“What…the…forge!”
The Dwarven King collapsed on the ground, dead tired, as he crossed the final lap around the entire field.
He was gasping for breath, but compared to the other dwarves who were still running more laps, they were barely even breathing loudly. A life-or-death situation for him was nothing but a warm-up for them.
“Done already, newbie?”
“Hahaha! Funny, talking about baseball is easy, well now you know.”
“We’ll have to up your training regimen tomorrow. You can barely last one inning!”
The dwarves were ruthless in their treatment of Biru, letting him experience all the hardships that they regularly went through when they practiced for their games.
Not only that, but Biru also became their ‘shuttle’, making him do all sorts of chores and fetch quests that completely wore down all the high and mighty attitude that Biru had from being the literal King of the Dwarves.
This was the first time he had to run from one end of the village to the other, with his hands full of baseball equipment. In other words, the King finally knew the hard work normal people went through in their day to day.
By the end of the day, Biru was completely exhausted. His body was sore, his mind was tired, and he was just a second away from calling it quits and returning to his Kingdom.
But then, the game started.
At night, when the whole village was supposed to be asleep and covered in darkness, the entire baseball field was instead lit up by these bright lights that made it seem like they had harnessed the power of the sun.
He heard the excited shouts and chanting in the bleachers, with every single one of them showing their enthusiasm for the game.
“What are they shouting at?” Biru asked the dwarves.
In response, they just smiled at him and patted his back with another resounding SMACK.
“They’re rooting for me, newbie!”
The captain of the Dwarven Miners dragged Biru out of their dugout and presented him to the crowd.
The Dwarven King looked around the bleachers and saw a thousand Mankeys and Dwarves shouting and cheering with their whole chests, celebrating their entrance to the field.
Everyone in the village gathered here. And all of them were cheering, not for him, but for the dwarves who showed great talent in baseball. He could see a few in the crowd who wore the same clothes and uniform as the Ace player on their team, showing their reverence and applause to him by copying his attire.
The Dwarven King was astounded. There wasn’t even this much adoration and cheering when he was crowned King during his coronation.
He couldn’t believe that a dwarf, who would have been considered normal in their kingdom, was being shown more admiration than a King!
“Take this in, newbie,” said the captain dwarf. “Once you experience this, you’ll never get tired of it. So, if you want to be cheered like them, then you better show your talent in the field.”
Biru had no words for the captain. Unlike them, he couldn’t even run through the four plates without getting exhausted. He couldn’t even hit any ball with his bat, no matter how slow they threw it at him.
He had no chance of becoming as great as their captain.
WHEE! WHEE!
Finally, the game started with the Dwarven Miners going against the Farmer Cultivators.
Right from the get-go, the competition between the teams was fierce. The dwarves would score home runs after home runs, but the Farmers would always come back against them through solid hits that earned them runs.
The crowd was swayed easily by this competition, expressing their excitement or disappointment with cheering and shouting.
This was the first time the King saw something so intense. It felt as if their lives were at stake with this game.
When he first heard about baseball, he thought that it wasn’t so serious. It was just a game after all.
However, as he experienced everything with his own eyes, he could see the passion and dedication each team put onto the field.
There were even a couple of times when the Dwarven King couldn’t help but slap his knee in disappointment as the referee ruled the player as ‘out’ as he touched the home base.
As the game went on, the King found himself getting more and more invested in the game, cheering and sighing during crucial moments in the game.
Finally, in the last inning of the game, the two teams were completely tied.
The dwarves had one last chance to break the tie and win the game completely.
However, at the very last second, their ace and captain who scored almost half of their points for the team, suddenly had an accident and injured his knee!
“Argh!” the captain groaned, grabbing his leg in pain.
The team had to watch as their only hope of winning the game was carried out off the field.
Biru felt the air in their dugout change. It was clear that they were completely devastated by this unfortunate incident.
They were just one inning away from winning their first baseball title.
The worst part was that they didn’t have any other player in their roster who could replace their captain…except for one.
The captain limped towards Biru and gently smacked his shoulders. “You can do it, newbie. You can win us the game,” he said.
But the Dwarven King was wholly unprepared for this.
He was slowly dragged onto the field, bat in hand, clueless as to how he was going to win them the game.
The world seemed to turn mute for him. He couldn’t hear the cheering from the crowd. He couldn’t even hear the shouting from his teammates, warning him that the first ball was about to brush past his body.
Deciding to let go of all his worries, and all his problems back in the Dwarven Kingdom, Biru decided to just swing the bat as hard as he could.
And surprisingly, he felt a heavy force on his bat as the ball collided with it.
The ball rose into the air and slowly fell to the outfield.
Biru was so surprised that he forgot to run. He was only reminded when all of his teammates in the dugout motioned for him to run as fast as he could.
And so, he did.
He ran to the limits of his physical body.
Meanwhile, the ball bounced on the grass field before being picked up by a HobMankey, who threw it towards first base, towards where Biru was running to.
In a moment of desperation, the King dove toward the plate, never mind the dirt and mud that would sully his clothes.
His hands reached out and touched the plate, almost at the same time that the defender caught the ball in his mitt.
They both looked at the referee who shouted, “Safe!”
Just then, all sounds returned to the King’s ears. All he heard were crazed shoutings and cheering from the crowd, much more than when they were first introduced.
His dwarf teammates all swarmed towards him, picking him up from the ground and patting the dirt off his uniform.
“What are they shouting at?” he asked the dwarves.
His teammates smiled. “They’re rooting for you, newbie! You won us the game!”
As it turned out, his one hit allowed the runner to reach home plate, scoring them one point that put them ahead of the other team.