The Sweet Spot
Even if you belong to a pro team, a trainee is not, strictly speaking, a pro gamer.
Because my name hasn't been registered in the official league yet.
It was awkward to call them a regular civilian, but they weren't quite a pro gamer either.
The common term "third-stringer" was just a nickname meaning they were below the academy team.
The significance of becoming a trainee lay in the fact that I was now on the track to becoming a professional.
Receiving professional coaching and feedback was also a huge benefit.
I wouldn't even be moving into a gaming house yet, which was the first thing most people associated with pro gamers.
Though it varied case by case, most trainees seemed to receive their feedback entirely online.
Of course, signing a legally binding contract required meeting in person.
And so, I found myself back at the SnowWitch headquarters.
Coming here to officially sign the contract this time made the experience feel entirely different.
However, that "different feeling" wasn't supposed to mean this.
My mom and Hero were warmly greeting each other.
No matter how I looked at it, they were definitely not strangers.
"Oh my. I wondered if it might be you. It's been a long time, Hee-ryun."
"Attorney Lee? I never expected to see you here."
"Well, she's my daughter. I was actually thinking of asking you for advice if she got too lost... but seeing you like this makes me even happier."
"Your daughter? Nabi is?"
I didn't know much about contracts.
But my mom was a renowned super-elite in the legal world!
It wasn't that I doubted Hero, but there was no reason to come alone when I had an expert at home who would help at a moment's notice.
Besides, I was still young.
Even if I possessed two lifetimes' worth of memories by combining Yu Garam's and Yu Nabi's, my physical age was still young.
It wasn't strange at all to bring a parent to a meeting like this.
A faint memory of going shopping with my mom a while ago came back to me.
"I helped some people in the past."
"I don't know much about games, but the people I helped back then were famous pro gamers."
"If you want, Nabi, I can ask them to take a look at your skills."
In the end, I had never asked my mom for that favor.
If I wanted to succeed as a pro gamer, I had to prove myself through skill, not connections.
I didn't want to rely on my mom's network before I had even given it my all.
So, I had buried her words in a dusty corner of my mind.
I had planned to bring it up only when I felt my skills were sufficient.
Or perhaps in my most desperate moment... Who would have thought the connection would be made like this?
"I really owed you a lot back then," Hero said.
"I only did my job," my mom replied.
My mom and Hero chatted for a moment.
It seemed they had met a very long time ago.
Apparently, it was before Hero moved to the North American league.
There was a time when the domestic pro league had collapsed catastrophically.
Issues like team bullying and unfair contracts had erupted one after another, causing a massive scandal.
With star players and promising prospects fleeing overseas in droves, the league's competitiveness had plummeted to rock bottom.
I heard that quite a few teams and officials were completely purged because of that incident.
Things were said to have improved significantly now, meaning my generation was benefiting from the struggles of the previous one.
It appeared my mom had resolved Hero's legal disputes as her attorney.
It made sense why my mom only knew Hero as a "famous pro gamer."
Hero hadn't been a world-class player back then.
Her golden age only began after she crossed over to the North American league.
"Would you like to read over the contract first?"
By now, pro gamer contracts had become quite standardized.
Refined since the PC gaming era, they were now just as robust as any other professional contract.
There were solid safeguards in place even for lower-tier signees like academy trainees.
And besides, SnowWitch wasn't some nameless, bottom-tier team.
They weren't the type to lure in naive hopefuls and exploit them.
The signing would likely go smoothly.
Sure enough.
After carefully reading through the document, my mom smiled.
I also pulled the contract toward me after she set it down and skimmed it.
The salary was higher than I expected.
The terms looked good too, requiring my consent for any trades or loans.
"Trainee salaries have gone up a lot lately," my mom noted.
"We do pay more than the industry standard. We have to, if we want to stay competitive."
"It's certainly nice that the market has grown so much. At any rate, I don't see any issues. Let's go ahead with the contract."
My mom gave her approval.
All I did was sign my name a few times on the paper.
Yet, a wave of pride washed over me, as if I had accomplished something monumental.
Academy trainees received a salary from the team.
Unlike regular students who paid tuition to learn the game, trainees were assets the team invested in for the future.
To register them on the roster when needed, a proper contract was required.
In short, my first paycheck would land in my bank account in a month.
I lowered my head, not wanting to show my excitement, but the corners of my mouth kept twitching upward.
"Anyway, I'm relieved to hear that you're the coach, Hee-ryun. Please take good care of my girl."
"Actually, I was planning to personally take charge of Nabi's training one-on-one."
"You, personally...? How good is my daughter, exactly? I'm just curious as her mother. Please be honest."
"Hmm. It's hard to put it in simple terms."
Hero pondered for a moment.
I was curious too, so I focused all my attention on her.
It was a bit embarrassing to listen with my mom right there, though.
But the answer that followed was more than enough to make me smile.
"If she works hard and follows my lead, I promise you she will never regret it."
And just like that, I officially became a trainee for SnowWitch.
However, I wasn't entirely sure if having my coach and my mom know each other was a good thing.
"If she acts up or gets lazy, give her a good scolding. I raised her a bit too softly..."
"Don't worry. I'm great at that. I can lecture her until she cries."
"No. Even if she cries, you have to keep scolding her. She's a bit sly, so she thinks crying solves everything."
"Aha."
After meeting her a few times, I felt like I was starting to understand the person known as Hero.
The woman I now had to call "Coach" was someone with incredible drive.
Unlike me, who needed mental preparation for everything, she was a woman of fiery temperament who preferred words like "now," "immediately," and "right away."
The very day after the contract was signed.
Hero called me in first thing in the morning to begin coaching.
Inside a private practice mode in the game.
In a space containing nothing but a single pitching machine, Hero stood holding a baseball bat.
The way she tapped her shoulder with the bat looked somewhat rowdy.
But the words that came out of her mouth were surprisingly proper.
"Have you ever experienced this? You clearly have the stat advantage, but when your weapons clash, you're the one pushed back."
"Yes."
"Have you ever thought about why?"
"Um... because the force wasn't applied properly? Or maybe the angle, or the posture..."
"You're not entirely wrong. But theoretically, it's a bit different. What matters is the speed and the point of impact."
What we were learning today was the basics.
Specifically, the "point of impact."
When you swing a weapon.
Where is the point that delivers the maximum force?
And at what exact moment must you collide with the enemy to exert the greatest power?
The sport that had researched this area most fiercely was baseball.
Hero turned on the pitching machine and immediately swung the bat.
Crack! With a clean sound, the ball flew away.
"Have you ever played baseball?"
"...No."
"When you hit a baseball with a bat, there are times when you hear a beautiful sound, and you don't feel any vibration in your hands."
When a rotating object collides with something, an impact force is inevitably generated.
That impact force returns to the bat—the weapon—in two forms: rotation and recoil.
However, at a certain point, these vibrations cancel each other out, reducing the shock transmitted to the hand to near zero.
This point is called the sweet spot, or the COP—Center of Percussion.
The lack of recoil meant the entire impact was transferred to the enemy.
In physical attacks, "maximum power" actually meant "minimum loss."
"Of course, the sweet spot isn't a fixed point. It changes slightly depending on the shape of the weapon, its center of gravity, material, angle, and even how you grip it."
"Then, how do you know... where the sweet spot is?"
"Usually, it's about 15 to 30 percent from the tip. The rest you have to feel out and get used to by instinct. That's why it takes so long for pros to master a single weapon."
Hero smirked.
For some reason, her smile made me uneasy.
"Now. You know what I'm going to say next, right?"
The practice method Hero ordered was simple to a fault.
One: Swing the weapon in a single posture to death.
Two: Find the point where the strike lands perfectly clean.
Three: Repeat until the sweet spot becomes muscle memory.
Four: Switch to a different posture.
First, I had to completely tame my weapon.