Ryuuou no Oshigoto! - Volume 17 - Chapter 3.1

  CONTINUATION - MATCH JOURNAL

Day 2 playing against Awaji.

I’m still getting the snot beaten out of me. The opening moves don’t make sense.

The log says that my moves were terrible when I look back after the match, but I don’t have a clue why. Everything Awaji plays feels off somehow, but there are moments when I feel like I understand. Then, when I play a natural response to it, my rating plummets for some reason.

There’s no coming back from that no matter how much water I tread. It’s like being trapped in a bottomless swamp. I committed tons of waiting time to each of my moves today while Awaji barely used a second. Yet I can’t even hold my own ground.

I’m just going to play as many matches as possible tomorrow in hopes of finding an opening of some kind. Even a sliver of hope would mean the world to me right now.

Day 3.

I went all out on quantity today.

I hit Awaji with every Static Rook strategy I could think of, from the latest trends to really old standards, but got absolutely nowhere. Rather than getting left in the dust during the mid-game, I couldn’t get any traction from the get-go. For whatever reason, my rating is in free fall from the very first move …… according to Awaji’s log anyway. I still don’t feel like trying out Ranging Rook.

Are 2 Six Pawn and 7 Six Pawn really bad opening moves?

Whatever Awaji is playing, it isn’t the Shogi I know.

I feel like I’m stranded in some far-off country with no idea how to speak the language. This loneliness might kill me.

Day 4

It’s funny how futile my efforts have been. I have no idea what I should play from the very second I sit down at the board, which is a first.

Rather than being painful or agonizing from all the defeats, it’s this loneliness that’s getting to me. The fear of not knowing what’s going to happen next. I came here to see Shogi from 100 years in the future, but I can’t see anything at all.

Seriously! What have I been doing with my life?

If every Static Rook strategy is wiped out in the next 100 years, then all the research that other pros and I are doing right now will eventually be used to prove Static Rook was wrong. It’s like solving math problems, but the very first line isn’t right. The rest of the pro Shogi world has to know ASAP ……

But who could I tell?

Day 5

I tried mimicking Awaji today. Like moving the King forward first. That one.

But I got slaughtered, of course.

Maybe the early-game isn’t the problem. Am I just weak? If that’s the case, there’s hope ……

Day 7

Today marks a full week in this room.

I haven’t spoken to anyone in so long, I’m afraid I might forget how to talk.

How long has it been since I completely shut myself off from the outside to play Shogi? Since I moved out of Master’s place to live on my own? But Big Sis let herself in all the time and I had other young pros stay over quite a lot before Ai Hinatsuru showed up. I never felt alone in those days.

This place should be the perfect environment for me to focus on Shogi …… But I can’t seem to concentrate on it no matter how hard I try.

Maybe I could communicate with Awaji if the machine specs are lowered? Part of me feels like that would defeat the point of me being here, though ……

I’m starting to forget how I used to play Shogi ……

Day 8

Ginko has shown up in my dreams pretty much every night since I got here. Then again, I suppose that’s only natural.

The one that comes up the most is from the time before I joined the Sub League, when the two of us went to amateur tournaments.

Ginko’s family was in the dream I had today. I remember her mother, who looks just like her, very well. But her father, not so much. Now that I think about it, they live somewhere in Osaka Ward but never once came to visit Master’s place. I remember seeing them come to root for her at tournaments, but …… did they not want her to feel homesick or something?

That train of thought was my escape from reality today. My Shogi was a complete disaster.

Day 10

………… So much pain.

I’m depressed the moment I wake up. Turning the headset on physically hurts. How awesome would it be to just be lazy and lie around in bed? Just thinking about another match against Awaji zaps any desire I have to play Shogi at all. This throbbing headache could split my skull open any time now. I'm sweating buckets nonstop, and constantly feel like I’m going to puke.

“Should I just call it quits?” I yell into my pillow over and over again.

Quit what? Playing against Awaji?

Or …… quit Shogi?

Would there be any point in living if I stopped playing Shogi?

I picture what it would be like to leave this room. It all feels wonderful for a fleeting moment before despair floods my body from head to toe.

If I left here right now …… I’d have to live an ordinary life while being the only one who knows how humanity is going to end. That’s an even deeper, darker despair.

Nothing can be the same again now that I know the future.

Day 15

Pain. Pain. Painpainpainpainpainpainpainpainpainpainpainpainpainpainpainpainpainpainpainpainpainpainpainpainpainpainpainpainpainpainpainpainpainpainpainpainpainpainpainpainpainpainpainpainpainpainpainpainpainpainpainpainpainpainpainpainpainpainpainpainpainpainpainpainpainpainpainpainpainpainpainpainpainpainpainpainpainpainpainpainpainpainpainpain.

Day 20

Oh, now I get it.

I just have to uninstall.