My Ultimate Gacha System

The home dressing room at Old Trafford smelled of wet grass and deep-heat when the players filed in at 2–0, and nobody treated it like a party.

Garnacho dropped onto the bench still breathing hard, a towel around his neck, grinning every time a teammate reached over to slap his shoulder.

Casemiro sat with far less fuss, unlacing one boot with the calm of a man who scored headers like this every other week, though the corner of his mouth kept twitching upward whenever someone mentioned it.

Mount stood near the physio table talking with the medical staff in a low voice, nodding along to something about his planned minutes rather than anything that had gone wrong.

Wet shirts hung dripping from hooks along the wall. Bottles lay scattered near a pile of discarded boots. On the tactical screen bolted above the benches, Palace’s first-half shape still sat frozen mid-press, waiting for someone to wipe it clean and start again.

Demien crossed the room to Garnacho first and gripped his shoulder, the smile on his face entirely real.

"That finish," he said, shaking his head once. "Palace’s right-back never had a chance."

Garnacho laughed and shoved him back lightly, still too wired from the goal to sit still.

Demien turned to Casemiro next and offered a nod that carried real respect in it rather than the polite version. "Six-yard box, near-post crowd, and you still find the gap. That’s not luck."

Casemiro accepted it with a short dip of his head, already reaching for the water bottle at his feet.

Underneath the warmth, though, Demien’s body kept betraying him in small ways. He bent down and retightened a bootlace that had never come loose in the first place. His knee bounced once beneath the bench before he flattened his hand over it to stop the motion. When Ten Hag’s voice cut through the room a moment later, Demien’s head came up immediately, faster than it needed to.

He watched the tactical screen with more focus than some of the starters gave it, his eyes tracking Palace’s press shape as though he might be quizzed on it, his fingers flexing once against his knees. When the muffled roar of the crowd reached through the tunnel wall, his gaze drifted toward the door for half a second before he pulled it back.

Ten Hag kept the team talk short. He stood in front of the screen with his arms folded, waiting until the room settled before he spoke.

"Two-nil is good. Control was good," he said, his tone flat and practical rather than celebratory. "But Palace will push higher in the second half. More bodies forward, more risk in their press, and they’ll bring on players who can hurt us if we get lazy." He glanced toward Mount. "Mason comes off as planned. Everyone else stays sharp." His eyes moved briefly across the row of substitutes. "That means all of you. Stay ready."

At the word substitutes, Demien’s spine straightened before he caught himself and settled back against the wall, a fraction too late to look casual about it.

Garnacho, still toweling off beside him, noticed and gave him a small, knowing look, one eyebrow raised just enough to make his meaning obvious.

Demien ignored it with the kind of effort that only confirmed he’d been caught, staring hard at a spot on the tactical screen that suddenly required his full attention.

The second half began with the referee’s whistle, and Palace came out of their own dressing room a different team.

Their wing-backs pushed ten yards higher than before. Their front two spread wider across United’s back line rather than sitting central. Their midfielders stopped waiting inside a compact block and started following Casemiro and Hannibal step for step, refusing to let either man turn on the ball.

United’s first possession of the half felt the difference immediately. Onana received a backpass with a Palace striker already sprinting at him, one forward blocking the passing lane into Casemiro while another shadowed the nearest center-back tight enough to remove the option entirely. Onana had no choice but to carry the ball sideways under pressure before finding Lindelöf, and Lindelöf, receiving with a runner arriving fast, returned it rather than risk threading anything through the middle.

"Palace can’t afford to sit off at two-nil," the commentator said, watching the press unfold again. "They’ve gone man-to-man across the pitch, which takes real courage this far behind — but it also means that back line is exposed if United can get through the first wave."

"Live by the sword," his co-commentator agreed. "One good pass through that press and this could get very dangerous for Palace very quickly."

On the bench, Demien leaned forward as a Palace midfielder abandoned his zone entirely to chase Casemiro across the pitch, and his eyes went straight to the space the man had left behind. His fingers tapped once against his knee, timing a pass into that gap that wasn’t his to play.

Palace made their higher line pay for itself in the forty-ninth minute. Their right wing-back won the ball high up the pitch, drove down the outside with real pace, and curled a cross toward Mateta at the back post. Evans got there first but could only head it clear to the edge of the box, where a Palace midfielder met the dropping ball on the volley and sent it whistling just over the bar, forcing Onana to track it the whole way with his hands half-raised.

Ten Hag stepped to the edge of his technical area at the sight of it, calling out for United’s midfield to widen their passing distances and stop inviting the press in so close.

Beside the dugout, Demien rose with the other substitutes and began loosening his legs, though nobody had called his name yet.

United found their third goal by escaping Palace’s press rather than by accident. Lindelöf broke the first line with a clipped pass through the gap Palace’s high wing-backs had left open, and Casemiro received it in the inside-right channel with a rare half-second of time. Martial held his position centrally long enough to pin the last defender in place, refusing to drop deep and drag him out of position.

Casemiro lifted his head, picked out the far post, and curled a deep ball across the box.

Martial waited until the defender’s weight turned toward the flight of the ball, slipped behind his shoulder into the blind spot, opened his body to the goal, and guided the dropping cross past the goalkeeper with the inside of his left foot.

Manchester United 3 — 0 Crystal Palace Anthony Martial 55’ (Assist: Casemiro)

Demien jumped up with the rest of the substitutes, slapped the barrier once with an open palm, and laughed out loud when Martial turned toward the bench with both arms spread. The frustration of not playing hadn’t gone anywhere, but it sat next to real happiness for his teammate rather than against it.

"Casemiro with the assist to go with his goal," the commentator said, "and that’s a wonderful finish from Martial — reading the defender’s weight, checking his run at exactly the right moment. Palace are chasing this game now, and every yard higher they push is another yard of space behind them."

Around the hour mark, Palace made their move, sending on Eberechi Eze along with another senior midfielder to add some invention to their pressing.

Eze arrived at the center of the pitch with the loose, upright posture of a player who never seemed to be in a hurry, close control tight enough to shrug off the first challenge that came near him, his head turning constantly to check both shoulders before the ball had even reached him. He wanted it between United’s midfield and defense, in the pocket where he could do the most damage, and he made that clear within his first two touches.

Near the dugout, one of United’s assistants leaned toward Ten Hag with a tablet still glowing in his hand, and his eyes flicked briefly toward the substitutes’ bench.

Demien noticed. He straightened in his seat before immediately looking away, as though he hadn’t.

Eze made Palace dangerous almost at once. In the sixty-third minute, he received between the lines, spun away from Casemiro’s first challenge, and released the overlapping wing-back down the right, whose resulting cross sailed over everyone and out for a goal kick, though it pushed United’s whole defensive line ten yards deeper than it wanted to be.

Two minutes later, Eze got on the ball again, dragged a United midfielder out of position with a single feint, and slid Mateta into the right side of the box. Mateta struck it hard and low toward the near post, and Onana reacted with his leg rather than his hands, blocking the shot away with the kind of instinct that came from a goalkeeper who’d faced enough of these to trust his body over his eyes.

Demien half-rose from the bench as the shot left Mateta’s boot, exhaling hard when Onana got it away, and had just started to sit back down when the assistant beside him said his name.

He pulled his warm-up top over his head too fast, nearly catching it on his ear, and caught another substitute grinning at him from two seats down. He gave a brief, embarrassed grin back before jogging toward the technical area, unable to fully hide how badly he’d wanted to hear those words.

He waited beside the fourth official as the board came out, and for the length of one breath, the noise of the stadium faded behind something only he could see.

「MATCH MISSION ACTIVATED」 「ROLE: Substitute — Control the Final Phase」 「Objective 1: Record 1 direct goal contribution.」 「Objective 2: Create 3 clear chances.」 「Objective 3: Complete 2 successful line-breaking actions.」 「Reward: +50 MP」 「Bonus Objective: Maintain 90%+ pass completion.」 「Bonus Reward: +5 TP」

He read it once, and the smile that had carried him off the bench settled into something quieter and sharper. He bounced twice on his toes while he waited for the ball to go out of play, his eyes already tracking Palace’s tired shape rather than the crowd around him.

United brought him on in the sixty-sixth minute, in place of Hannibal, pushing him into the advanced central role just ahead of Casemiro.

The board rose with his number lit up in red, and Old Trafford recognized it before most of the away end had finished reading it, the noise climbing fast as he crossed the touchline. He couldn’t fully hide his smile this time. He clapped once toward the stand nearest the tunnel, let the chant carry over him for a second longer than strictly necessary, then turned his attention to his position on the pitch.

"United already three goals to the good," the commentator said, "but Palace’s high line and tired legs are about to meet a very different problem. Eighteen years old, and there isn’t a more uncomfortable substitute for a stretched defense to face in the final twenty-five minutes than Demien Walter."

His first involvement came fast. Casemiro found him with a Palace midfielder closing from behind and a second player arriving from the front, pinning him between them the moment the ball touched his foot.

Demien cushioned it across his body on the first touch, planted his shoulder into the defender arriving from behind, and used it as an anchor rather than a threat, his balance absorbing the contact without losing half a yard.

「TRAIT ACTIVATED」 「Press Resistant」 「STATS ACTIVE」 「Ball Control: 99 | Balance: 99 | Strength: 99」

The second Palace midfielder tried to cut off his escape route, but by the time the challenge arrived, Demien’s first three steps had already opened the gap wide enough to drive through.

「LEGENDARY SKILL ACTIVATED」 「Gareth Bale — Galáctico Surge」 「STATS ACTIVE」 「Acceleration: 99 | Sprint Speed: 99」