"We were out of line coming here this time. Sorry for the trouble, but could you use these Private Points to get the Chess Club members some quality sportswear?"
With that, under the strange looks of the Chess Club members and their instructor, Aragaki Shun turned and left the clubroom.
Back in the hallway of the club building, Kanzaki Ryuji seemed deep in thought as they walked. Shibata Sou, meanwhile, looked as if he wanted to say something but couldn't quite bring himself to. In the end, he couldn't hold back and asked, "Aragaki, you won those points fair and square. Why give them back?"
"Because the club president is a good person. He risked getting reprimanded by the school just to tell us there were Class Points as well as Private Points. And there's the fact that someone like me is only in Class B, plus information about Miyabi Nagumo and the others."
"Huh? Would the upperclassman get reprimanded by the school for leaking information?"
"Probably not. As long as he doesn't admit it, I can just say I figured it out myself. It might not even be true. The school can't be so strict as to punish him for that."
Unless every second- and third-year student refused to speak to the new first-years, it wouldn't be easy to hide the common knowledge they'd picked up from spending so long at this school. Anyone perceptive enough could spot clues during a conversation.
If the school really forbade second- and third-years from sharing information, the upperclassmen should have sent them away the moment they showed up.
Since they hadn't, the only conclusion was that the school tacitly accepted that new students could learn the rules by investigating things this way.
"But then why give their points back, Aragaki? That was three hundred thousand!"
"Call it making a friend."
Aragaki Shun smiled at Kanzaki, who was thinking beside him. "I think I left your phone in the Chess Club's changing room. Remember to pick it up when we get back to the dorm."
"I understand. The upperclassmen are good people. It should be fine to leave it there for now."
"Huh?"
Listening to the two of them exchange such a strange conversation, Shibata was completely baffled. He wanted to ask what they meant, but at Kanzaki's pointed look, he had no choice but to forcefully suppress his curiosity.
After leaving the Chess Club, Aragaki Shun stopped by the Judo Club and the Shogi Club as well. Unfortunately, he didn't meet the legendary little girl and senpai who could send the Dragon King to prison, so he had to console himself with earning a few Private Points.
But as he left the Shogi Club, disappointed, and stepped into the Chess Club's room next door, he realized the girl hadn't been absent—she had simply gone to the wrong place.
The petite girl looked so small she could hardly have been a high school student. She wore a beret and had fair skin and an adorable face. White stockings hugged her slender legs, enough to catch any man's eye.
She sat in one of the seats provided by the club, a cane beside her, surrounded by three or four boys and girls like a young lady from a wealthy family.
As when he'd first met Ichinose, a name came to Aragaki Shun's mind: Class 1-A, Sakayanagi Arisu!
She was playing with a chess piece on the table. Her face ought to have inspired affection, but instead, she radiated an imposing air. Across from her, an upperclassman was drenched in cold sweat.
Clearly, this seemingly harmless little girl had chosen the same path as Aragaki Shun: taking the upperclassmen's money.
"I resign."
Before long, a member of the Chess Club, crestfallen, gave up trying to fight back and admitted defeat.
"According to our agreement, I'll transfer two hundred thousand points to you."
"You're already quite skilled, senpai. You stand out among your peers. If you keep working hard, you might even have a chance of becoming a professional player someday."
Sakayanagi Arisu smiled faintly, as if it were nothing, and gestured for the people behind her to collect the points.
"Thank you for saying so, kouhai."
The Chess Club president looked humiliated. Just moments earlier, this seemingly innocent kouhai had drained every point from every member of the entire club. And every time she won, she casually tossed out the same line without changing a single word.
Besides, her playing style made it clear that this kouhai from Class 1-A was a ferocious beast, all aggression.
"Hehe. It seems the members of the Chess Club don't have any points left to play me."
Sakayanagi Arisu stood and surveyed the club members. Their faces were flushed, but not one of them said a word. Looking rather bored, she picked up the cane beside her.
She was about to lead the Class A students behind her out of the room when someone walked up to the opposite seat. After looking over the game on the board, he extended an invitation with interest. "Class 1-B, Aragaki Shun. Would I be honored to play a game with you, miss?"
"Good day. Sakayanagi Arisu, Class 1-A. It seems this school isn't so boring after all."
Sakayanagi Arisu pursed her lips, her eyes fixed on him as if she'd just found an interesting toy.
Chess with a time limit: Sakayanagi Arisu provoked
Neither player was one to dawdle. Before long, they signed an agreement in front of the instructor.
The agreement involved as many as one million points. The winner would take five hundred thousand points from the loser.
"I didn't expect anyone else to think of earning points through the clubs on the very first day."
Sakayanagi Arisu studied the man across from her, looking utterly nonchalant and not at all worried about the outcome of the game.
Compared with the inevitable result, she was more interested in this Class B student who had hit upon the same idea as she had.
"I didn't expect someone who looks so cute and harmless, Classmate Sakayanagi, to take nearly a million points from the Chess Club in such a short time."
Aragaki Shun recalled the balance Sakayanagi had shown earlier, then glanced around at the crestfallen club members. He could only say that this little girl, who looked like she'd cry if someone punched her, was genuinely ruthless. It was hard to imagine anything more thorough than draining them to the bone.
She must have started by pretending to be weaker than she was, then striking once the club members had let their guard down. By the time they realized what was happening, they'd been repeatedly beaten by a seemingly vulnerable girl. Their pride wouldn't let them back down, so they kept sending points her way.
Still, upperclassmen and new students weren't competing with each other. Aragaki Shun thought it was fine to play a little, as long as everyone was willing. They were all relying on their own abilities. If they lost, they could only blame their lack of skill. Besides, anyone who chose to join a match after seeing someone else lose had surely set aside enough for living expenses.
There was no need to deliberately drain the upperclassmen's pockets like Sakayanagi had, was there? Wasn't she worried someone might sneak off with her cane?
Aragaki Shun glanced at the girl's pretty face. She really wasn't paying any attention to the others. Then he remembered the information he'd received before enrolling about the management of Kodo Ikusei Senior High School.
Wasn't the Board Chairman of this school also named Sakayanagi?
So she really was an untouchable young lady, then.
"But Classmate Sakayanagi, don't you need to take a break and recover your stamina? You've played several games against other people already, haven't you?"
"No." For some reason, Sakayanagi's voice seemed to turn cold. "The chessboard is the domain of wisdom and thought. They couldn't put any pressure on me even together. I hope you won't disappoint me just as much."
"Then let me see the depth of Miss Sakayanagi's wisdom and the unfathomable workings of her mind."
Aragaki Shun smiled. Since she refused the offer, there was no reason to press her.
After gesturing for the girl to make the first move, Sakayanagi Arisu launched her attack without hesitation.
Aragaki Shun took one look and saw that she was the type to reveal her aggressive style from the very first move.
He calmly picked up a piece, considered his options, then placed it where he wanted.
Sakayanagi Arisu merely glanced at his move. Without seeming to think at all, she immediately picked up a piece and made her next move.
For the next while, the two traded moves. Each thought for only a few seconds before making the next move decisively.
In just three minutes, Aragaki Shun had made his twentieth move. Then a dangerous smile suddenly appeared on Sakayanagi Arisu's face. She casually picked up a piece and gave the boy a warning. "You don't seem any stronger than the upperclassmen, Aragaki. I thought this game would be more interesting."
After watching the girl make her move, Aragaki Shun saw the position on the board grow noticeably more complicated.
It wasn't much of a surprise. By this point, he was at a disadvantage.
After all, his opponent had swept through the entire Chess Club by herself. It was only natural that his own chess skills, which he'd practiced for a while before giving up, would leave him at a disadvantage against her.
There had never been a shortage of gifted people in any field. He'd understood that back in his previous life.
After living a second life in a new world, he'd found even more youthful geniuses who'd achieved astonishing things at an early age.
Take the hugely popular author whose series had been adapted into anime twice and whose original light novels had sold over fourteen million copies. In reality, she was a naturally airheaded second-year middle school girl who wore a kimono.
Anyone who truly loved chess spent hours every day memorizing openings, studying endgames, and gaining experience by playing against other people.
Sakayanagi Arisu in front of him was clearly that kind of seasoned player. Perhaps her physical limitations had kept her from taking part in the sorts of pastimes that exhausted the body, leaving her to immerse herself in the world of chess at home, game after game.
An opponent with talent, perseverance, and a wealth of experience was a real handful.
Unfortunately—
"Miss Sakayanagi, you've never played against a genuine professional, have you?"
"What do you mean?" Sakayanagi Arisu didn't understand. She thought Aragaki Shun was making fun of her. "Or are you the kind of man who can't accept defeat and can only score points with his words?"
"No! I mean that from this point on, I'm going to take this seriously!"
After saying that, Aragaki Shun turned to the crowd watching their game and asked the Chess Club president to keep time as a neutral party.
"We should have set this at the start, but it's only been three minutes, so it's not too late to add it now. How about we use the international standard six-hour time control for this game?"
As soon as he said that, Sakayanagi Arisu's expression twisted. She glared at the man in front of her.
But before she could say anything, someone among the hangers-on behind her couldn't hold back.
"Hey, what kind of nonsense is that? Why would a chess game last six hours? You're clearly—"
"Shut up!"
The shout didn't come from anyone else. It came from the very person he was trying to defend.
The girl's furious gaze startled the Class 1-A student who'd spoken up. He stood with his mouth open, babbling incoherently.
But Sakayanagi Arisu paid no attention to the fool who'd jumped in without knowing anything. She just gritted her teeth and glared at the detestable man across from her. She knew exactly what he was up to, but she had no choice but to walk into his trap.
"Miss Sakayanagi, please don't look at me like that. It's just as you said: the chessboard is the domain of wisdom and thought. I'm going to seriously calculate every move from here on, so it's only fair to set a proper time limit. You don't want this game to go on until the middle of the night, do you?"
Aragaki Shun gave this perfectly reasonable explanation without changing his expression.
If they were just playing for fun, then of course they could move whenever they liked. The game would end when someone won, and there'd be no need for something like a time limit.
But once both players started taking the game seriously, it was necessary to require them to complete a certain number of moves within a set time.
In the early days of international chess tournaments, there had been no time limits, and it was common for a game to last more than ten hours. Sometimes both players would keep playing late into the night without settling the match, until they were so tired that they fell asleep at the table.
Aragaki Shun and Sakayanagi Arisu hadn't agreed on a time limit beforehand. If they let the game drag on, there was every chance it would last until the middle of the night.
He didn't care, but with the girl leaning on a cane, she might not be able to keep going that long.
"Then why use classical time controls? We could play rapid or blitz instead."
Her cold, harsh gaze fixed on Aragaki Shun as if she wanted to tear him limb from limb.
Without a doubt, this was a sufficiently rational enemy. To expose someone's weakness so shamelessly and strike right at the heart of it was simply—simply... wonderful!
She'd never been this furious before. She'd decided: she would make him her very best toy and play with him mercilessly!
"It's been about two years since I last played chess. I remember the rules, but without enough time to calculate, I can't say I'm certain to beat you."
Aragaki Shun spoke without the slightest attempt to hide the truth.
Strength: 8. Constitution: 8. Agility: 9. And lastly, Spirit: 10.
With the average values for normal adults in this world at only 5, his stats were undeniably impressive.
But people could never be compared so easily.
When the average untrained adult man could deadlift only 70.3 kilograms, someone else had set an unequipped, untested world record of 400 kilograms without knee wraps.
When unhealthy college students couldn't beat a single goose, there was someone who could pull a plane weighing 189 tons, shoulder-press 500 kilograms, and carry 22 women at the same time.
If people could differ so much in strength, an area where humans were nothing special compared with other creatures, then the gap between them in intelligence, inspiration, and thought was even harder to measure.
Normally, even an ordinary person who'd had professional training from childhood would be lucky to raise every stat to 10. But some people were so gifted that others might think they were cheating.
At any rate, Aragaki Shun didn't think his Spirit stat of 10 would let him surpass top people who'd spent half their lives studying their fields just by applying what he knew elsewhere.
Sakayanagi Arisu wasn't quite at that level, but considering she'd swept through the entire Chess Club at Kodo Ikusei, she seemed plenty talented.
Unless Aragaki Shun spent several weeks studying and memorizing thousands of game records, he had no confidence in beating her at rapid or blitz.
No matter how strong the memory and calculation abilities granted by his Spirit stat were, he still had to spend time learning the material first.
"So you think that with enough time to calculate, you'd be certain to beat me?"
Sakayanagi Arisu's expression grew even uglier. She'd never met anyone who looked down on her so much. She was practically laughing in anger.
"Fine! Fine! Fine! Classical games take too long, and rapid games are too short. Let's compromise and cut the time for each stage in half under classical rules."
He'd get an hour and a half!
She would show him just how ugly such a futile struggle looked in the face of an overwhelming gap in ability!
Sakayanagi Arisu lost to the Falcon Taming Tactic
Aragaki Shun and Sakayanagi Arisu each made one final concession. They settled on cutting the time for each stage in half from the international six-hour format.
That meant the first time control gave each player one hour to make the first 40 moves. The second gave each player half an hour for moves 41 through 60. Every subsequent time control had the same number of moves as the second, with the time carried over to the next session if the game was adjourned.
He'd already made twenty moves, so he had an hour of free time to make moves 21 through 40. If the hour ran out after he'd made all 40 moves and neither side had won, they would move on to the second time control and continue through moves 41 to 60.
Once they'd settled the time controls, everyone in the Chess Club, including the first-year students from Class 1-A and Class 1-B, turned their attention back to the board.
For some reason, however, the atmosphere in the clubroom suddenly grew much heavier. Even when Aragaki Shun went a long time without moving, the onlookers held their breath, not daring to make a sound.
Aragaki Shun stared at the black and white pieces on the board. He could already picture the same arrangement in his mind, and he focused on calculating which piece to move next and how Sakayanagi Arisu would respond.
He worked through every possible next move for his black pieces, but it still wasn't enough. He couldn't turn around the unfavorable position on the board!
He needed to calculate two more moves ahead, three, four...
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