Perfect Agent [EN]: Chapter 4

The Beginning of My Second Life (1)

“Hah. Hah. Hah.”

I was completely out of breath.

But I didn’t stop and kept running.

I hadn’t counted, so I didn’t know exactly how many laps I’d run, but it was clear that I was running more and for longer than ever before in my life.

My head was telling me that this was enough, but my body didn’t seem to want to stop.

I hadn’t been able to train at all during the past few weeks of treatment, so my stamina and strength were practically non-existent.

To wake up my body, which was as good as dead, and return to the field in time for the rapidly approaching season opener, I needed an amount of exercise that was incomparable to anything I had done before.

That was why I was running my heart out on a field where no one else came.

Fortunately, stamina and strength could be sufficiently made up for with effort.

The problem was the lingering fear of the ball.

Even training with lightly tossed balls with the help of my teammates, the fear didn’t easily disappear.

It was better than when I had just woken up, but the fear I felt before stepping into the batter’s box was still there.

It had already been almost a month since I was discharged from the hospital.

The doctor’s warning that I should come to the hospital immediately if anything felt strange still rang in my ears.

But I hadn’t told anyone about the strange information window I saw as soon as I opened my eyes.

When I returned to the team and greeted them, I saw the information window from my teammates as well.

I wondered if it was only visible to players from the same team, but that wasn’t necessarily the case.

The timing of when the information window appeared also varied.

Sometimes it was visible right away, and sometimes it wasn’t visible for a long time.

Based on my experience so far, it seemed to appear from the moment I made physical contact with my teammates.

And what was most surprising was its content.

-If you hit half a step back from where you are now, you can find the perfect hitting feel.

-You’re having difficulty with the change in defensive position.

-It’s much more effective to throw fastballs high.

-You’re having a hard time because you fought with your girlfriend.

I tried to dismiss it as a side effect of the surgery, but the information on the screen was all related to the player.

Sometimes psychological content appeared, and sometimes solutions to the player’s concerns appeared.

Occasionally, personal information unrelated to baseball was displayed.

Just in case, I gave some of the information as passing advice, and an amazing thing happened.

Some of the players who listened carefully to my words improved their performance rapidly and were soon called up to the first-team camp.

Am I possessed by a ghost?

I felt a sense of wonder, but also a chilling feeling.

By the way, why can I only see other people’s information and not my own?

No matter how much I looked in the mirror, my information window didn’t appear.

If the information I needed popped up like it did for them, I could become the best player in the league in an instant…

But no matter how hard I tried, there was no point in worrying about something that couldn’t be done.

I started running around the field again, sweating profusely.

From the cold winter training to spring camp, I finished training with a schedule even more grueling than in my high school days, and finally, the season opener was approaching.

The media and fans were all focused on my dramatic return.

I was even given the undeserved praise of being a player who had lost consciousness and lay down for days, but had returned to the field through hard work.

Thanks to that, I was able to put my name on the starting lineup for the second-team opening game.

“Kang Hyun-woo, fighting!”

“Kang Hyun-woo, good luck!”

I heard some spectators shouting from the stands.

Despite being a second-team game held during the day and with inconvenient transportation, many fans came because it was the return game of a player who had heated up the Korean professional baseball scene last year.

I also noticed reporters moving expensive cameras, not missing anything from the training process to the game scenes, and pressing the shutter.

I bowed to the fans waving my uniform and waved my hand.

The game started at 1 p.m.

Not long after the game started, my turn at bat came around.

I stepped into the batter’s box with a nervous expression.

The fans in the stands and my teammates in the dugout started cheering for me in loud voices.

Whoa-

My heart was pounding even more than it had during my first-team debut game.

I felt the sweat on my hands even though I was wearing gloves.

I checked to see if the screen was visible above the head of the opposing pitcher on the mound.

Unfortunately, it wasn’t visible.

I had no choice but to face him with the information I had analyzed before the game.

The pitcher on the mound now was a rookie who was drafted in the third round last year and debuted as a professional.

He was a pitcher who led his team to victory in high school, and being in the second team was not due to a lack of skill, but a process of gaining professional experience.

His average speed was in the early to mid-140km/h range [approximately 87-96 mph].

He was a good player with the ability to throw breaking balls and pinpoint control.

The pitcher on the mound exchanged signs with the catcher and then took a stance to throw the ball.

I watched him and prepared to hit.

The first ball thrown by the opposing pitcher came deep inside towards my body.

“Ugh!”

It was a strike.

It hadn’t even hit me; it had just come close to my body, but I couldn’t help but let out a groan.

I had been constantly trying not to remember that day, but it was no use.

The pitcher brought his glove to the front of his chest to throw the second ball.

I was a little scared when I saw his fierce eyes.

I stood in a spot about half a step further back than where I had been standing.

“Whoa. Whoa. Whoa-”

I tried to calm my frantically pounding heart by taking a deep breath, but it was impossible to calm it down in such a short time.

“Ugh!”

The opposing pitcher’s second ball also came close to my body.

I almost made a sound like before, but this time I barely managed to hold it in.

It was a strike again.

No ball, two strikes.

In an instant, it was two strikes.

The count was completely unfavorable to the batter.

I took a deep breath and stepped back into the batter’s box.

I briefly thought about standing a little further away from the strike zone than before.

However, if I stood further away than I am now, I would not be able to react at all to balls flying to the outside.

I had no choice but to stand only half a step away as before.

I could feel my legs trembling slightly as I stepped on the batter’s box.

I tried to focus all my attention on the opposing pitcher’s glove.

The pitcher, who had received the catcher’s sign, nodded and confidently threw the ball.

Bang-

“Strike out!”

I stood there blankly at the umpire’s loud call.

Unlike the two balls he had thrown earlier, this ball flew to the farthest side from where I was standing.

It was a complete defeat without even swinging the bat once.

I hoped that showing such a helpless appearance in my first at-bat would be the last time, but unfortunately, it wasn’t.

As the innings progressed and my weaknesses became clear, the pitchers facing me actively used inside pitches.

Every time, I was struck out without even having a proper match.

As I struggled on offense, problems also arose in my defense, which I had been confident in.

I thought I had completely overcome the trauma of ordinary fly balls flying to the outfield, but the fear I felt in the batter’s box was contagious, and I made errors even in defensive situations.

As my helpless appearance in the batter’s box and my absurd errors in defense piled up, the number of games I played gradually decreased.

My batting average was less than 10%, and my fielding percentage was dropping more and more as I played more games.

Above all, it was fatal that my defensive record, which was my greatest strength, was at the lowest level.

Before long, it became difficult to find my name in the second-team starting lineup.

The number of games in which I couldn’t play and ended up just warming up on the bench was increasing, and time was passing relentlessly.

* * *

Then one day, I was called in by the general manager.

It wasn’t often that the general manager called in an ordinary player, so I couldn’t help but be nervous.

And as expected, it was as I had expected.

“A scouting analyst?”

“Yes. You know better than I do, even if I don’t have to say it. It’s impossible for you to continue your career in your current state.”

“General Manager. Please give me a little more chance. I’ll overcome it somehow.”

Despite my expression of will, Cho Kwang-hoon, general manager of the Jaguars, continued to speak while rummaging through the data documents on his desk.

“You miss ordinary fly balls quite often. Your batting average is less than 10%, and your fielding percentage is the lowest. Besides, you don’t even seem to be able to stand properly in the batter’s box, so how can the team give you more chances?”

“General Manager. I can really work hard. Please give me a little more chance.”

The general manager, who met my eyes, sighed deeply and said.

“Hyun-woo. What I’m about to say is not as the team’s general manager, but as a senior.”

When I saw the general manager’s serious expression, I swallowed hard.

“Even if you continue to play as a player, frankly, the probability of you going up to the first team is extremely low. In the current situation, it’s difficult to guarantee that you’ll survive the competition in the second team. The problem is that new players will be joining as time goes on. Are you confident that you can compete with them and win?”

I couldn’t refute a single word of the general manager’s cold but accurate words.

“And as you know, scouting analyst positions aren’t always available, either? This time, the timing was perfect.”

“Still… General Manager.”

“Why, don’t you like the scouting analyst job?”

“No. That’s not it…”

There were many things I wanted to say, but there was nothing I could confidently say.

“It’s not like you’ll only be doing scouting analysis forever. You can build your career here and then go to the coaching staff when a position opens up in the team. You were originally good at defense and tactical execution. You’re competitive enough as a coach in that area.”

I could definitely tell that the general manager was genuinely worried about me.

“Can I think about it for a few days?”

“Yes. I’m not telling you to decide right now. Think about it seriously and tell me. But don’t make me wait too long. It’s the middle of the season, so we can’t leave the scouting analyst position vacant forever.”

“Yes. I’ll think about it and tell you.”

I politely greeted him and left the general manager’s office.

As I trudged along, the Jaguars emblem and championship trophy at the entrance of the team office painfully stung my eyes.