NOVEL NEXT Chapter 14: Ego?
45 minutes have went by since the beginning of the match, during the whole first half I've had to stay on the bench. Our team managed to keep the score to only 2-1 but it was mainly because Pedro and alex have been doing their best in the defense.
We wwere completely losing for the whole match and they didn't even seem serious when playing against us. I could feel like many of them were playing in a pretty carefree manner.
At first they were worried and scored 2 goals in less than 20 minutes but afterwards they found it so easy that they ended up relaxing their play style. Luckily in the last 5 minutes Nathan managed to score a goal to lessen the score difference.
For those 45 minutes all I could do was watch frustratingly, the more time went by the more my frustration increased.
I knew I could simply join another team and gain the reward by just signing a paper but I wouldn't feel satisfied that way, I've already set my mind on joining the villareal main team, and I'd hate to have to give up only because of a bad coach.
I started clenching my first and knew I wouldn't be able to hold back long before I started swearing at the coach. He made many substitutions during the first half but none of which included me.
If that bastard was planning on making Andre play for the whole 90 minutes then I'll make sure it won't go his way.
As my mind started overthinking about the many options I might have to join the game and get subbed in, a new system quest got triggered.
[Special Quest: Pursue your greed!
Difficulty: C
Description:
The coach isn't letting you play, but will that be capable of stopping you? Pursue your greed and reach your goal.
Reward: higher ego.]
This was the first time I've seen such a quest. It was labeled as a special quest and even had an unusual reward. Even the quest description was very unclear unlike the usually simple instructions.
'What's the reward exactly? What does higher ego even mean?' I knew thinking about it wouldn't give me any answer so I decided to directly ask the system.
[Ego. That's the name of the fuel used for your unique skills "Greed" and "Eyes of the Lord". Unlike other skills you may gain the ones noted Z are unique to the individual and unable to be stolen under normal conditions.]
["Greed" is your unique special weapon as well as the skill which allows you to trigger quests, depending on your own ego and environment the skill will get triggered. The higher your ego the more easily you can trigger quests and the better the reward you would gain from those quests.]
[With a higher ego you would be able to trigger even higher ranked quests, right now the highest level of quests you can trigger with your current ego is D, if you succeed in this quest your higher ego would allow you to trigger C ranked quests.]
[A higher ego would also improve the "Eyes of the Lord" skill and would allow you to look into stats of players with an even higher ego and level, the details of the stats will also increase.]
Ever since I received the system 4 months ago I easily got a grasp of the [eyes of the Lord] which allowed me to peek at other player's status. That's what allowed me to know that I should stick to Nathan, Alex and Pedro in particular.
But I still wondered why I couldn't view the stats of certain players like Lavinho, I thought it was because the were part of the professional system. Though now I understand that it was because the difference in our ego was just that big.
Now I finally had a total grasp of the [Eyes of the Lord] skill but ever since I received the [Greed] special weapon I never truly understood it. I did try to activate it during training matches or friendly matches but it always felt like something was lacking and I never managed to get any new quest but now I'm finally starting to understand it.
What I need is to have clear goals and to shape my ego to reach the next level. I did kind of thought it might be the case back then but now it's making even more sense. Every single time I followed my ego the quests got triggered.
From what I can see the most important thing I should improve in order to be able to reach my final goal is to grow an even higher form of ego.
That deduction made me even more inclined to join the blue lock project of which the whole point is to shape the strikers ego which seems to be what I need the most currently since my 2 cheat skills base off from that.
That's probably also why the reward for joining the A team of even bigger clubs than villareal were lesser than the ones of joining the Villarreal A team. It isn't about the difficulty but about my ego.
Now that I finally had the final confirmation, I finally understood the description of the quest. What I was tasked to do is do what I want and make my wishes a reality.
And for now what I want more than anything is to enter the field and finally get to play so I did what I had to do.
"Coach, Andre clearly haven't done any useful action so could I join during the second half?" I asked him while still trying to act a bit respectful, our third striker was hurt so I was the only one that could replace Andre.
"What? Are you questioning my decisions? Didn't I already made it clear that I know what's best for the team?" That stupidly stubborn geezer clearly wasn't planning on subbing out Andre.
Everyone on the team knew that it was because Andre was the oldest here and that he wanted him to finally go up to the main team since this might be his last chance but unless he actually had the skills it was useless.
I stopped arguing with the coach and directly went to talk to Andre.
"Hey Andre, I know I shouldn't be asking you that but could you give me your place during the second part of the second half? " I asked while trying to compromise. I didn't ask him to directly let me in but instead give me on half of the second half. Even 20 minutes would be fine.
"What? Haven't you heard the coach? My skills are clearly just superior to yours so I should be the one playing if we want to win." He said with a prideful and dumb looking smile on his face.
He was as stubborn and dumb as his uncle, he almost forgot who was the star striker of the B team, the only reason we have never lost is that I was always here to clean up after him.
"Come on! I believe I deserve at least 20 minutes right? I did give you a lot of my playtime even when I was about to score a hat trick I sometimes let you get subbed in." I tried convincing him and talk to him in a friendly manner to make him agree.
"You're just crazy. You know I could have scored that hat trick myself if I wanted to hahahaha" he replied.
Since he was clearly full on delusional I stopped trying to argue with him and sat down with Nathan and Alex.
"What are you gonna do?" Nathan asked.
"Hmm" I kept being silent, I was already trying to come up with a new plan. I didn't want to give up on this opportunity. I've been waiting for this match for so long.
"Hey, there's still time anyway and there will probably be more of those matches in the future so don't worry you'll get your chance." Alex tried to cheer me up.
But I still didn't reply and kept being lost in thoughts while observing everyone around me. While doing so my eyes stopped at the sight of an average height guy with short black hair.
He was the only one who was sitting alone and was actually smoking a cigarette but nobody seemed to act bothered by that sight. I knew him from the rumors and I've seen him play today confirmed all those rumors.
He's Arnold Garcia. A half Spanish half Russian guy as well as a pure center back who might be even better than Pedro, but the thing about him is that he's an extremely sly and aggressive player. He also is known to have an extremely shitty personality but his abilities made him part of the starting eleven.
Seeing him smoke alone without a care in the world gave me an idea so I ignored my friends and stood up from the bench then walked up to him.
"Hey, you're Arnorld right? I have a small deal for you." I walked up to him with a small smile.
"Huh, what type of deal?" He asked without even bothering to ask about who I was.
"I'd say a pretty sinister deal, but one in which we would both gain a lot." I replied while keeping up my smile.
"Hahahaha sound interesting enough, go on and tell me about it." He finally threw his cigarette and focused on me.
"Alright, so... "