Haikyuu!!: The Disaster of Gamers

Saturday morning at 10:00 AM. The Karasuno volleyball team enjoyed a rare full day off after the Spring High School Volleyball Preliminaries.

There was no serving practice, no tactical review, and no loud voice from Coach Uyang.

Lu Ren's room curtains were drawn tightly shut. The main unit fan emitted a low hum, and the television screen emitted a faint blue light, illuminating the carpet strewn with snack bags.

"YOU DIED"

Two large, bright red characters popped up in the center of the screen.

Lu Ren lay sprawled on the beanbag chair, PS5 controller in hand, letting out a long sigh. He'd just reached the second phase when the boss's large-scale AOE attack wiped out his health bar. The numerical superiority was overwhelming; his movement was completely blocked.

The doorknob turned. No knocking.

Qingze Yazhi kicked off her sneakers and stepped barefoot onto the carpet, carrying a plastic bag from the convenience store downstairs. She was wearing an oversized gray sweatshirt with the sleeves rolled up to her elbows. She expertly stepped over the clutter on the floor and squeezed into the beanbag chair where Lu Ren was.

The sofa was only big enough for one person to lie on, and when she squeezed in, their shoulders were pressed together.

"He died again?" Yazhi peeked at the screen, took out a can of iced cola from the plastic bag, and stuck it directly on Lu Ren's face.

The icy steam made Lu Ren shrink back. He didn't flinch, grabbed the cola, unzipped it with one hand, and took a big gulp. "This boss's mechanics are flawed. The wind-up animation is too short, and the hit detection range is a whole size larger than the model. The programmer wrote this with their feet."

Yazhi snatched the Coke from his hand, took a sip, and then naturally picked up the 2P controller next to her. "Stop making excuses. Change the game. Play Overcooked with me. I'm going to get three stars today."

Lu Ren pressed his temples. Playing high-difficulty action games is exhausting for the hands, and playing "Overcooked" with Qingze Yazhi is exhausting for the body.

The game loads. The two players choose the chef role and enter the first level. Their tasks are to slice tomatoes, cook soup, and serve the dishes.

"Go wash the dishes on the left, I'll cut the meat. Watch the heat, don't burn the pot." Lu Ren quickly assigned tasks, his fingers flying across the keys, the character moving without a single unnecessary movement.

Ya-zhi steered the little figure to the left. "Enough talk, I'm a kitchen killer... no, a kitchen goddess."

One minute later.

Black smoke began to billow from the pot in the bottom right corner of the screen. An alarm blared.

"Qingze Yazhi! Look at the fire! It's on fire!" Lu Ren's character was carrying sliced ​​tomatoes when he was blocked in the middle of the road by the raging fire.

Ya-zhi ran around frantically. "Where's the fire extinguisher! Where's the fire extinguisher! Ah, I fell down!"

The little figure she was controlling lost its footing and fell into the lava in the middle of the map.

Lu Ren took a deep breath, forcibly suppressing his soaring blood pressure. "Your movement is even more chaotic than that of Jozenji's gang. Even if Hyuga ran with his eyes closed, he'd have more logic than you."

"How dare you talk to me like that!" After respawning, Yazhi grabbed a fire extinguisher and unleashed a torrent of abuse on Lu Ren's character. "If you hadn't thrown the plate in the trash can, we would have served the food already! Seriously negligent in your role as setter!"

"I'm the backup! Backup, you know?! You don't even understand your role, what are you doing playing this game?!" Lu Ren retorted, casually throwing a raw tomato at Ya Zhi's character's head.

The game ended in chaos. Score: 15. More than 100 points short of the one-star passing grade.

Yazhi threw down the controller, fell backward, and her head landed squarely on Lu Ren's thigh. "I'm not playing anymore. This game is targeting me."

Lu Ren tossed the controller aside and casually grabbed a bag of potato chips, tearing it open. Ya Zhi opened her mouth, and Lu Ren pinched a chip and stuffed it in. The crunching sound of chewing filled the room.

"I heard you publicly executed Kageyama by tying him to a chair yesterday?" Ya-Chih asked while munching on potato chips, her eyes fixed on the ceiling.

Lu Ren shoved another piece into her mouth. "It's just the system cleaning up junk files. That kid went to the national youth team, and his head is full of maxed-out specs. He came back without even looking at his teammates' hardware, forcing the speed to be at its maximum. If we don't give him physical cooling, his motherboard will burn out."

Yazhi laughed so hard her shoulders shook, rubbing her head against Lu Ren's legs. "You rascal, you turned playing volleyball into a simulation game. That guy named Inarisaki, he's in the second round of the draw, right?"

She rolled over, lying on her side, and reached for the bag of potato chips in Lu Ren's hand. Lu Ren held the bag up high, and Ya Zhi couldn't reach it, so she simply reached out and tickled the ticklish spot on his side.

Lu Ren was extremely ticklish, so he shrank back, and Ya Zhi snatched the bag of potato chips away.

"The gatekeeper of the cross-server expansion." Lu Ren didn't try to snatch it back; he put his hands behind his head and stared at the chandelier on the ceiling. "The Hyogo Prefecture representatives. I heard they have twins there, the Miya brothers. The strongest duo in high school volleyball."

Yazhi took out her phone and skillfully searched the forum. "Found it. Gong You, Gong Zhi. They're quite handsome. The forum says their teamwork is flawless."

Lu Ren snorted coldly. "Dual BOSS setup. Interconnected mechanics, shared aggro. The most troublesome thing about this kind of monster is that if you interrupt one of their spellcasting, the other can seamlessly follow up. There's no fixed attack pattern; it all relies on the mutual exclusion and complementarity of the underlying code between the two."

"Are you scared?" Yazhi put down her phone, rested her chin on Lu Ren's knee, and looked up at him.

The two were very close. The room was dimly lit, but the trembling of her eyelashes was clearly visible.

Lu Ren reached out and ran his fingers through Ya Zhi's hair, casually combing it. Her hair was soft and had a faint orange scent from the shampoo.

"The harder the dungeon, the better the rewards." Lu Ren brushed his fingertip against her earlobe. "There's no reason to let someone else have the first kill. Karasuno's patch is finished now. Hyuga went to Guangdong and reset the jump mechanism. Tsukishima's defense logic has also been upgraded. As for Kageyama, after fixing the overclocking bug, he's barely a qualified system guide."

Ya-zhi didn't say anything, letting him appease her. After a while, she suddenly spoke up: "You've been happier lately."

Lu Ren stopped what he was doing.

"What has changed?"

"Before, when you played games, you'd finish a level and move on to the next one without a second thought. If you encountered a bad teammate, you'd just quit the team without even bothering to curse them." Ya Zhi poked Lu Ren's chest with a finger. "Now, not only are you staying in this makeshift team, but you're also staying up all night writing strategy guides for them. You didn't go to sleep until 3 a.m. last night, did you? I saw that the tactics board on your desk was so covered that there wasn't even room to step on it."

Lu Ren followed her gaze.

The desk, where figurines used to be, is now piled high with DVDs of matches from various schools. A huge national tournament draw sheet is pasted on the wall, with Inarisaki's name circled in red and a large question mark next to it.

Previously, he viewed this world merely as a boring game he was forced to participate in. Teammates were NPCs, opponents were data. He would finish the game and leave, never looking back.

But I don't know when it started, but those heart-pounding fifteen minutes at the end of the Shiratorizawa battle, Hyuga's flying figure in the air during the Date Kogyo practice match, and Kageyama's silly appearance running around the corridor in a pink apron, filled these cold data with flesh and blood.

He developed a competitive spirit. Not for the victory screen, but to see how far these people could evolve.

"The game is fun, of course we should play it a little longer." Lu Ren looked away and pinched Ya Zhi's cheek. It felt so good, so soft. "Besides, if we don't finish the game, we'll have wasted our money."

Ya-zhi slapped his hand away, sat up, and rubbed her stomach. "I'm hungry. What should we eat?"

"That ramen shop downstairs?" Lu Ren sat up and stretched. His bones cracked.

"I'd like double the char siu and a soft-boiled egg."

"Okay, it's your treat."

"Why should I!" Yazhi exclaimed, her eyes wide, and kicked Lu Ren in the shin.

"For spraying me with a fire extinguisher just now, you owe me compensation for emotional distress." Lu Ren stood up and went to get his coat from the hanger.

"You even threw a tomato at my head!" Yazhi jumped up, pounced on Lu Ren's back, and wrapped her arms around his neck. "You have to treat me today! Otherwise, I'll post about your bedwetting incident in your volleyball team's group chat!"

"Qingze Yazhi, how old are you to still be playing these tricks!" Lu Ren coughed twice, the tightness causing him to choke. He then grabbed her legs and lifted her onto his back. "Get down! Put on your shoes!"

"I won't get off. Drive!" Ya-zhi squirmed restlessly on his back.

The two left the house amidst their bickering.

In early winter in Miyagi Prefecture, the wind already carries a biting chill. The leaves on the trees lining the streets have mostly fallen, leaving bare branches pointing towards the gray-white sky.

Lu Ren walked in front, and Ya Zhi followed behind, stepping on his shadow.

As I passed the dilapidated public gymnasium on the street corner, I heard the sound of a volleyball hitting the floor. It was heavy and powerful.

Lu Ren stopped and glanced inside.

"What's wrong?" Yazhi followed his gaze. The door was half-open, and she couldn't see who was inside.

"Nothing." Lu Ren looked away and put his hands in his hoodie pockets. "I was just wondering if the servers for the national tournament have enough capacity."

Yazhi quickly stepped forward and stood beside him. "Who cares? If there's a bug, you can just go and patch it for them, Chief Tactical Architect."

Lu Ren smiled. It wasn't the kind of smile that was just for fun, but rather one that carried a genuine sense of anticipation.

"Let's go. Let's eat ramen. After we're full, we'll go back and check Inarizaki's videos. I'm going to dismantle the Miya brothers' underlying logic today."

The two walked side by side toward the ramen shop on the street corner.

In the distance, at the Tokyo Metropolitan Gymnasium, the stage for the national tournament has been set up. All sorts of monsters are eager to get started.

For Lu Ren, this was just a brand new and extremely challenging cross-server expansion.

The higher the difficulty, the more interesting it is.

He's determined to get the first kill.