Chapter 54: The crow's plan
"What do you mean leader? We don't have that!" Akira replied, his fiery temper was easily triggered by the crow-looking young man.
"Then who's the strongest? The best player, there surely is one." Karasu said, his eyes landed on Jude as a small smirk formed on his face.
Akira's eyes also unconsciously turned towards Jude. He couldn't help but admit that as of right now the team's striker and strongest player was without a doubt Jude.
"Now I finally see who's the leader of Team X. A foreigner, huh? I didn't think they would accept foreigners in a Japanese training program, that's quite the weird move." Karasu mocked in an attempt to provoke Jude.
"If that's all you wanted to say, then feel free to go back. We're tired from today's match so we'll go rest now."
Jude took this chance to lift up the ball with his foot and grab it before heading towards the exit, in hope of finally putting an end to the quest.
Unfortunately, Karasu's next words ruined his escape attempt, pushing him further into a well of frustration.
"Why are you going so soon, what about a little one-on-one to get to know each other?" Karasu proposed, his smirk widened even more when he saw Jude come to a stop.
Karasu noticed the annoyed frown on Jude's face and took it as a sign of his previous taunts paying off.
When he saw Jude come back, Karasu was convinced that he had him all figured out, but the truth was far from that.
Right after Karasu's words, Jude took one more step to exit. But as he took the first step to leave, he received a system notification that forced him to go back on his steps.
[If the player refuses a challenge, the quest will be considered a failure.]
Jude knew that Karasu would probably use this opportunity to gauge his skills with his unparalleled analytical ability — which was one of his special weapons.
He didn't want to give his biggest enemy any information which might be used against him.
Yet, after thinking about it for a few seconds, Jude concluded that it might actually be worth it. The quest reward was just too great to give up on it, the reward was worth the risk of giving up a few information.
"Alright, but only one."
Jude passed the ball to Karasu and placed himself between him and the ball.
With his current stamina, he believed that being on the defence was the best bet to win.
Especially since Karasu was the most complete player he has ever met to this day. Most players had clear strengths and weaknesses. But that wasn't the case for Karasu.
After taking a look at his stats, and from what he remembered of his play style, Jude knew that Karasu was extremely balanced — a jack of all trades, master of none.
His defence was the best he had ever seen, including the multiple defensive star players in high school.
Albeit Jude met many amazing strikers in Blue Lock, they can't compare with this monster. Karasu was on a level of his own.
If not for Rin and Shidou being players who defy any logic, then Karasu would undoubtedly be the strongest high school player in Japan as of now.
Knowing that, Jude opted for a more defensive playstyle in hope of preserving some of his stamina, he was hoping to defend with as little movement as necessary.
He stood in front of Karasu, keeping a good distance away from him as he breathed heavily, greedily taking in as much oxygen as he could.
Karasu didn't have any kind of flashy long-ranged shot, and he for sure wouldn't go for one since his goal was to take a look at Jude's actual level. Making use of that knowledge he stood in front of the penalty line waiting for Karasu to make a move.
With a wide smirk on his face, Karasu taunted. "Are you just planning to stay here and watch? I'm disappointed, I expected a little more from Team X's striker."
Thinking that he had Jude wrapped around his finger, Karasu dashed forward and closed in the distance between him and Jude.
Reaching Jude's range, Karasu slowed down and used his hand to keep Jude away from him. Compared to Jude who only used his hand to gauge the distance between himself and Akira, Karasu was a lot more skillful. He was able to easily keep the ball safe from Jude while making Jude tire himself even more.
"Are you taking this as a joke?" Jude asked as he gritted his teeth in silent fury.
While Akira was unable to tell, Karasu had a few opportunities to get past Jude and yet kept playing around, making sure that Jude tired himself out but didn't steal the ball from him.
"Are you getting tired, princess?" Karasu taunted once again, He knew of Jude's current state of exhaustion and turned it against him.
He ran from one side of the field to the other with no other purpose than to tire him out.
"Piss off!" Jude threw one more tackle, this time a lot more aggressively, in a desperate attempt to steal the ball from him.
"This really took a while," Karasu said with a smirk.
He made use of Jude's center of gravity being off to get past him with a roulette and shoot the ball to the right corner of the net.
Jude watched helplessly as the ball lodged itself in the net. Simultaneously, a new system notification appeared in front of him.
[You have failed the quest "the king of one-on-ones"!]
[No reward will be given to the player.]
Jude sighed in defeat as he slowly read through the system notifications.
He fell down on the ground out of sheer exhaustion, he hoped that in the end all of this was nothing more than a bad prank from the system.
Yet even when the fatigue brought him down on his knees, nothing changed and the screen in front of him didn't disappear until Jude willed it to.
"What a disappointment." Karasu let out as he turned around and got ready to leave alongside Hiori who stayed silent for the whole interaction.
"Don't you dare look down on us! He only lost because he was tired after giving it his all for a whole match and then having to play against me, don't you ever forget that Jude is a thousand times better than you."
Akira blocked Karasu's path. His face fuming with rage at Karasu's comment. Jude already earned Akira's respect a while ago, but Karasu was nothing more than an arrogant stranger to him.
"If that's the case, then you better prove it in the match against us. Hopefully, I won't be too bored." Karasu sneered. He arrogantly pushed Akira out of the way and moved past the exit.
"You-" Akira's words were interrupted by Jude calmly placing a weak hand on his shoulder.
The one who was the most furious about this loss was none other than Jude, yet he knew better than anyone that playing those kinds of mind games with Karasu was nothing more than a lost cause.
"Don't mind him, trust me we'll make him regret those words."
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