mola answered without hesitation.
"Oh…"
Fine Motion nodded and set her teacup back onto the table with a small clack.
She hopped down from the sofa and pattered over to the huge floor-to-ceiling window.
The view here was excellent—she could overlook the entire course.
Down below, Oguri Cap was no bigger than a fingertip from this height, but to Fine Motion, that tiny figure looked strangely, unmistakably bright.
"Mola, you said she might pull an upset."
The little princess pressed her face to the glass, her breath fogging it into a small patch of white.
"I underestimated her."
Mola stepped behind her, looking down at the gray-white figure, a note of admiration threading her voice.
"On a heavy track of this degree, with Elmaamul and Sixton closing from both sides… and she still wins that easily…"
"She's strong."
"And beyond that—she's a horse girl who's already adapted to Central's racing patterns. To run like this here only proves her real potential is even greater than what she shows on the surface."
Fine Motion didn't answer.
She raised a finger and poked at the tiny figure's position on the glass.
That earlier trace of condescension—along with the pride that came with royalty—had vanished completely in the face of absolute victory.
In its place was pure, uncomplicated awe.
"She still looks kind of ordinary, though…"
Fine Motion tilted her head. Even now, she couldn't quite understand what had felt "different" the first time they met—or what, exactly, that difference had been.
But watching that figure being cheered by the entire world, the little princess's lips slowly curled upward.
"She's really fast."
"And she looks… kind of fun."
Fine Motion turned to her maid, eyes sparkling.
"Mola, I want to grow up soon."
"I want to go down there… and run with her."
Mola bent down, her face warm with indulgence.
"You will, Denka. You'll grow up."
"And you'll become a truly excellent horse girl."
(End of Chapter)
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