The Genius Hitter Who Conquered America - Chapter 122

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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 122
Fishing and baseball are not so different.
What I had initially dismissed as Hank’s nonsense began to mesh perfectly in my mind like interlocking gears.
‘When I really think about it, the principles are definitely similar.’
From the moment the Pitcher releases the ball until it lands in the Catcher’s glove takes roughly 0.4 seconds.
In that fleeting instant, the batter maintains intense focus, identifies the pitch type, and determines the timing to swing.
Though this was my first time fishing.
Beneath the invisible surface, countless subtle vibrations as the bait is touched.
I had to filter out the false bites from among them.
And seize that single 0.1-second window when the hook sets perfectly in the fish’s gill.
Just as I couldn’t be fooled by the Pitcher’s deceptive double kick and swing at air.
A premature set would only slash an empty hook through the void.
‘Most importantly, it’s about how force is transferred.’
Lock the lower body firmly in place, use the core’s rotation to twist the hips.
Concentrate that explosive energy into my fingertips and release it all in a single swing—that’s bat control.
It resembled resisting with my lower body against a fish weighing dozens of kilograms trying to escape.
Using the tension of the fishing rod to pull it up above the Water Surface.
Perhaps it was a bit of a stretch, but what did it matter?
Applying baseball logic made me feel like I could actually handle this fishing.
Confidence matters in any endeavor, and I had just gained it.
And finally.
The fishing rod moved.
A fish had taken the bait.
Thump-thump-thump, CRACK!
The rod bent violently as if it might snap in half, and tremendous force surged through both my arms.
The sheer power of a single fish’s bite was almost unbelievable.
In that instant, the face of a man flashed through my mind.
‘This is…’
A prospect I’d faced in the Arizona Fall League—a monstrous Pitcher who possessed the most terrifying fastball velocity I’d ever encountered throughout my baseball career.
Victor Moretti.
‘Yes. This is exactly that feeling.’
That heavy, violent impact when I first caught his 100-mile-per-hour fastball with my bat at the Batter’s Box.
The vibration now traveling through the fishing rod handle was precisely that.
Screeeee!
The drag shrieked as the line tore madly into the depths of the Sea.
The drag was a mechanism that deliberately released line to prevent it from snapping.
‘The first pitch is a crude four-seam fastball right down the middle.’
If I let the fish’s power push my upper body forward or lose the rod here, it’s a strikeout.
I immediately planted my feet wide on the swaying Deck and poured explosive force into my thighs and core, locking my lower body firmly in place.
‘Hold firm. To not be overpowered by the Pitcher’s force, I need to secure my center first.’
Soo-ho didn’t reel in mindlessly.
He could instinctively sense that pulling a taut line with sheer force would snap the fishing line or tear the hook—no need to learn that the hard way.
‘It’s like when a Pitcher’s fastball is at its most ferocious—you don’t stretch the bat recklessly chasing perfect contact. Instead, you time it and let the force flow through you.’
Soo-ho absorbed the fish’s savage initial charge with fluid grace, using the rod’s elasticity as a buffer.
The fish’s frenzied assault weakened ever so slightly.
‘The velocity dropped. Now’s my chance!’
Just as Soo-ho began his counterattack, reeling with all his might—
The taut line suddenly went slack, tension vanishing in an instant.
Had he lost it?
‘No.’
The sensation transmitted through the rod’s tip told him the fish still had the hook in its mouth.
It had abandoned its desperate escape attempt and suddenly changed direction toward the water’s surface.
‘A breaking ball?’
In terms of the Batter’s Box, it was like a slider that burrowed deep inside before cutting sharply away—
Or a changeup that robbed timing and dropped dead in front of Home Plate.
A panicked batter would lose balance here and swing through empty air.
But Soo-ho had already conquered both Victor Moretti’s monstrous fastballs and his vicious breaking pitches, claiming the 40-Man Roster in the process.
Before the slack line surrendered control to the fish—
Soo-ho cranked the reel with terrifying speed, restoring the tension to its former tautness.
‘Where do you think you’re going? Once I’ve locked onto the sweet spot, I don’t miss.’
Soo-ho clenched his jaw.
One might wonder why he was pushing this hard just to catch a fish.
But the word “half-hearted” had never existed in Soo-ho’s vocabulary.
This was training.
Not mere fishing, but a fierce battle of wills against a monster Pitcher standing on the Major League Mound.
He would face even greater monsters than Victor ahead.
‘I can’t lose to a single fish from nature itself.’
A savage competitive fire blazed brilliantly in Soo-ho’s eyes.
The Pitcher threw fastballs and breaking balls in succession, his stamina depleting.
Soo-ho’s core and forearms screamed as if they might burst, yet his concentration only sharpened further, honed to a razor’s edge.
Thud-thud-thud! Thud-thud!
The fish launched its final desperate struggle.
Thrashing its head wildly, making a last-ditch effort to shake free the hook.
The decisive pitch in the bottom of the ninth, two outs, two strikes—the moment that decides the game.
Soo-ho maximized his grip strength on both hands holding the rod to its absolute limit.
The precise instant the Pitcher’s ball crossed Home Plate.
As Soo-ho’s waist rotated sharply, every ounce of his body’s strength transferred flawlessly through the rod’s tip.
Shhwaaaack!
Tearing through the rough waves, the fish’s true form finally emerged from the dark seawater.
A massive sea bream, thick as an adult man’s thigh, its body armored in silver scales that gleamed like polished metal.
A red seabream was dragged up from the Water Surface, thrashing wildly through the air before crashing heavily onto the Deck.
Thud! Flap! Flap!
“Haa, haa….”
I gripped the fishing rod while catching my breath in ragged gasps.
My forearms were swollen and aching, and the cold sweat coating my back was being chilled by the bitter sea breeze.
Yet an undeniable thrill of exhilaration spread across my lips.
Through nothing but my own timing, balance, and relentless battle of wills, I had completely subdued a creature of nature.
It was the exact same spine-tingling sensation as when I’d hit a home run over the Fence from the Batter’s Box.
* * *
Hank leaned casually against the bow of the boat, silently observing me as I caught my breath.
A deep glimmer of interest flickered in his eyes, which usually remained indifferent to everything in the world.
‘Worth watching.’
It wasn’t admiration for the luck or instinct of landing a trophy catch on a first fishing attempt.
What truly shook Hank’s heart was something else entirely.
It was the spine-tingling concentration and attitude that Soo-ho had displayed on this worn, foul-smelling narrow Deck.
The countless multimillionaire star players from the Major League that Hank had personally managed over the years.
Without exception, they all began spewing complaints and grievances the moment they stepped onto this Shrimp Fishing Boat.
‘Why should I wear these foul-smelling clothes and catch fish? I’m going back to the air-conditioned Indoor Practice Facility immediately!’
They refused to invest even one percent of their concentration into anything that deviated from their refined tastes or baseball conventions.
Even when Hank forced a fishing rod into their hands, they’d typically just kill time half-heartedly before abandoning it.
But this young Oriental man before me was completely different.
Soo-ho faced this absurd farce of a nutritionist-ordered fishing session without a single complaint, willingly throwing himself into it.
‘It wasn’t merely a passive attitude of obedience either.’
Even in the moment of catching a single fish.
He appeared to be waging a relentless battle of wills, radiating fierce killing intent like a batter stepping into the Batter’s Box in the bottom of the ninth inning of the World Series.
‘To approach everything with such seriousness and intensity….’
This was an extraordinary weapon beyond imagination for a professional athlete.
Before complaining about how unconventional the given training might be.
He independently discovered one hundred percent of the advantages he could absorb from within it.
Just as Soo-ho had perfectly converted fishing into something equivalent to the Batter’s Box.
‘I’ve never seen a stubborn bastard like this in my entire life.’
The corner of Hank’s mouth curled upward slightly.
In truth, Hank had a different reason for deliberately dragging Soo-ho out to this rough Sea and putting a fishing rod in his hands.
“Do you know why I dragged you out to the middle of this Sea and made you suffer like this?”
I steadied my breathing and looked toward Hank.
“You said it was off-season training for a baseball player.”
“That’s right. But more precisely, it’s to overhaul your entire mindset.”
Hank removed his worn sunglasses and threw them aside, his wild beast-like gaze flashing with intensity.
“Most batters step into the Batter’s Box with a ‘herbivore’ mentality. They patiently wait for the pitcher to throw the ball, and only when it comes do they extend the bat. It’s the complete mindset of prey waiting to receive what’s given to them.”
Hank’s thick finger jabbed at my chest.
“But to demolish the fastballs of monsters exceeding 100 miles per hour, you can’t be prey—you must become a predator. Just as you strangled that creature in the Sea, grappling with it in a death match, you need the fierce fighting spirit not to wait for the Pitcher’s throw, but to hunt it perfectly and tear it to shreds.”
Soo-ho’s pupils dilated ever so slightly.
When gripping the bat and facing the Pitcher.
This was meant to awaken that instinctive savagery—the position he should occupy.
Honestly, he’d never even considered it.
But Hank’s outlandish intention didn’t end there.
“And nutritionally speaking, this trophy you seized through direct, blood-soaked struggle works the most exquisite magic on your body.”
Hank habitually claimed to despise science and numbers.
Yet paradoxically, his methods pierced the very essence of the most perfect sports science.
There existed two meticulously calculated layers of reasoning behind his decision to have Soo-ho hunt directly.
“First. The time you spent enduring and pulling against this creature in a test of strength is itself an incredibly intense, full-body workout. Right now, your muscles are activated like mad, primed to absorb nutrients. What those gentlemen in white coats call muscle protein synthesis mode is switched on. The assimilation process distributed to muscle is on an entirely different dimension than sitting peacefully and eating meat someone else grilled for you.”
He continued.
“And second. This is the most important reason I dragged you directly to the Hunting Ground.”
Hank lifted the red seabream’s tail and thrust it under Soo-ho’s nose.
“Those filthy Major League Baseball players rolling in money have their Baseball Club deliver premium organic meals right to their mouths. But do you think they’ll stick to it till the end? Bored, tasteless, annoying. They make every excuse and sneak hamburgers and pizza at night. Meat fed to them by others is nothing but a bothersome ‘obligation.'”
A sinister fervor crept into Hank’s voice.
“But this meat you just seized by fighting rough waves—that’s different. The moment you chew and swallow it, your brain registers it not as a simple meal, but as fuel for survival. Because it’s meat you risked your life to claim yourself. You’ll never abandon it, never tire of it. The moment you understand the importance of your ingredients, your routine will never crumble. I guarantee it.”
Soo-ho clamped his mouth shut.
It was crude and rough, yet utterly irrefutable—perfect logic.
Acquiring a predator’s mindset through hunting.
And a psychological routine that would never collapse.
Hank wasn’t merely an eccentric obsessed with the wild—he was a genuine genius who wrung both a player’s mental and physical limits to their absolute extreme.
‘With intentions like that… I was right to trust him to the end.’
Though there had been moments of doubt.
Soo-ho had ultimately remained here, unlike the other players.
Above all, in truth, Hank’s outlandish philosophy was.
A method proven in the shadows of real professional sports.
Brent Burns, an elite-tier defensive force who dominated the NHL and a Norris Trophy recipient.
He was renowned for maintaining beast-like stamina during his off-seasons by hunting and farming directly in the wild, sustaining himself on meat and vegetables he secured himself.
Derek Wolfe, the merciless defender of the NFL who slipped a Super Bowl championship ring on his finger.
He too had revealed in interviews that the secret to his overwhelming physical prowess was a ‘wild-meat-centered diet.’
The Major League Baseball stage was no exception.
Pete Alonso, the polar bear who shattered the Major League rookie single-season home run record in his debut year.
He boldly stated in media interviews that he consumed wild game like elk and bison to generate explosive power.
Even the St. Louis Cardinals, the most prestigious Baseball Club to win the World Series eleven times.
Stockpiled mountains of wild game jerky made from pheasant, alligator, and elk in their Clubhouse to awaken players’ savagery.
These global monsters, beyond the refined supplements modern science provided.
Instinctively believed in the primal energy that exploded when they smelled blood directly and chewed the rough protein of the wild.
In that moment.
Grrrrrowl.
My stomach growled loudly.
Hank’s lips curved upward at the sound.
“How about it? Eager to eat, aren’t you?”
“Yes! I can’t wait to try it.”
But Hank raised his palm as if to stop me, spreading his hand wide.
“But before that.”
“Is there another training exercise?”
Hank uttered something absurd with a serious expression.
“No. Let’s take a photo first.”
“A photo?”
“When you catch a big fish, you have to take a photo. It’s the golden rule of fishing.”
“Is… is that so?”
Hank suddenly pulled out a crude, weathered Polaroid camera from seemingly nowhere.
I found myself standing before the camera, holding the massive, thrashing sea bream aloft with both hands.
Click.
Whirrrr.
With the sound of an old mechanical shutter, a square Polaroid photograph ejected with a soft pop.
The image captured me in an awkward stance, holding a sea bream of terrifying proportions with perfect clarity.
But instead of handing the photo directly to me, Hank pulled a thick marker pen from his work pants pocket.
“The name.”
“Soo-ho.”
“Not your name. The name of that monster you caught.”
“This… fish?”
“That’s right.”
“You name the fish?”
Hank glared at me menacingly over his sunglasses.
His eyes held the savage, ruthless gleam of a predator—demanding I speak without hesitation.
I was bewildered.
If I were adopting a puppy or kitten, of course I’d give it a cute name.
But naming a protein mass that would soon be inside my stomach?
As I stood there gaping in disbelief.
“Hurry!”
Hank’s roar reverberated across the Deck with a resounding clang.
In that instant, the name of a man I’d thought of during my struggle with this sea bream reflexively burst from my mind.
“V-Victor!”
“Victor? Yes. Quite fierce and fitting.”
Hank nodded with satisfaction, then wrote boldly across the white margin at the bottom of the Polaroid with his marker.
Scribble, scribble.
When Hank tossed the photo to me, I couldn’t help but let out a hollow laugh.
A single line of text written in crooked, crude handwriting.
[Soo-ho Hooks the Monster Victor.]
Soo-ho gazed at the photograph with a hollow smile.
‘Victor… I’m sorry. I’m truly sorry.’
This wasn’t my intention at all.
* * *
Meanwhile, at the same moment.
A premium indoor training center in New York, USA.
Standing over 190 centimeters tall.
Possessing an overwhelming physique that weighed 105 kilograms.
A Caucasian youth, boasting pectoral muscles that seemed ready to burst and forearms thick as logs, exhaled roughly as he lowered the heavy barbell.
“Huff. Huff.”
He was the one who, just last Arizona Fall League season, unleashed beastly fastballs clocking 100 miles per hour.
The monster pitcher Victor Moretti—already confirmed for Major League promotion next season.
Though it was the middle of the off-season, his entire body was already drenched in sweat.
Even having achieved his dream of becoming a Major Leaguer, he had no luxury to lounge in a warm room and celebrate with idle complacency.
To survive in that place where true monsters swarmed.
He had to lift heavier iron when others rested, pushing his pitching velocity to its limits.
“One more set.”
It was the very moment Victor’s piercing gaze flashed as he reached to grip the heavy barbell again.
Shiver.
“…?”
Suddenly, Victor’s massive shoulders trembled.
As if he’d been drenched in ice water in the depths of winter.
A chilling, eerie cold swept up his spine in a rush.
He set down the barbell in bewilderment and rubbed his thick forearms vigorously.
‘What is this? Why the sudden chills…?’
The indoor training center was warm and stuffy with the heater running at full blast.
There was no reason to catch a cold, no reason to feel cold—his condition was perfect.
Yet Victor had just experienced an intensely bizarre and eerie sensation.
“Did the fish I ate yesterday go bad?”
Victor tilted his sweat-dampened head with an uncomfortable expression.
Unaware that his name had just been bestowed upon a massive red sea bream thrashing on the deck of an old shrimp fishing boat far away.

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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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