Tuesday bled into Wednesday like bruises under sleepless eyes. Primeport FC's training dome steamed beneath the coastal dawn, mist clinging to the cracked panels like ghosts waiting for a match they had never seen.
Adams Harding paced the touchline, boots squeaking on damp turf. The System blinked alive behind his eyelids — that unblinking, merciless god tracking every slip, every chance.
> [Daily Objectives:]
☐ Convince Guardian — Gielgud Adrian
☐ Manage Recovery Load
He rubbed a palm over his stubble. One stubborn father, one injury map from hell, one club on life support. No big deal, he told himself. The lie didn't taste right, but he spat it out anyway.
Inside the rusting gym, the lights buzzed awake — ancient flood lamps, jury-rigged AR rigs projecting injury metrics and tendon strain stats that read like premonitions. The place looked like a sci-fi lab slammed inside a rotting shipping container. Mold in the corners. Gleaming sensors on battered squat racks.
He heard the banter before he saw them. Daisuke, hair flopping sweat onto his collar, strained through leg presses that rattled under his stick-thin frame. Lopatin loomed behind him, arms crossed, grin wide enough to swallow the room.
"Careful, Daisuke," Lopatin drawled. "Push too hard, you'll snap those chicken legs."
Daisuke shot him a glare. "After you snap your rusty hinges first, old man."
A chorus of laughter echoed off the corrugated metal. Murray, the keeper coach, nearly snorted a protein shake out of his nose. Even Busch, the club physio, cracked a grin over his tablet.
Adams leaned against the doorframe, arms folded, letting it roll for a heartbeat. The System hummed.
> [Reward: Motivation +1]
He clapped once — a sharp crack that killed the laughter mid-breath. "Alright, enough love letters to the dumbbells. Busch — strain map."
Busch, lean and hawk-eyed, flicked an AR projection into view. Adams stared at a rainbow of worry: red lines on Lopatin's hips, yellow flares across Daisuke's hamstrings.
"Lopatin's hips are still medieval," Busch said, dry as salt. "Daisuke's hamstrings are tighter than my last paycheck. That new 3-5-2 you're married to? It'll chew their quads in one half."
Adams rubbed the side of his head. "Manage it. No martyrs. I need them at full tilt on Saturday."
Ernesto, the tactician, peeked in with a shit-eating grin, tapping his tablet like a pulpit. "And your load, boss? You look like death in a tracksuit."
Adams rolled his eyes. "I'll rest when I'm sacked. Or we stay up. Whichever comes first."
Daisuke perked up, eyes wide with faux innocence. "Heard that, lads! Gaffer needs a beauty nap!"
Adams shot him a flat stare. "Keep lifting, Daisuke. You've got enough problems without existential dread."
> [Progress: Manage Recovery Load 50%]
Mid-morning, the clang of iron and the bark of old jokes faded behind him. Adams slipped through the corridor past the treatment room — the place always smelled of liniment and stale socks, ghosts of better seasons. Faded team photos lined the wall: heroes in shirts now long relegated to charity shops and memories.
Outside, the drizzle had given way to a coastal wind that knifed through his track jacket. Near the club gates stood a man built like a shipyard bulkhead — shoulders broad, brow furrowed deep enough to hold rainwater.
Gielgud Adrian. The last wall between Adams and losing the glue boy before he'd even stuck.
Adams forced a grin that felt like chewing glass. He stuck out a hand. "Mr. Gielgud. Appreciate you coming down."
The man's handshake was bone-breaking. "You're the one who wants to break my boy's legs?"
Adams bit back a laugh. "I want to make him a player. He's got the vision, the spine — he needs a pitch that won't waste him."
Adrian narrowed his eyes, storm-grey under a heavy brow. "The last manager said the same. Sat him on a bench for two years. Broken promises. No more."
Adams straightened his shoulders, voice flat as a boot sole. "Look around you, sir. This club is a rust bucket, held together with duct tape and prayer. I can't promise trophies. I can promise a chance. If the boy works, he plays. If he flinches, I bench him myself."
A beat. Adrian's mouth twitched — almost a smile, almost not. "He's young. Stupid sometimes. You break him — I break you."
Adams barked a laugh, genuine this time. "Fair trade."
Mr. Gielgud let out a rumble like a diesel engine in winter. "Okay, Coach Harding. We see."
They shook — oil and salt and broken knuckles. The System flickered twice.
> [Reward: Guardian Favor +3]
> [Reward: Squad Loyalty +2]
As Adrian walked away, Adams felt the wind slice through him, but there was something warm buried under the cold — that rare flicker of a win. He blinked, and the edges of his vision sharpened, like the System had focused a new lens just for him.
> [Hidden Reward: Unlock Divine Eyes +10%]
---
The next day, the players had shifted from metal plates to balls at their feet. Small-sided possession drills, holographic cones flickering around them. Daisuke, all ankles and mischief, nutmegged anyone daft enough to close him down. Lopatin bellowed orders like an old bear herding cubs.
Adams watched, half-there, eyes on the drills, mind still replaying that handshake. The crunch of Adrian's knuckles felt like a contract signed in bone.
Then Murray nudged him. "Boss — got a minute? Kid, I want you to see."
Adams followed him around the pitch, past ghostly goalposts and flickering AR lines that mapped out the 3-5-2 like a chalk outline. A kid worked a half-lit training goal — gloves smacking the ball like pistol shots.
Noah Richards. Hair pulled into a short knot, eyes sharp as cracked glass. He flew left, right, low — every shot that came at him was a personal insult, and he punched away.
Adams raised a brow. "Richards? Didn't he snap his ankle last year?"
Murray nodded. "Almost wrote him off. But look at him. Reflexes like lightning. Just needs minutes — and a physio that works miracles."
They watched the kid dive, glove brushing a rocket shot inches past the post. He bounced back up grinning, hungry like a stray dog that had tasted steak.
Adams barked a laugh. "He looks ready for the first team. If he flops, I'm blaming you."
Murray snorted. "Add it to my tab, gaffer."
> [Progress: Manage Recovery Load 70%]
Adams breathed out. One more box to tick before the day sucked him dry. He scanned the pitch, saw the lads moving sharper now — the drills stitched together like torn fabric. The shape was rough, but it held for now.
Then the wind shifted — stale lager and cheap cologne. Chairman Reyes, his gut packed into an overstretched Anchors scarf, waddled onto the pitch like a shark on dry land.
He clapped Adams on the shoulder — that paternal pat that felt more like a loaded pistol. "Heard about the Gielgud boy. Good work."
Adams nodded, jaw locked. "Thanks, Chair."
Reyes flicked his eyes to the lads doing stretches under the drone lights. "The derby is everything, Adams. Lose it, and we're sunk deeper than the harbor mud. They believe in you — don't give them a reason not to."
He strolled off, scarf flapping in the salt wind like a surrender flag. Adams watched him go, teeth grinding until he tasted metal.
---
On Friday, the final session dragged into the evening.
Gielgud, the kid, stood awkwardly with the first team now — boots spotless, eyes darting like a pup about to run with wolves. Richards jogged laps behind the goal, gloves clenched tight.
They drilled the shape until their shirts stuck to their spines. Daisuke flicked passes through shadows. Lopatin barked at rookies, his voice rough but steady — an old war horse making sure the kids didn't drift.
When Adams blew the final whistle, he gathered them at the center circle. Breath steaming. Boots sinking into the boggy pitch.
"Tomorrow," Adams rasped, "we don't play pretty football. We play for the punters freezing their bollocks off in the stands. For every roar that'll drown out the scum from Kingsport."
Ernesto clapped him on the back with a sly grin. "Poet laureate of the Anchors, you are."
Adams shot him a glare. "Shut up."
He read the starting XI. Richards in goal — the miracle kid. Daisuke on the wing — the spark and the chaos. Lopatin anchored the back — the last line when everything else cracked. And Gielgud — on the bench, heartbeat steady, a secret knife for when the legs gave out.
The System ticked:
> [Reward: Squad Depth +3]
By the time the dome lights died, Adams stood at the gate, the cold chewing through his track jacket. He nearly missed Abril leaning against the fence, her arms folded, smirk coiled like a promise.
"Checking if I'm still breathing?" Adams asked.
"Spying," she corrected, flicking her blonde hair back. "And making sure Primeport doesn't drown before the derby."
He stepped close, grin as sharp as the wind. "You worried about me, Fernandez?"
She rolled her eyes. "Worried about the club. If you sink, so do the rest of us."
Adams tilted his head, conspiratorial. "Come watch us tomorrow. Might be my last dance."
She barked a laugh that cut the gloom. "Win it, Harding. Or you'll stain that shiny coaching badge forever."
She turned, the rain picking up just enough to sting. Adams watched her go, the System pulsing its cold warning in his skull:
> [Season Objective: Avoid Relegation — Progress: 55.8%]
> [Failure: Obliteration Approaches]
The wind howled through the empty terraces, and the floodlights flickered like dying stars. Tomorrow, they would bleed for every yard of grass Kingsport tried to rip away.
Anchors hold, Adams murmured to the dark, breath misting.
Or drown.