The Genius Hitter Who Conquered America - Chapter 110

—————
This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
—————

Chapter 110
“Play ball!”
With the Referee’s call, the final game of the Arizona Fall League began.
The Salt River Rafters struck first.
Top of the first inning.
They came out swinging with terrifying momentum from the start.
A double by the leadoff batter, an advance by the next hitter, and a timely hit by the cleanup batter.
A clean, efficient offensive sequence.
1-0.
As the Scoreboard displayed the first run, cheers erupted from the Salt River Rafters’ Dugout.
Meanwhile, the Desert Dogs’ atmosphere had turned ice cold.
In a short series, especially a championship game, the weight of scoring first cannot be understated.
The anxiety of losing the initiative pressed down on the players’ shoulders.
But the real terror was only beginning.
Bottom of the first inning.
It was time for the Desert Dogs’ turn at bat.
[On the Mound is Salt River’s ace and this league’s most dominant monster—Victor Moretti.]
Thud! Thud!
The Catcher’s glove screamed in protest.
Even during warm-up pitches, the sound of the ball striking the leather rang out sharply through the Stands.
A hundred-mile-per-hour fastball blazing from a towering 195-centimeter frame.
His overwhelming prowess left spectators breathless.
His condition looked remarkably sharp.
It seemed to reflect his determination not to yield an inch in today’s game.
After his final warm-up pitch, Victor picked up the rosin bag and lifted his head.
His gaze turned toward the Batter’s Box.
Leadoff batter Casey was stepping up to the plate.
A flicker.
His eyes shifted.
In the On-Deck Circle, the second batter Mark Williams was loosening up.
Both were powerful hitters who had performed brilliantly throughout this league.
Yet Victor’s gaze merely brushed past them.
His eyes came to rest on the Desert Dogs’ Dugout.
They fixed on Soo-ho, who stared back with an expressionless face.
The reason he was targeting Soo-ho rather than Casey at the plate or Mark in the On-Deck Circle was crystal clear.
To him, the first two batters were merely obstacles.
‘Tricks won’t work on me.’
Trying to dilute his power.
A shallow ploy to prevent him from giving his all from the start.
The intent was so transparent it was almost laughable.
‘All I need to do is show him that his calculation won’t work.’
Today, Victor intended to demonstrate the difference in their caliber.
Meanwhile.
Casey’s brow furrowed as he stepped into the Batter’s Box.
It was unavoidable.
Here I stood with bat in hand, yet the pitcher’s gaze was fixed elsewhere entirely.
Victor was treating me like I didn’t exist, his attention buried deep in the Desert Dogs’ Dugout in the distance.
‘So I’m being looked down on.’
Fury bubbled up inside me.
I’d spent my entire life being called a prodigy wherever I went, always treated as the protagonist.
Yet here, on this crucial championship stage, I was being thoroughly ignored.
‘I want to teach him a lesson.’
My honest impulse was to drive a hit right at that arrogant face.
I wanted to unleash a home run so spectacularly that everyone would understand the threat wasn’t just Soo-ho.
I wanted to burn it into their minds that Casey Meyer was here too.
My grip on the bat tightened until veins bulged across my knuckles.
But.
“Haaah…”
I exhaled slowly.
As the hot breath left my lips, I forcibly suppressed the emotions burning through me.
‘I need to stay calm.’
This wasn’t an opponent I could afford to face recklessly just because my pride was wounded.
I had to acknowledge what was true.
‘Right now, looking purely at skill, there’s no one here who can beat Victor.’
It was frustrating, but it was fact.
I pride myself on my talent—second to none—but I’m still rough, like an unpolished gem.
That monster, on the other hand, was already operating at Major League level.
If we matched up purely on skill, my odds of winning wouldn’t even reach ten percent by cold calculation.
‘But I absolutely must win this game.’
The massive bonuses and organizational recognition that would come with victory were secondary.
This championship was a proof for me.
Proof that I was no longer just a lone wolf excelling in isolation, but had grown into a true player capable of leading my team to victory.
‘The opponent is already scoring and building momentum.’
To reverse this flow, we needed more than individual heroics—we needed the team to move as one.
‘If you’re watching Soo-ho.’
I adjusted my grip on the bat, shortening it.
Right now, with Victor’s attention fixed on Soo-ho, my role for the team became crystal clear.
Today’s strategy was obvious.
The key is Soo-ho, ultimately. I acknowledge it.
Both my team and the opposition—and even I myself—we all knew this truth.
So what was his role in all this?
It was simple.
‘When Soo-ho gets his chance at bat, I need to set the stage so he can swing comfortably, even if just a little.’
To do that, I had to drain the pitcher’s strength.
For now, it was early in the game, so Victor’s fastball wouldn’t lose its edge yet.
‘But if jabs keep piling up, eventually his legs will give out.’
With each inning that passed, I had to wear Victor down.
That was the only path to overturn our objective disadvantage in firepower and claim victory today.
‘Let’s do this.’
Casey bit his lip as he stepped into the Batter’s Box.
And so the battle began.
As if mocking Casey’s resolve, Victor threw his first pitch with full force.
Crack!
“Strike!”
A sharp inside fastball that cut through the Strike Zone.
Casey’s bat sliced through empty air.
It was an overwhelming speed that seemed to mock the batter’s reaction time.
The second pitch followed.
Crack!
“Strike!”
In an instant, the count was 0-2.
One more strike and I’d have to leave the Batter’s Box—an absolute disadvantage.
Casey had no choice but to acknowledge it now.
‘…A monster is a monster, after all.’
Experiencing it firsthand, I understood.
Victor’s condition today was at its peak.
Making solid contact seemed nearly impossible right now.
‘Then I’ll be a nuisance instead.’
The third pitch.
Another tight inside fastball came flying in.
Crack!
My bat was pushed back, but I followed through and made contact.
The ball became a foul, striking the netting behind home.
Perhaps because Casey had just displayed his own genius.
Victor’s brow furrowed.
‘He’s going to hang in there?’
His intention was obvious.
Not a swing to hit, but a swing to cut the ball away.
He was determined to run up the pitch count and wear me down however he could.
‘I can’t indulge him in that.’
Victor let out a scoff.
As if to say, “How long do you think you can hold out?”, he threw the fourth pitch.
It was another overwhelming fastball.
Crack!
But once again, the ball off the end of the bat sailed foul.
‘Damn it.’
Victor ground his teeth in frustration.
He’d planned to finish quickly, conserve his energy, and crush Soo-ho.
But this guy was tougher than expected.
He was pouring everything into each pitch, yet Soo-ho kept fouling them off with stubborn persistence. The irritation was mounting.
‘I guess I have no choice.’
Victor adjusted his strategy.
If he kept relying solely on raw power, he might actually lose.
“Ball!”
“Ball!”
He mixed in two off-speed pitches to shake Casey’s focus.
A slider breaking away on the outside and a changeup dropping low.
Casey didn’t fall for it and made good pitches, but the process wore down his concentration.
And then came the fateful seventh pitch.
Victor’s choice was a high fastball rising above the batter’s sight line.
Whoosh!
Casey’s bat swung through empty air.
“Strike! You’re out!”
As the Referee’s call rang out, Victor finally roared in satisfaction.
Looking at the result alone, it was a perfect victory for Victor.
He’d struck out the first batter with overwhelming dominance.
But as Casey returned to the Dugout, he swallowed a smile.
‘Seven pitches.’
He’d forced Victor to throw seven pitches just to get the first batter out.
Victor had won this immediate battle, but no one yet knew what butterfly effect this victory might trigger later.
* * *
Mark, watching Casey return to the Dugout, urgently called out to Soo-ho.
“What do we do?”
Mark’s voice trembled, pitched higher than usual.
It couldn’t be helped.
Honestly, Casey was the batter with the best bat control and highest technical refinement on the Desert Dogs.
‘No. Honestly, in this league. He has superior skill to players of higher standing than me.’
And yet that player had failed to properly counter Victor’s pitches and retreated.
He’d managed only fouls, not solid contact, before striking out.
Mark’s mind grew complicated.
Can I hit that ball with my swing?
Impossible.
Being honest with myself, my strength lies in raw power, not precision.
There was no way I could match the bat speed that even Casey struggled to keep up with.
On top of that, I hadn’t been out of rehabilitation for very long either.
I was still in the process of sharpening my game sense.
“Besides, Victor’s on fire today.”
Against that monster throwing 100 miles per hour from the first inning, I couldn’t skillfully cut pitches like Casey and extend the count—that was beyond my capabilities.
I didn’t have the confidence to hang in there like that.
That’s why I called Soo-ho for a simple reason.
I felt the same way Casey did.
I wanted to somehow wear Victor down so that Soo-ho could step into the Batter’s Box with even a slight advantage.
But with no strategy coming to mind, my mental state was wavering.
That’s when Soo-ho spoke in a calm voice.
“Mark.”
“Yeah?”
“Just swing with everything you’ve got, thinking about going for broke.”
Mark blinked as if bewildered.
“Why? We used that approach before, didn’t we? I don’t think it’ll work.”
In fact, when we first tried to exploit Victor Moretti.
It was a strategy we’d already used once.
“Don’t lose your confidence.”
“What exactly do you mean by that?”
Soo-ho gestured with his chin toward the Mound where Victor stood and spoke.
“Even though it’s a strategy we’ve used before, ultimately you have to swing with all your might, which forces the opponent to throw with full power until the very end, right?”
Ah.
Mark’s mouth opened slightly.
For a moment, it felt like I’d been struck on the head.
That’s right.
Our plan was to wear Victor down today.
But that method didn’t have to be limited to hitting fouls like Casey and extending the count.
Instilling fear in the pitcher.
Creating the pressure of “one mistake and it’s gone”—that was also an excellent strategy to drain a pitcher’s strength.
Soo-ho had mentioned this once before as well.
‘So if I get scared here and take a weak swing,’
Victor would smirk and hold back his power afterward.
He’d judge me as an opponent he could get out with moderate pitches.
But what if I strike out while still taking a full swing?
Victor would have no choice but to be wary of me.
Knowing that one mistake means the ball clears the Fence, he’d have to concentrate all his focus and power on every single pitch.
“…That’s how it is. The real game always comes later, after all.”
So even if he stepped back, he had to maximize every advantage he possessed.
Even if he struck out and retreated, his mission was to wear down Victor’s arm strength as much as possible before leaving the box.
In baseball, you couldn’t know the outcome until the bottom of the ninth inning ended, and it was only the first inning now.
“Okay. Got it.”
Mark adjusted his helmet and headed toward the Batter’s Box.
The hesitation vanished from his eyes, replaced instead by a heavy, killing intent that began to fill them.
And so the confrontation began.
Victor watched Mark standing in the Batter’s Box and calculated coldly.
Judging by his build, his power was solid.
‘But his bat speed is slow.’
His skill was far too inadequate to keep up with Victor’s 100-mile fastball.
Victor’s wind-up.
The first pitch.
The white ball burrowed in like a bullet.
In that instant, Mark rotated his bat as if he’d been waiting for it.
Crack!
An enormous explosive sound tore through the air.
Victor’s body flinched momentarily.
The ball was already lodged in the Catcher’s glove, and yet the bat had sliced through empty space, whiffing completely.
‘This was….’
That swing just now wasn’t meant to make contact with the ball.
Accuracy was the last thing on his mind—it was a full swing filled with murderous intent, as if to say he’d kill anything that got in his way.
A ‘come what may’ kind of full swing.
‘He’s lost his mind.’
Such a crude swing normally shouldn’t be frightening.
A home run or a hit only happened if the bat actually made contact with the ball, and if he couldn’t make contact, what good was it?
But Victor’s instincts were sending him a warning.
‘If he actually makes contact….’
Baseball right now was an era of raw power.
Even a .100 hitter lacking finesse, if he possessed one swing with enough power to clear the Fence, a pitcher couldn’t take him lightly.
Especially not on a stage as crucial as this.
And that was exactly what Mark’s swing had been.
A vicious trajectory that would result in at least a double if it merely grazed the ball, and a towering home run if it made solid contact.
That silent threat scraped against Victor’s nerves.
‘These bastards….’
Casey was relentless in his persistence, and now Mark was threatening with raw power.
Their intention to not give him any breathing room was painfully obvious.
Victor bit down on the inside of his mouth.
What if he let up even slightly here and that crude bat actually made contact with the ball?
That was something he could not tolerate.
Crunch.
Victor ground his teeth.
Any thought of taking it easy on his opponent vanished.
He had to crush that arrogant momentum decisively, so he threw the ball with every ounce of strength he possessed.
“Strike!”
“Strike out!”
Three pitches, three strikes.
Victor’s dominant victory.
Mark had swung so hard his helmet nearly flew off, but in the end he couldn’t even make contact with the ball and stepped back.
Victor roared from the Mound, breathing heavily.
In the end, he had won again.
But whether this victory would truly lead him forward remained to be seen.
To secure two outs, he had expended far more emotion and stamina than anticipated.
And above all.
“….”
Victor steadied his ragged breathing and lifted his head.
In that moment, a peculiar silence that only existed on the Mound settled over everything.
It wasn’t that the crowd had gone quiet.
Victor, for just a brief moment.
Had forgotten to exhale his next breath.
The inning wasn’t over yet.
Soo-ho, who had been waiting in the On-Deck Circle, was slowly walking out.

—————
This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
—————