Chapter 126

Short Summary
Tokuchi introduces his new L-tickets system to the Lycaons.

Long Summary
The news headlines announce Tokuchi ‘temporary owner’. Tanabe is convinced Tokuchi will realise his own incompetence soon enough.

The rest of the team are shocked by the conditions of Tokuchi’s deal with Tanabe. Tokuchi says all they need to do is keep winning, but the others aren’t cheered. Even if they manage to win against the Mariners, they’ll have gone into deficit by the last match. Tokuchi says he has a solution and a better way of management. He produces a new type of admission ticket and announces these will be replacing the old ones. They’re 3000 yen each, a 1.5x price increase. The team shout there’s no way anyone will show up at that cost, but Tokuchi explains the price of the ‘L-ticket’ only goes up if the Lycaons win the game. If they lose the tickets will be fully refunded.

There are five slots on the back labelled ‘MVP tickets’. The spectator can write down the names of whoever they thought played best. The MVP tickets will be collected at the end of the game and tallied; they’re worth 200 yen each. The players will now be paid according to how many MVP tickets they get. In other words, the Lycaons will have a performance-based salary, decided by the audience. If the Lycaons lose, and the spectators refunded, the MVP tickets won’t be collected and the players don’t get paid.

The team shout to Tokuchi that this is ‘tyranny’ and ‘messed up’ but Tokuchi says if they work hard and perform well, they’ll receive considerably more than their previous contracted salaries. If they get 30,000 spectators, that’s 30 million yen to divide between the whole team.

At the Galalians headquarters, Chairman Tanabe is informed by one of his staff about Tokuchi’s increased ticket prices and Tanabe laughs, predicting he’ll lose audience members and income. But people are encouraged by the promise of a refund, thinking it’s unlikely the Lycaons will win often, and the next day he’s told all the seats for the next Lycaons’ game have completely sold out. With the price increase, that means their profits from ticket sales is double what the average was last year. Tanabe scoffs that it’s only one game, but his assistant informs him all six of the Lycaons matches this week have also sold out.

At the game, the Lycaons don’t ever think they’ve seen the stadium so packed. Kojima tells Tokuchi well done for gathering such an audience, but he’s still worried about the performance of the team. Tokuchi laughs and says he didn’t create the L-tickets to attract spectators, but to make the team stronger. He says Kojima will see before his very eyes how the L-tickets ‘change human beings.’

Characters

 * Tokuchi Toua
 * Chairman Tanabe
 * Kojima
 * Imai
 * Ideguchi