Chapter 352: Football, Reporters, and Priests

Savan

With their son in his arms, Savan and Amalia followed the Daughter of Space through a portal to what looked like a giant sports complex of some kind, where there were four huge stadiums close together around a central park with sixteen sports fields of the same size around them.

The planet was A rank, which was impressive by itself, but each sports field had two teams of eleven facing off against each other—in some sport where there was a ball that only one player on each team seemed to be able to touch using their hands—and every player was B rank, while there had to be at least 32 teams.

That was over 300 B ranks in just one sports competition, and, if Savan wasn’t wrong, one of the two teams competing on one of the active sports fields was entirely made up of clones of the Heavenly Spark Soul King. And yet the score was only 3 to 1 in his favor.

“Pretty cool, right?” Silent lightning struck three meters in front of them, the energy transforming into a relatively plain looking man with azure hair and eyes. Then Savan watched as his brother-in-law stepped toward them, a nervous smile on his face. “The game is called Football and it was popular on Earth before the planet’s integration. Now there’s various leagues in each of Aalam’s universes.

“As a sort of bonding exercise for all of the United Federation of Planet’s B ranks, we get together, make teams, and play in a tournament every year.”

Daevic put his right arm around the Daughter of Space and gestured around at the tournament grounds with his left. “It’s a pretty fun atmosphere, right?”

“You a heartless bastard.” Amalia had tears running down her eyes, and Savan had to comfort little Daevic in his arms as their son was sensing his mother’s roiling emotions from the rapid changes in the local weather, the amount of water, heat, and electricity in the air rapidly changing. “I thought you were dead!”

“I-I’m sorry.” Daevic took his hand from around his apparent wife and moved forward to take Amalia in his arms. “It was public knowledge in the Prime Material, so I thought you knew.”

“Your stupid monstrous leaders made sure we wouldn’t have System access.”

As his wife almost growled the words, even while moving to hug her brother back, Savan scanned around the area with his aura, especially focusing on the eleven Heavenly Spark Soul King clones, but it didn’t seem like anyone was coming over to smite them, so, after a few seconds, he was able to start breathing again.

“Sorry, Mal. Contacting you was believed to be a risk, and I really thought you knew I was alive.”

“You bastard.” Amalia was crying into her brother’s clothing and Savan belatedly noticed Daevic was wearing a jersey of some kind, purple and black with Stormborn and the number 9 on its back and the image of a roaring runic dragon on its front, the same jersey as one of the teams participating in the tournament, a group which included True Dragon Isaiah, the wind mage Nitya Chakrabarti, and the yin yang swordsman Javier Garcia, with a woman he recognized as Irena Krol wearing white instead of purple and standing in front of one of the field’s two large nets.
 “Sir Stormborn.” A pretty human C rank woman with long dark hair and big slightly glowing eyes came over to them and moved up to Daevic with voice recording runes active around her, another C rank with video recording runes in front of his eyes following her. “Are we interrupting something, or would you be free for an interview?”

“You are intterupting.” Daevic smiled as he moved Amalia to one arm and turned to the woman who Savan realized was probably a reporter of some kind. “But sure. Go ahead and ask a few questions.”

“Thank you, sir.” The woman smiled brightly, her aura showing nervousness but not her face or demeanor. “What do you think about the format of this year’s tournament? Will any teams gain particular advantage?”

“Hmm.” Daevic appeared to think for a second, but, as a B rank, he could think at speeds fast enough to react to combat moves which approached the speed of light, so Savan knew it was just for show. “The ban on external energy use will greatly hinder mages and all the warriors who focus on telekinesis, giving advantage to those who focus more on physical stats, but, taking into account the exact wording of the new rules, it won’t be warriors who gain the most, but summoners like me and Lady Diana.

“For the first time in a while, our entire toolkits will be available, with no one able to disrupt our summoned spirits.”

The reporter nodded a few times. “Taking that into account, do you believe the odds given by the main betting parlors are accurate?”

“Mostly.” Daevic chuckled slightly. “The odds on team Imperial Might are probably higher than they should be. There are so many restrictions on Lord Aalam that I would only put his chances of winning at around 10%, not the 25% the parlors seem to think. And I believe the parlors are vastly underestimating team Rebirth. I know my team’s star forward at least thinks they will win, which makes me believe Lady Diana has had a major breakthrough on top of the tournament rules benefitting her.

“Also, with Lord Aalam acting as referee for all matches, no one will be able to cheat, so I think the expectations for team Divine Mind are way too high.

“As for team Dragon Force, Isaiah hasn’t been affected, but my wife’s main skills have all been made useless to the point we’ve made the decision to bench her, and Nitya has had half her speed taken from her. Still, with the advantages the rules have given me, our team should have a pretty good chance once my suspension is over in two rounds, so I think the odds on us are fair.”

“About that suspension, there have been arguments on the soul net that it wasn’t fair. What are your thoughts?”

Daevic’s smile grew a bit wider. “The punishment was a bit arbitrary, yes, but that’s what happens when you have an inconsistent referee who wants to practice her Laws by creating chaos in a sporting event. For those of us participating, this is all mainly just a fun bonding experience, and nothing bonds a group together like getting angry at a tyrant.”

“So, do you think it was wrong for Empress Li to be banned from participating for a decade?”

“Oh, hell no.” Daevic’s face became serious. “It’s too hard to restrict her properly compared to her husband, so she should be banned as much as possible.”

The Daughter of Space burst out laughing, while the reporter and cameraman couldn’t help but smile, so Savan could tell he was missing something, but, honestly, he didn’t care, and he could feel his wife getting annoyed, so he almost wanted to interrupt to get her reunion with her twin back on track.

Then, however, he realized what was going on. Through Daevic’s actions, the amount of nervousness he and his wife were feeling had gone way down, to the point they were even considering being rude in a location where there were hundreds of people who could easily kill them with barely any effort. And there was almost no chance that wasn’t intentional.

“But I think that should be the end of the interview.” Daevic looked at Amalia at his side, then back to the reporter. “I need to spend the next few hours with my family, so I hope you’ll excuse us.”

“Certainly, Sir Stormborn, Lady La’Vordi.” The reporter bowed slightly to both Daevic and then the Daughter of Space as the voice and video recording runes around her and her cameraman disappeared. Then she nodded at both Amalia and Savan. “And welcome to the United Federation of Planets Lady Stormborn, Mr. Ya.”

“Remember that you can’t show anything without their permission!” Daevic called out as the reporter and her cameraman left. Then he shook his head and mumbled under his breath. “Presumptuous younger generation.”

The Daughter of Space patted his shoulder and then gave some context to Savan and his wife. “The United Federation of Planets has a free and open flow of news, but there are some ironclad rules in place about privacy. For example, as the two of you and your son haven’t signed the relevant contracts, she can’t use any of that recording without completely blurring your appearances. Given the value of the news story of the last remaining sibling of the Emperor being brought out of the Prime Material, however, her goal almost certainly wasn’t the questions she was asking but to be the first to get the two of you on film. And, as Daevic is the captain of our team for this event as no one else wanted to take on the responsibility, he had to answer questions about the event asked in a reasonable and polite manner.

“That footage, with the requisite blurring, will be up on the soulnet in a matter of minutes at most.”

Amalia moved slightly away from her brother and Savan could see a thoughtful expression in her eyes as she brought up a separate point he’d also been wondering about. “Her aura. It felt a little weird.”

“Oh, you caught that.” The Daughter of Space smiled as they started walking toward the field where her and Daevic’s team was playing. “You’ll find that in a lot of the younger generations of the United Federation of Planets. Primal energy stones are really, really common in the universes of the Federation, to the point younger C ranks like her have mostly advanced without ever killing anything, and it makes their auras feel slightly different, less dangerous.

“There are a lot less individuals with combat classes as a result, crafting and administrative classes a lot more common than in the Prime Material.

“But you’ll learn all of this when you gain your new classes and jobs, so let’s talk about something else. What have your lives been like since Aalam kidnapped Daevic during the C rank Universal Tournament?”

“Wait.” Savan interjected before anyone else could say anything. “New classes and jobs?”

“You’re both still stuck at C rank only because Aunt Antonia died, right, stalling the advancement of your divine classes?” Daevic smiled at them, his aura and face showing some excitement. “So, to advance and live for an extra several million years, all you need is a new god. And you are both a good match for Mila as she has openings for both a smithing priest for her divine role of the Smith and a tactics priest for her divine role of the Tactician.

“Why she has that first divine role, I have no idea, but Amalia’s probably perfect for it. And, given Mila is Mila, that’s probably one of the reasons she agreed to risk herself to help bring you all here.”

Savan felt a shiver go up his spine. “And what other reasons would she have?”

Daevic turned to him, obviously read his nervousness, and then started laughing. “Because you’re related to her husband and she’s not a bad person, Savan. Please remember that most of what you know about her is propaganda from her enemies.”