GRAVEYARD
I thought I would retire if I were ever demoted to B League, 2nd Class.
As for declaring myself Free Class, I refuse to grasp at straws like that. In Free Class, I’d lose my seed in most matches and cannot be promoted back into A League after one season. My pride would never accept it.
No.
My pride isn’t the only issue. It would be an immeasurable loss to the Shogi world itself. The match records I’ve made, gems in their own right, would be forever hidden from the fans.
———It wasn’t supposed to be this way.
Staring at the B League, 1st Class Placement Results and seeing a Demoted next to my name, I had no choice but to think back over the painful truth.
Since when?
When did my Shogi life become jinxed?
Was it when the strategy I poured sweat and blood into making a reality was conquered?
But I have been constantly creating new strategies with different formations since it was rendered useless. New ideas flowed into my mind like pure water from a spring.
———Was it when software showed up?
Because that vile rating system turns hard-working players’ strategies into impudent numbers?
No.
That moment must be it.
That 16-year-old who was nothing like a child …… Younger than my own children, in fact …… It was the instant that upstart appeared in front of me as a challenger less than a year after becoming a professional player.
How was I supposed to take him seriously?
He was a mere child who only played Double Wing Attack, admittedly child’s play among Shogi strategies, and I innocently went along with it.
———A proud Ranging Rook player like myself ……
If I could redo anything, I would redo that title match in a heartbeat.
Forget the arrogance, abandon my worthless pride, and use the strategy I perfected. Had I done so, I would have won. Easily.
Had I won, the sequence that followed would have never happened.
I was supposed to be the one to block the Meijin’s Eternal Septuple 100th title season.
That bland, click-and-play style of Shogi from software only spread to this extent throughout the professional world because that child claimed the title of Dragon King Ryuo, the most prestigious title in Shogi. Human players with pride like me have all been forced to reside in the graveyard known as B League, 2nd Class.
The Ryuo, the player who represented every professional, was never meant to pen a book explaining the ins and outs of using software. The very notion should’ve been laughable.
But the absolute hardest thing to accept———
His elementary school—aged apprentice went on an ego trip just because she won a Women’s Title and suddenly thinks she can bully all of us professionals.
———Has she no respect for Shogi’s history?!!
Yes, that is the moment everything went wrong.
Being defeated by Yaichi Kuzuryu …… in that 7-match Ryuo Title series.
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