"Promoting to queen." Cato took his pawn off the board and replaced it with one of the spare queen pieces.
"Geh..." Karen grit her teeth. This was a depressing position to look at. She had zero queens at her disposal, whereas her opponent already had two. [Sis, what am I supposed to do here...?]
There was no line of play that could win her the game, that was clear for a while now. But at this point, even forcing a draw looked like a pipe dream. What was a single rook supposed to do against an army led by two queens? Not to mention, Cato still had a rook and a bishop at this disposal...
[Feeling the despair yet?] Cato snickered as he watched Karen's pretty face contort. It was delicious~ The girl was writhing with pain and frustration. Good, good~
[So, allow me to make that expression even prettier~] Cato advanced another one of his pawns. "Promoting to queen."
"H-Haha..." Karen laughed at this ridiculous scene. Three enemy queens on one board. What kind of madness was that? This sort of nonsense never happened when Cato played against Karen's sister.
But, against Karen herself? Bullshit like this took place at least once in three matches. During games like this, she felt like a clown whose only purpose was to entertain that scumbag.
[Damn, I SO freakin' hate how he plays.] Karen ranted.
Cato's playstyle was simply disgusting, no other word to describe it. The guy turtled the entire game, [slowly] advancing his troops along the different files.
Then, toward the endgame, he just LOVED playing with his food and taking his sweet time to corner Karen from all sides. And, whenever the opportunity struck, he always made sure to bully her further by promoting a billion queens. What a shithead.
"Not throwing the towel yet?" Cato asked.
"N-No," Karen forced the reply through greeted teeth.
"Cool," Cato smiled in delight. [My, she doesn't even care that much about chess, yet she's taking it so hard. She really hates losing that badly, huh. That's one of the few traits she shares with her older sister.]
The enemy wasn't broken quite yet. Therefore, Cato played with his food some more. "Promoting to queen."
"Are you building a flippin' harem here or what!?" Karen cursed. Signs of resignation were already apparent on her face. As tough as she was, even she didn't have the willpower to combat this bullshit anymore.
[Mission accomplished.] Cato smiled to himself. From here, delivering a mate in one move was a no-brainer. With four queens on the board, it'd be harder to [not] win right away.
"Checkmate."
"FINALLY." Karen sighed in relief. [Damn, what a shitshow. He walked all over me. Well, not like I care about this boring game anyway...] "So, you think you're hot shit? How about you first-to-ten me in Mancers, big boy?"
"My, you sound awfully confident."
"Oh, I am. It'll be a clean 10-0."
"Nah, don't be pessimistic like that. I'm sure you can steal at least one game from me~"
"I meant 10-0 for [me]. I'll mop the damn floor with your smug ass!"
"Heh, I'd like to see that."
Sparks formed in the air from their interlocking glares. If they had the ability to shoot lasers out of their eyes, they'd be unleashing that power in full force right now.
They were so busy spearing each other that they failed to notice the third person in the room.
"Ahem." Fiona Landberht made her presence known.
"Ah, sis!" Karen jumped from the sofa. "Sorry, I didn't see you enter! Why didn't you say something sooner?"
"I saw you were having fun, so it felt wrong to interrupt."
"Fun??? Who with whom?" Karen threw a disgusted look at Cato. "That guy was bullying me, sis~" She ran into her sister's embrace, pretending to cry.
"There, there." Fiona patted the girl's head. "This match does appear to be in bad taste."
She understood the situation at a glance. With four queens on the board, it was easy to imagine for how long Cato was dragging the game out. "Honestly, I cannot say this is very sportsmanlike of you."
"I was just messing around a little." Cato also left the sofa to greet Fiona.
Logically, there was no reason to do that. He was the guest here and Fiona was just a girl one year younger than him. Nonetheless, something compelled him to stand up in the presence of her majesty.
"Besides," Cato continued. "It was a little revenge for how your sister pulled out a toy and-"
"A-Ah!" Karen jumped hysterically.
[Good reaction~] Cato smiled impishly. This type of revenge was far more effective than bullying the barbarian girl in chess.
"Yes?" Fiona titled her head. "She pulled out a toy and...?"
"She demanded me to buy her another one like it. The nerve, am I right?"
"Oh, I see." Fiona nodded. "Karen, you can't demand presents like that, not even from your boyfriend."
"W-Who's my boyfriend!?" Karen exploded.
"Now, now." Fiona calmed down the rating tiger with a soft head pat. It was super effective.
"Prrr." Karen purred while snuggling against her sister. This brat was sure acting all sweet and innocent in front of her sister, but she wasn't fooling anybody. There was a dormant tiger inside of her, ready to pounce at Cato at any moment.
"Sorry for making you wait," Fiona apologized.
"Don't sweat it," Cato said. "Your cute little sister entertained me enough."
"Hey!" Karen retorted. "I'm not your personal clown, you know."
"Karen, please." Fiona calmed the girl down with a gentle head rub. It was like watching a tamer subduing a tiger cub.
"Sis, please avenge me!" Karen pleaded.
"Of course." Fiona nodded with a smile. A gentle smile, yet a majestic one. It was brimming with unwavering confidence. ["I'll not lose."] Everything about her radiated that message.
A girl with the gentleness of a mother, but also the ruthlessness of a beast. She was pretty and elegant like a porcelain doll, but also surprisingly strong and hard-boiled like a veteran soldier.
This was Fiona Landberht, or the "Landberht Princess" as the media called her. But, Cato knew better than that. This girl was no "princess" by any stretch of the imagination.
[She's at least a queen, if not a goddess.] Despite knowing Fiona for many years, Cato always felt like he was in the presence of a supreme being. It was hard to believe that Fiona was made of the same flesh and blood as him.
The word "perfection" must have been invented to describe beings such as her. Her golden long hair, her deep blue eyes, and her slim yet muscular limbs. One would not be able to find a single fault with her form, no matter where they looked. Even her height struck the perfect balance, rivaling that of boys her age but not surpassing it to the point of ridicule.
Likewise, there were no faults with the way she carried herself either. Always calm and collected, respectful and reasonable. Truly, this queen was blessed with everything.
But, as somebody who had been hanging out with Fiona from a young age, Cato knew this was all a facade, a persona she wore to live up to expectations. And today, once again, he came here to make a dent in that perfect mask. Unmasking this goddess and dragging her down to earth was perhaps his greatest wish.
Thus, he'll challenge her to a duel! And, he'll do everything in his power to trample all over her!
If you're enjoying the story, please review it and vote for it. つ ◕_◕ ༽つ
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"Shall we begin?" Fiona asked. She already finished rearranging the chessboard and sat down in front of it, maintaining the perfect posture of a lady.
"Alright, let's get this rolling."
"You can take white if you wish."
"Haha, no." Cato tossed a coin to decide sides. For the better or the worse, he didn't get white.
"So stubborn," Fiona said. "In my humble opinion, you should first focus on beating me with white."
"I can beat you with black just fine."
"Is that so." Fiona disagreed but she didn't pursue the topic any further. And yet, Cato couldn't help but sense pity from her expression.
[Tch, that's the most aggravating part about her.]
Unlike Cato would have done in her shoes, Fiona didn't say those things to irritate her opponent or throw them off their game. As far as she was concerned, she was merely stating the truth. She was just innocently and unintentionally trampling all over Cato's pride.
[I'll show her.] Cato declared silently. [I've had more than enough time to study our previous games. I'm ready for anything!]
In the past few weeks, he went over every single game he lost to Fiona this year. Each and every dubious play he made had to be analyzed in detail.
Thankfully, many smart chess engines existed today. They deconstructed the games for Cato and advised him what he could've done better, even showing him predictions of how the opponent would've likely responded to these alternative lines. That made the reviewing process both easier and fruitful.
[I have strong answers this time. I can steal a win or two from her.] Cato was convinced.
Fiona opened the game with pawn to e4. And so, the test began. Could Cato's new insights defeat the "Landberht Princess" this time?
["Princess", huh. More like an Ice Queen.]
The girl in front of him was like a manifestation of cold winter. There was not a trace left of her earlier friendliness. The moment the game began, her face turned stone cold.
When competing in anything, Fiona was like an empress who stood at the top above everybody. She exhibited unparalleled skill with ice-cold precision as she crushed everybody in her path without any mercy. There wasn't a single crack in her current expression. There were no hints of happiness or sadness. There was only unbreakable concentration on the task at hand.
[My, a truly irritating girl.] Cato smiled impishly. [But, that's what makes her all the more worthy of breaking apart~]
Every time he found himself in front of that stoic face, Cato had the urge to claw at it, to tear down that mask of confidence. Doubt, anger, anguish, or despair. This girl should show at least a fraction of any of these emotions.
But, Fiona always refused these demands. She fired one calculated move after another, all the while wearing her stoic expression.
[This is getting bad...] Cato frowned. The game was about to hit the mid-game, but he could already tell his position was very suspect.
It was difficult to fully analyze all aspects of the position at hand. He wasn't a chess engine, so couldn't deconstruct all the possible lines on the spot, definitely not within the limited time he had to make his moves.
Nonetheless, he had been in similar scenarios before. So, he could tell where this game was headed.
Unlike Karen's kamikaze playstyle, Fiona played chess by the book. She valued swift, but steady, piece development for the early game. Then, during the mid-game, she made smart use of all the pieces she installed across the board, submitting her opponent through the flexible strength of her army formation.
Compared to Fiona's well-developed army, some of Cato's strong pieces were stuck in the back row. As usual, he valued developing his pawns alongside his other pieces. That allowed him to establish tight control over his side of the board and erect an airtight defensive wall. Therefore, breaking past his defenses was no easy task.
Nonetheless, Fiona always found a way to maneuver around it. While Cato was busy building up his wall, Fiona masterfully snuck her developed pieces through the cracks. And so, by the time Cato finished establishing his almighty defense - it was too late. Too many enemies invaded his territory and threatened to oppress his king.
[Looks like I got a long way to go before I can play like an engine.] Cato sighed.
The standard chess theory was to develop pieces as quickly as possible during the early-game and then castle. That was the basic strategy everybody preached to newcomers, and that's how Cato started learning chess as well. It was an effective approach for building a stable position, as Ms. "By-The-Book" over there was proving.
However, Cato always found that concept a little odd. Pawns were the weakest and most expendable units at one's disposal, so why not send them to the frontline first? It made more sense to first send scouts into enemy territory and establish a line of defense, and only then start attacking.
Alas, Cato didn't have much success with that approach. Once he started experimenting with pawn tactics, even weaker opponents started beating him every now and then.
Frankly, it was a little depressing. The strategy that made the most sense to him and seemed like the most fun - never worked out.
After trying and trying and trying for nearly half a year, Cato was ready to call it quits. He concluded that the defensive pawn tactic had no place in the modern chess meta, so it was better to play by the book like a goody-two-shoes.
But, just as he was about to give up, his chess teacher introduced him to a chess engine. It was equipped with advanced AI that could even beat the strongest players in the world, even with the handicap of starting with one less pawn.
The engine could analyze a match step-by-step and criticize every single move Cato made, as well as advise better moves. That allowed him to quickly study his games and learn from his mistakes.
But, that wasn't the most impressive thing about chess engines, not for Cato. What fascinated him even more was watching how engines played the game. In particular, engine vs. engine matches was a sight to behold.
Unlike humans, engines had no reason to conform to standard theory preached by mentors. These engines had one goal only - to win. They didn't care how they were going to achieve it. They just wanted to get the best results, to grasp victory in the most reliable way.
That's why their moves came off as "inhuman" at times. And, that's also why they used strategies that were never seen before by humans. And, one such strategy was...
["Pawn development!"] Cato jumped in joy the first time he saw it an engine vs. engine match.
Instead of using the normal "human" game theory, the engines developed their own idea of what it meant to "play chess". And, one of their strategies involved developing their pawns as aggressively as their other pieces.
["I knew it! That's how chess was meant to be played all along!"] Cato regained his determination. No matter what human teachers preached him, only the engines knew how to [truly] play Chess at the highest level possible!
These AI were superior even to genius grandmasters who dedicated their entire lives to chess. Truly, the AI was the closest to "solving" the deep game that was chess!
If the engines believed that developing pawns during the early game was a valid strategy, then they were surely correct. Therefore, no matter how much the mentors insisted, Cato was determined to study pawn defense!
As expected, it was a rough road. The teachers didn't warn him just because they were stuck in their old ways. Their concerns about this tactic were legit.
It was hard to win with this method, way harder than with standard human theory. The engines made it look so easy, but Cato often found himself fighting an uphill battle.
["These engines are geniuses."] That was Cato's honest impression as a kid. The AI made the pawn tactic look like one of the strongest tactics available, but Cato experienced first-hand how fragile it was.
Pawns were the only pieces that couldn't move backward. Once they started marching, there was no option of withdrawing them from the battlefield. That flaw made them interesting, but also that much harder to pilot correctly.
As a result, moving a single pawn was a complex move that bore many consequences for the rest of the match. And, moving multiple pawns in a row was exponentially more complex than that.
As such, one needed amazing foresight to avoid committing any fatal mistakes while deploying pawns. The player had to be able to read the game many turns ahead and adjust accordingly.
That was something AI could do easily, but humans not so much. No matter how much Cato studied the lines made by engines, it was difficult to fully comprehend their "thought process", so to speak.
[How much ahead do they see? Can humans even learn to calculate that far ahead?] Cato couldn't help but wonder.
As time passed, he started agreeing with the teachers. Playing like that was beyond reasonable human ability.
But, did that mean Cato had to entirely abandon that playstyle and stick only to standard theory? Hell no. Even if humans couldn't quite play like engines, they could at least strive to get closer to that ideal.
["I like making my minions charge forward. That's what makes the most sense to me."] Some of Cato's childish ideologies mixed into that motivation, but it was all good. As long as he could play in a way that satisfied him and still get wins, that's all he needed from chess as a competitive game.
It's not like he was aiming to become a grandmaster and dedicate his life to chess. Therefore, as long as he got satisfactory results with a strategy he enjoyed, he was a happy man.
[But, as always, it's rough.] Cato frowned as he examined the board state. He fell too far behind in piece development and the defenses he erected didn't make up for the lost time.
[Where did I blunder? Was it better to keep that pawn on b6?] He wondered about a move he made five turns earlier. At the time, it seemed like a decent move that strengthened his control on the right side of the board.
But now, much later, he had to bear the consequences of making the pawn on b6 advance. There was no way to return the pawn back to b6 and Fiona knew that. Thus, she built her game plan around pressuring this small crack in Cato's otherwise impenetrable defense.
[She got me.] Cato sighed. [It'll be an uphill battle from there. My best bet is to drag this out into the end-game and hope I can get something rolling there.]
Alas, against this stone-faced queen, the phase of the game didn't matter. Early-game, mid-game, or end-game - she excelled in all of them. Cato had no chance of recovering from the weak position he found himself in. It was over.
"I resign," Cato said.
It was an unfortunate outcome but knowing when to give up was important too, especially in a game like chess where matches could last hours. Cato had a terrible disadvantage and he was playing against the Landberht Princess, the crowned champion of this region. There was no chance of a comeback from there.
Instead, it was best to switch gears and move on to the next game. After all, he didn't come all the way here to play just one game. Likewise, he wasn't naive enough to expect to win on the first try. It'll be a thorny path, but eventually, he'll seize victory through adaptation and preservation!
"Great job, sis!" Karen sang prises, smiling from ear to ear. "You're the best~!"
"Thank you." Fiona smiled softly and accepted her sister's affectionate snuggle.
"Well then." Karen smirked as she laid her eyes on Cato. "You lost, so you can leave now. Shoo shoo."
"My, is that how the Landberht household treats its guests?"
"Karen." Fiona said strongly. "No need to be rude. He came all the way here despite his busy schedule, so we'll play until he's satisfied."
"But, I wanted to play some Ranked together~" Karen pouted.
"The day is still young. Don't worry, I'll win two or three more games, then we'll move on."
[My, so confident, aren't we?] Cato made a face. Alas, he couldn't retort because statistics supported Fiona's unwavering confidence.
Cato's win rate against her was exceedingly low. In fact, it was so low it could break any regular man's fighting spirit.
[But, not me.] Cato took a deep breath and oiled his brain gears for the next fight. [I can beat her. I just have to wait for her to make an inaccuracy, then I can strike her down!]
"Do you wish to review the game?" Fiona asked.
"No need," Cato said. "I more or less know where it went wrong."
"Your piece development was on the slower side."
"Yeah, that." Cato made a face. [She just had to go ahead and say it, huh. I'm so tired of hearing this one. Sigh.]
Of course his piece development was on the slower side, that was his playstyle. The way Fiona felt the need to criticize it every single time almost felt like a personal attack. In fact, maybe it really was.
For the heir of the prestigious Landberht family, anything less than the "best" was unsightly. So, most likely, Cato's suboptimal playstyle disgusted the girl to the core.
[Good, good.] Cato snickered. [I'll use this "disgusting" strategy to bring you down! Let's see how it makes you feel, hehe.]
And so, they moved on to their second game of the day...
If you're enjoying the story, please review it and vote for it. つ ◕_◕ ༽つ
Join my discord for more Classmancers stuff: https://discord.gg/QCKYeBj
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