The game has come close to an end.
Even then, stress and pressure from referees who are watching this match closely are still pouring all over the chessboard like an ocean wave.
When they realized that it was not going to end as easily as they thought.
The only actions from two players in front of them are
staring at each other.
Like a sculpture stuck in its place, refusing to shift even a finger from their own seat.
But those aren't staying like forever.
Shiguma started moving his pieces after a long hesitation, earnest that he could move the game forward again; however, he just made it more confusing.
"Maybe you should never move anything at all."
Opponent comments with a dry tone as soon as his turn rolls in.
and Shiguma just breathed in. because he knew that-
In the opponent's eyes, he looked no different from a complete idiot who had no idea what they were doing.
As judging from the previous move, it shows that.
How messy the broad really is...
Right now, black and white chess pieces were scattered in randomness; some were blocked, and some were stuck by their counterparts.
Some pieces on both players' sides, if they decided to move without carefully planning, are risking a chance to immediately hit by an opponent's landmine movement.
Shiguma can't predict what's going to happen next.
Neither did his opponent.
"Look at it again."
Shiguma pointed at his pieces with his eye lock at his opponent.
Such an act flinched him a bit.
The opponent rolls his eye from piece to piece, analyzing Shiguma's previous moves again very carefully.
"Wait...what did you…"
And some realization kicks in.
A recent move made by Shiguma has some plot twists.
It wasn't an idiot move...rather, it was something that intended to look stupid on the surface. calculated and planning to look stupid at first glance,
Of all the countless matches he ever played, this one shocked him the most.
because even some professional players can't do this.
The opponent glances over at Shiguma; he raises an eyebrow with the question popping in.
How did an amateur player who never fought in any real tournament do something like this?
He grinds his teeth, resisting himself from asking Shiguma out directly.
But the more he did, the more his mind wanted to fill the gap for that blank.
Then an idea kicked in.
"Prepare yourself, boy."
The opponent was whispering with a bit of a threatening tone, signaling that he was willing to go all out and to crush a boy with everything he had.
Instead of reacting, Shiguma's face goes blank.
Because what mattered to him wasn't intimidating words or acts...
But the results
.
.
"Is that all you got?"
"Huh?"
Opponent's head flinch,
He glanced toward Shiguma with a confused look, thought in about why the boy suddenly mocking him right now.
But he saw the boy tilling his glasses with slight smiles.
The oppoent understand what the boy really intend to.
"Don't try to distract me."
The opponent replied with an annoying tone, thinking fully that Shiguma only disturbed him from a win.
What he never knew was that Shiguma could see every movement inside the opponent's head.
Even though there's nothing before his eyes, in his sense, something began to take shape.
The black ravens scream at him.
From them, a dense, circling force spiraled outward—heat without flame, pressure without weight. He could feel it rather than see it, like standing near the campfire, which can never burn your skin.
And the lines appeared.
They spilled across the board, stretching from square to square. Some were barely there, faint, transparent, and uncertain—tracing paths that might be taken, possibilities that lingered on the edge of thought.
Those lines vanished after some time.
Others were different... Sharper and brighter.
These lines cleanly draw above the broad, anchoring themselves onto specific squares with certainty.
They did not waver. They were confident in the path.
The opponent will never be able to understand because in his eyes, the broad was a repeating pattern craved from a year of experiences. To win, he just has to find that same pattern he used to.
But in Shiguma's eyes, the board was no longer a game that could be won with a pattern.
It was a map of the enemy's intent.
"Check"
The opponent is moving his rook following the bold line like a train on an invisible rail.
Once the line disappeared in Shiguma's eye, the opponent also stopped.
Shiguma king has been checkmated.
"Want to give up now?"
The opponent sends a mocking smirk over Shiguma, his heart filled with the conviction that Shiguma is going to lose.
"Yes..." Shiguma looks at the confident opponent with the corner of his eye. "Because it ends now."
He reached out to his queen, who was placed in the corner.
and everything was about to take a turn.
"Huh!?"
"How!?"
All referees stood up from their chairs with unbelievable faces. Feeling their conscious being shift to another world entirely.
In their eyes, just the second ago, that black rook proved itself to be a dominant piece on the chessboard. Only two turns are left before it brings the opponent to the final win—
But right after, Shiguma moved his queen from her hidden spot toward the end of the board. Avoid all squares where the line is drawn over.
At the end of it, his queen was in the position to completely trap the opponent king from being able to move elsewhere.
Its fate has been sealed.
.
.
Once The Oppoent roll his eye to check his king .
The game already ended.
.
.
After that point, every eye turned to Shiguma.
The room itself also goes silent; even wisphering voices can't be heard.
Shiguma can't help but close his eye and let all the thoughts that don't belong to him flow in.
every voice...every image
All is about him.
Shiguma won a match because of this strange, spiritually sensing ability.
He remembered clearly that after entering high school
Whenever he was around a crowd area,
His chest tightens up.
and the body gets heavier.
The more he ignored, the more he felt.
He lives within the unknown.....Until the chess makes it all clear.
All of the heaviness he felt is not his. But someone else...someone around him in that moment.
For a month he used the game to train his mind to focus only on a specific target, the opponent of each match.
He gains an ability that could scare the most skilled chess master:
just needs to concentrate on what he wants to know, and it will appear...
A circling energy on one specific point represents heavily committed thought.
Several lines that drew across the chessboard represent future movements of thought:
- A faint line means it's just a possibility, an unsure future action.
- A bold line means the move is clear, certain, and confident.
Even though his actual goal was to use chess to control this strange ability.
But the chess also makes him feel superior.
because of the idea that he could know another person's mind without them knowing it at all.
was so satisfied.
Besides that, Shiguma does use this ability to find some money.
Urgent money
.
.
.
Immedealy, as soon as his bank account recived money from tournament.
.
Shiguma rushed away
.
...