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It was the second day of the training camp.
Akashi Asuto suddenly felt the pressure increase.
Yesterday, he could easily surpass everyone else’s training volume by half again with just ‘normal training’. But today, he actually had to enter ‘high-intensity training’ just to maintain a training load that was only fifty percent higher than the others.
By the end of the day’s practice…
Everyone else collapsed even more thoroughly than before, and Asuto could no longer do his cool-down exercises at a leisurely pace like he had yesterday. He had to stand in one place, gasping heavily, for quite a while before he slowly recovered.
“Does this ‘monster’ seriously have no limits?”
Lying on the floor, they all unwillingly stared at Asuto, who was still standing, and roared in frustration deep inside their hearts.
“Shit! These bastards are already starting to push themselves this hard on only the second day?!”
Asuto rested one hand on his waist as he glanced sideways at the group sprawled on the ground not far away. He was complaining internally just as much as everyone else.
Originally, during the summer camp’s High-Density Training, Asuto found it difficult to double everyone else’s training volume in the other physical categories to obtain the ‘Involution Grind Value.’
What he never expected was that these lunatics would raise the difficulty even further for him.
‘Don’t these grind dogs realize that they’ll die miserable deaths?’
Shimokawa Mitsuto also found the situation a little baffling, but he ultimately believed that competition among teammates was a good thing, so he didn’t think too deeply about it.
The practice match was scheduled for the evening, when everyone’s stamina was almost depleted after a full day of training.
This made the scrimmage far more difficult, but it also forced everyone to focus harder and accelerate the improvement of their techniques.
…
Bang! Bang!
Under the gymnasium lights, Asuto leapt high into the air and hit the volleyball with such force that it flew forward like a cannon shell, smashing through the triple block in front of him and crashing onto the court to score a point.
“OOOOOOHHHHH~!”
The Red Team, Asuto’s team, erupted into loud cheers. Meanwhile, Kazama Jūjirō and Mishita Ryūhei wiped their foreheads and looked at Asuto.
“Damn it, does this guy seriously never get tired?”
They had already trained for a whole day. Even now, their legs still felt weak after the afternoon conditioning session. Forget spiking; even jumping felt difficult for them.
Yet Asuto could still jump, and even in this state, he was able to maintain his balance in the air.
“This guy is becoming more and more like a real ‘monster.'”
Outside the volleyball court, Shimokawa Mitsuto was recording training data with pen and paper. At that moment, he was also utterly shocked by Asuto.
Before this summer training camp, Mitsuto had thought that Asuto had evolved offensively to a new level during this period. But now that all the data had been clearly laid out on the charts, he finally realized that it wasn’t just Asuto’s offense that had evolved.
His improvement was practically comprehensive.
“How did he even do this?”
Shimokawa Mitsuto found it unbelievable.
“So volleyball is actually this violent?”
Just as Mitsuto was deep in thought, a voice sounded beside him. He turned around and discovered that Tanno Sae had appeared behind him at some point. Although she was one of the supervisors for the summer training camp, she didn’t usually spend the whole day watching everyone train.
Firstly, because her professional field was different.
Secondly, although Asuto and Omae Masato… those two ‘academic disasters’ had passed their final exams this time, other students in her class had failed. So, during the day, she usually had to supervise those students attending remedial lessons.
“Many people who don’t really understand volleyball tend to think that way. Since the ball never touches the ground in volleyball, and everything feels like it’s floating in the air, many people assume it’s a ‘lightweight’ sport.”
“But in reality, the essence of volleyball is actually quite ‘violent.’”
“Because there’s a block separating the players in the middle, there isn’t any direct physical contact. But precisely because of that, volleyball’s inherent ‘violence’ can be displayed to the fullest.”
“In professional volleyball leagues, spikes and serves exceeding 120 kilometers per hour are very common. If an ordinary person were to face that kind of speed head-on, the ball would feel almost no different from a cannon shell, and even professional players can sustain bone injuries if they fail to receive a ball properly at that speed. It’s even possible for someone to be knocked unconscious on the spot.’
Perhaps because he was talking to a beautiful woman and driven by the instinctive desire of men to show off, Shimokawa Mitsuto ended up explaining far more than usual, and his words really did refresh Tanno Sae’s understanding.
Tanno Sae was both a Japanese language teacher and the homeroom teacher of Class 3. Her daily workload was already quite heavy, so regarding clubs, she only held a nominal position in one of the cultural clubs.
As mentioned before, Sengoku Junior High School was a fairly “ordinary” school.
Not only was the club she was attached to not competing nationally, it rarely even participated in regular competitions. So not only did she know little about volleyball, but this was also the first time she had seen a club training with the aim of competing in the ‘Nationals’.
Even though she didn’t understand much about it, she still had to admit that, compared to the cultural club she supervised, the volleyball club seemed to come from an entirely different dimension.
Setting aside their serious attitude towards training, at the very least, the members of her club would never work hard to improve their grades just to participate in club activities.
This was why two of her club’s members were currently sitting in remedial classes.
Thinking about academics…
Tanno Sae subconsciously shifted her gaze towards Asuto on the court. After a moment’s thought, she asked, “Shimokawa-sensei, how has Asuto-kun been performing lately?”
“Asuto?”
Shimokawa Mitsuto froze for a moment, unable to fathom why Tanno had asked that question suddenly. Asuto’s performance had been flawless recently, however, so he had nothing to worry about.
He replied directly: “Asuto’s improvements recently have been tremendous. Not only in daily training, but his rate of improvement has also been incredible. The reason the volleyball club made it to the fourth round this time is basically thanks to Asuto’s efforts.”
At that point, Shimokawa Mitsuto abruptly stopped speaking.
Sometimes you don’t realize something until you say it out loud.
Good lord.
He hadn’t paid much attention before, but now that he had organized everything clearly in his head… This wasn’t just ‘improvement.’
It was practically as if he had become a completely different person!
“Um… Tanno-sensei, has Asuto also changed somehow in class recently?”
“Not really…” Tanno Sae replied calmly.
Upon hearing this, Shimokawa Mitsuto secretly let out a sigh of relief, thinking that he had probably overthought things.
But the very next second, Tanno Sae continued: “It’s just that his exam results improved a tiny bit this time.”
Shimokawa Mitsuto didn’t pay much attention to this.
“Well, improved grades are pretty normal, right? After all, everyone in the volleyball club has improved a lot compared to last time. Since they wanted to participate in the training camp…”
Before he could finish speaking, Tanno Sae said expressionlessly:
“Asuto-kun came second in the whole year group this time. I’ve already checked the exam room surveillance footage. There’s no evidence of cheating.”
Shimokawa Mitsuto: “······??????”
(End of Chapter)
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