Chapter 146: I’m bad at studying.

Hoshino Wilm.

If you type that name into the search bar of some random internet platform or social media site, the suggested results that pop up usually look something like this:

“Hoshino Wilm strong”

“Hoshino Wilm why”

“Hoshino Wilm cute”

“Hoshino Wilm gacha disaster”

“Hoshino Wilm long distance”

…Yeah.

Just from that alone, you can pretty much tell how people see me.

“Strong” and “long distance” are straightforward evaluations of Hoshino Wilm as a racing Uma Musume.

Not to brag, but I do get pretty high ratings, and I’m especially good at long-distance races.

Well, my only loss was also in a long-distance race… but that was just because Ayumu-san wasn’t there, and Suzuka-san and Spe-senpai had been running back-to-back races. That’s all.

“Why” is probably something people knowledgeable about racing searched.

Apparently, before I showed up, it was considered nearly impossible to win the Takarazuka Kinen during the Classic year or to achieve the Triple Crown as a frontrunner.

Because I kept winning races like that, I ended up with a pretty cool nickname—“The New Myth That Overturns the Impossible.”

So that suggestion probably comes from people wondering, “Why can she do that?” or “How did a poor-background Uma Musume rise this far?” Something like that.

“Gacha disaster” is… hey, who searched that?

Well, I mean, it shows up because a lot of people searched it, but isn’t that warping my image a bit?

Sure, okay? I do sometimes post screenshots of my failed gacha pulls on Umatter. But if I don’t, the gems I sacrificed in vain will never be at peace.

Still—this is how you treat an athlete-slash-idol? Don’t people think I’m some kind of comedian?

…The last one is kind of a mixed evaluation, but whatever. I’ll leave that for now.

It’s not like anything changes just because I complain about it myself.

After that, the suggestions continue with things like “trainer,” “boyfriend,” and “controversy.”

Those are the kind of suggestions any racing Uma Musume would probably get.

“Trainer” is lower than I expected, but maybe that’s because he doesn’t appear much in public.

“Boyfriend” and “controversy”… well, yeah. Some people care about that stuff.

Fortunately, I’ve never had a scandal blow up, so that suggestion is pretty far down. I mean, back in my Classic year I did cause a few incidents without realizing it, but apparently Ayumu-san handled everything, so it’s fine.

Anyway, this is basically Hoshino Wilm’s public image.

Well, I don’t want the “gacha disaster” part, but what’s done is done. I guess I’ll just have to live with this digital tattoo.

But of course, these images aren’t all of me.

There are also sides of me that the public doesn’t really know—parts I don’t show on the surface.

For example, the fact that I still can’t whistle even though I’ve been practicing forever.

Or the fact that I’m so bad in the mornings it’s practically fatal.

And also…

The fact that I’m actually terrible at studying.

---

“Ughhh…”

I collapsed backward and let out a groan I definitely couldn’t let my fans—or Ayumu-san—hear.

My spinning vision settled on a slightly familiar ceiling.

Right now, I was in a room at the Ritto dormitory that looked a bit like mine, but with a more distinctly teenage-girl style interior.

And at this very moment, the owner of the room—my best friend, Nice Nature—was staring down at me, sprawled across the floor, with an exasperated look.

Ahh… eye-level eye contact. So comforting.

Lately, there are fewer and fewer people who look at me this honestly.

…Actually, now that I think about it, she might be the only one in this life who shows me emotions this straightforwardly.

Should I lament how narrow my social circle is, or celebrate how deep it is? Tough call…

“…Um, Wilm? Do you actually intend to take this seriously?”

“I hate studying.”

“I know. But you also know you have to do it, right?”

“I do, but… I want to escape reality… Could you maybe let me clean your room or something…?”

When it comes to escaping from studying, cleaning someone’s room is the classic move.

You tell yourself it’s because something’s bothering you and you need to tidy up to focus, and before you know it you’re flipping through manga or magazines you picked up along the way and wasting hours.

In my previous life, I was famous for being the kind of girl whose room only got clean right before exams.

…But there were two problems.

One—this wasn’t really the time for escapism.

And two—this wasn’t my room to do whatever I wanted with.

“You think I’d let you clean someone else’s room?”

“No…? Even if a cute, mysterious, cool-type beautiful loli begs with teary puppy eyes…?”

“Just so you know, the whole ‘mysterious’ and ‘cool’ thing lasted until maybe last year’s Derby at best. After that you were just a tragic berserker looking for someone to defeat you.”

“What did you just say…?!”

Well, I can’t deny it. I’m a little self-aware.

Apparently these days even my fans treat me like some kind of running junkie, giving me warm, awkward smiles.

Back then I used to be called a mysterious villain and told I looked cool, too…

What went wrong? Was it the gacha disaster posts?

As I stared at the ceiling, drifting into thoughts of the distant past, something flicked my forehead from above.

“Ow!”

“More importantly, stop changing the subject. You’re the one who said you wanted a study session today.”

“Ugh…”

Her brutally strict words left me unable to argue back, and I just lay there on the floor.

My best friend hauled me back into the chair again and let out a huge sigh.

“Honestly… why are you so hopeless at everything except running?”

---

It had been one week since Bourbon-chan won the Japan Derby.

June had begun, and Fuchu—including Tracen Academy—had officially entered the rainy season. Even now, I could hear the steady patter of rain against the window.

Apparently some people get excited about June brides and all that, but personally I don’t like this time of year much.

The futon gets damp, outdoor training gets canceled easily because of rain… and even though I’m not that fashion-conscious, I still want to look nice in front of Ayumu-san, but my hair frizzes up so easily in this humidity.

Still, once this month passes, summer arrives.

The time of year with the longest daylight hours—in other words, the longest possible training time. Bonus time.

So Hoshino Wilm—that’s me—had been spending my days training hard, rain or humidity be damned, preparing for the upcoming decisive battle at the Takarazuka Kinen against Happy Meek-senpai.

…Had been.

But we racing Uma Musume are professional athletes and also students, from middle school through high school.

Annoying as it is, we can’t neglect studying—our main job as students. Seriously annoying!

That said, the bar isn’t nearly as high as for normal students.

Girls who have trainers and are actively racing get afternoon classes waived, and the exam scope feels much narrower than what I remember from my previous life. Probably.

The lessons also include knowledge and education related to racing Uma Musume, so if you’re interested in racing at all, it’s actually pretty easy to absorb.

In other words, compared to ordinary students, we’ve got it pretty easy.

Well… there are still people who can’t score well even then. Like me. Right here.

As I let out a dry laugh at this sad reality, I noticed Nature looking down at me with a slightly worried expression.

Please don’t label me a “poor thing.” That actually hurts.

“Seriously, just study, Wilm. You’re efficient—you’d score easily if you actually tried.”

“Please stop with the logical arguments. I’ll cry.”

“If you cry and then study, I’ll play the villain and keep being logical.”

“You’re way too good of a friend…”

Nature is such a good person it makes me want to cry.

Also, the geography terms with nearly identical names that I have zero interest in make me want to cry too.

But man… I just can’t get motivated.

“Why do we even have to study anyway…?”

“There it is—the desperate mindset when you’re cornered.”

No, honestly, this isn’t escapism—I genuinely think this.

I abruptly sat up and pointed my index finger straight at Nature, who was watching me from the bed with pity in her eyes.

“Generally speaking, when students cram their heads full of knowledge they’ll barely use in life, isn’t it basically just to gain enough cultural literacy to function in society and to get better academic credentials so they can earn more money over their lifetime?”

“I don’t want to agree because that’s such a terrible way to put it, but… for some people, maybe.”

“But for us racing Uma Musume, if you’re strong enough, you can basically earn your lifetime income during your active career and retire early, right?”

“Well, that’s going a bit too far—…………”

Nature stopped mid-denial and fell silent for a while.

Then she suddenly looked at me with a serious expression.

“Um… Wilm. Sorry for asking something rude, but just for reference—how much money have you earned so far?”

“I don’t mind telling you.”

I was about to repeat what Ayumu-san told me the other day when, for some reason, Nature raised a hand to stop me.

“Wait! …Don’t say it out loud.”

“Huh? Why?”

“I mean… I don’t want to get too shocked. I know it sounds weird to say it myself, but I’m kind of a commoner-type Uma Musume. I’m scared my sense of reality will break.”

What is she even saying? Nature placed second in the Kikuka Sho and third in the Arima Kinen—she’s earned plenty herself.

Sure, compared to me—with my record number of G1 wins—the difference might literally be an order of magnitude. But even so, she’s probably already made enough to start a business if she wanted.

Well… I do understand the feeling of your sanity wobbling when you compare it to your financial sense before coming to Tracen.

I’ve already gone full circle—my perception’s broken, and I just recognize facts now. Even when my bank balance increases, all I think is, “Yay.”

When hundreds of millions come in from a single race, that kind of money is way too much for an ordinary student to process, for better or worse.

In the end, after agonizing for a while, Nature reluctantly held up two fingers.

“…The first two digits. Just tell me the first two digits.”

“Twenty-two.”

“—Ugh.”

“Nature? Nature, what’s wrong… Wait, you’re not breathing!?”

---

Nature had collapsed for a moment, but she recovered almost immediately.

And along with her consciousness, she also remembered the original topic.

“No matter how much money you have, happiness isn’t guaranteed! If you want to find your own happiness in the future, you need to study properly now!”

“Now you sound like a hot-blooded teacher.”

“Well, I doubt you’d mess that part up anyway.”

“I’m moved to tears by the trust my best friend has in me.”

“But that’s separate from this. I don’t want my best friend to be stupid, so study.”

“And just like that you weaponize our friendship. I’m crying for a different reason now.”

I’d finally run out of escape routes, so I obediently turned back to the worksheet.

Spread out before me were the names of regional rivers and mountains that didn’t seem connected to the richness of my life in any meaningful way.

If memorizing them would make me run faster, I’d study for dozens of hours. But I’m not perceptive enough to pour effort into something I know has no direct value.

So, ten seconds after deciding to focus, I was already thinking about how amazing last week’s Derby was, how excited I was for the Takarazuka Kinen, what kind of girls I’d run against in the Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe…

And whenever my thoughts drifted like that, Teacher Nature’s “focus” chop would come flying from behind.

“Ow!”

“You’re thinking about something else again.”

“Honestly, with the Arc coming up, expecting me not to get distracted is impossible, right?”

“Well… maybe. But right now, studying!”

“Isn’t it rude to the overseas Uma Musume who’ll run in the Arc for my sake otherwise?”

“I think your logic itself is rude.”

“Fine, I get it! You’re saying someone who can’t even study could never win the Arc, right?! If that’s the case, I’ll win it without studying!”

“I’m getting tired of reacting to you. Could you just take this seriously?”

“…Yes.”

Looks like I really couldn’t escape anymore. I almost wanted to cry.

Still, Nature was taking the time to help me, and it was true that I needed to study, so I decided to tackle geography.

My brain still didn’t feel like it was working, so I just kept my hands moving—write, write, write.

“…Sigh.”

You know how in reincarnation stories, the protagonist uses knowledge from their previous life to become a child prodigy?

That’s all a lie.

Okay, maybe not all of it—but I think most of it is.

Humans… well, I’m an Uma Musume now, but either way, our memories are honestly pretty unreliable.

If you don’t stimulate them regularly, you forget things quickly.

I was completely out of control during elementary school, and it took over ten years before I attended school properly again in my second life—my “Uma life.”

That’s more than enough time to lose simple memorization-type knowledge you weren’t interested in.

As a result, aside from language subjects and science, my math—where I don’t even remember formulas anymore—and history and geography, which never interested me, are basically catastrophic.

History in particular is messy, because the existence of Uma Musume has changed things just enough from my previous life to blur my memories.

Combined with the sheer hassle of relearning something I once knew, my motivation has completely bottomed out.

…But even so, this is this.

I feel it even when working as a racing Uma Musume—no matter how much you turn what you love into a job, there will always be parts you’re not interested in or don’t want to do.

Long waiting times or assignments you’re not excited about aren’t rare at all.

So studying is just one of those things.

Something I have to do as part of being a racing Uma Musume… that’s how I’ll think about it.

---

Scratch, scratch—the mechanical pencil moved across the paper as I emptied my mind.

Repeating this for hours would drive anyone insane, but actually, I’m used to doing things steadily like this.

After all, I’ve written over a thousand autographs in a single day before.

It was for an event that got scheduled suddenly, but even now, thinking back on it, that was brutal. If I hadn’t had an Uma Musume body, I definitely would’ve gotten tendonitis.

However, this time was different from back then—no one was judging the quality of each individual piece.

I didn’t have to struggle with that deceptively difficult balance of “not too neat, not too sloppy.” As long as I could read it myself, it was fine. Honestly, even if I couldn’t read it, it didn’t matter. When it comes to imprinting things into your brain, the act of writing itself is what matters, and there were no plans for anyone else to ever see this notebook.

Compared to work projects that descended into full-on crisis mode, copying things down like this felt unbelievably relaxing.

That said, unlike back then—when I could just shut off my brain and move my fingers like a machine—this time I actually had to think so the content would stick in my memory.

That part was kind of a hassle.

“…Couldn’t some kind of bug just delete all the rivers in Japan?”

“Are you trying to destroy Japan?”

“A country full of rivers and mountains with names this annoying… it should just disappear…!”

“This is the most childish reason for a dark turn I’ve ever heard.”

Even while chatting with Nature here and there, my hands never stopped, steadily eating away at the notebook margins.

I’d always been good at multitasking. Talking while studying was easy.

At first, I worried I might be bothering Nature… but this girl already had decent grades to begin with, and she’d been reviewing the upcoming exam material regularly. She wasn’t pressed for time at all.

We called it a study session, but in reality she was just keeping me company, so she didn’t seem particularly annoyed by the casual conversation.

Well, if I overdid it I’d get scolded, so I made sure to mix studying and chatting in moderation.

Once in a while—very rarely—Nature would ask me something instead.

“Wilm, do you know why this answer is ‘she’s sad’ here?”

“Hmm… oh, this one’s a trick question. Look—earlier it says, ‘She always fiddled with her bangs when she was sad. Apparently it was a habit.’”

“Oh, you’re right. Then her feelings here would be…”

“It looks like she’s happy, but she’s actually sad. If you only read the excerpt, you don’t get the background explaining why she’s sad. Pretty sneaky question writing.”

I was the type who read through language textbooks as soon as I got them, so I could help with those kinds of problems.

Though Nature wasn’t bad at Japanese either, and there were only limited situations where my knowledge was actually useful.

Teacher Nature always acted like she hadn’t studied at all, yet she ranked around third in class every time. She was way, way smarter than me.

She’d always sigh, “Third again…” but from my perspective it was more like, “What kind of monster are you?” Meanwhile I was perpetually on the brink of failing.

…Actually, come to think of it, how is this girl maintaining top-tier test scores while also having G1-level racing ability?

Does Nature secretly have 72 hours in a day or something?

Maybe she noticed me staring suspiciously, because she sighed and said:

“Just so you know, if you review a little every day, you can get decent scores.”

“Nature, how would you feel if I said, ‘If you just run G1 races every day, you can win them normally’?”

“…Sorry, Wilm. I was wrong. Everyone has their strengths and weaknesses.”

“I appreciate your understanding.”

Sadly, there are things each of us just can’t reach.

Well, Nature could probably win a G1 if the race conditions lined up, and I could probably get good scores if I were motivated… but because those things don’t happen easily, all we can do is sigh.

“Life doesn’t go smoothly, does it…”

“That’s not something I expect to hear from someone with enough savings to live without working forever.”

With no choice, I turned back to my notebook.

---

After several hours—about 60% silence, 20% questions, 20% chatting—curfew time at the dorm approached.

My progress… well, decent enough.

You shouldn’t expect peak efficiency from studying with someone else in the first place.

What I needed from Nature was for her to stop me when I tried to run away, teach me what I didn’t understand, and provide a bit of gentle emotional support.

In that sense, she’d done an almost perfect job.

Honestly, efficiency aside, it’s rare for me to sit at a desk for hours at all.

I should really thank her.

Though that same Nature was currently…

“Wilm, you worked hard. Good girl~”

…patting my head while saying that, which made it difficult to express sincere gratitude.

Does she think I’m some elementary school kid?

Hello? I’m an undefeated Triple Crown Uma Musume, you know? The record holder for most G1 wins. And in my previous life I even passed my university entrance exams on the first try and got into a pretty solid national university. I probably wouldn’t pass now, though.

Still… honestly, I couldn’t blame her for thinking that way.

It had been since my previous life that I’d last focused seriously on studying, and someone who’d known me as long as Nature probably understood how rare this situation was.

But this time, I had an unavoidable reason to concentrate.

The upcoming final exams would start in early July—just three days after the Takarazuka Kinen.

Obviously I wasn’t going to stop doing race workouts to study, and there was no time to leisurely start preparing a week in advance.

And if I failed… remedial classes were guaranteed.

If I had to attend remedials, I’d be stuck at school for the first half of July.

Yes.

I’d be stuck at school during the very period when the summer training camp was supposed to begin.

There was no way I could accept that.

This summer, I planned to get much, much stronger and crush Teio, Nature, and McQueen-senpai in autumn.

I couldn’t afford to waste time on remedial classes.

…That was half the reason.

The other half was…

When you think of Tracen’s summer camp—beach! Swimsuits! Freedom!!

I missed it last year because I was in rehab after my accident, but this year I would seize it.

My chance for a… swimsuit date event… with Ayumu-san…!!

---

And then, a little later—after the Takarazuka Kinen ended.

I scored an average of 70 on my exams—an incredible achievement by my standards. I pumped my fist, thinking, Yes! Now I’ll get praised and he’ll grant my request! Romantic trainer event rate-up activated!

…but in the end, no matter what score I got, this plan was impossible from the start.

Well, it’s my fault for not listening properly, though.

Sigh… I’m so done with studying for exams…