Chapter 85: Blessing God

Time passed, and it was now the 28th round of the league, the match against Liverpool.

Liverpool, with a 4-2-3-1 formation, placed many players on their attacking line, trying to overwhelm Manchester City with numbers, but…

Swoosh!

[Castillo with a sharp tackle! He cleanly strips the ball from Alistair and clears it out of the danger zone.]

As the game went on, there were more and more instances where the defense cleared the ball without me needing to intervene.

And once cleared, the ball was never lost by Manchester City’s ironclad midfield line of Matias, Oden, and Sanchez.

Now, even without Jeong Taewoo, they were a Manchester City worthy of being called a ‘strong team.’

[Sanchez receives the pass from Oden and immediately lays the ball low! A sharp pass cuts across the pitch to Guerrero!]

[Liverpool’s defense rushes towards Guerrero! They’re approaching quickly!]

The Guerrero who first came to City would have charged forward trusting only his physique, but the Guerrero of today was not that same man.

Even as the opponent rushed him, Guerrero calmly controlled the ball before passing it through the opponent’s legs.

“Damn it!”

A nutmeg.

A humiliating piece of skill, even more soul-crushing for a defender than a rainbow flick.

The defender quickly turned and grabbed Guerrero’s jersey, but his physique was insufficient to stop the already accelerating Guerrero.

[Guerrero, his jersey clearly being held, sprints on regardless!]

[He’s like a bull! When this player runs, no one can stop him!]

Boom!

[Goal! Goal! Goal! Goal!!! Manchester City scores the first goal! With this goal, Guerrero reaches 25 goals! He moves to the top of the scoring chart!]

Surpassing the 24 goals recorded by Manchester United’s Garnacho, Guerrero finally took the lead as the top scorer.

[Liverpool was evaluated to have made great progress this season after a perfect team rebuild, but they can’t seem to exert any real power against Manchester City.]

[Moreover, when Manchester City scores first, Jeong Taewoo’s clean sheet has become an unwritten rule.]

So far this season, whenever we scored first, I had strangely never conceded a single goal.

[Ah! Alistair takes a powerful long-range shot in an instant, but Jeong Taewoo shows exactly why the unwritten rule is an unwritten rule!

No, from Taewoo’s perspective, the ball must have seemed to appear out of nowhere, it couldn’t have been in his line of sight, so how on earth did he save that!]

Even a phenomenal long-range shot worthy of the Puskás Award, given to the best goal of the season, couldn’t break my unwritten rule.

As the match continued, Liverpool’s morale plummeted.

[Ah, the camera is panning to Liverpool’s bench. Everyone has their heads down.]

At some point, I went from being called an ‘iron wall’ to the ‘bane of strikers,’ and a saying even began to circulate in the Premier League: “If you want to be the top scorer, go to Jeong Taewoo’s team.”

The Ballon d’Or might be difficult because I’m a goalkeeper, but I thought the Yashin Trophy might be a possibility.

‘Will the God of Football give me a present after so long?’

Ever since he told me the shocking truth that this wasn’t a simple possession, he had completely cut off contact.

Before, he would always respond if I just thought of him while holding the letter, but now, there was only silence.

‘Well, he must have his reasons. Maybe he lost all his points gambling again.’

I chuckled softly.

What could possibly happen to an omnipotent god…

‘Well, looking at the God of Football, maybe that’s not so far-fetched.’

***

In the dark space, there was a single small window.

Beneath a sliver of light shining through white clouds, a young boy, barely 130cm tall, floated in the air.

His gaze was fixed solely on the window.

“God of Football, Lior, come forth.”

“Ehh, it’s not like I did anything that wrong.”

The man standing before the iron-barred cell in the dark room scowled at the boy’s words and bellowed.

“Your thoughtless actions have altered a mortal’s destiny. That is an unforgivable act, even for a god! A human’s destiny is something that not even a god must interfere with… You have already committed the same error before, yet you’ve done it again.”

The short, young boy retorted indignantly.

“So what was I supposed to do! I was utterly captivated by his football!”

The God of Judgment, Arbiter, standing before the cell, could not hide his troubled heart.

“How pitiful. To devote your all to a mere human… Your fate will soon be decided. Follow me, Lior.”

As they emerged from the darkness, clouds swirled beneath their feet.

Walking across them, the gods’ court of judgment revealed its overwhelming presence.

The massive structure, with golden pillars that seemed to support the sky, was like a human courtroom magnified a thousand times.

Streams of light, seeping through the clouds, poured down between the pillars, creating a sacred, intimidating atmosphere.

And the moment Lior set foot inside, a deep voice, like rolling thunder, filled the space.

“Sinner Lior… step forward to the seat of judgment.”

At that single phrase, the entire celestial court trembled with the reverberation.

As he stood in the sinner’s dock, which was studded with blades on all sides, a divine figure appeared from the center of the highest seat.

It was an old man with long, white hair.

“Do you know your crime?”

“Hmph, what kind of crime is this? I just told him the truth.”

“That ‘truth’ was the last mercy I bestowed upon you and him. You know this well, do you not?”

At those words, Lior looked at the old man seriously.

“Old man… could you just stand by and watch your idol suffer?”

“Foolish, so foolish…”

“What’s so foolish about it? I’m quite satisfied.”

The old man’s expression as he looked at Lior was not that of one looking at a sinner, but one filled with the sorrow of watching a lost grandson.

“The first time you gave that man a piece of talent he should not have had and reincarnated him, I endured it.”

“Endured what? You took something else away from him in return.”

“Hmph… and when you twisted the axis of time after sending him back to his original world, I pretended not to see.”

“You made things difficult by tacking on all sorts of strange conditions.”

CRASH!

With a deafening roar that seemed to shake the heavens, the old man… no, Lior’s grandfather and King of the Underworld, Yeomra, glared at him with a face contorted in rage.

(TL Note: Yeomra is the King of the Underworld in East Asian mythology, equivalent to Yama or Hades. He judges the dead.)

“If you were not my grandson, you would have been annihilated the very first time you committed such an act!”

The fury in his voice vibrated throughout the entire courtroom.

“Annihilation? Ha! Then go ahead and annihilate me. But you know it too, old man. Just how special he is.”

“How dare you…!”

“He carved out his own destiny! His original fate was to be nothing more than an average player in his own country. But he… he surpassed his limits through sheer effort.”

“Yes, and it should have ended there. Even if the destiny he carved out did not have a good ending, a god should not have interfered. That is fate, and that is the established law.”

“No!”

Lior’s voice trembled.

“He carved out his own destiny and, as a price, lost everything precious to a human. Family, love… everything. That’s why I gave him a gift. But you ruined even that, Grandfather!”

Rage and sorrow flared in Lior’s eyes.

“Jeong Taewoo… is someone who deserves to be happy! If a human can move even the God of Football with pure passion, shouldn’t he receive that much of a reward?”

“His destiny was-“

“No, Grandfather! Stop talking about destiny and watch his plays. See how beautiful he was. Even in his first life, born without talent, his football was so brilliant it took your breath away!”

“He was not without talent.”

King Yeomra continued coldly.

“It was enough talent to live as a football player.”

A bitter smile spread across Lior’s lips.

“Right. That was all it was. But he… he completely transcended such mediocre talent.”

“Do you truly insist you’ve done nothing wrong?”

“Yes.”

Lior confronted him defiantly.

“I have done nothing wrong. In fact, I believe the fault lies with you, Grandfather, for interfering with the gift I gave. Because of you… he couldn’t experience true happiness.”

King Yeomra’s gaze turned icy cold.

“I have nothing more to say to you. Arbiter, take him away. The judgment is postponed.”

“Yes!”

Even as he was dragged away, Lior remained defiant to the very end.

He looked his grandfather straight in the eye and shouted.

“No matter if you’re a god, you have no right to belittle a person’s effort and destroy their happiness. Absolutely not!”

“Show some respect.”

Arbiter reprimanded Lior, grabbing his arm.

“Ah, what respect? He’s my grandfather.”

“He is King Yeomra!”

“I’m telling you, he’s my grandfather.”

Watching Lior’s brazen attitude, King Yeomra’s heart was endlessly complicated.

He was the one who measured and punished the sins of the gods.

The weight of being a fair judge pressed down on his shoulders.

‘Even if he is my grandson…’

If he let this incident slide as well, it was obvious what would be said in the divine realm.

He would not be able to avoid the criticism that the guardian of law and order was lenient only with his own grandson.

King Yeomra remained alone in the empty courtroom, letting out a heavy sigh.

“What in the world am I supposed to do…”

His voice held not the majesty of a great god, but the heartfelt anguish of a grandfather.