Ryuuou no Oshigoto! - Volume 18 - Chapter 4.05

  Barren Wasteland

Ayumu Kannabe pulled back his sweat-soaked bangs and swiftly applied eyedrops.

“Ngh ……”

The searing pain was so intense he thought blood was about to burst out through his eyes. However, Ayumu welcomed the pain.

For pain was his only ally.

―――Maintain focus! Even the slightest waiver means death!!

His summer haori jacket was light as feathery angel wings, but even that began to feel like heated shackles and now lay abandoned on the floor behind him.

―――That happened after move 150, did it not ……?

Ayumu slapped his cheek to force his mind out of the past and back into the moment. His eyes, still stinging, refocused on the board in front of him.

―――Concentrate, Ayumu Kannabe!! The fight yet continues! Calmly appraise the formations!!

The board had devolved into utter chaos.

As a professional, moving the King forward on the opening move was a difficult decision to make. Rather than a wasted move, it seemed to set the formation far too early in the match. Sitting on the receiving end, Ayumu had set out to take full advantage of it.

―――…… And I built a sizable advantage in the early-game ……

Ayumu couldn’t help but reflect on the sealing move, specifically how he could feel the grip he had over the formations.

He attacked with reckless abandon at the start of Day 2. He had the defending King dead to rights at the edge of the board before lunchtime, and was one metaphorical step away from seizing victory. Had Ayumu even one more Pawn on his stand, there was no doubt that the defending King would have been checkmated.

Alas, Yaichi Kuzuryu had a sequence of despair waiting for him once the final goal was in sight.

Having read that his King couldn’t be checkmated far earlier, Yaichi shifted his King around the board with a single finger and dodged Ayumu’s attacks with effortless ease ……

“……………… Demon King …………”

The expression on Yaichi’s face across from him could not contrast any greater with his own.

Haori jacket still draped around his shoulders, he appeared perfectly comfortable. It was as though the idea of losing this match wasn’t in the realm of possibility for him.

The Demon King then pressured Ayumu on the board.

His message: Play like this if you want to stand a chance against me.

It was a single rope strung between two jagged cliffs.

―――This narrow route is the only way ……

The elation of his first title being within reach and the terror of knowing a single slip would send him plunging into the agony of defeat. Those two emotions swirled in his mind, pounding his very being as Ayumu dug his fingers into the rope.

The determination he forged during his session with the Meijin became a source of courage.

―――Do not falter! Reach forth! I am going there, aren’t I?!

One more audible slap to his own cheek and Ayumu Kannabe advanced his King with all the strength he could muster.

“Forward ……!!”

To what awaited him at the end of the rope―――a barren wasteland.

The journalist in charge of the livestream calling out the move count was all that could be heard in the waiting room.

“…… The next move will be the 200th.”

The players who had gathered there were glued to analysis boards in an attempt to derive some semblance of meaning behind the moves being played in the arena, but even professionals couldn’t distinguish a good move from a bad one. None could speak, they were concentrating so hard.

Each had arrived at the same thought.

This game wasn’t Shogi anymore.

“Whoa ……”

The sound escaped the journalist’s mouth before he could stop it.

Seeing a formation that takes shape after 200 moves could only be described as an anomaly.

The two Kings, one at 1 Five and the other at 9 Five, seemed as two cannon-laiden ships exchanging fire―――entrenched in the middle of the left and right edges of the board, their battle raged on.

“It’s almost like they turned the Shogi board on its side ……”

“How can they keep playing the best moves when the pieces are lined up like this …… They’re both monsters ……”

The Kings made a slow and steady advance under the protection of their escort of pieces.

Double Nyugyoku.

The anomalies kept appearing on the board as if from behind a smoky veil.

“It’s a burnt, barren wasteland ……,” said someone beside themself.

Pieces had completely disappeared from the center of the board.

Software displayed promoted pieces in red on monitors to make them easily identifiable, but now every screen in the room was drowned out in a red hue. Each King arrived at the opposite side of the board with its own big piece bodyguards for protection.

“….. There was no way to see this coming after the sealing move ……”

“Offense has won every match so far but …… I’m not so sure about this Shogi ……”

Software indicated an offensive advantage, but everyone was taking that rating with a big grain of salt. Some were starting to doubt it altogether.

“If the Demon King of the West has been playing in a way to make this happen from the start …… Has he surpassed computers entirely ……?”

No one spoke. There was no stronger affirmative than their silence.

Rina Shakando Women’s 8-dan spoke to her apprentice, who was similarly glued to a monitor with her mouth agape.

“Maria.”

“One such as I?!”

“Recite the rule.”

Ending the match with a checkmate under Double Nyugyoku was difficult.

Thus, separate ending conditions were necessary. The rules change.

Maria hesitated for just a moment, but was soon counting on her fingers as she reeled off the regulation.

“Well …… First, one King must have achieved nyugyoku or be on the verge of doing so such that forcing checkmate would be challenging for either player. All pieces other than Kings are assigned a point value, with big pieces being five and small pieces being one. Then, if both players have a tally above 24, a stalemate can be called should both players agree to do so …… Yes?”

“What a good memory you have.”

“But of course! The humiliation I suffered at the hands of a weed at the King of Naniwa Tournament was due to my spotty understanding of the rules for a stalemate! Trying to recall broke my concentration and resulted in an instant death, so it has become my nightly regimen to read through the procedure five times before bed and sear it into my memory!”

Shakando gave her proudly beaming apprentice a pat on the head and continued.

“However, I was not referring to that rule.”

“Wh-Whaaaaaa ……?”

Her gaze was not on Maria’s bewildered expression. Instead, it was trained on the two players displayed on the monitor.

Shakando’s words became an opening bell and the journalists within the waiting room sprang into action.

“Have any stalemates happened in title matches before?!”

“It happened in the King Title Match, right? Two of them between Oishi-sensei and Okito-sensei ……”

“Not in the Crown Title Match, though! It’ll be the first one ever!”

At the same time, plans were being drawn up for withdrawal.

For matches at the Shogi Association, a rematch would be carried out the same day.

When a match is played on location, however, the host’s schedule has to be taken into account. Thus, the rematch taking place on the same day wasn’t the norm.

Unlike Repetition Draws, stalemates typically occur late into the night. As the inn’s schedule took priority, stalemates during a title series resulted in an eighth match taking place.

“An eighth match …… I can already see it,” remarked observer Takeru Usui 9-dan as he straightened his kimono and started walking to the arena.

Now his turn, Yaichi was looking at his friend sitting across from him rather than the board.

“Hff …… Nghhh …… Gaaahhh ………… Koff ……!!”

He looked as if lost under the hot desert sun.

Dry, aching coughs and skin tinted red from a fever. The sweat that had been pouring out of his skin nonstop not too long ago was now absent. He was dehydrated, no doubt.

“KOFF! Kgh ……….. Aghhhhhh ……!!”

And now a series of dry heaves overcame Ayumu. The man dressed in a kimono reminiscent of body dressing for funerals might actually pass away at this rate.

―――This is dangerous.

Yaichi came to that decision looking at his friend, not the board.

He had found himself in a similar position both when he first took the Ryuo title and when he defended it against the Meijin.

With only a few minutes left of waiting time, the remaining seconds were too precious to use asking for more water, let alone excusing yourself to visit the restroom.

Furthermore, the afternoon snack delivered at 3 pm was the last chance to refuel on the second day of the Crown Title Match. Yaichi understood this would happen and brought his own extra water and snacks into the arena.

Yaichi clearly had a slight edge when it came to how to play in title matches.

―――I also played tons of Double Nyugyoku matches against Awaji.

Normally, Shogi players wouldn’t spend much time at all researching Double Nyugyoku standards. Most wouldn’t even bother playing against a computer. Yaichi, on the other hand, had.

In his eyes, this was the solution to Shogi.

It didn’t matter to him if this formation never came up between human players.

“Ayumu.”

Yaichi picked up an unopened bottle of water and held it out.

“……?!”

The challenger’s head snapped up. The Demon King addressed him as gently as possible.

“There’s no point going any further. Let’s call it a draw.”

He offered a stalemate.

“Right now, I’ve got 24 points and you have 30. 250 moves is more than enough, don’t you think? Let’s start over on another day.”

In that instance, Yaichi would have the first move.

―――The first move guarantees victory in this title series.

It goes without saying that Yaichi had been trying to force this result from the moment he moved his King back on his open move.

He could envision the series playing out like this back during the first match, in fact.

Show Awaji’s Repetition Draw sequence even once, and it would be easily copied. However, purposefully triggering a stalemate was far more difficult to achieve even after seeing it happen.

He could protect both his title and the future of Shogi at the same time.

“Just to let you know, my point total won’t drop below 24 again and it's impossible to checkmate my King at this point. What about you? Can you keep finding the best moves when you’re hurting this bad?”

Traditional aesthetics as both a Shogi player and a human being were paramount to Ayumu. Allowing this mess to continue in a title match should be the last thing he wanted.

That could be a humiliation worse than defeat.

“Take the draw and we’ll start fresh. You’ll get your waiting time back and have a chance to rest. We can end this playing normal Shogi. That would be better for you, wouldn’t it?”

“…………”

Ayumu said nothing even as he reached for the water bottle in Yaichi’s outstretched hand.

Then parched lips started forming words.