Ryuuou no Oshigoto! - Volume 17 - Chapter 1.4

  IN A FARAWAY PLACE

“Hiuma! How about a break?”

A man put down his tools after hearing his childhood friend’s energetic call.

Hiuma Kagamizu had been reinforcing the mango tree greenhouses to prepare them for the typhoon that was almost on their doorstep. Once he wiped the sweat from his brow, he sat down to eat a late lunch, which she had prepared just for him.

Miyazaki prefecture, Kyushu.

Having returned to his hometown post-retirement from the Sub League, Hiuma had kept busy working as a local farmhand.

“What’cha watching?”

“Hm? Nothing ……”

His lifelong friend sat down right next to him and craned her neck to get a peek at the smartphone in Hiuma’s hand.

Her being close enough to brush shoulders had made him a bit uncomfortable when he first arrived …… But he reasoned that this was just how childhood friends were and was completely used to it at this point.

“…… Messaging a lady friend you left back in Osaka, maybe?” she ventured in a probing voice.

Two years his junior, she had adored him like a big brother since she was little.

Now 28, her feelings for him seemed very much the same.

She threw a fit, crying her eyes out and begged to go with him when Hiuma said he was moving to Osaka to become a professional Shogi player, but everyone could look back and laugh about it now.

“You were so popular back in the day, Hiuma! I never had an honest-to-goodness boyfriend, but older and younger girls were asking you out left and right! You don’t expect me to believe you don’t have a special someone waiting for you in the big city, do you?!”

“A girlfriend? No, I don’t.”

Hiuma dismissed the notion with a laugh.

Though he had dated a fair number of women during his tenure in the Sub League, none of those relationships had lasted long, except for one.

And he had said some of the most hurtful words to her, the woman who had been his rock for years ……

“You’re the reason I can’t win.”

Hiuma had been hesitant to get too involved with any women ever since that painful day. That also allowed him to spend more of his time concentrating on Shogi.

He hadn’t become antisocial, however.

Spending the last few years of his time in the Sub League working with a boy far younger than himself had gone a long way.

“If anything …… I’d say he’s more of a little brother. He’s already so much better than me,” said Hiuma as he looked down at a picture of Sota Kunugi on the screen and squinted as if to shield his eyes.

The boy glowed in that junior high school uniform with the clipped collar.

———He’s grown up a bit, but still cheeky as ever.

A hint of nostalgia overtook him until he saw the match record appear on the screen.

“Ohhh? You’re not seeing anyone? Uh-huh ……,” whispered his lifelong friend, but Hiuma didn’t notice that or the fact that she had discreetly pumped her fist. His eyes were far too focused on the match record.

The Shogi was bizarre.

Ika Sainokami, who usually played Ranging Rook, accepting a Bishop exchange while on defense was strange enough already …… But it seemed like every move she made from that point on smashed Hiuma’s Shogi sense into smaller and smaller pieces.

Ika had shifted her Rook to the right edge of the board.

“First-File Rook ……”

It was a valid strategy, to be sure.

Classified as Static Rook, it was employed by a handful of players as an ambush strategy, but a standard never emerged. It therefore allowed for an enormous level of freedom.

However, that didn’t mean anything goes.

The King never left starting position.

And the edge Pawn had ventured extremely far forward.

That opened the way for the Rook to take a seat in the center of the board.

“…… Twisting from here ……?”

“Twist? …… They’re just ordinary onigiri rice balls ……”

The young woman looked down at the lunch she had made, puzzled.

Of course, Hiuma was commenting on the strategy, not her cooking.

———Maybe the formation came from Twisting Rook ……?

But that conjecture was based solely on the Rook’s position. Hiuma …… No, the people of the world had never seen the Shogi playing out on that board ever before.

Ika’s Knights were bounding across the board, setting the stage for the epic clash that would take place in the 8th and 9th columns.

——— King at starting position, edge Pawn forward, Ranging Rook player …… That was similar, but still ……

A strategy that sparkled radiantly in the annals of Shogi history came to the forefront of Hiuma’s mind.

It had made serious waves through the Shogi world when Hiuma started training and was the main reason he switched from Static Rook to playing Ranging Rook himself.

———There were so many Sub League members just like me back then.

Software had permeated the modern Shogi world to such an extent that the idea of players switching from Static Rook to Ranging Rook en masse was unfathomable.

Even Hiuma had entrusted his fate to the yagura during his final season in the 3-dan division.

The times had already buried that strategy, as well as the prodigy who created it. Even Ranging Rook ……

“Um, Hiuma.”

“Yeah.”

“You won’t be going back to Osaka, will you? You’re here in Miyazaki for keeps, yes?”

“Yeah.”

Hiuma wasn’t listening. His mind was too absorbed in the match record to care that his childhood friend was pressing her fully matured, 28-year-old figure against him or to put any thought into answering her questions.

“Do you think you’ll be staying on the farm?”

“Yeah.”

“Say …… Hypothetically, okay? My dad said he’d be up for you taking over the family farm if you were on board with it …… Would you want to?”

“Yeah.”

“Really?!”

“Yeah.”

Every smidgen of Hiuma’s mental energy was being poured into the ever-updating match record on his phone. His childhood friend’s words were literally going in one ear and out the other.

Sota was playing quickly, but Ika’s speed was inhuman. Not only had she used a scant two minutes of her waiting time so far, but most of her moves were played in three seconds or less.

It was reckless, on par with driving 200 mph on a track they’d never seen before. Neither of them crashing, yet it stunned Hiuma to his very core. How many times would he have died already, he wondered. No one would ever play these moves after reading through the board. At the same time, clashes of strength like this one cannot be fought with memorization alone ……

“…… How did you pull this off ……?”

“How? Well, you would move in as my husband …… I-I-I mean! D-Dad loves playing Shogi, too! And he admires your courage, moving to Osaka all by yourself to follow your own dream!”

“Yeah ………… Uh-huh?”

Sota had seized control of the 8th column.

Not only had he successfully traded Knights for Silvers with a Promoted Bishop in his ranks, but Ika’s King hadn’t budged since the start of the match. All the defender had to show for her efforts was getting a promoted Pawn in the 9th column.

The battle over the edge seemed like it would settle the entire match within a few turns ……

But that wasn’t the case.

“…… Hard.”

The defensive formation looked flimsy at best, but it refused to crumble.

“Hard? Was my onigiri that over-cooked?”

“……”

“Say, Hiuma? If you’re willing to inherit the farm …… Wh-Why not take me along with it? Hahaaa ……”

“……”

“I don’t mean to toot my own horn, but I think I’m pretty good in the kitchen …… And I’ll do my best in o-other things, too …… I’ll do anything you ask …… Y-You know, like …… In the bedroom———”

That is when a move so outrageous appeared that it made Hiuma jump to his feet and yell.

“Reverse?!”

“Wh-Whaaa?! R-Reverse?!”

Ika pulled back the Promoted Pawn that had finally started to advance.

Hiuma couldn’t figure out the reason for the life of him …… But he could see doing so maintained the defender’s balance by the slimmest of margins. His whole world was on the verge of falling apart.

———Even after retiring, Shogi still makes my heart skip a beat ……

Sota looked to have the advantage.

Given this much of an edge, there shouldn’t be a way to upend that prodigy at this point.

The youngest professional Shogi player would inch even closer to the all-time winning streak record and send the whole country into a tizzy. An unprecedented Shogi boom was surely on the horizon. Sota was following through on his promise with Hiuma.

For Hiuma, however, seeing moves he would never play no matter how many times he could relive his own life appear on the board in such quick succession was ……

“W-We should get back to it! C’mon! We’ve got to finish up before sundown!”

Hiuma’s childhood friend said, blushing up a storm as she smacked the dirt off the backside of her pants after getting to her feet.

“………… Yeah.”

He reluctantly returned his smartphone to his pocket and made for the greenhouses to start working once again.

The wind was starting to pick up.

A warm, humid wind that could only mean the typhoon was drawing near.

———A decisive shift is starting.

The Shogi world was rocketing down a path of no return, or so Hiuma felt as that ominous breeze passed through the air.

…… As for the one-way route he had stumbled onto with his childhood friend, that is a story for another time.

The two distant events would never cross paths.