The Genius Hitter Who Conquered America - Chapter 112

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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Chapter 112
Bottom of the sixth inning, two outs.
Casey’s footsteps toward the Batter’s Box felt heavier than usual.
The situation, viewed objectively, was far from favorable.
The score remained 0-2.
His team was losing, there were no runners on base, and Victor continued to fire fastballs at 100 miles per hour with relentless precision.
By any measure, the Pitcher had complete command.
Yet as Casey approached the plate, Soo-ho’s words from the Dugout moments earlier echoed persistently in his mind.
Could Soo-ho truly be right?
About the United States’ elite development system and individual performance.
Casey adjusted his helmet, and in that brief moment, he projected himself into the equation.
After all, he too had been a first-round prospect commanding national attention.
‘Hah….’
A hollow laugh escaped Casey’s lips.
He couldn’t deny it.
Everything Soo-ho had said was true.
‘Have I ever once pushed my body to its breaking point for a team championship?’
Casey had dominated high school baseball’s most prestigious stage.
The National High School Invitational—the gateway to professional baseball itself.
At that premier tournament where scouts from across the United States converged, Casey had won the MVP award an astounding three times—a prodigy among prodigies.
But reflecting on those days….
‘I never once played to win a championship for my team.’
I played only to distinguish myself.
To produce perfect exit velocities that would register on the scouts’ radar guns.
To secure higher draft positions and larger signing bonuses.
Team victories were merely incidental spoils that accompanied my flawless performances.
So what of Victor Moretti, standing on the Mound right now?
‘He’s not much different from me. If anything, he’s worse.’
Moreover, Victor’s circumstances were entirely different from theirs.
He, Mark, and Soo-ho were still prospects with much to prove.
But Victor was already a future Major Leaguer with his call-up essentially guaranteed.
There was only one reason such a player would be throwing 100-mile fastballs recklessly and giving his all in this AFL Championship.
‘He wants to erase his blemish.’
The humiliation he suffered at Soo-ho’s hands in previous games.
It was merely a personal desire to repay that debt, to utterly crush Soo-ho, and preserve his unblemished pride.
Victor certainly wanted to defeat them, but he didn’t desperately hunger for this championship itself.
His future was already brilliantly assured, even without a championship trophy.
‘But we are different.’
Now I fully understood the meaning of the ‘fissure’ Soo-ho had spoken of.
That man’s perfect scenario—sustained only by personal pride, artificially inflating his intensity.
‘If I rattle him with an unexpected variable….’
The shallow focus of one who has somewhere to return will inevitably crumble before the desperation of those standing at the cliff’s edge.
“Right. Just get on base, that’s all I’m asking.”
Casey gripped the bat tightly.
His eyes had changed.
The arrogance of a genius wanting to shine had vanished.
Only a vicious, relentless determination to harass the pitcher for his team remained.
* * *
The game had begun.
Casey’s primary objective was clearly to reach base.
But could he, a genius and first-round pick who had captured the nation’s attention, truly be satisfied with simply walking to First Base?
‘In the end, it all comes down to Soo-ho.’
Just as it had been in the first inning, that principle remained unchanged now.
So if he was going to reach base anyway, rather than simply stepping on it with ease.
‘I’ll wipe that arrogant scowl off his face.’
Already the sixth inning.
Victor, the pitcher, had already thrown over seventy-five pitches.
The moment Casey stepped into the Batter’s Box, Victor hurled the ball with ferocity.
Crack!
“Strike!”
The next pitch followed.
Crack!
“Strike!”
In an instant, the count stood at 0-2.
Trapped in an absolutely disadvantageous situation, Casey smirked to himself.
‘Even a future Major Leaguer is just human after all.’
That overwhelming momentum he’d felt when he first stepped up to bat.
The suffocating pressure that had been squeezing his breath was nowhere to be felt now.
To be honest, Casey could see the ball clearly.
Very clearly indeed.
Confidence welled up that he could deliver a solid hit if he wanted to.
The only reason he hadn’t swung freely was one thing.
To torment Victor even more thoroughly.
‘I trust Soo-ho.’
Soo-ho had said it clearly.
That he would break Victor in this inning.
But if he was going to break him anyway, wasn’t it far more satisfying to do it spectacularly and devastatingly rather than scraping out runs bit by bit?
To completely drain Victor of his remaining stamina as he struggled at his limit.
So that when he finally faced Soo-ho, he would crumble under his own weight.
‘I need to prove this isn’t just talk.’
Casey gripped the bat tightly.
What followed was nothing short of a quagmire from which the pitcher could not escape.
Whenever Victor’s pitch entered the Strike Zone, Casey would persistently extend the bat and foul it away beyond the foul line.
Conversely, he possessed an almost supernatural ability to identify the deceptive pitches that veered sharply outside the zone, designed to induce a strikeout.
It was a flawless response—as if Casey were perched atop Victor’s head in a battle of wills.
“Ball!”
“Foul!”
“Foul!”
“Ball!”
“Ball!”
The count reached 3-2.
Casey had pushed it to a full count.
Victor on the Mound irritably hurled the rosin bag away.
And now came the fateful tenth pitch.
Victor unleashed his arm with everything he had.
Whoosh!
“Base on balls!”
The Referee’s call echoed across the field.
Had his grip weakened as his pitch count mounted, or had his fingertip strength simply given way?
The ball that left Victor’s hand sailed completely outside the Strike Zone, driving into the dirt—an unmistakable ball.
Casey casually tossed his bat aside and strolled toward First Base with unhurried ease.
Victor’s face, having squandered ten pitches and surrendered the walk, bore exactly the expression of frustration Casey had anticipated.
* * *
As Casey stepped on First Base, he signaled a subtle shift in momentum.
The next batter was Mark.
Mark gripped his hefty bat and walked slowly toward the Batter’s Box.
Victor’s face betrayed clear irritation at having wasted ten pitches and surrendered a walk.
Mark observed this and fell into brief reflection.
I too was once a prospect commanding national attention, just like Victor and Casey.
I was a prodigy batter who had proudly claimed the MVP award at the National High School Invitational, the highest stage in American high school baseball.
Even if I won that MVP only once, it was no small achievement.
Five hundred thousand American high school students play baseball.
To have reached first place even once among them—that meant something.
Naturally, scouts had showered me with praise, and a glittering Major League future seemed within reach.
But cruel misfortune seized my ankle.
I wasn’t even selected in the first round; my name wasn’t called at the draft at all, and I plummeted thoroughly to the bottom—a painful memory.
But what did it matter now?
I understand your feelings too, you bastards.
Mark recalled once more the words Soo-ho had spoken from the Dugout earlier.
Victor was still throwing excellent fastballs approaching 100 miles per hour, but Mark believed in that conviction—that he would surely crumble this inning.
‘What else could it be?’
Mark was a prospect who had plummeted from the highest peak to the deepest abyss.
That’s why he understood better than anyone how fragile the mental fortitude of an elite who had walked only a perfect path could shatter before an unforeseen variable.
‘Because I experienced it myself….’
At least Mark had managed to overcome his injury and make a comeback.
‘Though I don’t know what would have happened if I hadn’t met Soo-ho. But what does it matter?’
In any case.
If he reached base here, the situation would become two outs with runners on First Base and Second Base.
And in the next at-bat, Soo-ho would step up to the plate—the opponent Victor had been mentally preparing to face all day long, sharpening his resolve like a blade.
That’s when Victor would crumble.
‘You’ve probably only ever played baseball within perfect scenarios you could directly control your entire life.’
For someone like that, a scoring position crisis would arrive—and worse, a single hit away from tying the game and snatching away his victory. A moment of absolute desperation.
And if the batter stepping into that box was his most feared rival?
‘There’s no way you’ve ever experienced a situation like this.’
Uncontrollable pressure is poison to the human spirit.
The primal terror of real failure—the chilling realization that you could become the loser.
And the moment that unfamiliar emotion surged up to his throat, Victor’s lofty pride and reason would unravel into chaos.
Tension would stiffen his muscles, collapsing the delicate balance of his form.
That was precisely the point Soo-ho was targeting.
‘So my job is crystal clear.’
Drive a dagger straight into that prospect’s heart.
I just need to reach base here and set it up for Soo-ho.
Mark pressed his helmet down firmly and planted both feet solidly in the Batter’s Box.
* * *
The real battle had begun.
Mark squeezed Victor in a completely different way than Casey had.
Where Casey had sharpened his strikes by cutting pitches that pierced the Strike Zone, increasing pitch counts.
Mark responded with brutally crude full swings.
Whoosh!
A heavy sound tearing through the air.
The ball was already lodged in the Catcher’s glove, but Victor’s shoulders flinched involuntarily.
To any observer, that swing looked less like baseball and more like an axe blow intended to kill a man.
The accuracy was poor, but if that absurd swing happened to catch the ball by sheer luck?
It carried a vicious power capable of delivering at minimum a run, or if luck was against him, a go-ahead two-run home run.
Because of this, instinctive fear began creeping up Victor’s spine.
And upon closer inspection, all of this was remarkably unfolding exactly as Soo-ho had orchestrated.
Do you remember the strategy Soo-ho had instructed Mark with before stepping up to the plate?
‘Just swing with all your might like you’re going for one big hit.’
That simple, crude mindlessness was genuinely intimidating that prospect.
That’s why Mark nearly laughed.
‘Is he really a wizard….’
Back in Low-A, my nickname was the Wizard.
I had an uncanny ability to predict how the game would unfold.
And I conjured magical plays on the ground with such ease.
‘But that was Low-A, the lowest tier of Minor League Baseball.’
This is the AFL Championship, where the world’s most promising prospects gather.
Yet why does that guy’s predictions hit without a single flaw?
‘Why else? He must be a real wizard.’
Mark accepted it without hesitation.
The reason didn’t matter.
To him, Soo-ho was far more than a mere teammate—he was family.
‘You have to trust family unconditionally.’
Mark grinned and adjusted his grip on the bat.
His blind faith in Soo-ho had stripped away every trace of tension from his body.
And the at-bat that followed.
“Ball!”
“Strike!”
Victor, conscious of Mark’s power,
was trying to make the contest as difficult as possible.
However.
His signature 100-mile fastball wavered ever so slightly in its control.
A mediocre pitch that drifted flatly down the middle of the Strike Zone.
Mark didn’t hesitate—he unleashed a full swing.
Crack!
A dull impact echoed across the field.
This revealed that Victor was indeed an exceptional monster.
His fastball still possessed tremendous velocity, so Mark’s bat hadn’t made perfect contact at its sweet spot.
The sheer force of the 100-mile fastball pushed the bat back ever so slightly.
But Mark was a power hitter who yielded to no one in raw strength.
With his full swing, he forced the deflected ball upward and sent it into the Outfield.
The ball arced through the air and dropped softly in front of the Center Fielder who was sprinting at full speed.
A hit in front of the Center Fielder.
Mark touched First Base and clenched his fist.
Two outs, runners on First Base and Second Base.
It was a truly remarkable moment.
The perfect setup to bring down Victor Moretti was unfolding exactly as Soo-ho had prophesied.
And to finish it, Soo-ho was stepping into the Batter’s Box himself.
This was the decisive moment.

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