65 Ravenville's Opening Match

Tuesday, September 11th, 218 UD.

Late morning.

After another week of constant training under the relatively more festive atmosphere of Ravenville's campus, the date had finally settled in on the first day of the school's match.

Inside of the team's changing room within the stadium, the group of 1st and 2nd years' regulars were currently hanging around together while chatting with one another.

At present, there're still quite a bit of time left for the players to prepare since the match would only start after the lunch hour was over.

All the members of the 1st string had already been advised by the Head Coach to take an earlier lunch for today's match so that they didn't just get into the game immediately after eating.

Both the 1st and 2nd years had already had their fills while currently, the 3rd and 4th years were taking their turns in the school's cafeteria. Hence, the picture of a rather lax atmosphere within the current Ravenville's changing room.

"W, wow... So you already got fans sending you letters?" Naomi Fletcher looked on at Medea with clear admiration in her eyes.

"...Just the one." The girl replied monotonously.

"It's also a love letter." Sitting a little bit away from the girls, Irvine also added on.

"Damn~ Seriously??" Beside him, Greg who had just been munching on some protein bars while listening in on the topic also reacted.

"N, no it's not!" Medea tried to deny it.

"You said it got the guy's contact info on it?"

"...Yes."

"It's a love letter." In the end, Irvine brought the useless debate to a close with that reasoning.

"Waa~ W, well, I can somewhat understand if it's someone like you Dormer." Naomi nodded to herself as if she was agreeing with something, causing Medea to once again shake her slowly hurting head,

"Please stop..."

.

.

"--And you're okay with it?"

Not long after the conversation was cut, Derrick who somehow had already put on parts of his exosuit even though there's still some time left before the match, suddenly turned to Irvine and asked in a quieter voice.

"Hm? Okay with what?"

"Oh? Well I thought you two are... You know?" Derrick smoothly signalled him by quickly glancing on Medea's direction and back with his eyes.

"Nn-- Aah." Irvine who had finally caught on to what the guy in front of him was implying replied to him with a calm tone,

"No, of course not. What makes you think so?"

"Dude, you spent the entirety of last week hanging out together after practice. Call it self-practice sessions all you want, but people will obviously talk about it."

"...That's because we WERE practicing. It works out rather well since I also need to get my [Impact Armor] ready against Rangers' projectile weapons." He explained.

"Hey, I'm not the one you should convince here."

Irvine shook his head with a wry smile without arguing further, he wouldn't want to imagine what the girl would do if she found out about them becoming a topic for gossip.

"...Anyway." He decided to change the topic, "Are you keeping up with this season's OPL, Wallace?"

"Hm? Sort of, yeah. Why?"

"Are there any intersectoral matches last weekend?"

The reason that Irvine was asking this was because he was quite certain that the people that had been looking for Baron last Wednesday was a representative of some pro team or other.

Important enough guests that would contact Baron through their Head Coach could only either be a pro team's scout or a sports-related company that was trying to make some kind of deal regarding sponsorship or endorsement.

But a company that would be willing to sponsor a college player would usually only do it during the heat of the season or right after. Never before.

If there had been companies looking to do business with Baron, they would've approached him shortly after last year's Crowns or during the finals. Not when the new semester had barely begun.

Any marketing effects that would be carried by the player's reputation wouldn't give as much power when the peak of college Arena's attentions by the media hadn't even begun yet.

As such, that could only mean that the guests that had been looking for Baron last Wednesday would more than likely be a pro team's representatives.

And if that's really the case, Irvine could at least try to shorten the possibilities by going over the teams that had a match in the Northern Sector last weekend, that was why he was asking Derrick for the OPL's schedules.

'In the future, Baron played for 3 different teams during his entire Pro League career. But all of them were Central Sector's teams, so...'

"Intersectoral matches? Of course," Derrick replied,

"There're two, I think? One in the Central Sector, and another one right here in our Northern Sector-- Seriously though, why are you asking these things?"

"Who's playing in the North?"

"...Alpha Centaurs against the Lambda Defenders, I even taped it, you want to borrow?"

'!'

Derrick had actually grown up in Alpha City before coming here for studies, so he himself was rather inclined towards both the Centaurs and the Androids for the OPL teams he supported.

This was also the reason as to why he had specifically recorded the intersectoral match of his favoured team going against a Central Sector powerhouse.

But the thing that had caught Irvine's attention was not any of that.

'The Defenders-- There's almost no doubt about it now! But this timing... Don't tell me they might even come here to spectate today?'

"Lang?"

'No... They should've only come here to approach the target first, so it's still highly unlikely that they would watch a college level tournament like Warrior Crown's opening matches...'

"...You alright there?"

'But if it's really so, isn't this a rare chance to appeal to a pro scout??' Irvine turned even more serious.

Any chance to play in front of a pro team's scout was a VERY rare opportunity for any players!

Even if it was a long shot, and even more so when one's not in their senior year yet, if there was even a sliver of a chance for a person's play to be remembered and taken note of by such a scout. It would already be a successful enough investment for their future!

Needless to say, for Irvine's own dream, he wouldn't want to pass up on this chance, even if all this was still a 'hypothetical' situation in his mind!

Especially since this time around, he didn't have any plan on being picked by the Pyro Red Dwarf again if he could help it.

"Earth to Lang~!!"

Having been ignored a few times by the person who had been asking him questions, Derrick raised his voice a little bit more to call on Irvine, which this time, actually turned out to be successful.

"--Hm? Ah, what is it?"

"Gee, you tell me."

"Aah... Sorry about that, got caught up in my own thought just now."

"...Sure. What were you thinking about?"

"About which team I'd want to be in if I were to go pro."

"..."

"Haa??" Derrick showed an incredulous expression towards him,

"Slow down there buddy, you haven't even played a single proper match for your college career. What are you dreaming about 'picking' teams??"

"Haha, guess so, huh." Irvine simply gave a shoulder shrug at Derrick's reaction to his nonsensical words.

'The Defenders WAS one of the three teams that Baron had played for in the future, I'm just not quite sure if it was his very first team or his second team... But, either way,'

'...Maybe, I can afford to stand out a bit more in this match? Heh, but I should probably confirm with coach Lark first.'

Although he wouldn't want to miss this chance if his guess turned out to be correct, he still wouldn't want to jeopardize the team's structures and strategies over it.

Thankfully, there's an easy solution to all this.

He could just confront the Head Coach regarding his thoughts before the match began.

.

.

*step*

When the hours of the day had inched closer to lunch time, a figure had arrived in front of the large entrance gate to Ravenville's campus from the closest monorail station.

"...University campus is really big."

The figure was of a younger looking girl with straight black hair and shirt-and-jeans combination worn under a thin sweater that was very suitable for the slightly cooler weather of the day.

Her expression showed a slight hint of nervousness and anxiety regarding her current situation.

This was the first time that Althea had proactively taken a personal leave from school without telling either of her parents first.

Because of her serious attitude and good grades in class, neither her homeroom teacher nor any other faculty members of the school had questioned her reasons when she'd requested for an early leave.

But nonetheless, it would still be a bad thing for her should either of her mom or dad found out that she was 'playing truant' from school just to watch her brother's first official match.

At first, she truly had had no intentions on going to watch the match at all.

What had suddenly caused her to have a change of heart was the video of Ravenville Vs. Magnolia's practice match that Irvine had privately requested from Lark before sending it to her.

She still remembered how at that time when she had seen her brother performed spectacularly against the enemy's Ace Fielder, she had even jumped up and down her bed in surprise.

In her defense, that was truly the very first time she had seen Irvine showed his superior skills to her.

Even during the License Exam, all she could do was to take the results on her brother's tests and his recorded scores as a point of reference on how good her brother actually was.

But seeing that video, Althea's desire to watch more of college Arena and her brother's matches had been lit.

Out of her own impulse, she had then made the decision yesterday to think up on some kind of excuses for her to leave school early so that she could come here to watch Ravenville's first match live based on the schedule that Irvine had previously given her through messaging!

As a result, even now she was still rather baffled on how that simple plan had gone so smoothly for her to actually be able to leave school without her parents getting notified.

"I played hooky..." She fidgeted around for a bit,

"...It, it's for research... Yeah! Brother said it himself that I have to take the initiative to learn if I want to excel on the subjects I'm passionate about, that's right!"

After firming her own resolve a couple more times, Althea then resolutely stepped past the entrance gate and into the campus ground beyond.

She took out the GPS on her phone and started to slowly walk towards the direction of Ravenville Stadium that was being displayed on the map.

.

.

On the other entrance of the campus, two people had also arrived from outside for the purpose of watching today's match as well.

One of them was a slightly tanned man with a well-built body while the other one was a middle-aged guy with a somewhat stout figure wearing a casual sports jersey on top of his shirt.

It was worth noting that the man with the slightly tanned skin was also wearing a combination of a hat, sunglasses, and a face mask altogether on and around his head.

All of those put together had successfully prevented his face from being discernable by any outside passerbys without them actually getting real close to him.

However,

"...You look stupid." The Defenders' scout commented while looking at him from the side.

"Uhh... Would you really rather I take this off until we reach the stadium?"

"No, I don't wanna take that chance either..." He knew that it would've already been too late if Troy had to put on his 'disguise' right in front of a Battle Arena stadium.

Based on his experiences in spending time together with Troy this past week, he had understood that it was almost impossible for the guy to not get crowded by people the moment he arrived on any sort of Arena-related environment.

There had even been some cases where they were ambushed by some people simply by walking down the street.

This was how famous Troy Dryden actually was in the current world of the OPL.

*sigh*

"--Um, will we get anything useful by coming here though? I heard their first opponent is heavily outclassed." Troy commented skeptically, to which the scout simply shrugged,

"There's still not much data on Baron's improvement ever since the last season's Silver Crown, more data is always good. It's on the way back anyway."

"...I've been thinking, sir. Is the main reason you've insisted on coming here also because you don't want to waste or return the rest of the trip's budget back to the team?"

"..."

"...I, it's also good for a player to sometime return to their roots. Dryden, you've come a long way from your college Arena days, it'll be good to catch up with its current states and standards." *cough*

"..."

"...Sure."

.

.

Not only those with prior objectives, as the day got closer to the end of lunch hour, many people, both Ravenville students or otherwise, had also begun to flow in from the outside and towards the stadium to watch the match.

Among them, there were some students from the opponent's school who had arrived deep into the enemy territory just to give their continuous support for their school's team, the Armadillos.

.

And finally,

When there were only 30 minutes left on the clock before the appointed time for Ravenville's opening match begin.

The vehicle that carried the brown and yellow jerseys and exosuits of Western Zeta Armadillos also arrived on the premises along with its players on board.

Ravenville's first match was about to begin!