Everyone sat quietly in the meeting room. Nobody dared to speak.
The coach had just casually said something absurd.
The room was quiet for 5 whole minutes until Ryuto spoke up.
"What did he just say?" Ryuto asked, turning to Shoichi, who shrugged.
A few minutes ago, the Club meeting room
"Oh, looks like we're all here." The coach said when he walked into the room.
"Coach, you said we should all be here by 12, but you came in 10 minutes later!" Kimishita shouted from behind.
"The main characters always arrive late. Don't you even know that?"
The others laughed as the coach walked to the front of the room.
"Okay! You guys have been doing well. You guys trained even without me. You're doing great." He praised.
"Hehe."
"But now's not the time to rest. We haven't even started, so don't stop training. We've got a long season ahead of us, so this amount of training won't suffice."
The coach looked serious as he spoke, and everyone listened quietly.
"Well, on that note, a preseason match would be held next week Saturday, so we've got to train really well." He suddenly dropped the bomb.
The way he said that was super fast, like he didn't want anyone to realise he had made the mistake of not telling them sooner.
Akaji turned to Ichiro, who sat beside him. They stared at each other for some time before turning to the others.
No one said anything. They just kept staring at each other and turning to the coach who smiled at himself.
That was when Ryuto spoke up.
"What did he just say?"
They all turned to the coach again, waiting for an explanation.
"Ha... even I was shocked when they informed us. But don't worry, it's just a preseason match, so it doesn't really affect your season results." He grinned.
"What the hell?!" Kimishita asked, immediately standing from his chair.
"Next week, Saturday?! We're not even ready yet."
"Ready? You've been here for a week, and you're not ready? What do you think this place is? Your home?" The coach asked.
"Listen here, kids. We were just informed yesterday, at least I told you early. Like I said, it doesn't affect your records, so you can miss it if you feel like." He sighed.
"Can we really miss it?" Emi asked.
Atsushi sat at a corner, just staring at them.
'With the way they're reacting, none of them have activated the SW Market. Or maybe they're just acting in order to avoid the others from being against them.'
Atsushi had seen the message earlier since he already had the SW news app, which was activated after completing some quests.
"Coach." Atsushi called, rasing his hands.
"Hm?"
"You said the match doesn't affect our records, but we'll surely derive something from playing, right? I mean, there shouldn't q
The others agreed to him.
The coach sighed, 'QAQis damn kid. I wanted to see the serious ones.'
"Ha... you'll indeed get something from the match."
"First of all, the match would help for position learning. Using your stats to assign positions isn't that reliable since some people tend to have high stats for a particular position but end up doing poorly there. I mean, regular training helps, but it gets better with pressure."
"Oh..."
"Another reason is to get accustomed to the point allocation method."
"About those points, how would they be allocated? Will it be on 'only the winner gets it' basis?" Akaji asked.
"Not exactly. The winners get the most point in matches, but the points are usually allocated on a 'rating' basis." The coach answered, activating his holographic board.
"Rating?"
"Yes, for example..." He started, pointing at the board.
It was an after match record with a score of 3-1.
"Now see. This was the final score of the match, but the games first goal was scored by the losing side. The scorer had a rating of 3.6 out of 5 after the game." He explained, zooming into the individual match record.
"The rating is pretty high, huh?"
"Now, for the winning side, the first two goals were scored by two different people, and the last was an own goal. These two got a rating of 3.4 and 3.7 each, and the ones who assisted got a rating of 3.0 each."
"3.5 and 3.7? But they scored the same number of goals."
"If we just look at it that way, many others would've gotten a lower rating. The guy who got 3.7 had a total of 5 shots at goal, and only 1 got in."
Ichiro shook his head in amazement, "So the keeper had 4 saves?"
"The total shots on target were 13. The keeper saved 11."
"Damn!"
"The keeper got the highest rating. A rating of 3.9, so he was the MOTM even though his team lost."
"So it doesn't really matter if you win or lose. What matters is personal contributions?" Yui asked.
"The rewards for high personal contributions don't amount to much, and if you have no effect on the teams win, you'll end up like the others who got a rating of 2.5 and below, even though they're on the winning team." He answered.
"So, in the end, it's teamwork and personal contributions?"
"Looks like we're getting somewhere. Now, for the most important reason..." He started.
"Pulling in your audience."
"Pulling in our audience?"
"Exactly. I'm sure when you guys arrived, you saw lots of buildings."
"Ah! Now that you mention it."
"During the preseason match, you get lots of audience, and the result of the match determines whether they'd stay with you or leave you. It's a pull or push situation that depends entirely on you."
"This is too much information. Nothing's making sense anymore." Kimishita groaned.
"Your amount of audience not only gives you a morale boost during matches, but also boosts your weekly points allocation. As the amount of audience increases, your weekly points increases and vice versa."
"The audience affects our weekly points?" Ichiro asked.
'And he said the preseason match wasn't important?' Atsu thought.
"So the preseason match is basically our first impression." Akaji said.
"So having less than a week to train for the upcoming match, I hope y'all start getting serious."
"Yes, coach!"
"We'll start training as early as 6 o'clock tomorrow." The coach said.
"Yes, coa... eh?!!"
---
Atsushi lay on his bed while staring at the ceiling.
His room was dark, and the only available source of lightning was from the moon, which was half hidden by his curtain.
There was a ding from his phone, and he grabbed it to check the message.
— Weekly quest.
— Survive the coach's training: 50 points.
He smiled at his phone screen.
"I'll do my best." He clenched his fist.
And so, the excitement from the first real drill in a while, and also the quest update, kept Atsushi awake till the next day.