A God? The One and Only God.

A 1–0 win. A two-hit complete game shutout. Thirteen strikeouts. Zero walks.

The home run he'd knocked out with his own bat, defended by his own arm. Once again, Noh In-seong's freak record had become an occasion to announce his name to the entire world.

He was young to begin with, and the situation kept producing one absurd milestone after another. The Major League scouts had come to look at completely different players — and watching Noh In-seong ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠do his lunatic act, they defected on the spot.

"Whoa. That arm is unreal."

"Even if he blows out and his career ends, you could just carry him around like an insurance policy and still come out ahead."

Well, a few teams were thinking of putting him to use in an entirely different capacity — but with his price tag ballooning like this, that was a win too.

The bench-clearing comparison, you see, was none other than Albert Belle / Kyle Farnsworth.

Setting aside how it rekindled the fond memories of countless elderly — by which I mean denture-wearing — scouts…

"Wow… young, cheap, and good? I cannot let this one slip away."

"Honestly, League Average is borderline at times — forget Double-A, some days he's questionable even for Advanced-A."

"The fact that outliers keep popping up is exactly what makes him so delicious."

Pure, uncut ability had seized them by the eyes.

The overwhelming numbers were becoming reason enough to track him all the way until the moment he hit the market — and his star quality happened to register with the scouts as a point in his favor.

Now, some might say: 'That lunatic? He's a bomb with an unknown fuse.'

And the scouts would shoot right back: 'The standards for violence and for incidents are completely different!'

"Look, he's an absurd delinquent or a walking disaster, sure."

"But he doesn't actually cause trouble, does he? Nothing major outside the ballpark."

"He's the type who likes resting at home… honestly, that temperament is great for a club."

"If only he'd take the venom out of his interviews."

By Major League standards, none of this was a real problem.

Crude as it sounds — he wasn't doing drugs or doping, was he? Scaled to American proportions, Noh In-seong was practically a model student who merely talked like a rabid dog.

"I should file a report that he's worth acquiring, then?"

"Well, even as pure defense and pitching depth, he wouldn't be a loss…"

Their individual thoughts, their individual plans, their individual reports flowed back to their respective clubs.

Since Noh In-seong's debut in 2051 — in under half a year — came the moment he was formally classified as an acquisition target by a whole swarm of Major League scouts.

Noh In-seong was human, human after all. Character aside, physically he was homo sapiens.

Meaning: the day after a start, he collapsed like a corpse.

Back when he used to come out of games before even a hundred pitches, he could at least do something the next day — but throwing an extra ten to twenty pitches on top of a perfect game, even if it wasn't quite the day after one, was rough.

"Whoa. I don't think even half the feeling's back in my left shoulder."

Today, any grand physical plans had to be abandoned entirely.

His sister was on school break, and it turned out she'd pestered their mother and father into taking a trip somewhere.

"The Philippines, was it? Or Guam."

The whole family had looked guilty about leaving him behind — and astonishingly, Noh In-seong was actually grateful.

"It's hot out there, it's far, it's exhausting, and they dragged a kid along too? Yeesh."

It had been a long, long time since the season felt this thankful. Last year's ski trip had been cold, far, and exhausting — an airplane? No, thank you.

"Inside the house is peak. Air conditioning, video games, and once game time rolls around, I get to watch everyone else suffer like dogs~ except me."

Today, into the ears of Noh In-seong — who was planning to savor a game with a zero cola chilled in a frosted glass for the first time in ages — came a sound.

Bzzzzzt—

The vibration of a clunky old-model phone grinding against the floor.

"The fact that he set that as his personal ringtone tells you exactly how unhinged this guy is."

All the more so in an era where hologram touchscreens had gone mainstream.

Beep!

"Ugh. It's you, Mr. Chun-sik…"

"In-seong! The mood with the kids is really bad right now! Jo-ttaesseo!"

"…What?"

What on earth was he saying now? An injury again?

Oh, come on. Four of them going down would've been plenty at this point, surely?

But what Dustin was talking about was something a little different.

Now that we're on the subject — in Korean baseball, rookies and second-teamers are more or less treated exactly the same.

There's the seniority culture, after all, and most rookies stay buried in the second team before ever getting called up.

It's a bit different from the Majors, where the minor-league road is so physically long that only those who survive the whole gauntlet earn the title of rookie.

Our team was a little ambiguous on this front.

Setting me aside, there were two guys whose potential looked high enough that the club was paying taxes to develop them.

Lim Jae-min had been up from the very start of the season, and Yeom Dong-goo had been called up over veteran relievers who'd been holding a numbered ticket and waiting in line.

Honestly, Song Jin-wook could have been up in his rookie year too — aside from that blunder where he insisted on playing defense.

"If he hadn't refused the DH and stubbornly chased a defensive position, he'd have already locked up Rookie of the Year last season. Tsk tsk."

"This is no time for that! Those three have the four of them walking on eggshells…!!"

No idea what he was being so desperate about, but what Dustin wanted was nothing much.

"Okay, so? What exactly do you want me to do about it?"

"I want to tell you what's happening, but the only people who understand English are you and the interpreter!"

"…Oh. That's what this is about."

But stepping into this situation would be an amateur's move. Sorry, Chun-sik.

"A true GOSU simply stands back and watches at moments like these. That's the rule."

"WHAT?!"

One of the things I saw and learned in Busan was that a guy without the skill gets frozen out, no matter how much noise he makes.

Learn something, will you. This is exactly why you American-raised types are hopeless.

Chun-sik — Dustin's — phone call was far too trivial a matter to actually get me off the couch.

A life of lying around on a holiday like a man of leisure, watching the game alongside a zero cola cold as ice. This is what a day off is. Though once the game starts, you'll be slow-roasting out in left field… hmm?

"I figured that ajusshi would get the nod when Seong-tak hyung went down, but he got his chance right away instead."

The first starter from the second-team ranks was Song Joo-cheol — Seong-tak hyung's replacement.

With the older Ji Hak-seong only just back from injury, the manager presumably didn't want to run him into the ground.

But as ever, the better the player, the more he ought to be ground down — and the price of giving a permanent second-team fixture a spot ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠start was steep.

Well — a dropped ball, you can live with. But then Song Joo-cheol went and did the thing you must not do.

You couldn't tell from lip-reading alone, but chewing out Lim Jae-min crossed the line. From the way Jae-min's face went stone-cold, something was bound to blow sooner or later.

Beep—

"Et-cha."

No need to watch any further, then. The moment I'm back tomorrow, that guy is bench-bound for sure. The catcher currently on the bench is a third-stringer who can't even beat Jae-min, so he's a write-off too — and as for the two pitchers, I could only hope they'd read the room.

"Because if they don't, they'll damn well get what's coming to them."

Even the foreign mercenary, the one man under zero obligation to blend into the team, had already picked up on it. If one more thing blew up on their watch, their fate was sealed: sold off in next year's clearance sale, fetching roughly the value of a second-team roster spot for developing rookies the year after that.

…Who am I even worrying about, here. Tomorrow's Noh In-seong will sort it out himself.

"Should I order some samgyeopsal?"

Even living alone in the house for over a week, grilling meat at home felt like pushing my luck. If Mom saw, she'd say, 'Mountains of delivery food don't bother your conscience, but grilling does?'

But the absent have no voice in the household.

"Still, at least I only have to rinse the recyclables."

--And when recycling day actually comes, I'll be at the away hotel anyway. Someone else can deal with it!

This was Noh In-seong, thinking precisely the kinds of thoughts that earned you a scorching mother-shaped palm print on the backside.

The next day, Noh In-seong walked into a locker room still thick with the stench of the previous day's defeat.

"Hi!"

So few people bothered returning such a half-hearted greeting that he simply traded hellos with Song Joo-in and Ji Hak-seong, who were loafing around anyway, knocked out his running, and was just easing into his strength work when —

"Hey! Song Jin-wook!"

Crash…

Wherever they'd learned their manners, the three call-ups from the second team had Song Jin-wook surrounded.

"You! You think you've made it, huh?! Your kids are openly looking up and arguing with people mid-defensive-play now?!"

"It wasn't even about the throw, so why are you yelling at the kids over—"

"Argh, these bastards, every last one of them—"

Grab.

"What the— who—"

"Who do you think? Can't even recognize your own team's king? I need to take my weight-adjustment machine here with me, so get lost."

Whether they fought each other or threw punches, with or without me — couldn't have cared less.

"But if it interferes with my schedule, my numbers go down."

Ruthless individualism. Noh In-seong wedged himself straight into their midst.

Deciding, the day before, that there was nothing left worth watching — and refusing to waste another minute — had been the wise call.

Because obviously: a rookie catcher who'd done nothing wrong, getting chewed out by his own second baseman? Expecting things to go well after that would take a total absence of conscience.

Even with endless coddling and praise every single inning, the kid's mentality was already cracking — and his mentor had gone down with a wrecked ankle on top of it.

The starter who should have been there cracking the whip over that moron was himself on the ground with a pulled hamstring.

Naturally, the game sank under two freshly banked errors, and from the seventh inning Kim Chang-seok put on the mask instead.

"Augh, you bastard! Why the hell did you drop that!!"

"……"

A passed ball. Jeon In-soo's pitches — the bullpen's third arm at this point — kept skipping away ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠behind him. Nothing blazing fast, no wicked break, which made dropping two in a row all the more damning. Then came a pitch he figured he could handle, hammered in near the middle of the zone — and it clipped the edge of the glove.

CRACK—!!

And that was that. The next inning, Song Jin-wook was walked intentionally, and Dustin — a stamina question by then — had already been swapped out for a defensive replacement. The Doubles, their batting order already thinned, handed the first game of the series to Changwon without so much as a whimper.

The real problem was what came after.

It went without saying — the losing team gets fed straight into the article mill, and the biggest bum of the day becomes the main course. The two morons who'd fumbled their first impressions — second baseman Song Joo-cheol and catcher Kim Chang-seok — had exactly three options.

One: shrivel up quietly, take the abuse, and get shipped back down to the second team with a sigh. Choosing this path would mean achieving enlightenment beyond what any ballplayer should — they'd have to go live in the mountains. Rejected.

Two: honestly apologize to the rookie eight years their junior and swear an oath of fair, good-faith competition. Technically doable — except "good-faith competition" was laughable. An eight-year age gap, making mistakes even rookies don't make — competition with what, exactly? Rejected.

Three: fight.

A very simple answer presented itself, so they fought.

No fists, of course. Age was its own weapon, so they merely simmered, stewed, and let the bile flow.

"What did you just say, you hole-ridden-mitt bastard? Is your brain full of holes too?"

They'd only exploded at the words that came firing out of that mouth on pure spinal reflex. And Song Jin-wook, who'd wandered in to break it up, was next on the list —

— and of all things, the madman standing right in front of them had caught it in the act.

"…Hey. You. Come out back too."

He summoned Jeong Chang-sik as well — equally useless, equally without a spot on the roster. Time to deliver a little lecture to these insolent punks.

It was a bad idea.

The right Noh In-seong enjoyed to do whatever he pleased stemmed, fundamentally, from statistics that defied belief.

Certainly there were other factors — his unpredictability, his disregard for years of service, his habit of conducting conversations with cannon-like fists instead of words — but even granting the primacy of pure performance, Korean baseball was still a world that revered its veterans and its team discipline.

The two men Noh In-seong had beaten before — Song Jin-wook, and the traded-away Song Hak-joo — were people, after all; everyone knew it. And every one of them had swallowed it in silence.

Years of service? Is that a national holiday? The reason a man who'd already beaten seniors twice faced zero internal discipline was simple: ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠the front office had shushed the whole thing.

For as long as baseball's legitimacy rests on results, he was, for all intents and purposes, the great king of this club.

A player holding a .400 average into the season's final stretch is a man no one may oppose, even if he declares the founding of a dynasty.

And the old dynasties of the Korean peninsula — for all their reputation as weak kings ruled by strong ministers — were, in truth, full of rulers who reached for the swift solution.

In other words:

"You thought I'd tremble in fear just because you summoned me?! Go ahead — throw your desperate little tantrum if you're so desperate for a beating!"

THUD—!!

"Khhek!!"

"…You… you actually hit a senior?!"

What comes next? Why, the sound of shattering, of course.

Choosing a pitch-black corner of the stadium with no CCTV coverage carried a steep price — for them.

In modern terms: 'then die.' In the language of old: 'the unforgivable crime of defying the sovereign — sentenced to death by royal decree.'

Just as the prince of ancient legend once made his point swiftly with a single iron hammer upon a bridge, Noh In-seong endeavored to persuade his conversationally challenged "seniors" with fists like hammers of iron.

"Are you men or dogs?! Wolves, even?! Turns out you only learn who the pack alpha is once you've been beaten into the dirt!"

"……Hkk…"

"Uwek…!!"

The one punched in the stomach vomited. The one beaten mostly in the legs wept. One simply passed out.

Thus, before ten punches had even landed apiece, all three arrived at a perfect understanding of their station in life.

"If I hear so much as a peep about this incident again — or if any of you so much as annoy me — understand that next time, bones will break."

The king had so decreed; what could the slaves do but hold their tongues?

The problem was that the manager, blissfully ignorant of all of it, was running defensive drills.

"These kids don't even have the fundamentals down? What in God's name were the second-team coaches doing?!"

If you had to call it something — the price of getting happily beaten to a pulp. Naturally, they were in no condition to do their actual jobs.

When Noh In-seong had first pounded on Song Jin-wook, he'd come to a number of realizations.

'Ah. Right. Can't hit the face… I'd get caught.'

Having absorbed that lesson, he restricted himself thereafter to pummeling only the body — a landscape absolutely littered with ideal strike points — so they probably didn't even realize they'd been hit.

Between the parade of errors and their total inability to focus during practice, the two position players were promptly banished to the second team. The players called up to replace them, perhaps having heard the rumors through the grapevine, played baseball with exemplary meekness.

"Just as the old saying goes — knock, and the door shall be opened. Not a single word of it wrong."

Noh In-seong skipped out on defensive drills entirely and lay down in the shadow along the edge of the field, savoring the peace and quiet.

Just another ordinary day at Jamsil Dome.