Netori Is Life - Chapter 8: The big reveal

What is worse than being the worst team in the world?

For Dave Richards that was a very easy but heartbreaking question to answer, a goalkeeper who performed poorly between the sticks, he was still available as a first-choice goalkeeper because Unique FC didn't have any other goalkeeper.

He was slow on his feet, couldn't jump properly and worst of all, he didn't know how to hold the ball properly.

The only way that Unique FC was able to survive taking in a massive goal-fest sometimes was because of the extra effort they put in their defence.

After a terrible match in which Dave wasn't able to make any saves and also made a lot of mistakes, he was seriously scolded by the managerial staff and almost received a beating from his angry teammates.

He got home sad and also angry at all those who told him he looked like his grandfather and would therefore inherit his goalkeeping skills.

He discovered a hidden door below his room and when he got down there the only thing he could see was a black box.

He found the box to be quite familiar and when he opened it the last thing he saw was a bright white light when the light was gone he could see something in his field of vision.

[ Welcome Dave ]

[ You have activated the Goalkeeping system ]

A female voice read out the messages.

This is a story about how an ordinary man who didn't know his place between the sticks went from nothing to pro.

Amidst the eerie silence of an unfamiliar hall, a cacophony of confused voices rose, mingling in a chorus of bewilderment. “Where are we?” “What happened?” “I thought I died!” Each utterance hung in the air, a testament to the collective disbelief gripping the room.As the haze of confusion lifted, disjointed memories surfaced, fragments of lives cut short by tragedy. “I remember... I was stabbed...” ventured one voice, echoed by another's affirmation of a similar fate. “I... I died in a plane crash,” muttered a third, only to be met with a stunned agreement from a fellow survivor.Amidst the chaos of bewildered voices, one man stood apart, his expression a mask of contemplation amidst the turmoil. As his companions recounted their brushes with death, his mind churned with questions, each more confounding than the last.“I got shot... I remember it vividly,” he murmured to himself, his voice barely audible above the din. “So how am I still here?” The enigma of their shared resurrection gnawed at him, compelling him to seek answers in the depths of his memories.With each revelation of a paired demise—a male and female, bound by the same tragic fate—a flicker of recognition ignited within him. “This... this seems familiar,” he mused, the pieces of a puzzle slowly coalescing in his mind. But the picture remained incomplete, obscured by the fog of uncertainty that shrouded their surroundings.As the words “pairs, pairs, pairs” echoed in his mind like a cryptic mantra, a sudden realization struck him with the force of a revelation. “It can't be... don't tell me...” he whispered, his voice trembling with disbelief. With a sense of urgency, he began to scan his surroundings, searching for any sign or clue that could confirm his suspicions.Then, as if guided by an unseen force, his gaze shifted upwards, and there, bathed in an ethereal light, stood an angelic figure with golden apparel, its gaze fixed upon him with a warm smile. The sight took his breath away, filling him with a mixture of awe and trepidation.The man's heart raced as faced a real angel, his mind struggling to comprehend the surreal encounter unfolding before him. The angel's words, spoken with an air of amusement, only deepened the enigma shrouding their meeting.“I never expected anyone to notice me,” the angel remarked, a hint of playfulness in its voice. “I was concealing my presence to let everyone fully calm down, but to think someone noticed me. Just who are you?”Ethan's disbelief and confusion intensified at the angel's question. “Eh... Ethan Rivers,” he stammered, his voice barely above a whisper.As Aurelia, the angel, finally revealed himself to the bewildered assembly, a hush fell over the room, each soul drawn in by his radiant presence and commanding aura. Ethan's gaze lingered on Aurelia.“Greetings, lost souls,” Aurelia declared, his voice resonating with a majestic power that seemed to fill the very air around them. “I am Aurelia, and I shall be your guide to your new life.”As Aurelia extended his arms in a gesture of welcome, Ethan felt a surge of rage and hesitation, “This it bad, really bad.”

Saying 5000 year-old-dragon has an impressive ring to it, yet that dragon was an extremely harmless, herbivorous being. However, because of his uselessly giant figure and scary appearance, he was mistaken for the Demon King’s executive and provided by the nearby village with a sacrificial maiden.

Fundamentally cowardly and timid dragon tried to send her away, but the extremely enthusiastic sacrifice didn’t want to give up. Inevitably, he lied: “Okay, I just ate a small portion of your soul, so you can go back already”, but the maiden with outrageous assumptions has misunderstood that she became the dragon’s kin.

Then, out of all things, she began to manifest strange power on the basis of her wrong assumptions – in turn, the helpless dragon, by some mistake started a rebellion against the Demon King.

Rebellion or whatnot, he wasn’t even his subordinate in the first place.

The technology fanatic Huo Tian from the future world died because of a research accident and transmigrated into the body of a fake rich daughter from a wealthy family.

Before the real daughter of the family came back, she was the treasure of the family, and everyone treated her like a princess. After the real daughter returned, her status plummeted, and they treated her as an outsider.

Living in a wealthy family that valued blood relations the most, Huo Tian, an unrelated outsider, was given a hard time. Everyone hated and despised her. Leaving behind a letter of severance, Huo Tian left the Huo Family on her own accord without any lingering reluctance for her once luxurious life.

She started a new life with the original Huo Tian’s biological mother and uncle, who had been abandoned by the Huo Family’s real rich daughter. She started a business from scratch.

With her understanding of the future world and her grasp of futuristic technology, Huo Tian quickly became famous in the business circle and established a research company that was renowned throughout the country. All the researches from her company were ten years more advanced than everywhere else in the world. With every research published, the whole world would be taken aback and impressed by how miraculous it was.

As time passed, Huo Tian became increasingly successful. Just as she was getting used to being called a fake rich daughter, the secret that her biological mother hid was out of the bag—Huo Tian’s biological father was the head of the noblest and the most powerful wealthy family at an international level, the Xi Family.

Compared to the Xi Family, the Huo Family was nothing but insignificant. The fake rich daughter in everyone’s eyes and the joke among the wealthy circle suddenly became a real rich daughter of the most influential family. Moreover, the head of the Xi Family seemed to be spoiling his long-lost daughter to the heavens...