Sweaty, exhausted and out of breath, players of Maebashi looked completely devastated. Losing 7:0 in their own home ground, Maebashi’s players couldn’t even bring themselves to lift their heads up to face their fans.
Just like a withering flower, they looked dull and lifeless. Even so, their captain Naoya was still trying his best to cheer his teammates.
“It’s alright. They turned out to be a little too strong for us to handle. But what matters most right now is to learn from our defeat.” Faking a smile on his face, Naoya tried to cheer his teammates who were strolling in the pitch like zombies.
Although, Naoya himself was devastated by the loss, he continued to maintain his composure outwardly. Being the captain of his team, he couldn’t allow himself to act devastated.
Meanwhile opposite to Maebashi’s players, players of Kawasaki were celebrating their victory along with their reserve teammates.
“How does it feel to score 4 goals and deliver 1 assist in your debut match?” Excitedly asked Shun.
“It feels amazing.” With a big wide grin on his face, Hiro replied. “Feels like I’m in a dream.”
While Hiro and Shun were talking, Tatsuki sneakily jumped atop them from behind and spoke, “Hey!! Hey!! Hey!! Don’t go forgetting about your senior now. I too scored 2 goals and delivered 2 assist.”
“No,no,no. How can we forget about our star player.” Hiro replied with an awkward smile on his face while trying to remove Tatsuki’s hands from his shoulder.
“But you stole the spotlight from me today.” Giving Hiro side eyes, Tatsuki spoke.
While they were celebrating their victory, suddenly manager Makoto clapped his hands and announced, “Okay guys!! Let’s go and shake hands with our opponents.”
Nodding their head, they then headed towards the center of the pitch to exchange handshake with their opponents.
**** ****
Later in the night, having nothing to do, Hiro was standing infront of his window, staring at the night sky.
The night sky was filled with shimmering lights of glittering stars.
Partially hiding behind the few dark clouds floating in the sky, moon was casting it’s spectral glow across the dark sky filled with canopy of stars.
“Nothing’s more tranquil than a peaceful night sky filled with stars.” Mumbled Hiro with a tranquil look on his face, while staring at the night sky.
“One, two, three, four.” Pointing at the stars, he acted like he was counting stars. Suddenly he then lifted the corner of his lips and continued, “That’s the number of goals I scored today. Hahaha….”
Singing his own praises, for a while he acted like he was over the moon.
If anybody were to see him laughing and talking with himself, they would probably mistake him as a carzy person.
While he was laughing and talking to himself, suddenly a gust of cold breeze entered his room from the window. Caressing his cheerful face, the gust of cold breeze blew past him, awakening him from his fantasy world.
Feeling the gentle touch of the cold breeze, he paused all of a sudden. The cold breeze swept his smile away just like wind sweeping away dust.
With his brows knotted, he then leaned his upper body close to the window and mumbled, “I can’t be satisfied with only this much. My dream is the world. And if I want to fulfill that dream, then I must standout.”
“For our next match we’ll be facing our arch rival FC Tokyo. So I need to stand out in that match as well. But it won’t be easy.” Continued Hiro with a stern expression.
Fuuu!!!
He then exhaled a deep breath to calm himself and relax his face muscle.
“I still haven’t activated that skill I got from completing the quest ‘Help Masao regain his confidence’. And also I haven’t used that silver ticket from completing that quest with the coach.” Mumbling such, he decided to makes use of his rewards.
“System activate”
[System activated]
And as the system activated, the holographic blue pannel of the system appeared infront of his eyes.
[Basic information]
[Name: Takahashi Hiro]
[Age: 13 years old]
[Attribute points: 250]
[Possessed skills: Focus, Perseverance]
[Possessed talents: Roberto Carlos’s freekick, Passing sense of De Bruyne (B)]
[Note: You have accumulated enough attribute points to upgrade the system.]
“I’ve got enough attribute point to upgrade the system?” Looking somewhat puzzled, Hiro read the aforementioned note by the system.
“May be I should invest on system as well.” Mumbling such, Hiro nodded his head. “I’ve been too negligent.”
[At least you realised]
The system scoffed.
Hearing such, his mouth twitched a bit, “Did you say something?”
[Your ear is ringing again.]
Hearing the words of the system, Hiro shrugged.
“Okay then let’s upgrade the system.” Mumbling such, he began to skim through the system.
[Use 250 points to upgrade the system]
[Confirm]
[Cancel]
“Confirm.” Saying such, Hiro clicked on the confirm icon.
[System upgrading…]
[Please wait 5 minutes]
“What?? 5 minutes??” Hiro blurted after seeing the time required for the system to upgrade.
However there was no response from the system. As if it had shut down, it wasn’t responding to Hiro’s question.
“It’s not responding??” Mumbled Hiro with a puzzled look on his face.
Hiro the tried to return back. But he couldn’t even toggle through the system.
“Great!! I can’t even return back.” Sounding somewhat disappointed, Hiro shrugged.
“Can I at least exit the system?” Mumbling such, he tried to close the sysetm. And fortunately, he could still exit the system.
“Fortunately I have the whole room for myself. Otherwise if Shun were to see me acting like this, he’d probably think that I’m possessed.” Hiro grinned while looking at Shun’s bed.
Since Shun had to change his room after joining high school, Hiro had the entire room for himself.
‘May be I should have activated the skill and used my tickets first.’ Thought Hiro while taking his head out of the window to get some fresh air.
‘I wonder if mom and dad are doing well. It’s been such a long time since I last saw them in person.’ Thought Hiro while looking at the moon.
Although, he had been talking to them from time to time in video call, it had still been more than 5 months since he last saw his parents in person.
‘I wonder if she still nags dad like she used to back then. Now that I’m away from her, I kinda miss her nagging.’ Thinking such, his eyes suddenly started to moisten.
And the more he thought about them, the more he felt sad.
Smack!!!
Smacking his cheeks, he shook his head and mumbled, “No point in thinking too much. I’ll just visit them in this summer vacation.”
Saying such, he pulled his head back. He then walked towards his bed and threw himself in his bed.
Lying in his bed with his face facing the ceiling, he put his left leg above his right. While shaking his left leg, he then began to analyse his performance in the earlier match.
“Although I didn’t make many mistakes today. There’s still room for improvement. I wasn’t much useful in defence.”
“And I think I should pollish my dribbling too. I haven’t been training my dribbling much. And there’s a saying that even a genius withers away without hard work.”
“But I’m no such genius. So I must definitely work hard.” Saying such, he unlocked his legs and rolled over.
In other’s eyes he was a monster, but to him, he was still someone who required a lot of polishing. He hadn’t considered himself genius.
[System upgrade completed]
Just then he heard the notification from the system.
“Finally!!” Saying such, he abruptly rose from his bed.
“Now let’s see what new thing have I acquired.” Rubbing his palms against each other, Hiro mumbled.
“System activate”
[System activated]
[Welcome to upgraded version of system]
[New features unlocked]
[System shop unlocked]
[Achievement hall unlocked]
Hearing the words of the system, a smile appeared on his face.
“Woah it sounds exciting.” Saying such, he turned his attention towards the system panel.
It was the same holographic blue screen without many changes.
Looking at the blue screen infront, his smile faded away, “What?? It still looks the same.”
[Did you expect the colour of panel to change from blue to gold?]
Replied the system coldly after hearing his remarks.
“Why do I feel like the system is getting more meaner after every upgrade?” Hiro questioned.
The system however didn’t reply anything.
Unable to hear the response of the system, Hiro shrugged and continued to skim though the system.
[System menu]
[User stats]
[System lottery (Unlocked)]
[System shop (Unlocked)]
[Achievement hall (Unlocked)]
[Match Stats (Unlocked)]
“I can more or less guess about the system shop.” Mumbled Hiro while nodding his head. “But I don’t know about this achievement hall. So may be I’ll inspect this achievement hall first.”
Saying such, he clicked on the text ‘Achievement Hall’.
And as he clicked on Achievement Hall, the system directed him to another panel.
At the top of the page there was an icon with the picture of Temple of Artemis.
[Achievement Hall]
[Youngest player to debut in Prince Takamado Premier League (10)]
[Youngest player to score a goal in Prince Takamado Premier League (10)]
[Youngest player to score a hattrick in Prince Takamado Premier League (50)]
[Youngest player to score four goals in Prince Takamado Premier League (50)]
[Youngest player to record an assist in Prince Takamado Premier League (5)]
[For your achievements above you’ve gained a total of 125 attribute points.] 𝒍𝓲𝓫𝒓𝒆𝒂.𝙘𝙤𝒎
“A 125 attribute points from one single match?” With his eyes wide open, Hiro mumbled in shock.