The Genius Hitter Who Conquered America - Chapter 90

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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 90
As the afterglow of the home run still lingered, Soo-ho entered the Dugout with an unruffled expression.
Casey’s eyes, watching from the On-Deck Circle, gleamed with cold intensity.
‘His style has changed.’
Today, Soo-ho’s batting order was second.
In modern baseball, particularly in the Major League, the second batter is traditionally the team’s strongest hitter—a position of orthodoxy.
It was a spot that guaranteed the most at-bats while demanding a player with the ability to be a closer.
Since it was his first assigned position in the order.
In that position, which could have felt awkward, Soo-ho hit a home run as if to prove himself.
It was entirely different from the meticulous team batting, sacrifice bunts to advance runners, and relentless cutting he had displayed until now.
It was like a beast that had unleashed its suppressed instincts.
‘This growth is absurd.’
His grip on the bat tightened.
Just recently, it seemed he had shown selflessness because his skills were lacking.
Now he was publicly declaring that he could become a closer who dominated the game.
“Ha.”
A short exclamation burst from Casey’s lips.
Jealousy? Fear? No.
The emotion boiling up from deep within his chest was unmistakably exhilaration.
‘Yes, this is how it should be.’
Casey twisted his lips upward into a smile.
Hadn’t he hoped more than anyone that Soo-ho would show his best self?
Only then would the pleasure of surpassing him be doubled.
To reach the Major League first himself, he had to climb over this rampaging Soo-ho without fail.
‘With my rival running wild like that.’
Could someone called a top-tier prospect like himself just sit idle?
His blood burned hot.
Casey adjusted his helmet and walked into the Batter’s Box.
The roar from the Stands still chanted Soo-ho’s name, but he paid it no mind.
From now on, he would make that roar belong to himself.
Standing in the Batter’s Box, Casey fixed his gaze on Victor, the Pitcher on the Mound.
Victor, his head bowed, roughly worked the rosin bag between his fingers.
People would think.
That after such a shocking home run, his mental state must have crumbled.
But Casey’s thoughts were different.
‘That’s Victor Moretti.’
In the last game, Victor’s mental collapse against Soo-ho came from an unexpected trick.
Anyone would panic when struck by an unforeseen blow.
But this time is different.
A direct confrontation.
I lost in a battle of pure strength.
It was humiliating, but hardly confusing.
‘If I’m the caliber of a prospect destined for the Major Leagues, I’ll accept that one blow as a sharp preventative jab.’
One run? Just a solo home run.
We’re still in the top of the first inning, and the game is far from over.
An elite like Victor wouldn’t crumble from something this trivial.
If anything, his killer instinct would sharpen, and he’d throw something far more terrifying.
‘Actually, this is perfect.’
Casey lifted his bat, his eyes gleaming with intensity.
Pounding a pitcher whose mental game had collapsed and was flailing around—that wasn’t fun.
Even in victory, it would leave nothing but a hollow aftertaste.
‘I’m going to crush you at your absolute best.’
Only by breaking Victor down when he was sharper and stronger would it mean something.
Only then could he prove he was superior to Soo-ho.
Victor began his wind-up.
That blazing intensity in his eyes was unmistakable.
It was proof he hadn’t been broken.
‘Bring it.’
And so the battle began.
Just as Casey had predicted, Victor didn’t crumble.
If anything, Soo-ho’s home run had ignited a fuse—his pitching became even more ferocious.
Crack!
“Strike!”
101 miles per hour.
The crowd stirred at the number displayed on the scoreboard.
Impossible to believe this was the same pitcher who’d just given up a home run.
He was channeling his fury into raw power, throwing harder and heavier than before.
But Casey, standing in the batter’s box, refused to yield.
With bestial reflexes, he slapped Victor’s pitch foul.
Crack!
A foul ball drifting backward.
Yet the experts watching that swing felt a chill run down their spines.
It wasn’t merely making contact with the ball.
The path of the bat, the wrist movement at the moment of impact, the perfectly maintained balance—
It was a swing you wouldn’t see at the Minor League level.
It was the pinnacle of technique, stripped down to its absolute essence without a shred of wasted motion.
As the tension hung thick in the air, the count had shifted to 1-2.
An absolutely favorable count for the pitcher.
Victor’s eyes flashed with intensity.
The ball left his hand.
The pitch vanished abruptly before Home Plate.
A changeup that came in at 91 miles per hour—roughly 148 kilometers—before dropping sharply below the batter’s knees.
Thrown with perfect precision, the ball’s trajectory left the batter no choice but to swing through empty air or make weak contact for a ground ball.
Control, velocity, timing—every element aligned flawlessly in this decisive pitch.
But.
Casey reacted as though he’d been waiting for this exact pitch all along.
‘Technique is everything.’
Casey’s knees bent with fluid grace.
Yet his upper body remained composed as the bat head alone slithered downward like a serpent.
He wasn’t forcing the falling ball upward through sheer strength.
It was the technique of positioning the bat directly in the ball’s descending path.
‘This is it.’
Thwip.
Not the dull crack of a typical impact.
A light, crisp sound—like a golf ball struck perfectly by a driver.
Victor’s eyes widened.
That ball should have been driven straight into the dirt.
Yet impossibly, it was rising skyward.
Without exerting force, he’d reversed the pitcher’s own spin and recoil against him—the ultimate expression of batting technique.
The pinnacle of the craft.
Where I had powered the ball over the Fence through sheer strength, Casey had elegantly delivered it beyond the barrier with grace.
The line drive stretched cleanly over the Right Field Wall, just barely but unmistakably clearing it.
Back-to-back home runs.
Victor didn’t collapse on the Mound, though he might as well have.
He simply stood there dumbfounded, his gaze alternating between his own hands and Casey.
* * *
As Casey gracefully circled the Diamond, Mark in the On-Deck Circle adjusted his helmet and exhaled deeply.
‘Life really is something.’
Mark’s mouth tasted bitter.
Playing baseball among geniuses was agony.
He himself wasn’t lacking in talent by any measure.
At least in high school, he’d earned the reputation of a prodigy who dominated across the entire United States.
But this All-Star Game was where those prodigies were filtered through a sieve, leaving only the truly exceptional.
And just look at Casey’s swing.
‘Is that even a swing a human can make?’
All he could do was laugh bitterly.
He found himself questioning whether he truly deserved to be grouped in the same category of genius as these monsters.
But the most infuriating part was something else entirely.
It was Soo-ho.
‘What exactly is his true identity?’
Mark had long known that Soo-ho was a genius.
But he believed the nature of that genius differed.
Not the overwhelming physicality and raw power America pursued, nor a technical prodigy.
Rather, an altruistic genius who orchestrated his team toward victory—baseball’s fundamental purpose.
Yet today, that conviction shattered completely.
The weakness attributed to Soo-ho: raw power.
With that very strength, he had crushed Victor, the league’s mightiest pitcher, into submission.
If Casey embodied the crystallization of talent America revered, Soo-ho was a hybrid unlike anything I’d witnessed.
The destructive genius America pursued, and the fundamental genius that chased victory.
He displayed both seemingly contradictory styles simultaneously.
‘How is this even possible?’
Mark tightened his grip on the bat.
Honestly, he was terrified.
Their growth trajectory was nonsensical.
They seemed poised to vanish from his sight in an instant.
‘Should I give up?’
Mark shook his head vigorously.
He couldn’t.
This bond they shared.
The reason the Low A Trio’s connection endured was simple.
Compatible personalities?
Friendship that transcended nationality?
No—bluntly put, it was baseball skill.
They could be friends because they operated at similar levels, capable of spurring each other forward.
‘If I can’t keep pace here, it’s over.’
They would ascend to the glorious stage of the Major League, while he remained on the Minor League dirt, forgotten.
‘Could I even call us friends with confidence then?’
For someone as proud as Mark, friendship tainted with pity was worse than death.
‘So I have to move forward.’
Mark stepped into the Batter’s Box, his eyes fixed on Victor.
This wasn’t the moment to indulge petty pride.
He had to seize the opportunity ruthlessly when it came.
‘Victor Moretti.’
When Soo-ho hit a home run off him, he’d held firm.
But now, after consecutive home runs from Casey, things were different.
Eyes devoid of focus, breathing irregular.
Anyone could see his mental state had crumbled.
‘He’s wavering.’
Then the fastball would come.
A wild pitch was inevitable.
Victor mechanically swung his arm.
The slider that slipped from his hand rotated flatly, drifting straight down the middle.
Mark’s eyes flashed with predatory intensity.
‘This is it!’
Technique?
‘Let Casey worry about that.’
I possessed a body blessed by the gods.
Overwhelming raw power capable of tearing the ball apart.
Mark channeled every ounce of that strength into his swing.
Crack!
A brutal, heavy explosion—nothing graceful about it.
The ball shot forward in a straight line without bothering to arc, clearing the right field wall in an instant.
Back-to-back-to-back.
Three consecutive home runs.
The Stadium erupted into screams that transcended mere cheers.
Mark finally released his clenched jaw and broke into a grin.
His stride around the bases had grown noticeably lighter.
‘See that? I’m still here.’
So don’t you dare leave without me.
I’ll follow you to the very end.
* * *
The score stood at 0:3.
Yet Victor Moretti demonstrated the true mettle of a top-ranked pitcher.
Though he’d surrendered three runs in that back-to-back-to-back nightmare, he refused to crumble.
Gripping his wavering composure, he retired the remaining batters on weak contact and closed out the top of the first inning.
As he descended from the Mound, applause poured down from the Stands in encouragement.
But as Soo-ho sprinted toward his defensive position, his mind churned with complexity.
‘These guys are truly remarkable.’
I had been able to hit a home run because I perfectly understood Victor’s psychology.
I’d turned my bat with absolute certainty that a hundred-mile fastball would come, exploiting his pride against him.
In other words, I’d cheated by peeking at the answer key.
But my friends were different.
Casey with technique, Mark with raw power.
They’d overcome the ball Victor threw with malice using nothing but their own talent.
Regardless of what the opponent’s strategy was, they’d simply crushed it with the weapons they possessed.
‘I envy them.’
Soo-ho swallowed a bitter smile.
Reading an opponent’s intentions was certainly an excellent ability in baseball.
No—it was absolutely essential.
But humans are inherently drawn to covet what they don’t possess.
That overwhelming physicality and genius-level instinct.
Because I couldn’t make them mine immediately, my hunger only grew fiercer.
But I knew that such hunger would soon become the driving force for growth.
‘That’s why I can’t lose.’
I pressed my cap down firmly on my head.
They possessed things I didn’t.
‘But I have things they don’t either.’
And today, this stage was where the MVP would be decided.
If I couldn’t deliver an overwhelming performance here, the spotlight would quickly shift to those monsters.
‘Truth is, after hitting a home run in my first at-bat, I felt a bit lost.’
I’d shown such a strong impact right from the start that I worried about what to display next.
It was the obsession that I had to show something beyond a home run.
But thanks to my friends’ performances, my mind cleared.
‘Right. I just need to do what I do best.’
No need to overthink it.
‘Let’s show them.’
The moment I bent my knees and lowered my center of gravity.
Crack!
A sharp explosive sound struck my eardrums.
The ball caught by the Eastern Team Batter #4’s swing screamed through the air as it rocketed outward.
‘Here it comes.’
Instinct outpaced reason.
I could tell just from the sound of contact.
This was a deep fly ball.
Direction: left-center field.
A line drive splitting the gap perfectly between the Left Fielder and Center Fielder.
If it fell in, it was guaranteed at least a double, possibly a triple if I had the speed.
A typical Center Fielder would have backpedaled and prepared for a fence play.
But my first step was different.
The instant I heard the crack, I pivoted my body a half-turn and sprinted at full speed toward where the ball would land.
‘I’m getting it.’
The sound of my spikes tearing through the grass rang out crisply.
My vision narrowed until only the white ball came into sharp focus.
A fierce headwind rushed toward me as if blocking my path, but my speed never diminished.
Instead, I accelerated, bursting forward like a bullet.
A gasp erupted from the Stands.
“He’s chasing that down? From that distance?”
The ball reached its apex and began its rapid descent.
The Left Fielder was also desperately sprinting toward the ball, but the distance was too great.
Barely half a second remained before the ball touched the grass.
The distance between Soo-ho and the ball was roughly three meters.
‘Now.’
I pushed off the grass field with explosive force and launched myself skyward.
Like a hawk snatching its prey, my body stretched long through the air.
A hang time that seemed to defy gravity itself.
In that fleeting instant, my left arm extended to its absolute limit.
Thwack!
A dull yet electric vibration shot through my fingertips and radiated across my entire body.
The sensation of the ball settling perfectly into the web of my glove.
I slid across the grass field.
Dirt erupted in a cloud from the violent slide, but I rolled once and sprang to my feet.
Then, as if to prove a point, I thrust my left hand high into the sky.
Nestled peacefully in my glove was a white ball.
“Out!”
The Referee’s call came late—a catch so perfect it was almost supernatural.
The batted ball that would have meant a scoring threat had been erased by an impossible defensive range.
Following the raw destructive power of the home run, now came a defensive display that left spectators breathless.
The crowd fell silent.
The same batter who just hit a home run was pulling off a defensive play like that?
Gasps of disbelief and roars of acclaim shook the Stadium as if protesting the unfairness of it all.

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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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