My Goalkeeping System

After talking about the sponsorship deal for a while and deciding when they were going to head to the place to complete the deal, they started talking about something else.

"So, how's life at From?" Dave asked before he sat down beside him on the couch.

"Moving to a new city has never been easy for me but I'm trying to adapt," Clark said.

"Okay, that's nice."

"You guys are coming to Frono on Saturday right to face Frono FC right?"

"Yeah," Dave said with a nod. "Will you be there?"

"Well, that depends on how busy I will be at that time but for now I have nothing planned so I'll likely be there," Clark said before refilling his glass with the red wine.

"Okay, we have four matches and we have to make sure we don't lose any of them to remain in the race for the conference league spot."

"Your form has been awesome recently, the midfield has always been great with Ferran and the attack has also been good although shaky sometimes but the biggest problem in the team is the defense," Clark said.

"Yeah, we've talked about that."

"The center backs are trying, especially Adolf but the wing-backs have been really poor. They made a lot of mistakes in that last match, especially Jonas, I don't know what's happening to him, his form has been very poor recently."

<Karma probably>

"I'm just glad there's someone like Roland on the team, he's been way better than Jonas, once he was brought in, he shut off all their attacks from his side," Clark said.

"There's a reason why he won the player of the week," Dave said.

"The defensive problem comes mainly from the wings but with little space left to finish these last four matches there's always going to be rotations so Norman has to find another way to fix the problem if you guys are going to qualify for the conference league spot." Clark opined.

"I hope he finds an effective one, I'm just glad these last four teams are not that strong," Dave said. "Lave City, Frono FC, Zilo FC, and Lesica United."

"Yeah, but Unique FC isn't a strong team either," Clark said.

<He's right about that>

"And even if the team was strong, big teams get trashed by small teams sometimes."

"Yeah," Dave said.

"You shouldn't underestimate anyone."

"I've been in terrible form for a long time now, why would I underestimate anyone? We even lost against Lave City in the away leg."

"Another reason why you shouldn't underestimate them," Clark said before taking down the little content left in his cup. "So, how're things going with Emma?" He said changing the topic.

"Fine, things are always fine between us," Dave said with a shrug.

"That's not what I meant."

"Huh?"

"I was talking about your plans, the proposal, have you done it yet?"

"Oh," Dave said. "I haven't done it yet, but I've bought the ring."

"What's holding you?" Clark asked.

"I want the season to come to an end first." He said. "Do you know any place that will be perfect for it, I want it to be special?"

"I know a certain special space," Clark said before his lips slowly curved up to form a smile on his face.

______ _____

After talking about a few more important and unimportant things, Clark left to meet up with his flight and after a few more minutes of lying on the couch, Dave had gone outside to train.

He pushed his ball blaster outside with the bag of balls hanging around his neck.

He was going to practice with his ball blaster today but before that, he was going to practice hitting the crossbar.

He lined up all eight balls just in front of his doorstep because that was where he was going to be shooting from today.

He expected to see a quest pop up on his screen because that was quite a distance away from the goalpost but nothing came up.

<Don't blame me>

'I'm not.'

He drew back his leg and kicked the first ball which flew straight toward the crossbar and banged on it.

"Yeah." He muttered.

The second one also hit the crossbar, the third one missed, the fourth and fifth ones were on target and then he missed the last three.

'That's four out of eight.'

<I guess the system had its reason for not giving me any quest>

'Because I would have smashed it.'

<Exactly> Catherine said. <The system gives you quests in tough situations, do you think you will get a quest to keep out all the balls in level one of that ball blaster, something that you can effortlessly do at your current level?>

'So I get quests so that I can fail them.'

<Given the fact that you have already completed a lot of quests, that's not the reason, the difficult quests are to push you to improve just like you're improving your long ball accuracy now>

Dave didn't say anything as he walked toward the goalpost and began to pick up the balls.

After picking them all up, he carried them to the blaster.

<I thought you were practicing hitting the crossbar>

'Yeah, but I need to check something.' Dave replied as he filled the balls into the blaster.

After filling the balls into the blaster, he closed it up before standing up to look at the controls.

He was supposed to click the level four button because the last level he completed was level three but he decided to skip it and click level five.

<Desperate for a quest I see>

'Not just any quest, a good quest with juicy rewards.'

<Juicy rewards means tough quest>

'I know.'

The goalkeeper adjusted his gloves and clicked the start button before making his way to his goal line.

[ Quest received ]

[ Keep out all eight balls ]

[ Quest Rewards ]

[ +50 exp ]

[ +3 skill points ]

[ (+10) Energy upgrade ]

'All eight balls?' Dave thought with a shocked expression on his face.

<Told you so>

The first ball shot out from the blaster toward the top left-hand corner, Dave was glued to the spot as the ball flew right past him and fell into the back of the net.

[ Quest failed ]

"Oh, come on," Dave said in frustration before crashing to the floor.

<Like I said before, told you so>

***

Hope you enjoyed the chapter?

If I get up to a hundred golden tickets before the end of the month I will release six chapters on the first of December.

Also, if you're enjoying the novel so far, please drop a review, I just need two more reviews to get a rating.