3 Save. West Ham Reserves
【Name: Sin Uison】
【Nationality: Republic of Korea】
【Team: West Ham】
【Reputation: An ordinary goalkeeper found anywhere】
【Reaction Speed – 63】
【Prediction – 59】
【Handling – 62】
【Throwing – 61】
【Goalkeeper Diving – 64】
“So these are my stats.”
Sin Uison checked his stats—that is, his status.
They were closer to a midfielder’s than a goalkeeper’s. To the point that his passing-related numbers were higher than some of the abilities a goalkeeper actually needed.
【Passing – 71】
【Long Pass – 67】
*Well, if you think about it, it’s only natural.*
Since he’d trained as a midfielder from the very start of his football career, in a way, it might have been an accurate assessment.
[You’re adapting better than I thought, aren’t you?]
“What?”
[Don’t most people start with shock?]
“What’s the point of that now.”
Sin Uison grumbled. After making him taste all that in the demo, what was it saying now?
Still, it was true that his attitude was calm.
While there was something about this place that strangely put one at ease, oddly enough, Sin Uison felt something familiar in this unfamiliar space.
*Is it because it’s a training ground?*
Anyway, wasn’t it fortunate that he wasn’t lost?
First, he chose penalty kick save training.
It was something he’d already experienced twice, and he needed to compose his mental state after being unable to break free from the demo.
【Penalty Kick Save Training – Lowest Difficulty】
-> Block a total of five shots!
“……!”
Sin Uison realized, as before, that the air had changed.
He couldn’t not notice. The ball dropped before the shadow, and the figure that hadn’t budged an inch like a statue began to move.
“We start right away?”
The shadow that had taken a run-up began to gradually pick up speed.
He panicked at the figure suddenly rushing toward him, but he wasn’t given any time to think.
*Bam!*
A powerful shot shook the back of the net.
Staring blankly at it, Sin Uison felt goosebumps rise all over his body.
Once again, as expected, he hadn’t even been able to react.
It was different from a coach kicking the ball.
It was on a completely different level from Norris taking a shot.
“Hah!”
He exhaled deeply and wiped away cold sweat.
Thanks to that, his mind snapped into focus.
Afterward, Sin Uison failed to record a single save, and the first training session ended just like that.
【Calculating score!】
【Rewards vary depending on training results……】
【Grade: F】
-> You couldn’t even react!
-> Why don’t you try using points?
“Ah, come to think of it.”
Sin Uison, who had been checking the results with a scrunched face, only then remembered the points. He had received points for completing an achievement, hadn’t he?
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
[Because you didn’t ask.]
Damn woman.
Sin Uison inwardly cursed and muttered to himself that he’d wasted an opportunity for nothing.
He could check the points in the training window.
He had obtained a total of 10 points, and there were stats he could invest them into as well.
*So what should I raise?*
After thinking for a moment, Sin Uison asked.
“Which stat is best to invest in?”
[What playstyle do you prefer, Sin Uison?]
“Hmm……”
He let out a sound of hesitation at the unexpected question. It was a difficult question to answer. Truthfully, until now, he had simply aimed to block the ball well.
Repeating that to himself made things a little easier.
Sin Uison first took note of Reaction Speed and Prediction.
No matter what, he was a goalkeeper—having values lower than his Long Pass felt a bit off.
【Invest your points carefully.】
Sin Uison hesitated at the message, unsure if it was advice or a warning. Was this telling him not to? But his belief that these were the most important abilities for a goalkeeper remained unchanged.
He invested 5 points each in Reaction Speed and Prediction, then pressed confirm.
【Reaction Speed – 68】
【Prediction – 64】
“Is this it?”
He didn’t feel anything change in a tangible way. There wasn’t much change on the stat graph either. Honestly, were 10 points not much at all?
To find out what had changed, Sin Uison chose training once more.
Again, it was penalty kick save training.
However.
It was hopeless.
Sin Uison, having failed to make a single save, wiped the grass from his face. Naturally, his frustration erupted.
“What the hell……”
He had reacted somewhat, but as expected, he still couldn’t reach it. It seemed expecting a big change from just 5 points was too much.
【Calculating score!】
【Rewards vary depending on training results……】
【Grade: F】
-> You reacted a little, but as expected!
“Are you mocking me?”
[Was it that obvious?]
The Voice didn’t even deny it. Sin Uison sat down with a sigh.
And through several more training sessions, he discovered something else.
At first, he had been unsure, but the hourglass’s time had clearly decreased.
It seemed there was a time limit.
“How many training sessions can I do in a day total?”
[For now, five.]
“By ‘for now,’ you mean it can change later.”
[I don’t hate quick-witted people.]
Before he knew it, he had used up all five chances.
And Sin Uison, who hadn’t blocked a single one out of the total twenty-five shots, waited for the end.
“Ah, right.”
Sin Uison, who had been watching the hourglass, turned to the menu window as if remembered of something he’d forgotten.
It was fortunate he had remembered before it was too late.
【Will you turn off the menu function in reality?】
【Settings can be changed by request to the Helper Voice!】
“What?”
Sin Uison, who had been smiling as he turned off the menu, froze. As if anticipating exactly what he would say, the Voice cut in mockingly.
[Because you didn’t ask.]
“You damn……!”
How much stress had he endured throughout training!
For a moment, he considered turning off the Helper Voice too.
But even if he turned it off in reality, they would just meet in his dreams anyway, which would only be more uncomfortable.
Rustle.
And finally.
One side of the hourglass emptied.
“*Gasp!*”
Sin Uison opened his eyes.
It was a familiar ceiling.
He had returned to reality from the dream.
***
Even after encountering a new world, nothing had changed.
Sin Uison still went to work at the training ground, changed into his training kit, and stood before the goal.
“Yo, Son! You look in decent shape today? Though even when you’re decent, you’re a mess!”
“It’s Sin, not Son, dumbass.”
Sin Uison replied indifferently to Norris’s words. A guy who would only enjoy it more if he got angry for no reason.
And training began.
Today’s training started with penalty kicks.
Recalling the humiliation in his dream, Sin Uison clicked his tongue.
[Why?]
*No, it’s nothing.*
The Voice expressed its doubts, but he avoided answering. To be honest, it was a being that would only gloat if he told the truth.
“Hehe, if you can block it, try blocking it.”
Norris, stepping up as the first kicker, revealed his confidence with an obnoxious expression.
Even a guy like him was evaluated as decent at penalty kicks. In fact, there had been very few times Sin Uison had saved his shots.
Look at that. The coaches were chatting amongst themselves with indifferent faces, weren’t they?
*Beep!*
With the whistle, Norris began to run.
He preferred running a long distance to strike a shot full of power, and this shot too was full of power.
But.
“What?”
Whose voice was it?
It might have been Norris’s, or perhaps Sin Uison’s.
Sin Uison blankly stared at his own hand.
The ball was caught far too easily.
“O-oh, you’re lucky today!”
Norris dismissed his shot being caught so easily as luck. After all, it wasn’t as if Sin Uison had never saved his shots during training.
“Y-yeah.”
Sin Uison was just as bewildered. What had just happened?
His body had just… reacted.
But why?
Could such a change happen in just one day?
Searching for the reason amidst his confusion, Sin Uison opened his eyes wide.
*Points!*
He remembered investing points into Reaction Speed and Prediction in the dream. Had that affected reality too?
[To only realize now—you’re quite slow.]
*But back then,*
when he invested the points, he hadn’t felt such a dramatic difference.
[It’s only natural. It means the skill gap between the shadow and that player is simply that large.]
The Voice answered in a voice full of confidence.
Investing just 5 points each was insufficient to stop the shadow’s shots.
But against Norris, the difference was huge.
In a way, it was an obvious and simple reason.
“I won’t go easy on you now!”
After the other kickers’ and keepers’ turns ended, Norris returned again. The guy snorted, backed up, and began to run fast.
*Bam!*
Unlike before, it was a shot that curved precisely toward the corner of the goal.
However, Sin Uison was already naturally hurling his body toward where the shot was going.
“Oh!”
Exclamations burst from the nearby coaches. It was that splendid a save.
Afterward, as he continued to stop not only Norris’s but other kickers’ shots as well, the coaches’ gazes changed.
“Shin’s condition is good today.”
“Right. Is this the same guy who was struggling with poor condition until yesterday?”
“Well, good is good, isn’t it?”
Of course, this alone couldn’t change Sin Uison’s overall evaluation.
There were days when one’s condition was simply good.
Evaluations only changed when one produced these results consistently in training.
“Phew!”
If there was anyone most surprised by today’s training, it was Sin Uison himself.
It was his own body, yet it felt unfamiliar.
But that wasn’t a bad thing.
“You were good today.”
“Keep this up going forward.”
“Ah, yes.”
He didn’t even hear the coaches’ praise. Sin Uison returned home unable to calm his excitement.
“Let’s sleep quickly.”
Sin Uison immediately lay down on his bed.
But unlike usual, sleep didn’t come easily even when he closed his eyes.
It was because his heart was pounding.
[And you’re not a child on the eve of a field trip.]
“Sigh.”
Sin Uison, having no words to retort to the Voice’s scolding, sat up.
Looking at the window, rain was tapping on the glass. The rain that had started in the evening still hadn’t stopped.
Sitting in a chair on the veranda and gazing at the scenery outside, Sin Uison looked at his own hand.
Through today’s events, he had realized.
That dream was another opportunity for him.
An opportunity that could become a turning point in his life, one he absolutely must not miss.
But could he truly believe in it unconditionally?
If that place wasn’t a simple dream, it meant someone had prepared all of this.
Whether that was God, or perhaps the Devil.
Sin Uison asked with an uncomfortable expression.
“Why me?”
It was a reason he couldn’t even convince himself of, merely being pitied.
If the purpose was rather to take all of this away later and enjoy watching him suffer, that would be more plausible.
*Then is it a devil?*
As his excitement faded, he questioned whether he should simply be happy about this.
Things he hadn’t thought of until now.
Or things he had deliberately ignored filled his head.
[I already told you once, but I know nothing about that matter. I don’t even know why or for what purpose I am bound to you. That I am simply to help you is all I know right now.]
It was a composed answer.
Sin Uison lacked the ability to tell whether it was the truth or a lie.
Was this voice, by any chance, the devil’s lackey?
At that moment when his worries were deepening.
*Brrr.*
It was then.
His smartphone had vibrated.
*Who is it?*
There weren’t many people who would call him. And all of them were people Sin Uison wanted to avoid.
“Ah.”
Sin Uison closed his eyes after checking that dreaded name.
He wanted to ignore it, but thinking of the aftermath, he couldn’t.
“Hello.”
—Uison, are you busy right now?
It was a question, but he couldn’t miss the underlying intention to make time for the call.
“It’s fine, Mom.”
The caller was his mother.
His parents.
After his older brother’s admission trial ended, his parents had headed to Europe before the brothers.
The club he had been with at the time helped his parents settle in, which was in accordance with FIFA’s youth regulations.
Because to sign a youth player under 18, the parents had to come along.
And, as was to be expected.
The day Sin Uison turned 18, his parents left to where his older brother was.
Afterward, occasional calls asking how he was doing came, but now they even felt uncomfortable.
—Hasn’t the club said anything?
As expected.
Discomfort surged up instantly.
After his 18th birthday, his parents had essentially become the brothers’ agents. They no longer needed to be bound by the regulation that they had to do work unrelated to football.
In that situation, with no movement from the West Ham side, they must feel frustrated too.
“Not really, nothing.”
—I see.
It was a flat tone. It conveyed exactly that there hadn’t been much expectation.
After a bit more formal conversation.
Sin Uison closed his eyes after putting down the disconnected smartphone.
“Sigh.”
[You look suffocated.]
“Frustrated? Of course I am. Utterly frustrated.”
Even though he was past the age of wanting his parents’ approval, it was true that he was sick of their attitude.
*…Can it change?*
As if falling for a devil’s temptation, Sin Uison recalled the training ground in his dreams.
Whether the Voice told the truth or a lie, he couldn’t know.
But like today’s training, could he someday surprise everyone?
If only he had that dream training ground.
Sin Uison clenched his fist.
He knew that wanting anything required a price. It was natural—he had been asked to pay a price even for his parents’ love that wasn’t love.
“Hey.”
[……?]
“Let me tell you in advance—I don’t have anything that would satisfy beings like you.”
So.
Don’t regret it later.
Even though he didn’t know what price would be demanded of him in the future.
The call he had just had allowed him to make up his mind.
Sin Uison intended to accept the world in his dreams.