Rolling Stone vs Settled Stones (3)
The intersquad game everyone expected to be a slugfest turned out, once the lid came off, to be a surprisingly razor-thin pitchers' duel.
Bolstered by the strategic battle between Kang Dongsik, who leaned on his years of experience, and Pi Anta, whose unorthodox yet razor-sharp tactics defied every mold, the players themselves were growing more and more absorbed in the game.
"Third baseman, nice catch!!"
"You've gotta stop at least that much!"
A ball that seemed to have perfectly threaded the defensive shift would be snared by a spectacular play for an out.
"It's going, it's going, it's goooing!!"
"Not a chance!!"
"Whoaaa!"
A towering drive that looked destined for a home run would be robbed by the center fielder scaling the wall and snatching it just in time, turning it into an out.
Spectacular defensive plays that might appear once or twice across an entire Korean Series were erupting one after another in a single game—and a second-team intersquad game at that.
The manager marveled anew at the players' passion, yet he couldn't hide the bitterness in his heart.
Do this in actual games, you crazy bastards...!
The important thing was that nothing was on the line in this game. It was a continuous string of plays that left him with no choice but to lament, "They do so well in practice—why can't they do it when it counts?"
But if they couldn't even manage it in practice, they'd never get the chance in a real game. And when you thought about it, how long had it been since every single player threw themselves into an intersquad game like this?
"Head Coach. How about a little wager?"
So the manager decided to dip a toe into the atmosphere himself.
"We bet on which team wins, and the loser buys chicken for the entire second-team roster. How about it?"
The head coach stared at the manager for a moment, then tossed out casually:
"I'll take the newcomer's side."
"Then I'll put my money on Kang Dongsik."
"Which side's the favorite? Count me in too."
"No matter how good some hotshot is, can they really beat a veteran? I'm going with Dongsik."
"I'm on the newcomer's side!"
And so the stakes of the game kept growing.
Before long, the game had reached the top of the ninth. The score was 3 to 1.
Facing a one-out, runner-on-first situation while trailing, Pi Anta stepped into the batter's box.
The two of them, who had chattered away under the pretext of psychological warfare every time they faced each other as offense and defense switched throughout the game, didn't stop even in this final at-bat.
"Already the final at-bat. It's simply frustrating that we've been held to a single run thanks to your outstanding abilities, senior. The defensive strategy you showed in the top of the sixth—win or lose, I learned something from that."
"You're too kind. I was impressed myself watching you in the seventh, relentlessly shaking up the pitcher and trying somehow to connect to the top of the order. I've never seen a female player approach competition with such tenacity. Very impressive."
"There's no man or woman in competition. Especially inside virtual reality—there are only winners and losers."
"I like that a lot. So what pitch do you think is coming this time? Personally, I'd like to get you out this time around."
As Kang Dongsik said, the current situation was a bit peculiar. His team was winning 3 to 1, yet they hadn't managed to retire Pi Anta—the core of the opposing team—even once.
Just as in League of Legends, matchups between strong teams often get decided to some degree from the ban-pick phase, today's intersquad game had essentially gone sideways starting from the manager's lineup placement. Pi Anta's tier had only just reached Master—the lowest among her teammates—and with no time to adapt to the team, she'd been saddled with the heavy responsibility of catching in the intersquad game. So to lighten her batting burden, she'd been placed eighth, where the weakest hitter typically goes.
The result was a massive loss of offensive firepower.
When the one and two hitters somehow got on base, the three, four, and five hitters would come up empty. And when Pi Anta managed to get on, the nine, one, and two hitters couldn't produce, leaving everything out of sync one way or another. On the rare occasions the cleanup or fifth hitter opened the floodgates, a double play would inevitably come from the sixth spot. It was the classic flow of a team that just couldn't get it together—horribly out of sync.
To make matters worse, the seventh hitter was slow-footed, so Kang Dongsik had intentionally walked him twice just to neutralize Pi Anta's baserunning ability. He was exploiting the rule that a trailing runner is automatically out if they pass the lead runner.
The one run they'd managed had come from Pi Anta, who in a rage-fueled full swing aiming for a home run had smashed an extra-base hit that brought home the seventh hitter from first. Had that swing gone for a home run, it would have been 3–2, and Pi Anta remained sore about that for a long while.
But what's past has meaning in its own way... my ass.
If she had her way, she'd line them all up and take a bat to them. What made it even more frustrating was that this level of play was genuinely the product of their best efforts.
There's really no hope.
Pi Anta briefly wondered whether she should look into something like canceling her contract right about now. It's the second team. This isn't the elite roster. She decided to take comfort in that thought.
Still, the focus of Kang Dongsik's team in scoring those three runs was praiseworthy. Regardless of any difference in pure baseball skill, Kang Dongsik fully leveraged his edge in organizational cohesion, relentlessly tormenting Pi Anta every inning through the runners he was given. Looking at how the game had unfolded, holding them to three runs was actually remarkable.
"Still, if I hit a home run right here, anything's possible, isn't it?"
Kang Dongsik had walked the seventh hitter again. Discounting the strikeout in his first at-bat, the seventh hitter was having a three-times-on-base game. A home run here would end the game in a tie even without any follow-up hits. For the purpose of determining the starting roster, intersquad games had no extra innings.
Kang Dongsik grinned and settled in close to Pi Anta's body side.
"Won't be easy. I've already figured out your weakness."
"If it's something like a four-four time combo of strong-weak-strong-weak-medium-strong-weak, or a hundred-and-eight-hit combo that deals fatal damage on a graze, I'm not interested."
"You've found me out."
"Was that for real?"
"As if."
While the two exchanged banter, the left-handed pitcher lifted his right leg. A heavy fastball powered by raw velocity came barreling in.
Whap!!
"Strike!"
Pi Anta took a steadying breath. Then she glared at the pitcher exchanging signs before glancing back slightly. Sensing that look, Kang Dongsik spoke to her once more.
"Getting under your skin? Can't blame you."
"No, I'm three-for-three so far—I'm honestly just dying to know what weakness you've supposedly figured out."
"If you're curious, watch how I do it this time. I took that extra-base hit, sure, but reviewing the foul balls before that gave me a hint."
Even in good results, he sought out the shortcomings and areas for improvement. That constant drive to grow was genuinely admirable.
So what on earth was this so-called weakness? Was it just psychological warfare? Or did she have a weakness she herself didn't know about? Pi Anta squeezed her eyes shut once, trying to sort out her increasingly tangled thoughts.
In that interval, the pitcher finished exchanging signs and went into his windup again.
Come on.
One, two...
Crack!
"Foul!"
Another fastball coming inside. This one was slightly off the plate, but it came in so sharply that her hands went out before she knew it. This wasn't the stuff of a second-team pitcher. Was he just in exceptional form today? Pi Anta muttered to herself as she settled back into her batting stance.
Her signature routine: stomp the front foot three times—pak, pak, pak—raise the bat vertically, then aim it at the pitcher. Repeating those almost superstitious steps, Pi Anta predicted the next pitch.
Weakness. A weakness, huh. Was there a location she couldn't handle?
She didn't know what it was, but once she saw what came next, she'd get some sense of it. Pi Anta choked up slightly on the bat and widened her eyes.
"Why don't you smile a little? You'll get wrinkles on that pretty forehead."
"As I said earlier, there's no man or woman in competition. Only winners and losers."
"Which one do you think you'll be right now?"
She heard Kang Dongsik shifting behind her. Inside again? Or outside?
The more the possibilities multiplied, the more the batter was at a disadvantage. Especially for Pi Anta, who preferred the kind of hitting that cornered pitchers through a battle of wits—being the one backed into a corner like this was thoroughly uncomfortable.
So Pi Anta decided to keep her thinking simple.
If it comes, swing. If it's away, let it go.
But as if reading that very thought, the pitch that seemed headed down the middle curved away, fleeing from Pi Anta's bat.
"Ugh...!"
She barely managed to check her swing. The call was no swing. It had been razor-close, but she hadn't gone around.
"Not bad."
"Your mind games are truly excellent."
Two strikes, one ball. A count where the batter has to swing at anything that looks like a strike, while the pitcher can expand the zone and afford to waste a pitch.
"I want to get you this time too, you know."
"It won't be easy."
"I'm the one winning right now, aren't I?"
"In the end, if I hit my way on, the batter wins."
Pi Anta squeezed the bat tight in her grip. Then she glanced toward first base for a moment and touched her helmet once.
A decisive play. Hit-and-run.
Kang Dongsik had somewhat caught on and considered wasting a pitch, but decided against it. There was certainly the option of throwing a fake sign to draw a pitchout and burn a ball, but a crafty girl like her was more than capable of using such a clever ploy herself—so he chose to play it carefully.
In cases like this, it was best to bet on the higher-probability option. The current count was two strikes, one ball. One way or another, all that mattered was getting Pi Anta out. Even if the runner went, if he just got Pi Anta, the slow-footed runner would be easy to catch.
He still hadn't gotten her out even once. Don't get distracted by the runner—focus only on the batter. That terrifying eighth hitter—this time, for sure, he'd retire her!
The pitcher lifted his leg. And once again aimed for the lower inside corner of Pi Anta's strike zone.
The weakness Kang Dongsik had identified in Pi Anta was the inside fastball. With a swing that left her weight back and flared outward, she was biomechanically slow to react to fast pitches—especially inside ones—and in previous at-bats she had indeed been late several times. The home-run-caliber extra-base hit off her rage swing had only happened because the pitch had leaked over the plate.
This time, he'd get her. Then immediately gun down the runner and end the game!
One.
Two...!
"Ugh, hup!"
But Pi Anta let out a strange grunt of effort. In that brief instant of starting her swing, she quickly tucked her elbow against her side, rapidly narrowed the flaring swing path, and with added rotational force from her torso, crushed the fastball clean.
CRACK!!
At that crisp, ringing sound, the runner heading for second stopped in his tracks. Pi Anta admired the flight of the ball, then arrogantly tossed her bat to the ground with a casual flick.
"What was that weakness again?"
It was an absurd adjustment. The time it takes a professional player to swing a bat is about 0.2 seconds. In that fleeting window, to see the ball's path and adjust on the spot—no, not even on the spot, but mid-swing—to change her batting form and narrow the swing path...
This wasn't something that could be taught.
Watching Pi Anta leisurely circle the bases, Kang Dongsik was left speechless.
Is this talent? Is this... an unclimbable mountain?!
Truly insane hitting talent. This player was currently a first-year pro. She had been with the team for less than forty-eight hours.