Chapter 10
—Just because you're born in prison doesn't mean you have to become a thief. Hell, I was born in a hospital and I never became a doctor—
Line up. Listen to the principal's speech. Then scatter to your classrooms. Introduce yourself. Find friends. Form cliques.
That's how orientation works in the normal world, right?
Even in a game world where football reigns supreme, it's not much different.
Except as a student sheriff, my duties were a little different.
No assembly hall speeches. No standing in lines. My job was patrolling the school grounds. Checking for lost freshmen. Making sure no students were skipping orientation to cause trouble.
Yeah. Assarun—the troublemaker everyone knew. The delinquent leader who picked fights with the protagonist from day one and got his ass kicked. He was also a student sheriff.
I was shocked when I found out. This morning, after breakfast, as I headed out, Alevina called after me.
"Brother, you forgot your sheriff badge."
While I stood there thinking 'Assarun is a student sheriff?' my little sister pinned a red leaf-shaped badge to my collar.
"You always forget it. You'll get scolded again."
Always forget? That meant this wasn't new.
I was certain that when G.O.A.T TRICKS started, Assarun was just a common delinquent. No rank. No sheriff badge. Nothing.
Just a punk.
Just a problem kid.
Who grew up to become a wandering bandit.
But now it seemed different. Like Assarun had a period of being a good kid before he went bad. When did it all go wrong?
Damn it. The family was already struggling. Why couldn't he just behave?
Student sheriff though? I'd never been one in my past life. Never wanted to be.
Wait. Wasn't this actually good?
In the normal world, it'd just be extra responsibility. But in G.O.A.T TRICKS, getting involved with student government was essential.
The game had three main ways to make your character stronger.
First: play football matches to gain experience and level up. Fastest and easiest method. The more you played, the faster you developed.
Like any RPG, you went adventuring and fought monsters.
Even though this was a football game, finding enemies to fight wasn't different from fantasy games where you encountered monsters on maps or in special locations.
In G.O.A.T TRICKS, enemies were NPCs scattered around who played football and were always ready for a match.
These NPCs could be anyone. No race or class restrictions. You could challenge every character in the story to football.
Special locations were tougher—club teams with their own home grounds. Teams that played serious football. Higher difficulty than random encounters, but better rewards to match.
Higher levels meant better stats. Better football skills. Upgrading equipment or special moves required clearing level restrictions.
Second: building relationships with other characters. Talking. Triggering events. Unlocking special skills and bonus stats.
Sounds easy, right? But conversations and events have their own timing and opportunities.
No way to jump from relationship level 1 to level 10 in a day. Some characters took years to max out their friendship.
The hard-to-get types.
So while this method made you stronger easily, it took considerable time.
Third: practice mode. Solo training like I did yesterday. But compared to the others, this wasn't popular. Less experience than method one. The special moves you learned were basic—nothing flashy like method two offered.
That's the foundation every player knew.
But my situation was different.
I wasn't the protagonist who started strong with high base stats and could challenge anyone and win easily.
Method one was impossible. I'd probably lose to six or seven-year-olds. Maybe I could scrape by with skilled teammates carrying me, but where would I find people like that?
Even if teammates carried me to victory, without any action during matches, the experience gained would be practically zero.
So for me, method one was out. I should focus on methods two and three first. Once I got stronger, then I'd hammer away at method one.
Being a student sheriff seemed perfect for method two. The higher the status of characters you built relationships with, the better the special moves and stats you'd receive.
High-level characters usually had special roles at school. School beauties. Student council members. Library bookworms. Delinquent leaders. Rich kids from wealthy families.
Alright. Something good was forming in my head.
Please. Even during this patrol would be fine.
Some hot event. Some decent character. Please show up so we can build a relationship.
What perfect timing. As I reached the swimming pool area, I heard voices from the girls' changing room.
"Hey, new girl. Don't you know our town has rules? Everyone has to dress a certain way. Vest, scarf, and most importantly—cowboy hat."
"Being new isn't an excuse. When in Rome, do as the Romans do. When in cowboy town, dress like a cowboy. So what's this? No hat, no scarf."
"Hee hee, wow! Look at this. Mom's got beautiful long black hair. Such fair skin too. Have you ever seen sunlight?"
"Or did you skip the hat to show off your pretty hair? Skip the scarf so boys could see your fair skin?"
"Wow, this one's really wicked."
Those voices. That dialogue. That back-and-forth banter. Even without seeing them, I knew who they were.
Claris Rose and her two lackeys.
Claris was a blonde rich girl with a jealous streak. She bullied innocent female characters out of jealousy over their closeness to the student council president—her fiancé.
She never realized she was digging her own grave. Making the president hate her while creating opportunities for him to bond with the girl she was bullying.
The game's plot went like this:
Protagonist saves mysterious girl from Claris's bullying → Student council president sides with Claris due to class reasons → Protagonist declares war on student council → Truth emerges, president feels guilty toward mysterious girl, joins protagonist's side → President breaks engagement with Claris → Rose family and president's family feud, leading to duel challenge → Protagonist and president team up against Rose family → Rose family defeated, flee town in shame
Whether the mysterious girl ended up with the protagonist or president depended on player choice.
The current situation looked exactly like that.
This was it, right? An event. Ordered like takeout.
From what I heard, Claris was picking on a new student. Now it was time for someone with protagonist power like me to intervene.
Well done, blondie. Thanks for serving up this relationship-building event.
Not only would I bond with the bullied girl, I might get the student council president as an ally too.
Kill two birds with one stone.
"Oops! Your uniform is covered in dirt and dust. Did you climb a mountain before school? Take off your clothes. We'll help wash them."
Water tap sounds. Flowing water. Then struggling and pulling from the girls.
The signal for a protagonist like me to make my entrance.
"Hey! Stop that right now! You think you can bully people on school grounds? Don't you see student sheriff Assarun standing here?!"
"Huh?"
"Oh, you..."
Shit shit shit! I'm dead!
The mysterious girl being bullied by Claris's gang—she was the same person who'd saved me this morning.
The one I'd abandoned like a coward after she'd saved my life.
Wings of Nocturnal Flame, Himura Asuka.
Why did it have to be her?!