As the ball left Masao’s feet, it flew straight towards the top left corner of the post. And if not for Shun’s athleticism, that ball would have ended up as a goal as well.
Just at the nick of time, Shun with his impressive reflex, leaped towards the direction of the ball and managed to land a finger on the ball.
The ball then slightly touched the crossbar and went out of bounds.
Thud!!
After getting a touch on the ball, Shun fell hard on the ground. Even so him being a trained keeper, he wasn’t affected by his rough landing. Instead he quickly stood up to prepare himself for a rebound.
But only after he stood up, he realised that the ball had gone out of bounds.
As impressive as Masao’s shot was, Shun’s save was even more impressive.
But despite that everybody’s attention were focused on Masao instead. Since nobody had expected him to play that good, they were just shocked by his play.
“Holy shit!!” Rin who was sitting at the sidelines mumbled in awe while looking at Masao with his eyes wide open and mouth agape. “That was a pretty impressive effort.”
Almost everybody in the field had the same reaction as that of Rin. They simply couldn’t believe their eyes.
Hiro too was amazed by Masao’s shot. Mesmerized by his run and shot, Hiro couldn’t refrain himself from staring at Masao.
“Right from the kickoff, he was rushing to the goal. The way he utilised the blind spots of the opponents was literally top notch. And he even predicted the trajectory of my cross. Who knew he could play this well with that body.” Hiro murmured after analysing Masao’s off the ball run, ball control, gaming sense and shot.
As mentioned by Hiro, Masao had started to run towards the ball right after the kickoff. Swiftly avoiding the gaze of the midfielders and defenders of opposing team, he ran while taking notice of Hiro.
Hiro being the centre of attention and the opponent underestimating him had also played a huge role for him to make that run. Because of their attention being elsewhere, the opponent team had left many spaces for him to make the run without being noticed.
But just as Hiro was staring at Masao, he heard the system notification.
[Ding!!]
[New mission unlocked]
[Mission info: Help your friend Masao regain back his confidence.]
[Mission reward: Magic vision]
[Penalty: nothing]
[Mission duration: six months]
[Note: The host can ignore this mission as per his wish. However it’s suggested to accept the quest.]
‘Woah!! A mission outta nowhere.’ He thought after hearing the system notification. ‘Well it had been pretty long since I last got a mission. And there isn’t even any penalty for failure this time around. So there’s literally no reason for me to ignore this quest.’ Thinking such, he accepted the quest.
After accepting the quest, he stormed towards Masao.
“Masao!! That shot was really impressive.” Hiro complimented Masao. 𝘦𝘯𝘰𝘷𝘭．𝘦𝘵
Masao on the other hand because of his meek personality took his compliment negatively and began to apologise, “Sorry!! I messed up your cross. I wasted such a good opportunity to score. I should have converted that cross into goal. Sorry!! I’m really sorry.”
“Why are you saying sorry Masao? I was just complimenting your shot. I wasn’t complaining.” Hiro tried to clear his confusion by making his intention clear.
‘I guess he isn’t used to getting complimented. Something must have really happened to him.’ His brows frowning, he thought while looking at Masao who was standing infront of him with his chin lowered to his chest looking very anxious.
He simply had no confidence in him to even look Hiro in the eyes.
And even after reassuring him, Masao kept on staring at the ground, shrinking his body and hesitating to look him in the eyes.
“Masao! Let’s score a goal from this set-piece.” Saying such with a smile on his face, Hiro dashed towards the corner after tapping Masao gently on his back.
Standing at a certain distance away from the ball, Hiro prepared himself to take the corner.
While Hiro was preparing to take the corner, Shun was guiding his teammates to defend the corner.
“Don’t let go of your mark. He’s exceptionally good at passing. So I’m sure he’ll try to cross the ball inside the penalty box.” Saying such, Shun was guiding his teammates to position themselves.
As mentioned by Shun, he indeed launched the ball inside the penalty box.
And as the ball leaped towards the penalty box, Hidetaka who was originally at the edge of the penalty box came running towards the ball.
“Hidetaka!” Shun yelled after noticing the run of Hidetaka.
Hearing Shun’s yell, everybody rushed towards Hidetaka to clear the ball. Shun too came forward to punch the ball away.
However Shun was blocked by his own teammates and thus he couldn’t reach the ball before Hidetaka.
Hidetaka then headed the ball towards the post. Shun too leaped towards the direction of the ball to save the ball.
But unlike before, he couldn’t manage to land a touch on the ball at that time.
With Shun failing to land a touch on the ball, the ball flew straight towards the post. However it still couldn’t find the back of the net and instead it hit the pole and bounced forward, away from the penalty box.
“Safe!!” Some players in Shun’s team thought after hearing the sound of ball clashing against the pole.
After hitting the pole, the ball flew above the heads of the players positioned inside the box and headed outside the box.
Since almost every player of Shun’s team was inside the box because of Shun’s command, the only player who were outside the box was from Hiro’s team.
And among those players, one was Masao who was standing at the left edge of the penalty box. Fortunately the ball was heading towards Masao as well.
“Argh!! Shit!!” Shun thought while lifting him up.
Masao once again performed a volley. However unlike before, he didn’t trap the ball that time around. Instead he shot the ball just before it touched the ground.
Swosh!!
Was the sound that the players standing close to Masao heard while he made contact with the ball.