The Piece Struggles to Escape the Chessboard (2)
What if my opponent already knew where I would place my next piece? As if they could see the future itself. Watching the armored hero Damian before me, I recalled a conversation I'd once had with my ex-girlfriend. She had been brilliant even back in middle school, and we used to play chess while talking like this.
Tap. The movement of pieces across a black-and-white world overlapped with the moment I was fighting Damian.
"These days, AI beats humans all the time. Chess is no exception—its champion fell ages ago."
Her playful, warm voice. With skin paler than most, she had always enjoyed tossing me things to think about.
"If you faced an opponent like that… do you think winning would be impossible? Chess is ultimately a game of calculation, after all. Something like that?"
Tap. Another period marked in my life. I deflected Damian's attack while slowly laying down strands of steel thread.
"But paradoxically, chess is also a game where even the weakest piece can defeat the strongest. In the end, what matters is reaching the final rank."
That was why my ex-girlfriend loved chess. She had once said the promotion rule—where the weakest piece, the pawn, could become anything—appealed to her most.
"What are you trying to say?" I had probably asked in that blunt way back then. The middle-school version of me had been a cynical, immature kid.
"Hehe. Someday, someone might even beat AI for real."
On a pristine white bed, the soft ticking of a timer had frozen our little world.
"The future is always full of unknowns."
Clang—! Steel met steel, and the memory sharpened. Ironically, fighting Damian had dredged up the deepest memories buried in my mind.
"Besides, our lives aren't chess games. They're reality. No need to trap your thoughts inside that narrow black-and-white board."
She had been right. Even if Damian knew where my next attack would land, this wasn't a simple game of moving pieces. No matter how hopeless an opponent seemed, when the battle took place in reality instead of on a chessboard, the outcome could change.
"No matter what hardships come your way in life, just keep moving forward as if they don't matter…"
Before I met my girlfriend, a part of me had been broken. She had saved that broken boy.
"…and deliver a magnificent checkmate."
Even against an opponent who seemed to know the future, even when victory felt impossible, in the end you could still win.
My ex-girlfriend had said those words, then leaned in and lightly kissed my lips while we were still playing chess.
"…Exactly like this."
Our first kiss—awkward, clumsy, nothing more than lips brushing together—had burned hotter in my memory than anything else. Even after the game earned its NTR reputation, I had kept playing until the very end because I refused to let go of those memories with her.
Why had that memory surfaced now? Cold sweat beaded on the hand gripping my dagger, nearly making the weapon slip. It was probably because Damian felt like the kind of opponent she had described—only in the worst possible way. Remembering a lover who had already broken and left you felt like deception, like mockery.
‘…You’re still teaching me something, even now. I thought I’d forgotten everything.’
I clashed swords with Damian again, secretly connecting steel threads while maintaining distance. The threads—commissioned from dwarves—were invisible to the eye yet strong enough that several grown men could hang from them without breaking. Damian had never predicted this weapon.
If he had known I would lay threads in advance, he would have cut them with his holy sword and prevented my next move.
‘I’m starting to get a feel for it… but there’s still one thing I need to test.’
Clang, clang! The sharp ring of metal on metal continued. Damian’s holy sword, which could win simply by cutting a single piece of clothing, never touched me. The gap in experience and instinct was obvious; he was barely keeping up.
‘Still, dragging this out will be dangerous.’
This balance was temporary. The longer the fight lasted, the higher the chance Damian’s ability to see the next move would decide the outcome. Knowing your opponent’s intentions in chess made an enormous difference.
I immediately aimed for Damian’s line of sight. No matter how powerful his ability was, it had to have at least one weakness.
"……!"
The holy sword swung backward at once. Tap, whoosh. I stepped on the blade with my foot, launched myself high into the air, and—while his eyes followed me—threw the dagger at his neck again.
Any human would instinctively track moving objects, especially in the chaos of close combat. If his head lifted, the carotid artery hidden between the armor plates would be exposed. I was exploiting survival instincts sharpened by battle. Excitement and fighting spirit dulled reason and forced the body to obey instinct.
Yet—
‘He’s not moving. Just as I thought.’
Damian started to raise his head to follow my leap, then stopped. As if he had already anticipated this opening.
"Cutting even a single piece of clothing is this difficult… You’re far too strong, aren’t you?"
Damian spoke while swinging his sword at me in midair. Everyone present expected his victory—there was nothing to brace against in empty space.
But—
"That’s what makes the world interesting."
Shrrrk— Clang!
I yanked the steel thread I had already strung between the trees, using the recoil to parry Damian’s holy sword from midair. To anyone watching, it would have looked as though my trajectory had suddenly changed.
"How fascinating. Truly fascinating. Showing me something like this only makes me want you as my comrade even more. Honestly, I didn’t think you’d be able to dodge that."
Damian laughed as if he had expected my strange movement all along. That wasn’t a normal reaction. Anyone else would have been startled when a person twisted their body or altered their path in midair.
"Well, I think I’ve got the gist of it now."
I smiled beneath my mask while watching him. He had known I would counterattack, but he hadn’t known about the steel threads. That meant his ability relied on visual information. Automatic danger detection was therefore ruled out.
In that case, all I had to do was deliver a checkmate he couldn’t avoid even if he saw it coming.
"Damian, about the weakness in your ability—"
"Huh? What are you—"
Whoosh. While meeting his sword with one hand, I pulled a prepared gunpowder orb from my coat with the other and hurled it at him. Even if he could predict and dodge my next attack, this one was at point-blank range—close enough that I myself was inside the blast zone.
Bang, pop-pop!
The acrid smell of gunpowder and black smoke spread, completely obscuring Damian’s vision.
"Kh…!"
Damian let out a short grunt. Even so, the heavy armor covering most of his body would minimize the damage.
‘While he’s disoriented, I’ll copy Saintess Lavey’s holy power. I need to keep the threads from being cut.’
I overlaid a copy of the saintess’s holy power onto the rings of the steel threads connected to my fingers. If that sacred energy could purify evil and heal wounds, it should at least temporarily prevent the threads from snapping.
"…Checkmate."
Whooooosh—!
As I spoke, I hooked the final steel thread onto Damian’s holy sword and yanked hard.
"……!"
The previously slack thread snapped taut. The holy sword tried to slip from Damian’s grasp. His face, emerging from the black smoke, was painted with confusion and bewilderment. Yet his grip remained strong, as though he had known this would happen.
Yes. I had expected exactly this.
"Pointless resistance."
"…Ghhhk!"
I pulled the connected steel thread again. This time I turned the threads I had laid around him into a snare, binding him in place.
Twist, crackle…!
Damian’s arm, still clutching the sword, was forced against his waist. His posture changed as though he had been tied with rope. Even if he had deliberately dropped the sword to focus on defense, this attack would have been impossible to stop. First I prevented him from swinging, then I seized his body.
"So it’s not mind-reading or intent-reading after all. Then what exactly is your ability?"
Damian’s power relied heavily on visual information. Even if he regressed or looped, he would still fall to threads he didn’t know existed.
"…I won’t tell you even if I die."
Thud. Damian collapsed to the ground in a cloud of dust, glaring at me with humiliated eyes. He had predicted my attack yet still been overpowered. His pride had taken a hit.
"D-Damian lost…"
"How is this possible…"
"I’d rather believe I’m seeing things."
The women’s reactions weren’t bad. I suspected their favorability toward me had risen.
"This is confiscated according to our bet. You don’t mind, right? From now on you’re nothing but a dog that obeys its master’s words."
"…Understood."
Surprisingly, Damian accepted the outcome without anger or demands for a rematch, even as I took his holy sword.
"W-woof."
The hero even added a dog-like sound effect in a voice that sounded like it was being squeezed out. No matter how much I had added that restriction to avoid NTR, seeing him this embarrassed left an impression.
"……"
Damian’s ears were now as red as strawberries. I felt oddly unsettled by the sight.
"…Then I’ll be going. Don’t loiter around the guild entrance asking to recruit me as a comrade anymore. Let’s just go our separate ways."
The hero who had known about the burn scars beneath my mask and predicted my attacks—
"Yes, Master. Woof."
—had accepted defeat far too readily and now acted this obediently. I had expected at least anger or accusations of cowardice.
Damian had lost the hero’s qualification that made the female characters like him most.
‘Now I just need to capture the heroines. I can slowly raise the negative favorability…’
Yet—
‘…No matter how I think about it, this feels off.’
A chilling thought—that even this defeat had been planned—made me snatch up the holy sword and quicken my steps. I needed to tail Damian first and figure out the situation. If he was a regressor or someone repeating loops, something was bound to happen soon.