Ryuuou no Oshigoto! - Volume 2 - Chapter 2.6

  A LESSON FOR BEGINNERS

“… Did you not sleep at all?” said Ai with a stunned face the instant we met up for her next lesson.

“…… I can’t …… take anymore …… too much to explain …… just can’t ……”

“Huh?”

“That’s not important, now go play! Take down the Panther today no matter what, got that?! I have my own life-threatening battles to worry about?!”

“W-What’s gotten into you? You’re making no sense at all …” 

Although a bit taken aback by my outburst, she spits out the words, “And I’m going to win, you don’t have to tell me!” before going to challenge New World’s Leopard.

Once their match gets underway, Akira and I are left on our own as always.

“………”

“………”

“………”

“… Um.”

“Yes?”

“We paid to get in too, so why not play? The two of us.”

“By play, you mean?”

“Shogi, of course.”

What else is there?

“But …… I don’t know much of the game.”

“I’ll teach you if you’d like. First, this is how you line up the pieces–––.”

“That much, I know.”

Sounding a little peeved, Akira starts snapping the plastic pieces onto the board.

“Humph …… See? Perfect, like I said,” she says to me once she finished with a look of accomplishment on her face.

“Your Rook and Bishop are switched.”

“………”

The usual response at times like this is, “Ah! My mistake,” or, “Oh, so they are.”

Akira, however, said this while slowly removing her sunglasses: “Don’t you get to choose which side they’re on?”

Holy ……

Freely choose where the Rook and Bishop line up?! Where did she come up with that?! New age or something ……?!

“Umm …… no, you’re not free to choose. The Rook goes on the right and the Bishop goes on the left.”

“Set in your ways, aren’t you?”

Akira voices her discontent but switches the Rook and Bishop to the correct spots.

“All right, let’s get started …… Akira, do you know how the pieces move?”

“Don’t take me for a fool. How long do you think I’ve looked after the young lady? I’ve mastered them all perfectly.”

Our match started like that, but broke down almost right away.

“The Silver can’t move to the side.”

“… But I want it to.”

“It doesn’t work that way.”

“………”

“Trying to hide it from me won’t work either! Put it back and think of another move.”

“It’s defective. The rules are in the way. The Gold and Silver are too hard to tell apart.”

That’s a hurdle that all beginners must clear. The second one would be differentiating how the Promoted Rook and Promoted Bishop move.

“Remembering the difference is impossible, so they should all be one or the other.”

“Please take that up with the association directly.”

“You are the Ryuo, yes? That makes you one of the association’s bigwigs, does it not?”

“I have no power whatsoever. Think of me more like a decoration.”

A titleholder’s authority is completely different from the power wielded by the association. I’m just one of many professional Shogi players and my lineage is just a tiny branch of the Kansai Association, which is overpowered by the one in Kanto. Having fewer people means less influence, and the icing on the cake was my Master relieving himself from the association window, which made whatever clout I had disappear like the morning fog.

“Please, don’t get hung up on it. Everyone makes that mistake at first …… and, just between us, pros mix those pieces up sometimes too. (ha-ha)”

“And they still call themselves professionals? (grimace)”

“Work with me here, will you?!”

Just to be clear, pros don’t mix up how Golds and Silvers move, except when deploying one or the other from their captured pieces back onto the board. Always double-check.

“Just remember how the pieces move, okay! Silvers can’t move left, right or straight back! Golds can’t go diagonally backward in either direction!”

“I can’t be expected to remember so much new information! I’m doing the best I can!”

Oops. I gotta be more careful.

Kids soak this stuff up like sponges, but remembering how pieces move is a big hurdle for adults. We’ll never get off the ground if she gets frustrated now.

It’s an especially big hurdle for women …… However, there is a way to get her interested.

“…… Oh? But you see, Akira.”

I take a deep breath, put a smile on my face and say in a lighter tone.

“The Silver is actually an elephant.”

“Have you suffered head trauma?”

“It’s just a metaphor! An example to show you how it moves!!”

I point out the directions a Silver can move on the board.

“Take a closer look! See? Like this!”

“Uh-huh.”

“Its trunk and front legs stick out into the spaces!”

“Uh-huh.”

“Now, doesn’t that look like an elephant?”

“… Are you sure you haven’t suffered a blow to the head?”

“Just admit it, will you! That’s obviously an elephant?!”

I’ve had it with this woman! This conversation is going nowhere!!

“You’re the one that started talking about elephants for no reason. Bringing up animals in the middle of a Shogi game confused me.”

“I’m not the one that came up with that explanation. Actually, the Silver moving like an elephant has an important role in explaining Shogi’s roots.”

“Oh?”

“No chess piece moves like a Silver. There are however pieces in India’s Chaturanga and Thailand’s Makruk that do. There are ‘elephant’ pieces in Chinese Chess, Xiangqi, and Korean Chess, Changi, but they move differently. That’s why it’s theorized that Shogi originated in India and most likely came to Japan via Southeast Asia.”

There are other theories, but I like this one because the Silver’s movements are easier to explain this way.

“People trained the elephants in India and Thailand to fight alongside them in war. Since Shogi is a game based on war strategy, it makes sense that they would be included.”

“There are elephants in Africa as well.”

“Ha-ha, that there are. Then, Shogi could have originated in Africa, but the Silver still moves like an elephant. Don’t forget, el-e-phant!”

“You’re quite vocal …… like an elephant.”

It took everything I had to get her to remember that the Silver can’t move side to side or straight back to get the match back up again. But we couldn’t finish because she face-planted on the third hurdle for beginners: “Only the Knight can jump over other pieces.”

Oh, and Ai got thoroughly destroyed by Panther five times in a row again today. 

“… And it was going so well too …” 

Or at least she claims it was, so she’s probably figured something out.

“My lady, we must leave now or else we’ll break curfew. Let’s be on our way!”

Akira ushers Ai along with a bit sharper tone than usual. I bet she’s frustrated with Shogi at the moment, so I ask a question to get her to realize how much progress she’s made today.

“Just one last question about how the Silver moves to review. What animal is it modeled after?”

“… A hippopotamus?”

Her face has “honest mistake” written all over it. We’ve got a long way to go.