Rumble Start

Night time in Shibuya City was exquisite to say the least.

In one aspect, it was the same as New York City. The city that never sleeps.

As Belial and company walked through the crowded walkways, his gaze was drawn to the colourful buildings that lit up the city.

He was never born in Shibuya City in his previous world nor did he ever visit it so he relished this sight for the first time.

Right now, he was mainly looking forward basketball match available in the city.

And right now they are walking towards their destination to the Streetball Rumble.

Along the way, Belial couldn't help but notice a few strange things.

Like whenever Shirou tried to start a conversation with Rio, she would quickly shut him down with only a single word answer and walk ahead of him.

Belial even wondered if Rio was too shy to talk to Shirou. After all, not every girl could quickly accept the changes happening to them.

However, he commended Shirou in his persistence to chase after Rio continuously.

Shirou, fight on!

Rio however was less than pleased to see Shirou constantly disturbing her and couldn't help but glare at Belial throughout the entire journey.

This fellow was so unreliable! Instead of chasing this bad fella away, he actually invited him along!

She was definitely going to remember this.

As for Shirou, he was still confident in his ability to chase after Rio-chan but after getting ignored continuously, he couldn't help but feel a bit bitter.

To make it worse, she was staring at Belial's back throughout this entire time!

While this was happening.

"Bel-kun~" Aria called out softly while hugging his arm between her body.

"The play will be super fun, are you excited?"

"Y-yeah, I am."

"Hehehe, watching it together with you.... might have make it a tad bit more interesting.

just kidding, hehe"

'She's been squeezing tight to me this time.

Oh man I'm so not used to this kind of skinship..... what do I do?"

While Rio was half pouting and half glaring at Belial. She made up her mind to take the other side of his arms since she is still displeased with Shirou disturbing her.

"Geez, Lets get going already." Rio said while taking his other hand and pulled it to her body.

"No,no, Come here this way instead, Bel-kun!"

"Wha? No, here Bel-kun!"

*creak *creak *creak

Ouch...my shoulders.

When this was happening, its like there's a sound of a shattering glass in background. His heart has been shattered into many tiny pieces.

*crunch*

This made Shirou's hate for Belial to rise to a whole new level. It seemed that his confidence in him not getting Rio-chan's attention while he was there, came true after all.

As such, the misunderstanding continued all the way until they reached the Street Ball Rumble.

All the while, passerby stared at us.

I supposed that was unavoidable. After all, they saw a dignified boy wandering around with two gorgeous girls.

But their envious glares didn't get to my head or anything. There was a particular reason for that.

Because my shoulder felt like snapping on my arms any second now.

When they finally reached the designated location, he was shocked.

The venue of the challenge actually turned out to be at an outdoor basketball court.

Not only that, there were scores and scores of people crowding the area but that was not all. There were even spotlights and even a dj station at the side which occasionally played some upbeat music.

Seems like people really took these type of challenges seriously.

'If that's the case, I wonder what the prize money will be like', Belial thought in excitement.

If the organizers were willing to bring all these DJ equipment along, then their prize would surely not be a meager sum.

There would at least be 5000 yen on the line.

Then, just as Belial was thinking about this, the DJ started to talk into his mic.

"Yo, yo, yo, what's up everybody?! Welcome to the weekly Street Ball Rumble in Ebisu! How ya'll feeling tonight?!"

Immedietly, he was met back with the enthusiastic cheers of the crowd.

"Looks like ya'll are doin pretty good tonight! I won't keep ya'll waiting any longer and start by announcing the usual"

"Every round will be an elimination showdown between 2 players to a first of 5 points. 3-pointer and 2-pointer shots are counted while fouls reward a free throw. Remember that this challenge is not for the weak of heart as we watch our contestants battle it out for 10000 yen!"

Belial who was listening intently nearly felt his heart leap out of his chest.

That was 10000 yen! And they were just giving it away as the main prize to those high school and university students!

Would they even be able to spend it all?!

However, none of the people in the crowd seemed concerned about that as they were quite used to this scene.

So, without much waiting, the first 4 contestants soon stepped out onto the court.

Since it was a one on one, each round used only a half court for 2 contestants, allowing them to complete 2 rounds at once.

After they found their seats they began to talk with great enthusiasm while one boy was still quite sour about what happened earlier.

"It's finally going to start!" Aria said excitedly.

"Wow, that's a lot of prize money there. Is it common to give that amount?" Belial asked.

"They usually host those type of challenges every weekend so it's quite popular in this area. Are you really more interested to see money that much?", Shirou asked Belial.

Belial eagerly nodded his head like a little kid and asked, "Yes, Shirou-san! I have always been interested in that kind of thing and of course basketball whenever I see the players in television who won their prize money I want to snatch by winning it from their hands."

When Shirou heard Belial's words, he couldn't help but laugh out loud.

"You sure are something, kid. Wanting to snatch those player's prize money is nearly impossible what more, winning? Pfft, but I'm sure that you will be able to understand how amazing the players are today."

"If I'm not mistaken, today is the showdown between the Thunder Demon and the Black Shadow. In a sense, brat, you are quite lucky to see such a showdown between 2 giants"

'I'm sorry, what?', Belial was confused. What is this hostility coming from this boy.

He only wanted to give his opinion about the prize money. How did demons and shadows suddenly come into the picture?

As if sensing Belial's confusion, the Shirou took the liberty to explain it to him.

"As you know, most of the challenges are categorized into age groups and today is the challenge between the high school and university age groups"

"Honestly, I don't hold much expectations for the basketball players in Shibuya City. After all, our standards are too mediocre. However, it seemed like our city finally produced some exceptional players this time around and you probably won't believe it but they are both in high school!"

Hearing this, Belial's eyes lit up.

His main purpose was to scout out the competition for the future but he didn't expect to stumble upon a gold mine instead.

He could finally see how the basketball in this world was played. With how famous basketball was in this world, Belial wouldn't be surprised if there were multiple Stephen Curry-level players in this world.

In no time, the challenge officially started with Belial watching intently.

Soon, time passed on until the 4th round but Belial was honestly beginning to feel bored by then.

It was because that these basketball players were just too mediocre. Sure, they were at least a standard higher than normal basketball players from his old world but they were still classified as a norm.

Even when Belial used his talent scan on them, the best talent that he could find from out of the bunch was just a meager talent to which the Altair the system couldn't help but harshly criticize.