{Daily Quest Complete!}
[Reward: +1 Unused Stat Point]
{New Total!}
[Unused Stat Points: 15—>16]
Ryo stared at the screen in front of him. It's already been two weeks, huh? He hadn't missed a single day of the daily quest, eagerly gathering all of his stat points, even if it meant staying after practice.
Tomorrow is the last day of the daily quest since our first game is on Saturday. I can't wait.
That Thursday afternoon, Ryo and Ren had stayed behind after practice again, improving their skills and practicing their shots. When they were the most tired, they finished their practice with corner kicks. So after Ryo sent the last corner kick, signaling the end of his quest, he jogged back in front of the goal towards Ren.
"How are you holding up, Ren-nii? Already tired?" Ryo teased, watching his brother drag his feet.
"No! Of course not!" Ren protested, suddenly straightening. "My head just hurts after all those headers."
Each day, they had the same routine. While one of them shot the ball on goal, the other acted as an impromptu goalie to make it more challenging. Similarly, when one of them took a corner, the other received the ball, trying to hit a header into the goal.
On days when they had more energy, they went back to practicing their dribbling and tackling, often competing to see who could score more against the other.
"I'm ready this time. You're not beating me today," Ren declared.
"That's exactly what you said yesterday," Ryo shot back, "But you still lost."
"You just got lucky! One point isn't much of a win."
"Or maybe I let it be a one-point difference on purpose," Ryo said with a smirk.
Ren narrowed his eyes. "Oh, so you missed that open net on purpose, too?"
"…Whatever. Let's just start," Ryo muttered, backing down.
He's right, though. I was lucky yesterday. Usually, he crushes me by at least three points.
Ryo might have The System, but Ren had a crazy amount of talent. No matter how much Ryo grew, Ren seemed to improve just as fast.
I can't wait to see how I compare to him once I allocate all of my stat points.
There is only one reason why Ryo had not locked in his stats: Natural growth. When he realized that his stats were increasing much faster than before, Ryo deduced that his practice was becoming more efficient. Higher stats took longer to level up, so upgrading his stats right away would make it harder to increase his stats naturally.
However, it would be a bad idea to dump all of my unused points into one stat. I could level one stat past 50, but then it would be much more difficult for me to improve that stat until all of the others catch up.
Even while lost in thought, his focus never left Ren's approach. He was determined not to lose to his brother.
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"It's alright, Ryo, at least you won against me yesterday," Ren said, stuffing another piece of fried pork into his mouth..
"Yeah, yeah," Ryo grumbled, slumped over the table, "You're still much better than me, Ren-nii." He slowly picked up the rice with his chopsticks, completely exhausted from their practice. With around two hours of club practice and an extra hour with Ren, Ryo was completely drained.
"By the way, Ren-nii," Ryo said, lifting his chopsticks slowly, "didn't you have math homework?"
Ren froze mid-bite, his eyes widening. "Ah! I completely forgot!" He exclaimed, shoveling the rest of his food into his mouth and pushing his bowl to the side. Ryo watched as his brother scrambled to take out his math workbook.
They always did their homework here at the restaurant since they were too tired once they got home. "I reminded you yesterday, remember? You should've just finished it then." Ryo said, annoyed at his brother's procrastination.
"I was tired," Ren complained, "How was I supposed to know I'd be even more tired today?"
"Are you sure it wasn't because you were sulking after losing?" Ryo teased.
"Shut up! I was tired," Ren insisted.
"Fine, fine. Just hurry, we're going home soon."
Ren nodded and buried himself in the problems.
Long division, huh? No wonder he panicked earlier; it's such a pain to write out. With no homework of his own, Ryo leaned on the table and watched his brother work.
He has nice handwriting… hmm? Isn't that one wrong? Should I tell him?
Before Ryo could speak, a voice called out from the entrance.
"Ryo-kun?"
Ryo looked up and saw Taiga standing with his parents.
"Ishikawa-senpai? It's nice to see you here!" Ryo said, jumping from his seat and approaching him. Over the past two weeks, he and Taiga had gotten close, given that they played very close to each other on the field; sometimes they would even talk when they crossed each other in school.
However, they had never seen each other outside of school, so Taiga seemed confused, "Why are you here, Ryo-kun?"
"Huh? Oh, my parents run this restaurant," Ryo said, "Ren and I usually come here after practice."
"Really! That's so cool! I'll try and eat here more often!" Taiga answered excitedly.
"Taiga, we're going over to our table now," Taiga's father cut in. Ryo's dad, who was currently working in the dining area, had welcomed them in.
"Okay, bye Ryo-kun, I'll see you tomorrow!" Taiga waved as he followed his parents. Ryo waved back before heading to his seat.
Should I tell the club about our restaurant? The food's great, and it's close to school. Maybe I'll ease into it—no need to overcrowd the place.
As soon as he sat down, Ren asked, "Was that Taiga-kun? Why was he here?"
"Ah, he came to eat with his family. But why do you look so nervous, Ren-nii?" Ryo asked, scrutinizing his brother's expression.
"I'm not nervous. I just don't want the other players to come here," he said hesitantly.
"Why not?"
"Well, it'll get too loud," Ren answered, slightly embarrassed.
Oh, that's what it was. I thought he was feeling ashamed of the restaurant. Ryo felt relieved. I guess he just wants somewhere quiet to relax.
"Yeah, that's true, but Taiga's not the type to spread it around; he doesn't talk too much."
Ren seemed to relax at his words. "But Ren-nii, shouldn't you be focusing on your math homework instead? You already got two questions wrong,"
Ren blinked. "Wait, what? Which ones? I thought I did them all right?"
"You messed up your last step, where you converted your remainder to a decimal." Ryo said as he pointed to the mistake, "Here, when you did 471÷12, you got 39 with remainder 3, right? But you wrote that 3/12 was equal to 0.3. It's actually equal to 0.25."
Ren listened to his brother's words but only seemed more confused.
"Ren-nii, have you learned fractions yet?"
"Yeah, our math teacher showed us how to do fractions, but it wasn't this hard," Ren answered honestly.
"Ren-nii, there is a trick to making this easier," Ryo took a pencil and worked out the problem on the back of a coaster. "When you get to the point where you have a remainder of 3, if you put a decimal and a zero like this, you can continue your long division—so here you have 30 divided by 12, and 12 goes into 30 two times, so you have 39.2 with a remainder of 6. Now, if you do the same thing again, you can see that you 12 goes into 60 five times with a remainder of 0, so your answer is 39.25."
Ren looked at the work for a second, and his eyes lit up. "Oh!! I see, that makes so much sense." Ren then took his pencil and went back to the other problem he got wrong. "So for 588÷20, I get 29 with a remainder of 8, so if I add the decimal and divide… I get 29.4!"
"Yes, that's right," Ryo answered. This reminds me of when Ryo used to ask me for help on his homework in my previous life. It's nice to be able to help him again.
"By the way, Ryo, how do you know all this?" Ren asked curiously.
Uhhh, shit, I didn't think this far.
"I found my classes pretty easy, so I took your notebooks when you didn't have class," he blurted out, closing his eyes, hoping Ren would buy it.
"Really? That makes so much sense," Ren nodded, completely buying into his brother's alibi.
"Anyway, can you focus on your work? I'd like to go home soon," Ryo said, changing the subject.
"Alright, I'll do it fast," Ren replied, all excited.