Haikyuu!!: The Disaster of Gamers

The nights at the training base were colder than Lu Ren had imagined.

After dinner, Qingze Yazhi gave him another round of muscle-reducing massage—"doubled the intensity because it was a training camp"—and Lu Ren felt like his soul was being squeezed out of his body. Wearing loose short-sleeved shirt and shorts and wooden clogs, he wandered around the corridor, intending to buy an ice-cold Coke from the vending machine to calm his nerves.

The corridor was dimly lit, and the old wooden building always made a teeth-grinding creaking sound late at night. Lu Ren walked to the corner and saw the fluorescent light from the vending machine casting a pale white shadow in the darkness.

Hinata Shoyo and Tanaka Ryunosuke were huddled in that shadowy area, their backs stiff as two telephone poles.

"Hey, what are you two doing over there? Stuck at the refresh point?" Lu Ren walked over and asked casually.

Hinata was so startled she almost jumped up. Turning around and seeing it was Lu Ren, she patted her chest and gasped for breath, "Lu Ren... don't you make any noise when you walk? You scared me to death!"

Tanaka wiped the sweat from his forehead, his face not looking too good: "It was Hyuga who insisted that he saw a figure he didn't recognize just now."

"Unfamiliar faces?" Lu Ren raised an eyebrow, slamming down a bottle of cola. "Who else is in this base besides us? Did Yinju send in scouts to infiltrate?"

"No..." Hinata's voice trembled with tears as she pointed to the stairwell not far away, "It was a little kid, he just flashed by. Where would a little kid come from in a place like this, in the dead of night!"

After listening, Lu Ren took a sip of his cola, his eyes darting around in the darkness. He suddenly felt that since it was a training camp instance, it would be a shame not to add some "supernatural events" to lighten the mood.

"Oh, a child." Lu Ren lowered his voice, his tone becoming low and eerie. "Hinata, are you sure that's a child, and not some 'something else'?"

Hinata shuddered: "Something else? What do you mean?"

"When I came over just now, I felt the air quality in this corridor was off. In games, this level of lighting and background music is usually a precursor to triggering a hidden boss." Lu Ren leaned closer to them, grinning mischievously. "I thought you two knew each other. After all... isn't he right behind you?"

Lu Ren suddenly stretched out his hand and pointed to a shadow behind the two of them.

Tanaka and Hinata moved in perfect unison, their hair standing on end and their necks stiff as if they were unlubricated bearings.

"Lu Ren... making jokes like this at a time like this can really kill people." Tanaka's voice trembled, but he still couldn't help but swallow and slowly turned his head towards Hyuga.

Taking advantage of the moment when the two turned their heads, Lu Ren slipped and silently shrank into the blind spot on the side of the vending machine.

"Nobody's here..." Hinata cried out, turning around to check with Lu Ren, only to find that the living person who had just been standing in front of her had vanished in an instant.

The corridor was empty except for the buzzing sound of the vending machines.

"Lu Ren? Lu Ren!" Tanaka's voice rose eight octaves, a cracking sound born of extreme fear.

Just as the two were about to break down and were about to scream for help, Lu Ren suddenly jumped out from behind the vending machine and shouted, "Ha!"

"Waaaaaah!"

Two screams nearly lifted the ceiling. Hinata jumped directly onto Tanaka's back, while Tanaka swung his fists wildly with his eyes closed.

Lu Ren, leaning against the vending machine, laughed so hard he couldn't stand up straight: "Hahahaha! You two cowards! You were fooled by such a low-level stealth technique? Are your reconnaissance attributes negative?"

"You bastard Lu Ren! I'm going to kill you!" Tanaka went from being shocked to furious, rolled up his sleeves, and was about to rush forward.

Just then, a series of heavy footsteps came from behind Lu Ren.

"Da...da...da..."

Lu Ren's laughter abruptly stopped. He felt a chill creep up his spine. No, these footsteps weren't from Tanaka or Hyuga, nor were they the light, quick footsteps of Kiyosawa Masashige.

He slowly turned his head.

A dark figure stood behind him. It was indeed very short, looking like a primary school student. In the dim light, the figure had no face; only a tangled mess of black hair covered the upper half.

"Ah—!" This time Lu Ren wasn't acting at all; he let out a short scream and jumped back half a meter.

"It's me, Nishitani," the shadowy figure said.

The voice was familiar, even tinged with a hint of helplessness.

Lu Ren looked closely and saw that the dark figure had brushed aside the hair that was covering her face, revealing Xi Gu Xi's face, which was full of displeasure. However, her hair, which was usually piled high like a flame, was now completely flat and lay softly on her forehead.

Hinata slid off Tanaka's back, staring blankly at Nishinoya: "Nishinoya-senpai? How come... you've shrunk?"

"What do you mean 'shrunken'?!" Nishiya exploded, delivering a chop to Hinata's head. "I just took a shower and didn't put on hair wax! What are you guys yelling about in the hallway in the middle of the night?!"

Tanaka looked at Nishiya and suddenly burst into a deafening laugh: "Hahahaha! I see! Nishiya, so the height of your hair really is included in your height, isn't it? Without hair wax, you look like a lost elementary school student!"

"Ah Long, you bastard! Don't laugh!" Nishiya jumped up and down in anger, trying to grab Tanaka's collar, but because of the height difference, the scene looked more like elementary school students fighting.

"Don't make too much of a fuss, or the earth will get angry."

A hand suddenly landed on Nishiya's shoulder.

The four people froze simultaneously.

Behind Nishiya stood an even taller, dark figure. Long hair fell on either side of his face, obscuring most of it, making him look like a vengeful spirit that had just crawled out of a well in the dim light.

"Wow--!"

This time, all four of them screamed at the ceiling in unison.

"It's me... Dongfeng." The figure helplessly brushed aside his hair, revealing a face etched with weariness and grievance. "Your reaction is a bit much, isn't it?"

Lu Ren patted his chest, feeling his heart about to jump out of his throat: "Senior Xu...please, tie your hair up during the training camp. You wouldn't survive three minutes in a horror movie with that hairstyle, but you could scare the audience to death three times over."

The farce ended with Daichi Sawamura pushing open the door and driving everyone back into their rooms with a murderous glare.

Back in the dormitory room, the lights were already off.

A row of quilts was neatly stacked, and the air was filled with a faint smell of sweat and laundry detergent.

Lu Ren lay on his pillow, and just as he closed his eyes, he heard the sound of someone turning over next to him.

"Lu Ren...are you asleep?" It was Hinata.

"I'm already asleep. I'm currently in auto-reply mode, please do not leave a message," Lu Ren replied with his eyes closed.

"I can't sleep." Hinata sat up, her voice sounding very clear in the darkness. "Just thinking about tomorrow's special training, and then about Nekoma... makes my heart pound with excitement."

Lu Ren sighed and opened his eyes: "Excited? I think your adrenaline hasn't subsided yet after being scared by Senior Xigu and Senior Xu, has it? Have you tried counting sheep?"

"I tried it, counted over three thousand, and all I could think about were volleyballs bouncing around."

"I wasn't asleep either," came Kageyama's voice from the other end.

"Me too," Yamaguchi Tadashi said softly.

Lu Ren propped himself up and scanned the room by the moonlight streaming through the window. Good heavens, Tsukishima, Kageyama, Yamaguchi, Tanaka, and Nishiya were all staring wide-eyed at the ceiling.

"I can understand the excitement of first-year students." Lu Ren looked at Tanaka and Nishiya, "Why are you two old hands lying around like corpses?"

Tanaka, hands behind his head, looked wistful. "Lu Ren, you don't understand. Just thinking about Kiyoko-senpai in this building, breathing the same air as me, less than 500 meters away... makes me feel so powerful! I just can't sleep!"

Nishitani nodded frantically beside him, "That's right! That's the goddess's domain! What an honor!"

Lu Ren rolled his eyes: "Alright, to prevent you guys from dying of sleep deprivation on the court tomorrow, I'll tell you a story to help you fall asleep."

"A story?" Hinata leaned closer. "Is it one of those hero-versus-dragon stories?"

"No, it's a story about a housewife." Lu Ren lay back down, his voice becoming calm and deep. "This woman's name is Kayako, and she lives in an old house..."

The room fell silent, with only Lu Ren's voice echoing in the air.

"She always liked to hide in the attic and make a 'clucking' sound... like this..." Lu Ren imitated that strange sound of throat friction.

In the darkness, Hinata and Tanaka unconsciously shrank further into the blankets.

"Sometimes, when you feel warm and cozy under the covers, you'll find something cold under your feet. You might think it's a pillow, but when you reach out to touch it, you'll find a head of wet, long hair..."

As Lu Ren spoke, his voice grew softer and softer. The intense training of the past few days, coupled with the massage he had just received, had left him completely exhausted.

Before he knew it, he had fallen asleep.

The next morning, sunlight streamed through the gaps in the curtains, making Lu Ren squint.

He stretched lazily, his bones cracking with a crisp sound. After a deep night's sleep, his "fatigue level" was almost zero, and he felt refreshed.

"Hey, good morning." Lu Ren sat up and saw that several people were already sitting in the center of the room.

Hinata, Kageyama, Tanaka, Nishitani.

The four people sat neatly on the floor, their backs to the sun, their faces pale and their eyes bluish, looking as if they had just escaped from some major disaster site.

"Looks like my story was quite effective," Lu Ren joked with a smile. "How was it? Did you sleep well last night? Are you all up so early, getting ready to fight for breakfast?"

Tanaka turned his head stiffly, his eyes filled with a look that seemed to want to devour Lu Rensheng alive.

"You bastard Lu Ren... how dare you say that?" Tanaka's voice was hoarse, like sandpaper scraping against the ground. "Last night you fell asleep halfway through your story, and the rest of us... the rest of us were too scared to even go to the bathroom!"

Hinata, sporting huge dark circles under her eyes, said in a tearful voice, "Every time I close my eyes, all I hear is that 'giggle' sound. At 3 a.m., I couldn't hold it in anymore and needed to go to the bathroom, but Kageyama insisted on coming with me. As a result, we saw Asahi-senpai getting up in the hallway, and I almost died on the spot..."

Kageyama stood to the side with a dark expression. Although he didn't say anything, his bloodshot eyes said it all.

"Lu Ren is a bad guy," Hinata concluded, her tone filled with resentment.

Lu Ren rubbed his nose, glancing somewhat guiltily out the window: "Well, this is part of the training. Fear can improve reaction speed and survival instincts. Look at you guys, aren't you all very alert now?"

"Tall my ass!" Nishinoya roared. "Everyone looks like Kayako to me now!"

Just then, the door was pushed open.

Qingze Yazhi walked in wearing a manager's uniform, holding a training schedule in her hand: "Hey, you lazybones, time to get up and have breakfast. Lu Ren, you..."

Before she could finish speaking, Hinata and Tanaka let out a scream and burrowed into the blankets.

Yazhi stood there, stunned, looking at the group of dazed team members. She turned to Lu Ren and asked, "What did you do to them last night?"

Lu Ren stood up, dusted off his pants, and said calmly, "It's nothing, just gave them a patch called 'humanity.' It seems to have worked exceptionally well; their defensive awareness today was absolutely world-class."

Yazhi looked at him suspiciously, then at the group of guys who were on the verge of collapse, and sighed: "Hurry up and wash up, Coach Wuyang is already waiting at the gym."

As Lu Ren passed by Hinata, he mischievously squatted down and whispered a "click" in his ear.

"Waaaaaah!"

Hinata was launched into the air like a cannonball, tumbling and crawling out of the room.

Lu Ren laughed heartily and strode towards the cafeteria.

The second day of the training camp began absurdly, with everyone under a "debuff" state.