Correcting an S-Class Quarterback

After stripping the ball away, Jaehyuk coasted on the momentum of his sprint for a few more strides before slowing to a stop.

If Hopkins hadn't interfered with Horton, and if Jaehyuk hadn't appeared at just the right moment to make the catch, they would have tied the game with three seconds left on the clock.

And the spectators, who had at some point risen from their seats to watch it all unfold, stood clenching their fists in silence, hands slick with sweat.

"…Whoa. Wow."

"Holy shit."

Then, as if slowly waking from hibernation, they murmured a word or two apiece—before finally raising ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠their fists and erupting into cheers.

"HOOOOLY SHIIIIIT!!"

"Is he insane? No—no, he can't be human, right?"

"I couldn't look away until the very, very last second! What a beautiful game!"

"Isaiah Horton was incredible, and Steve Hopkins deserves credit for chasing him down without ever letting his guard slip. And Kim Jaehyuk? There's nothing left to say—he's the MVP, plain and simple!"

And with that, the game was over.

Victory for Group C.

The expressions on the other groups' faces as they watched, however, were remarkably complicated. Part of them was rooting for Group C; another part wished the gap between themselves and that team weren't quite so wide. But the moment they confirmed that Group C had actually wrested a win from a college squad, everyone's conflicted feelings were written plainly across their faces.

Group A, in particular, who had been crushed by a massive margin and were now officially eliminated, all wore expressions on the verge of tears.

"H-he's good, I'll give him that. Real good."

"At this point, that guy's the number one running back, period."

"Yeah, that one stopped being up for debate a while ago."

Group B, spared from elimination, traded quiet conversation among themselves.

And among them, one player gazed at the field in particular silence.

"…"

Mateo Rodriguez was replaying Hopkins's movement on the final play in his head, over and over.

Hopkins had clearly lost track of Horton. As a cornerback, the correct read was to shadow the opposing receiver—yet he'd been fixated on the quarterback in a way that made no sense. Then, out of nowhere, he'd started running a completely inexplicable route, and by the time anyone noticed, he had arrived at the exact spot Horton was heading for.

Instinct.

Mateo had never brushed off a single word Jaehyuk said to him. The advice Jaehyuk had given Hopkins was no different.

Hopkins listened to him.

Stop obsessing over your opponent—trust your own instincts a little more. That was the advice Jaehyuk had given, and on the very last play of the game, Hopkins had put it into practice.

The result: Horton, for all his talent, never got his comfortable catch. The ball glanced off his hands and spun away.

Would that outcome have even been possible if Hopkins had done what he always did—lock onto his man and chase him blindly? Probably not. Horton would have blown right past him and secured the catch cleanly.

Marking a receiver and reading the ball's path before it ever arrives are two entirely separate skills, after all.

Granted, for an ordinary player, sticking to his mark was the right play. A gamble built on raw instinct like that was a strength unique to Hopkins himself.

But then—how on earth had Jaehyuk known that? How had he known it well enough to give that advice?

"I wonder how he knew."

"Huh? Knew what?"

Someone had overheard Mateo muttering to himself, but Mateo simply sank back into silence and his own thoughts.

Watching the game reach its end, David, Alabama's head scout, clenched his fist and pumped it hard.

"YES! Come on!!"

It was rare for him to show such unbridled passion—uncommon enough that it surprised even himself—but he simply couldn't hold it in. This game had set the chest of anyone watching ablaze.

"I have no choice but to admit it."

Ralph, Auburn's chief scout, was supposed to have gone home after the first day. Instead, apparently determined to watch until the very end, he had shown up to spectate side by side with David every single day.

"That kid you picked? He's the real deal. Genuine article."

"Don't even think about touching him."

"Relax. I have my pride. I'm not about to covet the boy after you've built all this—but still."

He said the words, but the look on his face was that of a man dying of regret.

And watching him wear that expression, David felt a strange, delicious pleasure. The two of them had been locked in a back-and-forth tug-of-war forever, but this scouting battle—at least for this year—felt like a decisive win.

Of course, it wasn't confirmed yet that Jaehyuk would actually come to Alabama…

David turned his gaze toward the staff benches.

There sat Nick Saban and Kalen DeBoer, side by side.

He watched all of this with his own eyes—surely he won't turn down Jaehyuk's request now?

At this point, it was nearly certain that Jaehyuk would step onto the field as a starter the moment he enrolled at Alabama. There were formidable upperclassman running backs ahead of him in the depth chart, sure—but David had a feeling Jaehyuk would win that battle too.

Kim Jaehyuk wasn't merely talented. That was the whole point.

"Match over."

The official whistle finally blew, ending the scrimmage.

Group C had won by seven points.

Nobody had predicted it before kickoff—and that alone spoke volumes about the depth a true college roster carried. In a full eleven-on-eleven regulation game, even Jaehyuk almost certainly couldn't have pulled it off.

"I'm going to go have a word with the coaches."

"Ugh."

Leaving Ralph's sigh behind him, David headed for the staff benches. There was no reason to put it off—he intended to ask for their opinion right now.

"Oh! Our head scout in the flesh! Hahaha!"

Kalen DeBoer greeted him with a beaming face, energy crackling off him in waves.

"Did you enjoy the game, Coach? For the first time in a long while, I think I had fun watching football as football—not as a puzzle to be dissected."

"Same here. And that's entirely thanks to those boys."

DeBoer's eyes drifted toward Jaehyuk and Horton. In his mind, a picture was already forming—those two, syncing up as one, next season and the season after.

Then a thought struck him.

Nick's earlier remark—that Horton's improvement had also come thanks to Jaehyuk's help. He hadn't pressed the point at the time, but now was his chance.

"Coach Saban—about what you said earlier. What did you mean, Jaehyuk was coaching?"

"Exactly what it sounds like. I'd taken a bit of a liking to that little Asian kid myself, so I lent a hand with his training for a short while after coaching him. And as it happened, Isaiah Horton was there humoring him through the drills."

DeBoer and David listened quietly as Nick explained.

"The two of them ran a few one-on-ones, and then all of a sudden, Jaehyuk's out there coaching Horton. I remember thinking, what on earth is going on here? Heh."

"A high schooler coaching a college player? From a different position, no less…"

"Well, if Jaehyuk had lost those one-on-ones, Horton wouldn't have listened to a word of it. But they were dead even. In truth, 'coaching' isn't quite the right word—Jaehyuk was explaining what he'd felt out there. Why he could ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠drag Horton down to even ground in the first place. And that explanation cut straight to Horton's weakness."

"His weakness…"

Listening to the story, David felt goosebumps rise along his arms. Hadn't he already known this, on some level?

Liam Hughes of Wichita North. And James. And Tony Garcia.

All of them cases where a player's ability had skyrocketed after receiving Jaehyuk's advice.

Back then, he'd written it off—coincidence stacked on coincidence, or maybe Jaehyuk had simply steadied them mentally. But by now, it was neither coincidence nor anything so shallow as morale.

Jaehyuk—that boy could genuinely see something in the players facing him.

"If he really can see things like that…"

"Hmm?"

"Then football must feel almost laughably easy to Kim Jaehyuk."

"Heh. Probably so. But this time it was surely a fluke."

"Ah—well, actually, Coach Saban, with respect, this is far from the first time."

"…I beg your pardon?"

"Jaehyuk has already coached three players on his own team exactly this way. Here—the roster and the records."

David handed over his tablet. Nick and DeBoer scrambled to check it, and little by little, both men's expressions hardened into stone.

"This is…"

"This is actually real?"

"It is. In fact, thanks to it, all three of those players successfully made it into D1 programs. Before that, even their college prospects were uncertain."

Both men were left speechless.

And then a thought came to them, sudden and impossible to ignore.

Maybe Jaehyuk was worth far more than just an outstanding player.

"Excuse me for a moment… I need to call the athletic director and the board of trustees."

DeBoer hurriedly excused himself.

Nick was still combing through the tablet. Watching the two of them, David abruptly began to feel afraid.

What if—no, in the absolute worst case—what if they failed to bring Jaehyuk in at all?

"…"

It was a thought too terrible to entertain.

After the game, the eliminated group was officially set: Group A.

But as the saying goes, a man walking into a bathroom and a man walking out are two different people—and complaints began to trickle out of Group A.

"We had to play the very first match. That put us at a huge disadvantage."

"We burned through all our stamina, and we showed the college team every one of our strategies before anyone else did…"

"Group C, fine—we'll admit they beat us. But run it again and we'd beat Group B for sure!"

Old man Nick answered the protesting Group A with a single wordless gesture.

"Out."

They tried to push their case a little further, but against Nick's sheer charisma, they eventually bowed their heads and filed off the field.

Meanwhile, entirely unbothered by any of it, I was busy checking my rewards for the win.

Huh. So my Stamina had been C3 all along.

Considering that Durability and Strength had both started out at Grade D, that was actually pretty high.

One more Durability reward and I rank up to B-Grade.

Once I hit B-Grade, I'd unlock a new ability, wouldn't I?

Even now, what I had was seriously good—a trait that softened a full thirty percent of the impact I took during a game. It wouldn't erase the worry of injury entirely, but compared to everyone else, my risk had dropped by miles.

Football, more than any other sport, was a game where injuries derailed careers left and right—so much so that you had to watch your step around falling leaves, as they say. With all that in mind, my Gift was supporting me perfectly.

Let's ride this all the way up to S-Grade.

Tap, tap.

"Hm?"

I was grinning to myself, admiring my quietly growing stats, when someone tapped me on the shoulder from behind. I glanced back to find Mateo staring at me with his usual expressionless face.

"Oh, Mateo. What's up?"

"You look happy."

"Damn right I am."

To everyone else, I'm sure it looked like I was just riding high on beating a college team.

Oh, you poor, naive creatures. You think something like that would make me happy?

Winning an NFL championship—that's the bare minimum worth celebrating. Mm-hmm.

While I was off daydreaming about nothing in particular, Mateo fidgeted for a moment, then spoke again.

"About last time. I'm sorry."

"For what?"

I genuinely had no idea. Sorry for what, exactly?

"Last time. I just threw you the ball and just walked away."

"??"

This little punk. You—are you actually a quarterback? You're not even a kid anymore, and…

"Wait. Don't tell me you're apologizing over that, of all things?"

"Yeah."

"Ha!"

This guy was unbelievable too. Come to think of it, every quarterback I'd dealt with had been a few cards short of a full deck. Especially Tony and this guy—how on earth were they this soft and still playing quarterback?

"I wasn't even thinking about it. Honestly, it's kind of hilarious."

"That's a relief."

Mateo let out a long breath—and for the first time since I'd met him, a smile actually appeared on his face.

"Anyway. When this camp wraps up, go see a doctor. Get that shoulder looked at."

"That's… hard to do."

"Why?"

Mateo glanced carefully around at the people nearby, then lowered his voice to a whisper.

"If anyone finds out I went to a hospital, they'll automatically suspect an injury."

"So?"

"Then my stock drops, doesn't it?"

Back to stone-faced, just like that. Talking to this guy was like talking to a wall.

"Then let it drop—and climb back up. You can do that much, can't you?"

"I need it to happen now. At the latest, before college recruiting."

"Why?"

"Because I have to provide for them. My family."

That one caught me completely off guard, and for a moment I could only stare at him.

Everyone has their own circumstances, sure—but I never imagined I'd feel the weight of a household's breadwinner pressing down on a kid my own age.

"…Huh."

"Can you understand now?"

"Yeah."

This is really something. Hm, but if we want to make money, does it have to start with the pro league? Isn't there some way to earn as a college player?

Honestly, I had no clue. He'd said "at the latest, after college," which implied there were opportunities to earn money somewhere along the way…

‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠

Truthfully, I've never once thought about money.

What I was aiming for wasn't a paycheck—it was the number one spot in the entire industry. My siblings and I had grown up comfortable; I'd never had to worry about money a day in my life.

"So, about that, Jaehyuk."

"Yeah?"

Mateo looked at me with eyes that were almost pleading.

"Could you fix my form?"

"What? No—look, even if you ask, I don't know the first thing about quarterbacks…"

"I've been around countless people up to now. Not a ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠single one of them ever noticed my condition. Not one. Except you."

Well, yeah. That's because my Gift tells me.

Form correction, though…

Tomorrow was the final day anyway. The remaining twenty-two players would be split into two squads for one last game.

I could spare him a single day. But could a throwing motion really be corrected in just one day? For that matter, I wasn't even sure the Gift would activate again for it.

…And there it was.

Blatantly, shamelessly triggered.

And a reward I'd never seen before, at that.

Position Aptitude increases?

In other words—if I currently held A-Grade Running Back aptitude, it would jump to S-Grade?

I'd need to confirm the details, of course, but…

Yeah. This was one greedy, covetous reward.

"Hoo—don't get your hopes up too much. You know I'm no expert."

"Giving me your time at all is more than enough. Thank you."

He's grateful, huh.

No, no—I'm the grateful one here. Heh heh.