Haneul High's Chaotic Entrance Test [Complete]
A pitcher who catches the ball must throw it until the very end. Saying “Let’s give it a try” while throwing with everything you have—that is what makes a true ace, the one who carries an entire team on his shoulders.
Your health has dropped to 5 due to the influence of ???!
Iron Arm (H)
Limited activation. Duration: Until the end of this game.
A black status window suddenly floated in front of my eyes. No matter how I called for the system, it refused to respond. The usual blue screen had vanished, leaving only this blinking black window.
Iron Arm… That’s the skill of the late Choi Dong-il.
I decided to check the temporarily granted skill first.
Iron Arm (H)
One ball, one soul. Pour your entire soul into every single pitch. That is the fate and destiny of an ace. You must say “Let’s give it a try” and stake your life on every ball you throw.
The rate of stamina depletion is drastically reduced. As stamina decreases, velocity, movement, control, and strikeout probability increase dramatically.
As expected from a History-grade skill.
Strike the Show had a unique system. A wild pitch triggered a red exclamation mark above the pitcher’s head and locked the pitch to a dead-center fastball—the worst possible debuff. In ranked matches, minimizing wild pitches was the biggest factor in winning or losing, so reducing that chance was crucial.
The problem was that my current stamina sat at 5. In the game, a stamina of 5 meant… what was the wild pitch rate again? No, this wasn’t a game. This was reality. You couldn’t just tap a button and watch a 170-kilometer fastball fly out. In the game, low stamina guaranteed wild pitches no matter how strong your stuff was, which was why History-grade skills like this weren’t highly rated there. But in real baseball, the batter didn’t get a warning when you threw a mistake pitch. They’d simply think you threw a fastball down the middle on purpose.
Besides, if your control and mental are high enough, low stamina doesn’t produce many wild pitches anyway.
Crack!
“Strike! Batter out!”
“Damn it!”
The batter stormed back to the dugout, clearly furious. But none of that mattered to me right now.
Even when I throw with full power, my stamina isn’t dropping much.
Maybe because it was already at rock bottom, the difference didn’t feel that bad. Honestly, as long as the results were good, I’d take it.
The next batter stepped in.
Fifth in the order. Two-seam fastball.
This time I aimed to induce a ground ball. I threw with practiced ease, and the ball hit an unexpected spot, turning into a clean grounder toward shortstop.
“Got it!”
Oh Jihun scooped it up and fired to first. The bottom of the first inning ended just like that.
“All right, I’ve figured out the ability, so I can head down n—”
“I’m going to finish the game. If you won’t let me, I’ll go take a test at another school.”
“...?”
First inning: 14 pitches total.
Second inning: 34 pitches total.
Third inning: 41 pitches total.
Fourth inning: 55 pitches total.
...
...
...
And by the ninth inning, the total stood at 132 pitches.
The coach watched the game with an expression that said he was questioning reality itself. Scouts from other schools and clubs, the starting players of Haneul High, and even Epinel stared in pure astonishment.
I do feel a little sorry.
The quest reward had made me a bit greedy. The coach had already seen enough and told me to come down, but I refused and said that if I left the mound I’d go test at another school. The impact of that near-blackmail request must have been huge. Thankfully, the coach actually listened.
What are you looking at?
In the opposing team’s dugout, Kim Sihu was watching me with clear interest. It seemed my performance had lit a fire under him. After I tagged him and Yang Uijin for four hits across four innings, he still pitched a clean, scoreless game and came down looking triumphant. But the pitchers who followed him got shelled, and the score began to widen dramatically. I, on the other hand, hadn’t allowed a single hit or walk through nine innings. The score was now 14–0. The gap was overwhelming.
“Let’s go up. It’s the bottom of the ninth.”
“Wait, wait. Talk to me for a second.”
I was about to head to the mound with the old, worn glove I’d used since middle school when Yang Uijin climbed up with a worried look. My condition clearly didn’t seem normal.
“You sure you’re okay?”
“Yes. I’m finishing this game.”
“Sigh… Coach said to pull you the moment they get even one hit. Well, I’ll do my best to lead you so that doesn’t happen.”
Yang Uijin settled into the catcher’s spot and began calling pitches with his mitt. My body should be wrecked from being pushed this hard, yet I feel strange.
It felt fun. My body, as if making up for all the times it couldn’t throw freely before, burned hotter and demanded I throw even stronger pitches. With a player’s physique and skills containing the history of legends, I began to feel an overwhelming sense of elation—like I could take on anyone.
First pitch. The batter flailed like he was dancing, swinging through everything before tumbling over with a loud thud.
Eight pitches left until a perfect game.
Second pitch. A slider that flew toward the batter before twisting bizarrely right in front of the strike zone and landing perfectly inside it. The batter stood frozen, staring at the pitch in shock.
“Kgh…!”
He called for time, but I threw another slider in the exact same spot and struck him out. Six pitches remained.
A batter with a solid, powerful build stepped up to the plate with confidence. I was slightly surprised to see he was actually a first-year, not a second-year like I’d assumed.
Thud!
“Strike!”
Thud!
“Strike two!”
Thud!!
“Strike! Batter out!”
Three straight fastballs for a three-pitch strikeout. The batter returned to the dugout with a look that said something had gone terribly wrong.
Tough?
No. If anything, this feels completely new.
Nothing appeared in the system window, but the black window kept displaying text only I could see.
This is the last batter. Remember what I said? One ball, one soul. Put your soul into every single pitch!
I know… very well!
By some twist of fate, the final batter was Haneul High’s cleanup hitter, Lee Surin.
“Coach, didn’t you already strike Surin out in the eighth?”
“This is a test to see how you perform against Haneul High’s best power hitter in the most extreme situation. Any complaints?”
I had already struck Lee Surin out in the eighth, yet the coach suddenly sent him up as a pinch hitter with two outs in the bottom of the ninth. It was ridiculous, but I decided to just pitch.
“Still, he’s Haneul High’s fourth batter. I can’t let him go down with four strikeouts like this!”
Lee Surin’s eyes blazed with fighting spirit.
Thud!
“Strike!”
[152 km/h]
My max velocity had been hovering around 148 earlier. How was it casually crossing 150 now? Even with my stamina completely drained.
No matter how many times I see it, this skill is insane.
The second pitch was a sinking two-seamer, but Lee Surin managed to make contact and foul it off.
“Hoo…”
Second pitch was low. Third pitch, high fastball outside the zone.
Since I had buried the previous pitch in the dirt, the plan was to elevate the next one and induce a swing-and-miss.
“Hup!”
I threw with everything I had, matching Yang Uijin’s lead perfectly.
Crack!
Ah, crap.
I knew instantly that was a hit. The spin on the final pitch had felt a little dull. Along with the ominous sound of the bat making contact, my head turned toward where the ball was flying.
So much for the perfect game?
It was exactly the kind of hit you’d expect from Haneul High’s cleanup hitter. Since it had come to this, I at least wanted a shutout…
“Uwaaaah…!”
Thwack!
“I got it—kugh!”
Crash!
What should have been a hit was somehow caught. Oh Jihun had leaped like a butterfly and snagged the ball at the last possible moment.
“Game over. Blue team wins 14–0.”
Entrance Test — Show Your Ability to the Fullest!
📍 No-hit, no-walk, 14 strikeouts, 1 perfect game broken at the final out, complete game shutout
🎁 Score Total: 14000
🎁 Reward: Confirmed History-grade Skill Random Draw Ticket, All Stats +2
My first perfect game in this life. The immense joy of earning a History-grade skill. And the fact that I had proven myself as a pitcher at the powerhouse that was Haneul High School in the world of 3X3, even though an injury had ended my career before I could carve my name into history in my previous life.
“Hey, Lee Seojun! You completely wrecked it today!”
“Nice!”
It was more than enough reason to roar with victory and joy.