Sin Investigators
Thanks to cracking one man across the face and another somewhere decidedly unluckier, Noh In-seong found himself on an unpaid vacation(?).
On any normal day off, he would have been rolling around at home, enduring his mother's disapproving glares and his little sister's psychic assaults. Instead—
"Heading out!"
Ever since a handful of commercials had bumped up his market value, he was, somewhat unexpectedly, always busy. Even on his rest days, companies would show up in droves going, 'P-please, just shoot one ad for us...'
And in the middle of all that, a whole five-day gap?
"I told you, I don't want to do this during the season!"
"You won't do it even for THIS amount?! You're insane. That's already triple the going rate! TRIPLE, I say!"
"Is this old man out of his mind...?! Why are you spewing nonsense at a man whose greatest joy in life is doing nothing...!"
Somehow the lunatic had recognized his genius and chased him down to cling to his leg.
Noh In-seong had become famous. The problem was that half of that fame came from baseball.
And the other half came from his assorted acts of madness.
And among those acts of madness were his own people. Not his teammates. His genuinely, purely, his own people.
***
"You lunatics, why the hell would I promote a fighting game!"
"Fighting characters fight right out in the open, don't they? The synergy was great! Kya~ your instincts were on fire."
Manager of 'Noh In-seong's Gaming Channel.' 'The Long One.' Jung Byung-wook.
"For this latest edit, I even laid out all the similar move commands side by side. Truly, the living avatar of fighting games...!!"
Editor of 'Noh In-seong's Gaming Channel.' Joo Han-chul.
"I'm the real idiot for picking lunatics like these as my channel editor and manager..."
And thus was formed the three-man side-hustle Nertube channel, in the middle of a meeting for 'Noh In-seong's Gaming Channel.'
The channel's chronic problem was that once the season started, its owner vanished on endless impromptu hiatuses because he had to go do his actual job.
"Look, my profession is baseball player. If I'm not playing baseball, what do you want me to do about it?"
And he wasn't just any mediocre ballplayer who'd struggle to keep a roster spot — he was a player destined for the history books. Naturally, he was busy. Meanwhile, the gaming channel uploaded no games at all, just black screens.
On top of that, the opponents he'd enraged that one day went, 'Noh In-seong has a channel? Perfect!' and launched comment-section terror attacks.
...Of course, since the channel manager himself was a lunatic, the comment section did occasionally have to be shut down entirely.
"Jung Byung-wook! You've written another vulgar tirade!"
"Hey, our employer is exactly this kind of scumbag. If it bothers you, don't keep a lunatic as your boss."
Against an impeccable fact that admitted no rebuttal, only the editor suffered.
***
For the sake of content, he'd put his life on the line (mostly Noh In-seong's life, that is) to pitch an idea.
"You should at least shoot a v-log!"
The modernized petition to the heavens — an appeal straight to the CEO — had Joo Han-chul aiming at Noh In-seong's head.
"You lunatic, if I shot something like that, I'd get drones blown up in real time, robbed, chased down, blackmailed..."
Evidence of every kind would pile up, and did he really think trading that for view counts wouldn't come back with a red line attached? It was a persuasive argument.
Noh In-seong was not that stupid. He was, at the very least, a man who understood his own temper.
"Argh, you insane channel-owner bastard, seriously..."
Finally lowering his airsoft gun, Joo Han-chul's insides were boiling over.
With no other option, they had no choice but to edit whatever content was related to 'Noh In-seong.'
News articles, interviews, and the occasional holiday gaming stream he grudgingly turned on.
Some days the man himself would appear and even call a baseball broadcast.
They frequently edited together various clips of the channel owner's baseball highlights too.
And not long ago, Noh In-seong had started beating people up again.
Not fans on the street, of course. At the ballpark.
'This is our chance. He never streams anyway — let's just edit the bench clearing and upload it.'
Desperate editing, and a lightning-fast upload.
And at last, the god of algorithms gathered up baseball fans, boxing fans, wrestling fans, and foreigners alike, all in one place.
This latest bench-clearing video hit a whopping 1.4 million views.
"Kya~ it's bursting at the seams...!!"
It felt like something had been lodged in Joo Han-chul's chest, staring at the overflowing channel, was finally going SPLOOOSH--!! — bursting clean through.
Naturally, at this point the editor started thinking, 'Isn't this actually MY channel? Isn't Noh In-seong just the main content?'
"You piece-of-trash boss! Whose channel is this, mine or yours?! Make some content!"
That was his protest.
"But the revenue's sweet, isn't it? After all the cuts, you get a third, don't you? If you're bitter, then YOU grow the channel yourself."
And that was the problem. This venal capitalist of a channel owner, so wary of revolution,
had gone and committed the social sin of a revenue-sharing agreement for his own channel.
Which meant that for things to go well for him, he had no choice but to grow this lunatic's channel for him!
"Sniff... son of a bitch."
"Hey, punk. At least with me as the content, the revenue's guaranteed, no?"
The owner, useless for absolutely anything, and nothing but Noh In-seong's hollow comfort hanging in the air.
***
Having one exclusive piece of content on a Nertube channel — just how much of a comfort is that supposed to be?
It's mine and mine alone, dammit.
Anyway, it was true that all sorts of game ads were coming in.
Those punks only came in smiling because they figured they'd profit the moment an ad deal or a promo stream landed.
There was just one problem.
"There's no way I'm going to say anything nice. Honestly, a defamation lawsuit is guaranteed to come flying in."
Namely: the fact that he'd actually played the game in question, and had already savaged its balance publicly.
"It's not quite at the level of that one fighting game where you spend the whole match getting pummeled to death by claps, but—"
They couldn't even balance their DLC characters, and they'd utterly crushed the motivation of the people grinding hard at the game.
"Oh, so a veteran dares to beat a novice? You absolute motherfu—"
"Argh, could you NOT grovel for once? We're talking serious money here."
"There are things in this world more important than money!"
Namely, the deep-buried-in-his-heart spirit of 'go screw yourself.'
"I'm already annoyed to death because the pinball game ad got confirmed right after the All-Star break."
With a comfortably full schedule ahead of him, he had no reason to buy trouble and take the abuse.
"Anyway, if you're done yakking, get to work. And Byung-wook, stop buying trouble and eating flak for it."
"Says the guy who wrote 'What are you gonna do about it, you worthless punks' in the channel description and got a channel warning for it."
"..."
That punk was that kind of punk — a hopeless, channel-appropriate reality.
***
His next schedule was the kids from his alma mater who'd gotten caught puffing on Cloud Snacks.
"Still, I've got to give them a break at least once."
Lie down right after a meal and sleep comes pouring down; a schedule so insane your breathing turns ragged.
If they were going to strip away every joy in life except the real-time pleasure of actually improving—
then at the very least, they needed to cooperate with the part where they got better.
"Good day, gentlemen. Ready?"
His beloved alma mater's baseball club, the friends who'd slammed a large-mart-league April record into the ground.
Looking at the score sheets, there were three or more errors per game, reliable as clockwork.
"Hitting doesn't matter — trash is trash either way. And the pitchers are all seniors, so fine, I'll let that slide."
The kid I'd actually worked with had one error. The rest? An absolute disaster zone.
"Jung Hong-jin, you're exempt. The manager says you've been working diligently."
"YEEHAW! This is what I live for!"
"What the hell are you celebrating, punk? You're up next for millimeter-by-millimeter batting form adjustment."
A tournament batting average of .091? Is this even a human being? I've never seen anything like it in all my years of high school baseball.
"Unbelievable. Never in my life have I seen a guy who swings sweet absolutely nowhere on the bat and hits everything salty instead."
As a sullen Jung Hong-jin departed for his own private hell of suspension and remedial drills—
"Alright, boys, it's three thirty... Hmm, shall we run it until nine today?"
And so began Noh In-seong's hellish fungo: catch it and you break even, miss it and you owe me extra balls.
CRACKKK--!!
"Center fielder! What are you doing?! Don't you want to go to college next year?!"
"N-no, sir!"
"Then RUN, you lazy punk!"
The defensively hopeless student, whose starting spot had just been stolen by a kid who couldn't hit his way out of a paper bag, went tumbling.
CRACKK--!!
"Now! Is the center fielder taking it or the left fielder?! Why aren't you calling it clearly?!"
"M-MINE!"
"Too late, you punk! Why is the guy already sprinting after it shouting 'mine'?!"
Miss a single call, and instant thunderous abuse came raining down.
Violence? Coercion? None of that was necessary. Reality outranks them all.
"College or the pros — you think anyone's drafting you if you play like THIS?!"
Got it! I got it!
"At least field well! Hitting? Bulk up, stack up the data, and you might clear .220!"
--Because if you can't even do that, you'll get shuffled around aimlessly until your pro career quietly dies! Give up now and save yourselves the trouble!
At that bitter reality, handed down by the man who was the best in the very league they dreamed of, every last one of them lit a fire under their own tail.
CRACKKK--!!
"Right fielder! Look how slow your read on that ball is! Nobody's drafting you as a designated hitter!"
"Y-yes, sir!!"
And so, once the entire outfield had sprinted themselves insane until their legs simply stopped obeying and they collapsed from exhaustion—
it was time for the 'real ones' to begin.
"The outfield, I can cut some slack... but you four, I simply cannot go easy on."
Four infielders — everyone but the catcher — swallowed hard in their full array of protective gear.
"The rest of you, today is going to be a full day of receiving the sacrament of professional baseball~"
Second baseman, shortstop, third baseman. And the first baseman too.
None of that high-school-grade ball quality they'd tasted until now.
"DIE! Cool Water Dead Ball TGV!"
CRACKK--!!
Absurd, MVP-level major-league exit velocity came crashing down on them.
"GYAAAHH..!!"
Even just absorbing it into the padding knocked the wind clean out of them — that speed, that destructive force.
"You're not catching it for sure?! And if it's caught, look at you, not even closing the glove like a proper fundamental!"
'You son of a— how hard did he hit that thing, it spun its way right out of the webbing...'
Catching it was hard enough, but at least there was no sign of death in its power. The worst off was the shortstop, who had to stop the erratic hops.
A ball that should have bounced this way took a bad hop off a tiny pebble instead—
THWACK--!!
"Khhk..."
One senior took it squarely somewhere deeply unfortunate, toppled over sideways, and writhed in agony.
"Good thing you're wearing a groin guard, huh? Keep wearing it from now on."
"Y-yes, sir..."
Because in the pros, there's always some lunatic who throws low-and-inside without protection — that's reality.
And how often do you get a helpful senior like this?
Only after the bright sky had turned pitch black were they finally liberated.
***
He'd worked the kids hard enough; now he had to feed them.
While everyone piled into a barbecue joint and ate to their hearts' content—
"...Come to think of it, what kind of player were you back in school, sunbae-nim?"
One question out of Jung Hong-jin's mouth, and suddenly everyone was curious about Noh In-seong's school days.
The problem was that this was Pandora's box.
"Me? I did everything I wanted to do."
Elite talent, a personality in ruins, and a minor's legal protections to boot?
The hormone tank of Noh In-seong in the full bloom of youth. Unstoppable.
"...Argh, I can't even remember how many incident reports I wrote because of this punk."
A madman so bad even his high school manager could only shake his head.
"When the opposing manager refused to shake hands, you marched right up and planted a middle finger in his face."
When both teams lined up to exchange greetings, he'd stare dead-eyed at the senior bowers going, my, such lovely manners~
When an opponent slid in hard, he'd stomp the man like a plumber crushing a monster bug.
A fastball buzzing at your head?
"Remember, high school rosters are so thin even the pitchers have to bat."
The very next at-bat: a 161.1 km/h heater screaming past the opposing pitcher's eyeballs.
And there sat the smiling devil, grinning as his opponent crumpled, knees buckling.
A leaky bucket inside never stays sealed outside. And since the results were good anyway, freshman Noh In-seong got dragged onto the youth national team.
"Hey, you cocky little punk. Pull any crap here and—"
"Then DIE, you punk!"
Not even hearing them out — well, if I've been dragged here anyway, this is a fight! Count me in! — and the bat swings came flying.
That was how his youth national team days began: three second- and third-year players all clutching their stomachs, their attempt to enforce discipline in tatters.
A guy who joined the pros and beat his seniors into obedience was hardly going to listen to anyone back in his student days.
Three days after the call-up, every senior in that camp was groveling beneath Noh In-seong.
As it happened, the pros were all lying low or off at other tournaments in that era.
"No, there's a tournament RIGHT NOW, how can you take my player?!"
"You're supposed to take the kids who got eliminated, not ours!"
A tournament entered with a ragtag band of whoever-they-could-find, so naturally the talentless leftovers were just roster filler.
A few first-years who were already in the pros had been there too, technically...
"Well, those guys were in their little weekend-league days back then."
He only cursed out, mocked, and threatened people who actually took the field against him.
Even there, Noh In-seong only ever played around with his own catcher, Deok Jin-man.
"You remember that guy? Hamanaka or Hamashita, whatever his name was."
His old manager, awash in nostalgia, brought up a name from Japan's national team.
"...Ah, I saw him on a poster when I went over to mess with him. He turned pro in Japan, right?"
The Korea-Japan match in the preliminary round.
Nobody cared about the game itself, but a Korea-Japan match was at least worth some attention.
When Hamashita Jiro strutted around declaring, 'We'll win, obviously. I'll show them exactly how wide the gap is!'
Noh In-seong, in his interview, verbally demolished him: 'I'm grouped with THIS punk? Are your eyes prosthetics?'
How could Hamashita — the adored 'Prince of Koshien' — have ever been treated like that before?
First at-bat, "Don't get cocky!" and a fastball riding in tight on his body. So the very next inning—
"GUUUAAH--!!"
A villain for the ages, hurling a ball with murderous intent straight into the ribs of the opposing starter batting third.
Fists flying wildly again and again into the surging crowd of players.
Naturally, the Japanese players suffered a mysterious dip in condition.
And after Noh In-seong was ejected, the Korean U-18 team won 9-2.
He'd been thrown out of that game, but the two teams that battled through the preliminaries met again in the final.
Noh In-seong launched the vengeful Hamashita's pitch into the heavens, then ripped off an atomic bomb celebration.
"August 15th~ off to sky kingdom you go~"
"YOU PUNK!!!"
For the record, that tournament was held in Japan.
"Then in his remaining at-bats he hit four home runs and threw every bat into their dugout."
--Or was it three at-bats? Can't remember.
This was the era when finishing one interview after the game and sprinting straight to the nearest arcade took priority over everything.
Like he'd bother memorizing the details.
"An absolute lunatic, I'm telling you. I'm STILL getting flak because of this one man."
It would've been something if he'd at least given a graceful interview — no, even after winning, his mouth was pure garbage.
Q. You performed another ceremony against the opposing pitcher (Hamashita), without even basic courtesy or an apology...?
A. Who? Hama? I have zero intention of memorizing opponents' names, so address them by number.
Q2. ...Don't tell me the ceremony was meant to represent a nuclear bomb?
A2. It's Liberation Day today. Thank you, Mr. Stone Age Cook! Though I'm a little sad — it feels undercooked!
The article dropped, the Japanese manager said he wanted to see your parents' faces, and Noh In-seong shot back, 'Are your parents in a cemetery?' and...
After every conceivable uproar, the national team returned home looking utterly exhausted.
There were plenty of reasons Noh In-seong was never called up to the U-18 national team again after his freshman year.
"It was an unbroken string of incidents. This punk's puberty hit him HARD."
Noh In-seong of that hormone-fueled era, combined with his talent, was truly a magnificent son of a bitch.
"The fact that I'm supervising your training at all — take it as proof of how much I've matured."
"...I got a chicken box slammed into my face, though."
"Right, and it ENDED with that. Back then, he was the kind of punk who'd shave your head like a plucked chicken."
Jung Hong-jin, realizing just how narrowly it had ended, trembled from head to toe like a leaf.
'Holy crap, I got SO lucky.'
The meat, somehow, tasted like rubber.
***
The next day — having splurged on meat for the kids and stuffed himself silly alongside them — Noh In-seong had flat-out eliminated the possibility of waking up hungry for breakfast and slept like the dead.
Past lunch, and then, as evening approached and the sun slowly began to sink—
Ring! Ring! Ring!
"...Argh, so loud. What the hell is that, it's been going on forever."
The glitter of a hologram and the relentless racket roused him.
And Noh In-seong, freshly awake, finally realized his social media account was on fire.
"Damn it, now every random scumbag out there thinks I'm doing free community service."
Noh In-seong, having snapped a middle-finger photo and fired it off at everyone, turned his thoughts to what to eat for dinner.
Ever the same man, through and through.