Seminar and "Yushun"

"...So whether a stallion's sheath needs cleaning still has to be assessed based on the actual circumstances."

He fumbled with the mouse, and under the nervous gaze of the silver-haired old man, the slideshow finally stopped lagging and successfully reached its conclusion.

"As for the argument that breeding rates are linked to cleaning frequency... at least based on the data currently available, it doesn't hold up."

At last, the old man declared the lecture over with a fit of hurried coughing.

Kitano exchanged business cards with the attendees as the task progress before his eyes continued to rise.

At a seminar aimed at novice stablehands and trainees aspiring to work in horse care, he had indeed met quite a few people.

[Make fifty industry connections: 46/50]

Unfortunately, he still hadn't managed to complete the task in one go.

Still, the seminar had been well worth the trip.

Aside from meeting many people in the industry, Kitano had also gained quite a lot from the seminar's content itself.

He had also completed the task of training his abilities along the way.

"Thanks for the effort, Shibata-senpai."

Tucking his notebook under his arm, he crossed the room in a few strides and approached the front.

"It's Kitano-kun—"

Shibata Ryuichiro lifted his head, his throat producing a somewhat muffled sound.

"So, how about it? Want to consider coming to work for me? I can even give you shares."

After lifting the thermos at his side and taking several long drinks, Shibata smiled and continued.

Among livestock veterinarians, whose average age exceeded sixty, young people like Kitano were a rare sight indeed.

That was precisely why he had agreed without hesitation when Kitano asked to join the seminar.

"At the very least, you'd have to wait until I've paid off the transfer fee for the clinic."

Kitano smiled and shook his head as well.

"I'm afraid I won't live to see that day."

Shibata burst into laughter, though a trace of regret flickered through his eyes.

Soon after, he patted Kitano on the shoulder. "Come on, let's head back together."

Their clinics were less than five kilometers apart.

For a town with a population of fewer than five thousand, having seven practicing veterinarians was a little crowded.

Yet Kitano got along remarkably well with his peers.

It wasn't because he possessed any special charm or extraordinary emotional intelligence capable of dispelling others' hostility.

Aside from Shibata Ryuichiro, who was already half-retired, Kitano was the only livestock veterinarian in town.

And even Shibata, his senior, was technically only a small-animal veterinarian with a specialty in equines.

As of Reiwa 4, even including government-employed veterinarians, there were only a little over three thousand veterinary workers in all of Hokkaido.

Of those, only a pitifully small 252 worked in livestock animal treatment.

In other words, across Hokkaido's 83,460 square kilometers of land, each livestock veterinarian served an average area exceeding 300 square kilometers.

Outside Sapporo and Hakodate, the situation was even less optimistic.

From the first day his clinic opened, Kitano had lived a life of constant rushing about.

But a veterinarian's work could not be put aside so easily.

It had already been more than a week since he obtained the system.

That very day, he had taken his bankbook to a convenience store in town.

There was a handling fee, but using the convenience store ATM was far more convenient than going to a bank dozens or even hundreds of kilometers away.

An additional fifty thousand yen had appeared on the last page of his bankbook.

The sender's name was unknown.

Though relieved, Kitano vaguely realized that his finances would become even tighter in the future.

Becoming a central racing owner—though it was supposedly a beginner task, it was far from easy for him to accomplish.

Even registering as part of a joint ownership group required at least nine million yen in net personal income over the past two years, along with a ten-million-yen joint registration fee.

So, he intended to start as a local racing owner.

Quite a few tasks on the list could be completed even with local owner status.

And the registration requirements for local owners were much simpler.

To pass the qualification review for an individual local racing owner, one's net personal income in recent years had to be at least five million yen.

Kitano's current revenue was enough to meet that standard.

But even as a local owner, the expenses were far from small.

The initial horse purchase cost, monthly boarding fees ranging from one hundred thousand to five hundred thousand yen, and annual expenses of at least around one million yen all added up.

That made the rewards from daily tasks all the more important.

Unfortunately, all of Monbetsu Racecourse's races this month were crammed into just a few days.

If he wanted to complete as many race-watching tasks as possible, he would most likely have to travel to Obihiro, two hundred kilometers away.

As Hokkaido's only remaining Banei racecourse, it held no shortage of Banei races.

Getting the system and then naturally settling into an easy life, never having to worry about food or clothing again—

That simply did not exist.

Whether local or central, racing associations were extremely strict about their registered owners' annual qualification reviews.

If one kept operating at a loss, one's owner qualification could even be revoked.

Race prize money and temporary income such as stock or real estate sales were not included in income calculations.

So light novels really were full of lies.

Good things that came without work could only be dreamed about.

After seeing Shibata-senpai home, Kitano drove to his own clinic.

For what had originally been a small-animal clinic, its twelve-tatami area was a little cramped.

Kitano had no such concerns at all.

Most of the cases he encountered required house calls.

The clinic was merely a sort of transfer point or resting place before the next call.

Of course, there were occasionally reckless people who could not be bothered to check the veterinary association's website beforehand and simply followed Google Maps to him for small-animal illnesses.

In those cases, Kitano usually wasn't at the clinic.

Unsurprisingly, his clinic had earned the number-one rating on several platforms' Niikappu Town veterinarian rankings.

Counting from the bottom.

After taking off his suit jacket and changing into something more convenient for moving around, Kitano emerged from the break room with last month's issue of "Yushun" in hand.

A considerable portion of it introduced a racehorse named Victory Within Reach.

Among the articles, Kitano noticed fellow veterinarian Tanaka Tomoharu's assessment of the horse's physique.

"A horse capable of making such good use of its hind legs and gluteal muscles is quite rare... The kind of movement that smoothly connects the hindquarters and forequarters should be what jockeys seek... I see."

For a very long time in the past, he had never paid attention to the principles behind how horses generated force.

Often, that was simply how it went—knowledge brushed past him time and again without him noticing.

Upon receiving the notification that the task had been completed, he set down the magazine.

Despite its fair share of sentimentality and exaggeration, it did contain quite a lot of useful information.

Then there was the reward for completing the task.

Before he had time to claim it, however, his phone began to ring.

"Hello, Niikappu Town Livestock Animal Clinic."

Two minutes later, the silver pickup sped away.

A heavy house-call bag sat in the passenger seat.