Haikyuu!!: The Disaster of Gamers

The volleyball was lifted high and spun as it flew towards Jozenji's half of the court.

This wasn't a good shot; in fact, it was rather bad. The spin was too strong, and the ball landed too deep, forcing setter Takeharu Niki to step back from the net to adjust. He awkwardly flicked the ball to the wing, relying entirely on muscle memory to pass it.

"You can even play with that kind of pass?" Hotaru Tsukishima frowned at the net, but her body moved accordingly.

"They can fight because they're monkeys," Lu Ren added coldly from the back row.

As expected, Jozenji's attacker jumped without hesitation, his movements wide and sweeping, completely disregarding the consequences of being blocked. It was a fierce diagonal smash. Tsukishima Hotaru's arm was outstretched, but the opponent's power was unexpectedly great; the ball hit the outside of his forearm and bounced directly out of bounds.

"Fill in the gap!"

Lu Ren reacted faster than the sound. Instead of a diving leap, he slid sideways like a goalkeeper, scooping the ball up with one hand just before it hit the ground. The ball flew towards the net, high enough, but in an awkward position.

"Asahi-senpai!"

With no professional setter present, Lu Ren served as a temporary correction point. He held the ball with both hands overhead, feeling the sweat on the volleyball the moment his fingertips touched it. Without any fancy power-reducing techniques, he steadily pushed the ball to the high point on the left wing. Simple, direct, but effective.

Dong Fengxu took a running start and jumped. The ace with the small mustache had a fierce look in his eyes as he swung his arm and smashed the volleyball.

"Bang!"

Although Jozenji's block was chaotic, it had the advantage of amazing jumping ability. Both hands firmly blocked the ball's path, and the volleyball was blocked back with even greater speed than when it was spiked.

"I'll do it—!"

Sawamura Daichi was like a moving steel plate, throwing himself out just as the ball was about to hit the floor. His chest struck the floor with a dull thud, and the ball was propelled high towards the vicinity of the three-meter line.

The opportunity is still there.

Sugawara Koji looked up at the falling volleyball, his eyes sweeping across the entire court. With Kageyama absent, someone needed to step up and end this point. His gaze met Riku Ren's in mid-air.

Without needing to say a word, Lu Ren had already taken a running start.

He took a three-step leap. His posture in the air wasn't as light as Hyuga's; instead, it carried a sluggish heaviness. The Jozenji blockers, like sharks smelling blood, instantly formed a three-man wall in front of the net.

"Dead fish eyes, you need to dribble a cross-court shot!" Terujima Yuu shouted, instinctively leaning to the right to block Lu Ren's most familiar shot path.

Lu Ren stared blankly at the wall of people shifting to the right from mid-air. His head was turned to the right, his gaze fixed on the open space there, as if he were about to smash the ball there at any moment.

This is the game's "feint mechanic".

The blockers from Jozenji were fooled by this look, and their center of gravity continued to shift uncontrollably to the right, revealing a gap of less than ten centimeters between their left-side blocking elbows and the net.

They've caught them.

Lu Ren swung his arm. Instead of hooking it to the right, he forcefully twisted his wrist to the left the instant it touched the ball.

"Smack."

The volleyball hit the outside of the leftmost blocker's elbow, deflected strangely, and landed wobbly in the left front court of Jozenji.

"We've landed!" Sugawara clenched his fist.

However, just as the volleyball was about to touch the ground, a yellow figure slid across the floor.

"It's not over yet!"

It was Jozenji's libero. He completely abandoned the standard way of receiving the ball, collapsing to the ground like a salted fish, his palms under the ball. The volleyball bounced up and flew back into the air.

"They can save this?" Tanaka Ryunosuke's eyes nearly popped out of their sockets.

The ball wasn't dead, and Jozenji's counterattack was ridiculously fast. Niki Takeharu jumped before the ball was fully in place, and in mid-air, he threw the ball directly to Terujima Yuuji on the other side.

Terujima Yuji didn't even take a running start; he jumped straight up from the spot, unleashing his core strength, and performed a folding motion in the air, avoiding Tsukishima's blocker, and slammed the ball hard against Karasuno's baseline.

"Thump!"

The referee blew the whistle, 23 to 17.

After landing, Terujima Yu'er excitedly tugged at his jersey and made a face at Lu Ren: "Hey! You can't fool me! Our reaction time is super fast!"

Lu Ren straightened up, patted his knees, and said expressionlessly, "It is indeed very fast, just like the respawn of wild monsters."

It was Jozenji's turn to serve.

Terujima Yuuji walked to the service line with the ball, spun it around, and wore that nonchalant smile. He tossed the ball, took a run-up, and jumped. His movements were so fluid it was enviable.

"Watch out!" Daichi Sawamura shouted.

This wasn't a powerful jump serve, nor a float serve, but a body-targeting serve with strong sidespin. The volleyball drew a wide arc in the air, heading straight for Karasuno's back row corner—the area between Rikujin and Nishitani.

Just as Lu Ren was about to move, west Gu also moved. Their judgments overlapped by a very small margin.

"Mine." Lu Ren pulled his foot back.

But the ball suddenly dropped before hitting the ground, struck the inside of the sideline, and bounced away.

"Beep—!"

23:18.

"Yay! One more ball!" Terujima Yuu and his teammates bumped chests in celebration, their laughing and joking manner making it seem as if they weren't at a prefectural qualifier, but rather at a park field on a weekend.

Lu Ren looked at the landing point and clicked his tongue.

"Although they seem unserious and their brains are full of mush, these guys' base stats are ridiculously high," Lu Ren analyzed in a low voice. "Agility, strength, jumping ability, all S-level. If you ignore their appalling tactical awareness, this setup is practically top-tier."

"Damn it! What's that guy showing off for?!" Tanaka Ryunosuke watched the "fun volleyball" act on the other side, veins throbbing on his forehead. "This match is serious!"

Lu Ren glanced at him: "Come on, your expression after scoring a point isn't much different from his, you both look like you haven't fully evolved yet."

"Huh?! Lu Ren, whose side are you on anyway?" Tanaka jumped up and down in anger.

"Alright, don't let them get into your rhythm." Daichi Sawamura clapped his hands twice, his voice steady and powerful. "They're playing by instinct, we'll win with our brains. Just two points behind, let's take the first game in one go!"

At that moment, there was movement in the substitution area next to the referee's table.

With two wads of tissue stuffed in his nose, Kageyama Tobio stood there with a murderous look on his face. Although he looked a bit comical, his "I'm going to kill someone" aura made the surrounding temperature drop a few degrees.

"Oh, the king has returned." Lu Ren raised an eyebrow.

The substitution whistle blew. Asahi replaced Nishiya on the field—no, it was a rotation. The current lineup for Karasuno in the back row is Rikujin, Sawamura Daichi, and Nishiya Yu.

This is probably the strongest ground defense that Karasuno can field at the moment.

"Come on, you wild monkeys." Lu Ren lowered his center of gravity, his eyes locked onto the server opposite him like a scanner. "Let's see how you can mess things up now."

Terujima Yuji serves again.

This time, he once again chose to hit the ball with all his might. The volleyball whistled over the net.

"Nishitani!"

"Os!"

Nishitani Yu didn't even make any extra movements; he simply took a step to the left and steadily raised his arms. The aggressive volleyball struck his arms as if it had hit cotton, all its spin and force instantly neutralized.

The pass was perfectly placed, with an accuracy that was outrageous.

Sugawara Koji stood in front of the net, and at that moment, his mind was clearer than ever.

"attack!"

With a low shout, the entire Karasuno crew sprang into action.

Hinata ran laterally in the front row, taking away the middle blocker; Sawamura Daichi cut in from the right; Asahi in the back row also made a jumping posture.

Attack from multiple points.

The Jozenji blockers were instantly thrown into disarray. Their physical abilities were indeed excellent, but faced with a tactic that required processing massive amounts of information instantly, their mental systems were clearly overloaded.

"Who should we stop? The left? The right?"

In those fractions of a second of hesitation, Sugawara gently pushed his finger.

The ball flew towards the left wing.

There, Ryunosuke Tanaka was already poised to act.

"Get out of my way!"

Tanaka roared, and facing a gap where only one person was blocking the net, he arched his body to the extreme in mid-air and then slammed it down.

"Bang!"

The volleyball bounced off the floor, rising even higher than the net.

24 to 18. Set point.

"Well done!" Tanaka clenched his fists after landing, looked up at the sky and roared. His expression was ten times more exaggerated than Terujima's earlier.

Lu Ren walked past him and said coolly, "See? I told you you were one of us. I suggest recording that expression of yours and making it into a meme."

Tanaka blushed, immediately composed himself, coughed, and pretended to be nonchalant.

After a round of play, the serve returned to Karasuno.

Lu Ren, holding the ball, walked towards the baseline.

The noise from the entire stadium seemed to fade away at that moment. He stood five meters behind the baseline, gently spinning the volleyball with his fingers, feeling the rough texture of its surface.

"One last shot, no need to work overtime."

He took a deep breath and tossed the ball high into the air.

approach.

One step, two steps, three steps.

He pushed off the ground with all his might at the baseline, launching himself into the air. His core muscles contracted wildly at that moment, concentrating all his strength into his right arm like wringing out a towel.

This is neither a skillful float shot nor a control shot focused on landing point.

This is a pure, brutal numerical crushing.

"boom!"

The moment the palm struck the volleyball, a loud, explosive sound rang out. The volleyball deformed violently in the air, like a cannonball, hurtling towards Jozenji's backcourt with a visible blast of air.

Although the libero from Jozenji reacted and made a move, his technique was clearly insufficient to receive the ball.

"Catch!"

He put his hands together, trying to catch it head-on.

"Bang!"

The ball slammed into his forearm. It wasn't cushioned or deflected. The immense impact sent his arms flying, the volleyball changing direction and whistling towards the second-floor stands.

"Thump!"

The ball hit the railing, startling several spectators who spilled their popcorn all over the ground.

"Beep—!"

The final whistle blew.

25 to 18. Karasuno won the first game.

Lu Ren landed, and the momentum propelled him forward a few steps before he stopped. He shook his right arm, feeling a tingling, numb pain in his shoulder.

"Tsk, you can't use this kind of full-power ultimate move too often, the durability drops too quickly." He rubbed his shoulder, looked at the stunned Jozenji group opposite him, and forced a very perfunctory smile.

"First boss defeated."