Chapter 34: Chapter 34 : Zero Chance

[[Knight to D4…queen A3 check…pawn to E1…]]

With Rei’s voice playing in his head, Ralf moved the pieces. His expression was blank. He had been this way since the first move. With what was at stake, he didn't allow himself to make any mistakes. Concentrating intensely, he entered a machine-like state and followed Rei's words to the tie.

On the other end of the board, Moriya’s face was thoroughly crumbled. Sweat poured down his aged face as he wrestled with the happenings of the last twenty minutes.

Ralf hadn’t just exuded a machine-like aura, his prowess matched it - no, even a machine couldn't compare.

Four games had passed by, all ending in Ralf’s victory. None were close calls, all were one-sided stomps from start to finish. The difference between the two was enormous. Moriya couldn’t even scrunch up a draw.

They were twenty moves into the fifth game, and things were already at a resignable level for Moriya. Still, he played on. It was disrespectful, but he couldn’t bring himself to do it. Just like the other four games, only checkmate would be able to stop him. His gambler’s spirit made him persist, in the hope that the monstrous youth before him would slip up.

But Ralf wouldn't.

*Tok*

Sacrificing the queen, his knight delivered a neat smothered mate.

“Checkmate.”

Ralf’s utterance caused an invisible wave to ripple out. He was also affected. The blank look dissipated and his face filled with life once again. Shifting up from the chess pieces to Moriya, he smiled a cheeky smile and announced.

“I win.”

“Ah…yes.”

Only after a good few seconds did Moriya find his bearings. After twisting and twitching, his face settled into a bitter smile. “It seems I was wrong. Ralf…you’re something else,” the old man said, his voice barely audible.

In the back, Greg nodded deeply. An ear-to-ear smile hung on his face. Seeing Moriya so thoroughly crushed was cathartic for him. He was smitten. And his smile only widened when he remembered the people waiting at Golden Jug.

Moriya’s eyes twitched as he caught sight of Greg’s expression. Quickly shifting away, he returned to Ralf.

“As you said, you’ve won. I’ll hold up my end of the deal. You’ll receive double the reward, so sixty-eight gold, eight silver, and two bronze coins.”

Ralf’s eyes lit up.

“Thank you, mister Moriya.”

Moriya waved his hand. “There’s no need for thanks. You earned it with your ability. How do you want to go about transferring the money? Just walking out with it is unwise.”

Can you transport the money to the Adventurer Association branch? I want to deposit it into my account.”

In Genise’s explanation, Ralf had come to learn of the bank accounts one could open as an Adventurer. Learning of this, he instantly decided to place the winnings inside there for safekeeping.

Ralf retrieved his D-Rank Adventurer tag and waved it. “I just became an Adventurer not too long ago.”

“You’re a D-Rank Adventurer, another surprise. Very well, I can have my people make the delivery. There won’t be an issue.”

“Oh, not all the money.”

“Hmm?”

Ralf glanced at the pile. “That half over there, that goes to Greg.”

The two old men responded with stunned silence.

Ralf continued. “You have half.”

Hearing his words, Ralf’s earlier words were recontextualized in the old men's heads.

‘I see, the double thing was all for this. This boy…’ Both Greg and Moriya found their chests warm.

As they noted, Ralf’s decision wasn’t a spontaneous one. From the words spoken around him, he knew much of Greg’s money was in the pile. To snatch it away, after Greg had been so helpful just felt wrong. And so, Ralf decided on the double stakes wager to win the money without hurting his conscience.

“Haha, you’re a good kid, Ralf.” Strolling up and saying, Greg’s hand plopped on Ralf’s head and began ruffling. “But it's not necessary.”

“Not necessary?”

Greg ceased then walked over to the pile and picked up a coin. “Our competition was never about money. Believe it or not, I’m actually several times richer than Moriya here.”

“You are?”

“He is,” Moriya confirmed with a sigh.

“I am. I don’t need money, I’m rich. I just wanted to see his fall. And with your performance today, that goal has been met. So, I won’t take your money…but if you insist, I’ll take this guy.” Greg picked up the coin on the top right pile and then stroked it against his beard as he had done previously. “Finally back in my hands, yes I know you missed me. I missed you too.”

Ralf smiled at his strange antics. “That’s all? You can take more.”

Greg shook his head. “There’s no need. Actually, you’ve already earned me quite a sum. You see, I made a bet on whether you would win or lose with a few well-off friends. And thankfully, you pulled through. The winnings are pretty large.”

“Oh.” Hearing this, Ralf felt much better about the situation. He didn’t push further.

“Six hundred thousand Drads, that’s quite a sum. What are you going to spend it on?” Greg asked.

He knew Ralf wanted money, but not the reason. With how abnormal Ralf was, Greg was quite curious.

“I have quite a few things. Have to pay a debt, repair costs, buy some adventuring items, pay for transport service and I want to move to Ganurg. Somewhere safe and secure. Those houses in one of those walled districts in the east seemed to match my needs.”

‘It's quite a list, but it's pretty ordinary’ Finishing the thought, Greg said, “When are you looking to make the move?”

“The sooner the better. Ideally, today.”

‘It seems there’s more to this story.’ Greg gave his beard a rub before speaking, “Ralf, you’re in luck then. Those walled districts are called the Flower Districts. I live in the Orchard District, and the house opposite me has been vacant for a while. If I have a talk with the district manager, you’ll be able to move in right away. What do you say?”

Ralf’s eyes lit up. “Thank you, Greg.”

Greg shook his head. “I’m just speeding up the process a bit,” he glanced at the pile of glittering coins, “with the money you have, and your Adventurer title, you’d be able to get in regardless. Anyway, I’ll have a word with her - or rather I’ll talk to her regardless. She’s waiting with the others at the bar.” He turned to Moriya, “Hey, want to drink your sorrows away? Joan’s been missing your old face. I asked her to prepare the salt beforehand.”

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Moriya smiled wryly. “Fine, let's have a drink then”

“Ralf, want to come as well?”

“I’ll join up afterwards. I’ll head with Moriya’s subordinates to the Adventurer’s Association and sort out the account stuff first, and also pay the repair fee.”

“That was for the Adventurer Association? I see.”

After a short discussion, the three parted ways, with Ralf hopping aboard Moriya’s subordinates carriage and the middle-aged pair heading for Golden Jug.

***

‘68…haa, just one-off. Ralf must’ve done a few useless opening moves or something. One more.’

Thinking this, he reset the board and began again. Playing white, he started with pawn to D4.

The black pieces responded with their own move. Going back and forth, Rei would once again stop short of his goal, being checkmated on move 65. He didn’t give up. His competitive spirit burned brightly, and he continued again and again. Finally, after a few hundred games, he managed to do it.

‘72. A new record, let's see Ralf beat that.’

Satisfied, he reclined back on the couch. Summoning a milkshake, he took a sip. His eyes fell on the chessboard and his thoughts naturally drifted to the match with Moriya. ‘I was worried for nothing, there was no need to use Zero. Well, I guess we couldn't know that in retrospect.’

Zero.

This was the name of Rei’s chess engine. The thought to build one came during Ralf’s conversation with Moriya. It was why Ralf decided to delay their match by a day.

When he heard Greg’s words about Moriya’s prowess, a sliver of worry entered Rei's heart. As stellar as Rei’s record was, he couldn’t claim to be undefeated. He had been defeated quite a few times. Half of those times were through cheats, but the other half was where he was genuinely outplayed.

Rei's self-confidence was radiant, but he wasn’t blinded by it. He knew not to underestimate others. Knowing Moriya was holding back, he was worried about the possibility that the other was superior to him. Of course, he believed this possibility to be extremely unlikely. Usually, he wouldn’t care for it. He was confident in his abilities but with the stakes being what they were, he couldn’t fail.

With these worries circulating, the idea of building a chess engine came barreling into his thoughts. It was a natural thought to have. Engines were a staple of modern chess. Rei, like other chess professionals, made frequent use of them to analyze moves and lines, and in his match preparation. Engines, at least modern engines, were far superior to humanity in terms of chess-playing prowess. Rei, who stood at the peak of the chess world, could attest to this fact.

Unlike most other chess players who merely made use of them, Rei took the time to understand how they worked. Using his coding knowledge from his game creation phase, he even made several engines himself.

With this experience, making an engine in the Mental Space was a simple task.

But Rei didn’t want to just create any engine. No, his thoughts were grander. He wanted to create the ultimate engine, an engine that could play the perfect game.

This idea was one many engine creators had. Chess was a perfect information game. Theoretically, calculating every possible move was possible. Programming the code to achieve this was fairly easy. The problem one ran into was the computational power needed for this task. Even the most powerful supercomputers couldn’t manage it. There were claims stating that trying to accomplish such a task would require a universe's worth of energy. Whether this was true or not, was uncertain. What was certain though, was that this task would require a lot of energy.

But what about the Mental Space? Could it pull it off?

Rei was pretty confident that it could. Ralf’s Unique power was, in more ways than one, broken. He had enough energy to build a bridge to another dimension and even maintain it for several years.

With this initial confidence, Rei dove into the task.

The result: a resounding success.

It had taken a thirty percent chunk to create and was as expensive as Altered Time on maximum settings to run, but it was worth it. Their desired perfect engine and complete tablebase, Zero had been created.

One could play either colour against it, and it would respond with the best possible move. During the match, Rei had been playing against Zero using Moriya's moves and then had Ralf use the moves Zero subsequently made as his own.

Interestingly, pawn to D4 was always Zero's opening move. It was also the only opening move that guaranteed victory. Even if both sides played perfectly, black had no way to win or draw.

Ralf, who knew this, decided to toss in the ‘three draws equal victory’ to lure Moriya into accepting the bet.

‘Zero…with its creation, the road of chess has been fully paved.’ Sighing at his journey's end, Rei called out to his other self.

[[Ralf, I beat your record.]]

[[No way, what is it?]]

[[72.]]

[[Tsk, I’ll break it in no time. Want to switch?]]

[[No, I’m good.]] Seeing others around Ralf, Rei naturally refrained. He had enough social interactions for a good while.

Ralf shook his head at his other self’s disposition, before trading words with Moriya’s subordinates aboard the moving carriage. While doing this, he continued his conversation with Rei.

[[Zero was excellent. Good work Rei.]]

Rei smiled a slight smile at Ralf’s praise. He returned the gesture, saying, [[You too.]]

A fuzzy warm silence passed between the two. Ralf bathed in this heat comfortably, but Rei not so much. Quickly overwhelmed, he rushed to end it by bringing up another topic.

[[Zero.]]

[[Zero?]]

[[Uh, yes I was thinking we could use it in the future. I’m thinking we do the same setup as Moriya but have no restrictions. Norins, Naturals, everyone can compete.]]

Rei was confident that no matter how powerful Naturals’ processing power was, it wasn’t superior to Zero’s.

[[Doing it now is pointless. After we make a name for ourselves, we can implement the idea, maybe even organize a worldwide tournament. Forget this pile, we’ll be able to rake in a real mountain of gold.]]

Ralf’s eyes lit up at the notion. Unable to restrain himself, a maniacal smirk materialized on his face, startling those around him. Ralf paid them no mind as he addressed his other self.

[[Another excellent idea. Before long, it will come to fruition. We’ll be swimming in coins. Good work Rei.]]

[[Hm.]]

While the sixty-four squared board game had all its possibilities explored, the same couldn’t be said of the duo. Using their limited abilities, they paved their path bit by bit as they walked towards their ideal future.

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