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July 17th.
The Volleyball Club’s summer training camp officially began.
Japan’s school holiday schedule was different from that of the mainland. Middle school students here generally had three holidays each year:
Spring Break: around March 15th to April 1st
Summer Vacation: around July 15th to September 1st
Winter Vacation: around December 20th to January 8th
Although the Volleyball Club’s Summer Training Camp seemed to start a little late, it was actually being held at the very beginning of the summer holidays, with everyone gathering at the school immediately.
All the members of Sengoku Junior High School’s volleyball club assembled inside the gymnasium. Every face was filled with excitement, and even Akashi Asuto’s eyes carried a faint gleam in them.
After all, counting both his previous and current lives, this was his first time participating in a summer training camp. Something like this didn’t exist in his previous life because, back then, middle schools simply didn’t have summer vacation.
Not long afterwards, Shimokawa Mitsuto walked in, dressed casually in a short-sleeved shirt and large shorts, holding a training schedule. Beside him was Tanno Sae.
This was one of the mandatory conditions for holding a Summer Training Camp for junior high students.
Regardless of how many students participated, the school had to assign at least two teachers to ensure student safety.
The moment Omae Masato saw Tanno Sae enter the gym, he reacted as though he had spotted a cat, wishing he could bury his head in the sand.
Shimokawa Mitsuto stepped forward, glanced around at everyone, and then spoke with satisfaction: “Alright, everyone’s here, right? In that case, I hereby announce that this year’s Summer Training Camp has officially begun!’
“Oh yeah!”
“Let’s give it everything we’ve got!”
“Just wait for us, Kitagawa Daiichi Junior High!”
…
Training officially began.
Since they had already decided to “take revenge” on Kitagawa Daiichi, the training schedule for the summer training camp was, naturally, at a completely different level to normal club activities.
Although the club usually trained regularly, these sessions were often more relaxed and recreational.
However, the purpose of the Summer Training Camp was to focus entirely on improving strength and skill.
From the very first drill… receiving practice, everyone immediately felt an intensity unlike anything they had experienced before.
Previously, receiving training mostly consisted of pairs tossing and passing to each other or doing solo self-toss practice. The main purpose of these drills was to improve ball sense and familiarity.
This time, however, the training was entirely focused on real match conditions.
One player performed spikes while the others took turns to receive across the net.
The most important point was that the person doing the spiking was Asuto.
As a result, the entire gym echoed with the same repeated sounds for quite a long time:
Bang, bang, bang, bang, bang…
“Next!”
Bang, bang, bang, bang, bang…
“Next!”
Bang, bang, bang, bang, bang…
“Next!”
…
“Damn it! I never really noticed it back when he was our teammate, but this guy’s spikes are ridiculously hard to receive.”
Having just finished ten serves and completed a full lap of diving drills around the court, Kazama Jūjirō wiped the sweat from his face and spoke breathlessly.
“Seriously. Powerful shots, insane speed, precise placement… I’m only now truly realizing how lucky we were to make it all the way to the fourth round in the last tournament.” Kurata Mao, also drenched in sweat, chimed in.
Volleyball was a sport where ‘a strong team becomes even stronger together.’
However, perhaps because teamwork is emphasized so heavily, players often misjudge the true individual strength of their teammates.
Following their loss to Kitagawa Daiichi, the members of the Sengoku Junior High team were all left feeling somewhat dissatisfied. They believed that, with a better tournament bracket, they could have performed much better against almost any other team.
Yet, as the summer training camp began, they suddenly realized something:
Even within the same team, the ability gap between players could be enormous.
Up to this point, Kurata Mao was the only player who had occasionally managed to receive a few of Asuto’s spikes. As for everyone else, not a single successful reception.
After fifty spikes… Asuto rotated out with Omae Masato and Kazama Jujirō.
Clearly, Coach Shimokawa intended to strengthen the offensive abilities of these three main attackers during this training camp.
This actually aligned perfectly with Asuto’s own plans.
Even if Asuto one day used the System to break through the upper limits of all his stats, the strong would still become stronger under the same training intensity.
In other words…
Whether Asuto liked it or not, Strength would always remain the area where his talent was greatest.
However, there was a difference between Asuto’s plan and Coach Shimokawa’s training strategy.
Coach Shimokawa wanted to maximize his offensive power, which meant reducing training time in other areas.
But Asuto’s philosophy was different:
“I want all of it.”
This included basic physical abilities, the six basic techniques, and even learning advanced skills.
This summer, he wanted to do it all.
Technical practice in the morning.
Physical conditioning in the afternoon.
Practice matches at night.
That was the rough schedule that Shimokawa Mitsuto had created.
It was precisely this kind of high-intensity training that made the difference in ability between Asuto and the rest of the volleyball club obvious.
The technical practice in the morning had made it clear that, while his spiking ability was overwhelmingly strong, his other techniques were still painfully weak.
But once the afternoon conditioning sessions began, the difference in their physical abilities was immediately apparent.
During strength training, Asuto’s barbell was literally twice the weight of everyone else’s.
During core strength exercises… Whether it was crunches or planks, he did twice as many repetitions and held the position for twice as long.
During jump training… For drills such as stair jump training, he did at least fifty to seventy percent more sets than the others.
The same applied to speed and endurance training.
No matter the category, Asuto always completed at least fifty percent more training volume than everyone else within the same amount of time.
This terrifying training intensity shocked not only the students but the coach too.
Shimokawa Mitsuto nearly stepped in several times to forcibly stop Asuto’s training, worried that the boy might suddenly collapse and die on the spot.
But after training ended, Shimokawa Mitsuto would see everyone else sprawled on the floor with their tongues hanging out like dead dogs.
Meanwhile, Asuto could still stand there calmly doing cooldown stretches as if nothing had happened.
Eventually, the coach gave up trying to stop him.
All he could say was…
‘The physical constitution of humans truly can’t be generalised.’
Some people would slide tackle a tiger, only to become its next meal. But others could tackle a tiger so hard that they’d actually kill it.
By evening, Asuto could devour twice as much rice as everyone else at dinner in the cafeteria, or even more.
In an instant, everyone suddenly felt an overwhelming sense of urgency, as if failing to work harder would soon leave them behind and eliminate them.
Flames ignited in everyone’s eyes as they all turned to stare at Asuto, who was stuffing down rice beside them.
“You damned monster… we absolutely won’t lose to you!”
…
(End of Chapter)
You can read ahead up to 30 chapters on my Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/darkshadow6395