Random Number Determined Serve, Cutscene, and Boss's Second Phase Berserk

The score is 3:0.

The air in the gymnasium was heavy. It wasn't just the score difference, but also the strange sense of suppression on the court. On one side, they had the "luxury setup" of a genius setter and a monstrously strong rookie. On the other, a "ragtag team" composed of a game otaku, a sharp-tongued guy, and a timid follower.

If you had watched the training sessions over the past few days, you would have thought this scene was a bug in the game.

Yamaguchi Tadashi gripped the volleyball tightly, his palms slick with sweat. Standing at the baseline, he felt his heart pounding so loudly it could be heard throughout the entire venue. His serves so far hadn't resulted in errors, but those soft underhand serves were practically handing opportunities to the opponents at this level of play.

"Hey."

A voice suddenly came from beside him. Yamaguchi jumped, startled, and turned to see Lu Ren standing not far away, hands on his hips, looking at the opponents with a relaxed expression, as if waiting for a game to load.

"Um... Lu Ren-kun?"

"Don't be so stiff." Lu Ren didn't look at him, his gaze still fixed on Hinata across the net. "Serving is like inputting a special move. Constantly using light punches is safe, but the opponent has already seen through the wind-up animation. Occasionally changing the command, even if you're just mashing buttons, might just break their defense."

Yamaguchi blinked. "Mash, mashing buttons?"

"Yeah, don't worry about where it goes." Lu Ren gestured to the ball in his hand. "Just slightly change the point of contact, or don't think about making it spin. Just make it a little 'unreasonable'."

Unreasonable...

Yamaguchi looked at the ball in his hand. Don't think about spin?

The whistle blew.

It didn't give him much time to think. Yamaguchi took a deep breath, no longer carefully placing the ball out of his hands as before. He tossed the ball gently, not too high.

The moment the ball fell to the front of his forehead, he swung his arm. It wasn't a spike, nor a push, but a short, powerful strike to the center of the ball with the heel of his palm.

"Snap."

A crisp sound.

The volleyball left his hand.

This serve had no spin. It was like a texture that had suddenly lost its physics engine control, floating lightly over the net. Because it wasn't spinning, the air resistance became chaotic on the ball's surface, and the originally smooth parabolic trajectory suddenly began to shake bizarrely in mid-air.

Hinata Shoyo, standing in the back row, his eyes wide.

"I got it!"

He shouted, his feet moving incredibly fast. The logic in that orange head was simple: the ball is coming, I'll get it, I'll receive it, then we'll attack.

He judged the landing spot, brought his arms together, and assumed a standard forearm pass posture.

In his vision, the ball wasn't fast and looked harmless...

"What?!"

Hinata's pupils contracted. The inertia of his body made it impossible to adjust instantly; he could only rely on instinct, twisting his arm with all his might to reach the ball.

Too late.

The volleyball grazed the outside of his forearm and slipped past, not bouncing up, but thudding dully onto the floor at his feet before slowly rolling away.

"..."

Hinata remained in his receiving stance, frozen.

4:0.

The gymnasium fell silent for a moment.

Yamaguchi Tadashi stood at the baseline, watching the ball roll away, unable to believe it was his serve.

"Was that... a float serve?" Sawamura Daichi raised an eyebrow in surprise from the sidelines. "Although the form was very irregular, and you could even say it was lucky, that ball really didn't spin."

"Nice bug."

Lu Ren turned back and gave Yamaguchi, who was still stunned, a thumbs-up. "Looks like this game's physics engine really isn't that great. A ball trajectory like that, like a frame drop, even the gods would have trouble receiving it."

Yamaguchi's face instantly turned red, the flush of excitement. He scratched his head awkwardly and looked towards Tsukishima Kei on the other side.

The tall guy, who usually didn't say nice things, pushed up his glasses. His gaze swept over the volleyball on the floor, then glanced at Kageyama, whose face was ashen, before finally settling on Yamaguchi.

"Good serve."

His tone was still flat, without fluctuation, and he didn't even turn his head.

But for Yamaguchi Tadashi, those two words made his scalp tingle more than winning the lottery. He nodded vigorously, letting out a slightly off-key "En!" through his nose.

On the other side of the net, the atmosphere was completely different.

It was a brewing storm.

Tanaka Ryūnosuke picked up the rolling ball, glanced at the scoreboard, and then looked at the two first-years beside him.

"Hey, gather 'round."

Tanaka beckoned, pulling Kageyama and Hinata together. The usually boisterous wing spiker's usual wild grin was gone, replaced by an unusually serious expression.

"Listen up," Tanaka lowered his voice. "As much as I hate to admit it, the current situation is very unfavorable for us. That Lu Ren... he's unnervingly strange. And with Tsukishima, that ill-tempered bastard, their defense is much tougher than we expected."

Kageyama Tobio's face darkened, but he remained silent. However, his clenched fists showed how terrible his mood was.

"We have the strongest spear," Tanaka glanced at Kageyama, then pointed to himself, "but our shield has sprung a leak."