Orbital Kinetic Weapon, a Starting Stance for All Players and a Recruitment Letter That Came Too Late

Lu Ren stood at the end line.

He looked up at the gymnasium ceiling. It was much higher than Karasuno's Second Gymnasium, and the rows of suspended incandescent lights looked like a giant web of light. To ordinary people, they were a dazzling distraction, but to players who had already built a spatial model in their minds, they were an excellent coordinate system.

"Phew..."

Lu Ren made no unnecessary bouncing motions, and he didn't even take a running start like he would for a conventional serve. He simply turned sideways, drew his left foot half a step back, lowered his center of gravity, and coiled himself like a taut bow.

The volleyball in his hand was tossed gently, barely rising above his head.

But the moment it began to fall, Lu Ren's body sprang into the air. His core strength drove his right arm, and with an awkward yet explosive motion, he struck the very bottom of the ball with the heel of his palm.

"Here goes."

A dull thud.

The volleyball didn't fly forward. Instead, it shot almost vertically into the sky. Spinning violently, it shot through the dazzling band of lights in an instant and kept rising until it shrank to a tiny black dot in everyone's vision, as if it were about to punch through the ceiling.

The players on the court were all stunned.

"What... is that?" Kindaichi tilted his head back, mouth slightly agape.

"A ceiling serve?" Oikawa Tōru narrowed his eyes, keeping them fixed on the black dot that had vanished into the glare.

This kind of serve was rare in official matches because it required a lot of height and was easy to hit out of bounds. But in an indoor gym with complicated lighting, it was a "flashbang" with a physical blinding effect.

The ball paused at its apex, then began to fall.

Gravitational potential energy turned into kinetic energy, and the volleyball hurtled downward with the rush of falling air, picking up speed with every moment. When it passed through the lights, the sharp alternation between brightness and shadow left the receiver's pupils no time to adjust their focus.

The adults on the opposing team had clearly never seen this kind of unconventional play. The man in the back row squinted as he tried to judge where it would land, but the black dot seemed to jump left and right amid the ghostly afterimages of the lights, like a texture map rendered incorrectly by a graphics card.

"I've got it!" The man took a reluctant step forward, hands clasped together.

But he clearly had little respect for the physical concept of "gravitational acceleration."

"Thwack!"

The sound of the ball hitting the floor was almost unnervingly crisp.

It didn't hit his arms. It hit the wooden floor out of bounds.

It landed barely ten centimeters beyond the end line.

The referee—a bystander roped in at the last minute—raised a flag. Out.

Lu Ren held his follow-through pose, the corner of his mouth twitching.

"Tch."

He'd misjudged the power check and put in a few extra notches of force. This kind of high-difficulty move really shouldn't be used without enough practice. If he accidentally hit someone, it wouldn't be a serve—it'd be intentional injury.

"Too bad." Oikawa Tōru said it, but his eyes were frighteningly bright.

The idea of doing whatever it took to win, even trying a showy trick like this, was right up his alley.

Just how many weird tactics did this kid have in his head?

The serve changed hands.

The opposing adults were clearly riled up. The man who'd been blocked earlier walked to the service line with a dark look on his face and smacked the ball twice.

Toss, approach, jump, smash.

A textbook jump serve.

The ball came fast, carrying the heavy force unique to an adult, and shot straight toward the back-row corner.

Lu Ren rolled his eyes inwardly.

What was going on? Was a powerful jump serve a basic skill granted by Novice Village these days? Why could every enemy NPC pull this off? Had he been the only one who forgot to claim his system gift package?

"Kindaichi!" Iwaizumi Hajime shouted.

Kindaichi Yutaro reacted half a beat too late. The ball had more spin than he'd expected, and when it struck his arms, it took a bizarre sideways deflection.

"Sorry!"

The ball didn't fly toward the setter's position. It shot straight toward one side of the net, and it was too low.

It was a textbook bad pass.

Oikawa Tōru had just started to move to save it, but he was simply too far away, and Kunimi Akira was blocking his route as he retreated.

"I can't make it." Oikawa Tōru made the call instantly.

The ball traced an awkward arc through the air and was about to land inside the three-meter line.

Just then, a figure burst in from the side.

It was Lu Ren.

He'd been in right wing defense, and when he saw the ball coming, he cut into the setter's position almost on instinct.

"I've got it!"

Lu Ren shouted as he skidded to a stop, his feet screeching against the floor.

The ball was there.

The position was awkward, and he hadn't fully turned around. A conventional setter might have chosen to bump it or set it up for the nearest attacker.

But Lu Ren wasn't a setter. He was a player.

In a player's eyes, there was only the "optimal solution" and the "easy point."

His peripheral vision caught sight of Iwaizumi Hajime on the left. He was already starting his approach. No matter how bad the set, Iwaizumi Hajime, as their ace, would absolutely jump for it.

That was trust—or rather, that was the AI logic of a top-tier NPC.

Lu Ren didn't hesitate. He forced his core to twist, then raised both hands in front of his forehead.