Ryuuou no Oshigoto! - Volume 18 - Chapter 5.06

  In the Mud

“Th-The hell’s …… goin’ on ……?”

Master groans as the offense’s rating plummets like a boat going off the edge of Niagara.

“I know Ai was leadin’ just a bit ago. So how’d the ratin’ …… flip so fast?”

Master and the others are tracking the match on a computer Ms. Oga brought in. Their jaws are hanging so low, you’d think a magician just made the table disappear.

But I know exactly why it happened because I’m using Awaji.

“She stepped on a death flag.”

That is when I looked at the full death flag data for the first time.

It’s stunning.

Seeing the whole truth gets scary enough that I seriously consider unplugging the monitor ……

Take the Bishop Exchange strategy that Ai Hinatsuru tried to play in the beginning.

That strategy had a total of 1,886 death flags sticking up. Step on one, and the defender is toast.

Just 1,886 formations!

Memorize them, and anyone could get an edge over anything, even Awaji. This is the solution to Bishop Exchange, an answer that human beings have been trying to find for centuries.

The even scarier thing is the sequence Ai Yashajin played to avoid them, starting with the 1 Four Pawn.

Moving that Pawn forward suddenly made the number of defending victory formations shoot up. My second apprentice worked backward from them and led my first apprentice directly onto a death flag.

Basically, it’s A Game of Numbers.

Looking at the whole picture, I can tell the defender has far fewer options to get their opponent to traps than the offense. Shogi really is a horribly unbalanced game.

Of course, simply knowing where the death flags are doesn’t mean it's easy to draw the opponent into them. On top of that, the sequence to put them into checkmate from there goes against conventional Shogi wisdom to the point that everything feels weird. Finishing the win is very difficult.

But …… knowing this versus not knowing would completely change how you play the game.

Just how someone would change their lifestyle if they knew how long they have to live.

―――My match with Ayumu was child’s play, wasn’t it ……?

Looking at this data, I can tell that advancing the King with the first move is a limited strategy that’s only viable when the opponent tries to utilize their big pieces right away. It’ll make a splash but become obsolete just as quickly. It’s that kind of strategy. The thing is, the entirety of humanity’s 1,400 years playing Shogi has just been a splash ……

One that dries up today.

This match will convince people that, ironic as it is, this match between two grade school girls is closer to true Shogi than a title match between top pros.

“Their ratings are fairly even right now, but Ai Hinatsuru’s rating will never go any higher than this. Ai Yashajin has won.”

“Y-Ya mean it’s over? Here?”

“Yes. Ai Yashajin has completely mastered Awaji’s playing style. It’s safe to say she is the only human being who could win from this position. She developed her own training method to do just that.”

“Is this …… Shogi?”

The offensive formation is easier to understand with human Shogi senses. I can’t blame Master for not believing me when I say the defender already has the match won.

But this is Shogi’s solution.

I sum up how Ai Yashajin discovered death flags and found out how to use them as briefly as possible.

Then I end the explanation by saying this: “Once all players in the Shogi world know about death flags, they’ll develop techniques to avoid triggering them. That sounds like a fun game if you ask me. Though I’m sure everyone’s opinion will be different.”

Even I’m surprised at how easily I’ve come to accept this solution. Am I thrilled? No. But I’ve become used to this feeling ever since I was first learning to play Shogi.

The information divide.

That used to be the difference between Kanto and Kansai Shogi.

Having more players registered in Kanto meant research advanced at a faster rate. Having top players like the Meijin and Usui-sensei registered in Kanto and having practice sessions there kept all that early-game information from leaving the area.

The advances these study partnerships made in the early-game became cemented as features of modern Shogi, and only a sliver of Kanto’s pros benefited from it.

That information divide first led to titles and then to more Kanto Sub League members making it into the pros, putting a ton of pressure on us Kansai players ……

“Shogi software is what finally broke that edge. But that doesn’t mean it’s an even playing field for everyone now, either.”

“Those who cannot use a computer are left behind,” the chairman murmurs.

Even though voice compatibility software has made it easier to verbally operate a computer, he’s completely blind. Chairman Tsukimitsu looks young, but it’ll be an uphill battle for him to survive in an era dictated by computer research when he’s already in his fifties.

Not to mention that, right at this very moment, one young girl is monopolizing the fruits of software’s labor to wield that immense information divide to reshape the Shogi world once again.

“Shogi, like what Ayumu and I played, going back and forth while not allowing the other to get a decisive move, will end in Double Nyugyoku or a Repetition Draw. Use death flags like what Ai Yashajin is doing now, and information disparity becomes the decisive move …… Whichever the case, the Shogi world is in for some big changes.”

“Nah, nothin’ll change.”

Sure enough, Master shoots that idea down like the stubborn old fossil that he is. But then, he crosses his arms like a big shot and starts ordering me around.

“Have a look fer yarself. Not at the ratin’ but at Ai.”

“How can I when there's only one camera and it’s mounted to the ceiling―――”

The IP camera is mounted on the ceiling and trained on the board, so the players don’t usually show up on the screen. Their hands when they play a move, yeah, but nothing else ……

“What the?!”

Swish, swish. The back of Ai Hinatsuru’s head is bobbing in and out of the frame.

She’s leaning so far forward that she’s blocking the view of the board. I can’t tell what’s happened the past couple of moves because of it.

I can practically hear her usual “here, here, here,” so it’s easy to tell she hasn’t given up at all. Actually ……

“…… Is she planning something?”

“’At’s right. She hasn’t thrown in the towel, an’ I wouldn’ at this point if I were in her shoes, either.”

“Why not?”

“Could ya surrender when ya don’ know where ya messed up? There was a match where Mr. Tsukimitsu said he had a check path but I didn’ believe him an’ got disqualified ’cuz I played a different move without realizin’ I was in check.”

“Oh yes. I remember that,” the chairman adds with a grin.

Am I allowed to laugh?

Ai Hinatsuru is definitely playing like she has something in mind. Even though her software rating is going south, she's trying to make the board as complicated to human eyes as possible.

The problem is that her opponent is too good for that.

Ai Yashajin has trained herself to overcome human blind spots, so I doubt she’ll make any mistakes at this point. Beating her now would be …… the same as beating Awaji itself.

Does my first apprentice have any weapons left?

No. Did humans like us ever have weapons to begin with?

“’At there’s muddy, gritty, Kansai Shogi.”

Master puts Ai Hinatsuru’s strong, gritty battle into words.

“’At’s how we broke through the information divide with Kanto. Or have ya forgot?”

“…… Even if the death flags are wrong, both my apprentices have the same amount of talent and devote the same amount of time to Shogi. Therefore, the one who’s most efficient will win. Am I wrong?”

“Ya know somethin’, Yaichi?”

Have ya forgot this, too? comes through in Master’s voice.

“If ya got Mr. A, who studies efficiently ’cuz someone told ’em to, and Mr. B, who believes somethin’ is absolutely true an’ studies without a clue why, it’s Mr. B who’s gonna get stronger.”

“……!”

I got this speech enough times as a live-in apprentice to make my ears fall off, but now these words are much more convincing, strangely enough. Especially after losing the Crown Title.

Master smiles, turns to his granddaughter apprentices and shouts some encouragement they’re never going to hear.

“Both’a ya! The real battle starts in the mud!!”