Live Combat Mode

When I opened my eyes, the familiar ceiling greeted me.

Last night, instead of fried chicken, I'd gone to bed after downing a can of beer with chicken breast.

"Guess I'm getting used to this too."

I did wonder if I really had to go this far, but……

Then again, if I skip training, I have nothing else to do.

Now that I'd stopped the workouts my body did out of pure habit, boredom was inevitable. My muscles itched with restlessness, too.

Just like Marcus from Drive Baseball — apparently I'd become a full-fledged gym rat myself.

"Might as well start with some weights, then."

Coach had held me back yesterday, so I hadn't gotten through my routine. I loosened my body up before training.

"Hup! Hup!"

It was nothing like the conditioning room back home, where music blasted and we chatted away with teammates while we lifted. Doing weights alone in a silent void was just plain dull.

Still, muscle doesn't lie.

Finished with a quick session, I turned to look at the wall of the dugout.

One thing I'd realized during the knuckleball blocking training last time: these options looked so bare-bones they bordered on lazy.

But the true value of this place was that, built on top of those foundational bases, I could run highly specific, detailed drills.

Think of it as the hidden menu items that never made it onto the menu board.

This time, I should work on hitting.

Lately, I'd been struggling at the plate. Granted, part of that was opponents refusing to give me anything good to hit — but if I was being honest, I also just wanted to get better.

"I'd like to train my hitting like it's a real game……"

"Wait, everything before this was Practice Mode?"

Perplexed, I scratched my head. Well, I suppose ten million swings did get labeled a tutorial.

Come to think of it, balls that completely jumped out of the zone had been rare in here. Most pitches rode the borderline or came in for strikes.

"So could you make it like a pitcher who lives on the outside, low corner?"

Half-doubting it could even do that, I narrowed my eyes at the wall. And then the letters began to change.

At the same moment, animation began playing across the wall beside me.

A batter drawn in simple black outlines — the first I'd seen in a while. The swing mechanics themselves were close to what I'd always known: the elbow tucked in tight along the front leg as the hips closed off, then the swing.

But one thing had changed, unmistakably.

It's turned into a slight uppercut.

As I stared blankly at the animation, the realization struck me all at once.

"Haha…… I've been an idiot."

There was a line I always gave teammates who came to me for advice: baseball has no right answers — only probabilities.

And yet the guy saying it had apparently been shackled by his own preconceptions.

Why was I so hung up on a level swing?

My only excuse was that the White Room had taught it to me that way. The level swing was the form that covered the widest possible range of the strike zone.

But there are no absolutes in baseball. Even Ohtani, the man who rewrote the sport's paradigms, fine-tuned his pitching and batting forms every single year. The same went for era-defining sluggers like Aaron Judge and Giancarlo Stanton.

Batters pulled out the uppercut as a weapon against overhand pitchers, and ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠once that became the mainstream, pitches with horizontal movement grew in value. Baseball never stops evolving to fit its era and its circumstances.

Guess I'd let a fixed mindset creep in without noticing.

Pitchers attacking a hitter's weak zone? Then it's only natural for me to study that zone and patch the hole.

That said, it was never easy. This game is littered with hitters who tried to fix a flaw and lost their strengths along with it.

Even the uppercut on display in the animation looked slow to react against high-velocity fastballs up in the zone.

But hey, I have the White Room, don't I?

If a new weakness surfaced, I could always come back here and rework my swing. Mind made up, I grabbed a bat and stepped into the batter's box.

"Ten thousand?"

I was puzzling over the surprisingly modest number — and understood the reason the moment the session began.

Whiiish―

The pitching machine threw exactly as I'd requested: like a real pitcher. It mixed in waste pitches to bait my bat, along with no small number of actual strikes, so a single plate appearance devoured a serious chunk of time.

"So repetition and mastery really are the answer, huh."

Whiiish―

CRACK―!

For a long while after that, sharp percussive cracks kept ringing through the white void.

"So I've had Kang Hyuk participate in team training only for the time being. As a way of managing his workload."

"Hmm……"

At the hitting coach's report, Manager Eom Tae-hoon tilted his head.

"What if he loses his feel while he's resting?"

"I don't plan on making it last long. Just about a week."

"That should be fine, then."

"There's one more thing I need to report, actually……"

"What is it?"

Hitting Coach Park Tae-jin pulled up Kang ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠Hyuk's recent batting metrics.

Even staring right at them, the numbers were hard to believe.

More than two months into the season, and the kid was hitting over .350 with an on-base percentage above .500. From a catcher — a high school draftee rookie, no less.

But dig into the granular metrics, and there were causes for concern.

"The other clubs have clearly finished their analysis on him by now."

Kang Hyuk was struggling with pitches down and away. Granted, the outer-low corner gives every hitter in baseball fits, and the handful of pitchers who could actually dot that spot on purpose could be counted on one hand league-wide.

The problem was that Kang Hyuk had been trying to bail himself out — reaching for those pitches more and more often. The numbers reflected it: his ground-ball rate and swinging-strike rate were both creeping up compared to last month.

Kang Hyuk probably knows it too.

Knew that when he couldn't solve the problem himself and just passed the baton down the lineup, runs got a lot harder to come by.

"So I've been debating whether I should sit down with him and go over these numbers together."

"Hmm……"

The manager's reaction was lukewarm. And understandably so — coaches all shared one sacred maxim: don't touch what's already working.

If a coach poked the wrong thing and Kang Hyuk's form went down the drain? Getting his own head chopped off on the spot would be the least of it.

"I understand your concern, sir. It's just — his front shoulder keeps flying open. That could easily keep hurting him going forw—"

"Tae-jin."

"Yes, hyung-nim."

The moment the manager called him by name, the hitting coach's mouth snapped to the informal honorific on reflex. At work they were boss and underling, but outside the ballpark they went back and forth like old buddies.

Manager Eom Tae-hoon slid off his sunglasses and rubbed his eyes — eyes that, incongruous with his bear-like build, were so large they recalled a toad's.

The thought escaped his mouth before he could stop it.

"Your features really do all do their own thing, huh."

"……This is a training facility."

"My bad."

Muttering to himself, the manager slid his sunglasses back on and slyly looked over his hitting coach.

"You and I both couldn't hit a lick back in our playing days."

"We didn't, did we."

The two ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠men had made their living with their gloves, plain and simple — and that probably had plenty to do with how far they'd climbed. Their names had never carried much weight as players, so they'd channeled that lingering grudge into relentless study of theory.

"And yet every now and then it hits me: at the end of the day, baseball is still just a sport."

"Where's this coming from?"

"Newest theories, latest data — slap on as much of it as you like, it means nothing in the face of overwhelming talent. The way I see it, Kang Hyuk is that kind of kid."

"……"

"All this chatter about MLB trends and whatnot — you and I could spend our whole lives at it and never manufacture a player like him. Could we?"

"No, sir. We couldn't."

"In my experience, that breed of genius figures it out on their own if you just leave them be. So what's our job? Building an environment where the kid can succeed ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠without us hovering over him. That's it."

"Hmm……"

"For example — keep loading up the hitters behind him so he never has to overextend at the plate. Things like that."

"Fair enough."

"And as it happens, I've got a plan in the works. Give me a little time, and Kang Hyuk won't be carrying this weight around much longer."

"Well, that'd be a relief, but……"

"If it still gnaws at you, go talk to him. Just don't push."

With that, Hitting Coach Park Tae-jin wrapped up the meeting and headed out to the practice field.

Players were loosening up with pre-game batting practice, free-swinging before the day's matchup.

CRACK―!

CRACK―!

You could identify the hitter by the sound alone.

That sharp a crack? That's got to be Kang Hyuk.

His read wasn't wrong.

Kang Hyuk was sending ball after ball screaming toward the outfield fence, and awe was written plainly across the faces of the players clustered around to watch.

He really is built to different specs.

Sure, they were tosses — soft, easy-to-hit lollipops. But stringing together swings that clean, over and over, was anything but easy.

And then, while he stood there slack-jawed, watching the batting practice unfold —

Coach Park Tae-jin rubbed his eyes in confusion.

Was Kang Hyuk always swinging like that?

His swing path looked like it was lofting the ball just a little more than usual. Was he imagining it?

A three-game series at Daejeon Ballpark.

Coming off yesterday's loss, the Daegu Kingdoms had handed the ball to Han Jiseong as their starter.

Having dispatched the leadoff hitter, Han Jiseong touched his rosin bag and sank into thought.

He's definitely gotten harder to deal with.

The Lee Won-taek he'd faced before had been no great menace. Fast legs, decent eye — that was about it. Against overpowering stuff he'd usually just folded.

But a few days back, the man had desperately reworked his mechanics around the foul-cut, and now he'd become a hitter you genuinely braced yourself for. Han had only gotten him this time because he'd reached back for everything he had.

Still — the dangerous stretch is behind me.

Facing Kang Hyuk with runners on base was a deeply uncomfortable proposition. One mistake and runs crossed the plate before you could blink.

The silver lining: this was a road game. Unlike the compact stadium back in Daegu, this park was bigger, with a fence that wasn't exactly short.

"Rookie of the Year Kang Hyuk, fighting—!"

"Let's go for league MVP while we're at it!"

Han Jiseong scrunched his face at the din of the home crowd.

The season's barely started, people.

Everyone wanted to declare the Rookie of the Year race over, but Han Jiseong hadn't given an inch. A pitcher lives and dies on confidence alone — that was no exaggeration. Even if he served up a homer, walking a batter was off the table. That refusal was one of his prides.

Last time, I went in tight on the hands and got taken deep for it.

Han Jiseong had his own side of the story. Back then, the book on beating Kang Hyuk hadn't spread around the league yet.

But time had passed — and now, the crack had shown.

Every hot zone in his slash line read well above .350, except for one: in the outer-low corner, Kang Hyuk was batting a thoroughly ordinary .290.

Whiiish―

"Strike!"

No runners aboard, two balls and two strikes.

The kill pitch: a high-velocity slider diving off the outside, bottom of the zone.

Having waited for precisely this moment, Han Jiseong unleashed his full windup.

Whiiish―

VWOOM―!

Got him.

The bat chased the ball out of the zone, and a smile of pure triumph bloomed across his face.

Then — a swing that looked for all the world like a golfer driving off the tee — and the clearest crack of the bat rang out.

CRRAAACK―!

While the home fans leapt from their seats, ecstatic and howling, Han Jiseong stood frozen on the mound — then sank to the dirt, his face a portrait of disbelief.