Chapter 116: [116] "Spoils of War"
Thursday morning did not arrive with the gentle, welcoming light of a victory.
It arrived with the brutal physical relay of playing ninety-four minutes against arguably the best team in France.
Luc Beaumont opened his eyes, staring up at the ceiling of Juliette’s apartment. He didn’t move immediately. He couldn’t. His body felt as though it had been fed through an industrial machine. His lower back throbbed with a deep ache, a direct result of shielding the ball against two Parisian center-backs who had spent the entire night engaging in physical contact.
His right Achilles felt tight, and his shoulders carried the weight of the elbows he had absorbed inside and outside the penalty area.
He slowly rolled over, wincing as the muscles in his torso pulled tight.
He reached out his left arm. The space beside him was empty. The sheets were cold.
Juliette was already gone.
Luc let out a long, slow exhale, sitting up and resting his elbows on his knees. It wasn’t entirely surprising. Since her promotion, Juliette’s schedule had become an absolute nightmare of planning, baseline assessments, and early-morning crisises.
Usually when SC Valois went to war, Juliette was the one tasked with stitching the soldiers back together the morning after.
Their professional ascents were mirroring each other, but the cruel irony was that climbing the mountain left them with less and less time to actually see each other at the summit.
She had left a thermos of black coffee on the nightstand, alongside a small, hastily scribbled sticky note...
Ice bath at 9:00 AM. Don’t be late for it. You were incredible against Paris last night. Your first pen too.
Luc smiled faintly, picking up the thermos. He unscrewed the cap, letting the bitter liquid jumpstart his exhausted brain.
As the caffeine hit his system, his secondary consciousness flared to life. The system had been completely silent during the chaotic aftermath of the match, waiting for the adrenaline to fade and the reality of the achievement to settle in.
Now, it was time to collect.
"TES," Luc thought. "Let’s see what we earned."
TES snapped into his field of vision, brighter and more expansive than it had been in weeks.
[System Notification]
[Match Evaluation Complete: SC Valois 4 - 2 Paris Royal FC]
[Opponent was probably the best in the country]
[Your performance was dominant]
[- Executed a Hat-Trick away at Parc des Royals.]
[- Shattered Olivier Fontaine’s psychology once again.]
[- Successfully led a fragmented locker room through an extreme tactical deception.]
Luc took another sip of his coffee, his eyes tracking the glowing blue letters.
[Calculating Rewards...]
[For knocking the league leaders out of the Cup de France...]
[Reward: +25 General Points | +25 Skill Points]
[For the Hat-Trick (including a penalty scored with zero safety nets)...]
[Reward: +15 General Points | +15 Skill Points]
[For breaking the ’Emperor’s’ invincibility:]
[Reward: +10 General Points | +10 Skill Points]
[Total Deposit: 50 General Points | 50 Skill Points]
[Current Balance: 50 General Points | 50 Skill Points | Tactical Mute]
Luc choked slightly on his coffee, coughing as the sheer magnitude of the payout registered in his mind.
"Fifty points each."
He had zeroed out his system balance in the tunnel just to afford the dual Predatory Auras required to break Paris Royal early, effectively gambling his entire points safety net on a single ninety-minute fixture.
The gamble had paid out like a casino slot machine. He was flush. He was a wealthy man in TES currency.
[System Notification]
[Locker Room Cohesion: 88% (Elite)]
Luc dismissed the interface with a blink, the blue light fading back into the morning shadows of the bedroom. The ache in his lower back suddenly felt a lot more manageable. He stood up, his joints popping in protest, and walked toward the shower.
Fifty points across the board. The TES store would hear from him soon. He could buy absolute immunity from injuries. He could buy consumables...but he decided to hold off. He wanted to feel the organic weight of the victory before he started his reality again.
An hour later after his bath, Luc steered his Porsche down the familiar, winding road toward the SC Valois training complex.
It was officially a scheduled rest day. Henri had been explicit in the locker room after the match..."nobody was required to put on boots, nobody was required to touch a football."
They were supposed to stay home, recover, or let the medical staff handle the bruised muscles and battered shins.
But as Luc turned the final corner and approached the main gates, he realized that staying home was the last thing anyone wanted to do.
The entrance to the complex was packed. A swarm of paparazzi, sports journalists, and local news vans had barricaded the street, their camera lenses pressed against the iron gates.
SC Valois was long detached from a cute underdog story.
They were the team that had just walked into Parc des Royals, planted a flag in the center circle, and humiliated the billion-euro Parisian empire.
Luc didn’t stop. He rolled down his windows slightly, ignoring the shouted questions about his hat-trick and Valérie Laurent’s legendary VIP box insult... which he hadn’t even heard of yet, and flashed his badge to the overwhelmed security guards.
The gates parted, and the Porsche slipped inside, the player’s car park was almost completely full.
Luc parked, grabbed his bag, and made his way toward the main building. The atmosphere inside the complex was radically different.
The quiet, tense anxiety that had defined the January transfer window was gone. In its place was a swaggering, incredibly dangerous confidence.
He walked into the players’ lounge. The massive room was packed.
Yes, it was a free day, but practically the entire squad had shown up. They hadn’t come to train though, they had come to exist in the same space as the only other men on earth who understood exactly what they had accomplished a mere few hours ago.
Enjoying the victory together as a team was infinitely better than listening to Coach and staying home.