Ryuuou no Oshigoto! - Volume 18 - Chapter 4.04

  Throwing Cash

“Oh! Over there ……!!”

Lobby of the HinaTsuru, Tokyo.

It took until the early evening, when customers are coming in one after another to check in, for me to finally track him down.

“Hey!”

“Miss Ai? Is something the ma―――”

“Is it true that you made LOLI?!”

I put Master’s older brother on the spot.

The revelation was just so overwhelming for me that I completely forgot he’s working and there are customers around.

“Tell me! You’re the one who uploaded LOLI’s data online and made it free, right?! Everyone’s downloaded it and enjoying the benefits because of you, right?!”

Murmur, murmur, murmur ……

“Loli data on the internet ……?”

“Enjoy the benefits ……?”

“Actually, he kind of does look the type, doesn’t he ……?!”

Several families on vacation reel back in shock at seeing an elementary school girl shouting “loli,” “loli” at the top of her lungs in the middle of the lobby.

“M-Miss Ai, please! This is bad for business! Really bad for business!!”

He quickly wheels me around and pushes me down a hallway to an empty room.

Now that we’re in an empty meeting room, Master’s older brother looks at me with tired eyes.

“…… Who told you?”

“Futatsuzuka 4-dan. He also wanted me to say hi.”

“That guy ……”

Master’s older brother massages his temples and breathes a long sigh.

“Yes, I’m the one who created LOLI’s rating function and released the software you’re using right now onto the internet. I’m also involved with GUI stuff, and some other things.”

“Why didn’t you say so?!”

“Anonymity, for one. It’s a scary world out there.”

“You’re …… scared?”

“For longtime Shogi fans, software is a demon dead set on destroying the Shogi world. Anyone who would distribute it for free is nothing short of a terrorist. Letters threatening to kill me and restore peace to the Shogi world would pile up in no time.”

“Ah …………”

He’s right. There are still lots of professional players and Women’s League members who hate software. They’ll reluctantly use it, but they never talk about the developers and they aren’t grateful at all.

Like …… me.

“………… I’m sorry for making a scene. I didn’t think about your situation, that you might get killed if your secret got out. That’s why you were panicking, isn’t it?”

“Well, I thought you were going to get me murdered, socially, for a different reason.”

He says such strange things. Uwhaaa?

“It is a secret from the public at large, though. Of course Yaichi knows, and so does everyone who worked with me in college.”

“So the acquaintance good with computers Master sometimes brought up was you all along! And, since Futatsuzuka-sensei was your junior at University of Tokyo―――”

“That’s right. I also should mention that Mr. and Mrs. Yashajin, the creators of Awaji, also graduated from the same university about a decade before me.”

“……!!”

That name comes out of nowhere and almost makes my heart stop.

Everything is connected.

A web that started a long, long time before I ever learned how to play Shogi.

“Ten-chan’s …… Ai Yashajin-Women’s Triple Title’s parents …… right?”

“Yes. They were my seniors in the Shogi club and even came to visit us once in a while after they graduated. That’s how I got to know them.”

Master’s older brother quietly recounts stories from his college days.

He’d been dabbling in computer programming since he was a junior high student and learned a lot from Ten-chan’s parents while at the University of Tokyo. They inspired him to try out his own ideas.

By that point, Ten-chan’s parents were already building a supercomputer while working at a big tech company, which has one of the strongest Shogi clubs in all of Japan.

Master’s older brother was also one of the top amateur Shogi players in the country and was planning to work for that company once he graduated.

But …… Ten-chan’s parents died in an accident.

He was so devastated that he took time off from college before formally taking another year off. Before he left though, he coached the University of Tokyo’s Shogi Club to claim the Student Throne Title ……

“…… My life probably would’ve worked out a lot differently if they hadn’t died that day. I still think about that sometimes.”

“I-I’m so sorry ……”

“Of course, the manager taking me under her wing has made life better than ever. She is absolutely incredible. I’ll follow her to the ends of the earth!”

“U-Umm ……?!”

My mother was a zealot. Then again, plenty of the staff and even our customers are the same way, so I’m not all that surprised.

“…… Uh-huuuh. I could see Awaji coming out in Yaichi’s Shogi these days, but never in a million years would I have thought the Yashajin’s daughter would hatch a plan like that.”

Master’s older brother scowls when I tell him what Ten-chan is up to. I don’t think I’ve ever seen him do that before.

His mentors’ daughter and his employer’s daughter.

He might feel trapped between the two of us.

“Futatsuzuka-sensei also said that you could give me some advice if he gave you the deep learning software he has been developing. Like …… attack strategies, maybe?”

“Oh?”

“Please, teach me about it! Is deep learning software really that amazing? Do you think you could make something even stronger than Awaji?!”

“That’s a no.”

He didn’t even pause.

“Fighting deep learning software with deep learning software turns into throwing cash around.”

“Cash ……? What’s money got to do with it?”

“Simply put, deep learning software makes its own policy network to predict the future and dual networks to go out and find it …… I’ll spare you the finer details, but let’s just say the process costs a lot of money. That’s why I never touched it.”

“Futatsuzuka-sensei said so too. That deep learning’s …… model? …… gets stronger the bigger it gets.”

“Yeah. That’s why it ends up costing a fortune. Financial backing is more important than the original concept. That’s why money gets thrown around.”

He says the scale goes way beyond what a single person could handle.

A company over an individual. And above the companies is the country.

Ten-chan is moving the country.

“Supercomputers are typically federal projects, you see? Her companies and tax money were orchestrated to create Shogi software. I’ve got to take my hat off to that kind of political clout. A computer nerd like me couldn’t get that much in 10,000 years.”

“………… And Ten-chan has all that power ……”

“Please don’t get down on yourself, Miss Ai. Yes, the model used to create deep learning software is extremely complex. My LOLI could never compete against it.”

“Then there’s no―――”

“But there’s billions of even more complex models all over the place.”

“Huh?! …… Where?”

“I’m talking about the brain.”

Master’s older brother taps the side of his head.

“The neurons in the human brain come together in a network that is unfathomably more complex than a machine-made model. Which means that humans have the potential to grow even further beyond. With the right teacher, it’s theoretically possible for a grade school girl to take down the God-like Meijin.”

“The right …… teacher ……”

“It’s easier said than done, of course. I think Futatsuzuka’s experiment tried to tackle that head-on and that’s what made it crumble.”

He then quietly adds.

“I also tried an experiment to see if a person could play like a computer …… Let’s just say it didn’t go well.”

“U-Um! M-May I ask you something ……?”

I just had a very scary thought.

The person whose playing style is closest to a computer’s right now.

What if he wasn’t born with that ability …… but someone taught him how to do it a long time ago?

“The first person to teach Master how to play was ……!!”

“Just a coincidence.”

He rejects my wild conclusion right away.

“I was just a country boy clicking away on a keyboard in my spare time when I showed Yaichi the ropes. That balanced style of Shogi came from his talent. Well, then again …….”

Master’s older brother grins at me.

“Older brothers have a tendency to teach their younger brothers the worst things, yeah?”