My master is a piece of junk. He is a scrap robot in every sense of the word. While public rumors paint him as a "demonic robot that loves defying expectations," no matter how I look at him, from any angle, I see nothing but a useless scrap robot.
He owns only three identical outfits, and even counting his summer and winter clothes together, he possesses no more than six sets in total. He eats Häagen-Dazs ice cream regularly at every match and relies on a rotation of bento boxes from a specific convenience store for lunch. If we agree on a time, he always arrives thirty minutes early, and his emotional expression remains practically non-existent.
He seems to hate being called a robot, but I believe any simple shogi fan looking at his playstyle and lifestyle would see nothing but a machine. Furthermore, he spends money recklessly. Yet, despite this extravagance, he is annoyingly meticulous about the money entering his pocket, caring about the details of prize money with baffling precision.
Recently, despite being busier than before, he has not increased his food intake, resulting in him becoming emaciated for a truly ridiculous reason. This goes beyond being "junk"; if it reaches this extent, he is simply an idiot.
This "idiot" master gave me a birthday gift: a set of shogi pieces. I wondered, "Why give me shogi pieces now?" But when I opened the box and looked at the pieces, I found that the calligraphy engraved on all of them was in my late father's handwriting. In that moment, the floodgates of my tears burst, and crying obscured my vision. How could he give me something like this so suddenly, without warning?
I learned later that he had started preparing this gift long ago, specifically for my birthday, and that Akira and my grandfather had collaborated with him. The master spoke with an apologetic look, listing the names of those who helped make the pieces while downplaying his own role, claiming he did nothing but pay the money. Who was the idiot who ran around, enlisting the help of everyone around him from the moment the idea was conceived until its completion? It was him.
Since that day, I feel my view of my master has shifted slightly. This person is even more of "junk" than everyone thinks. His self-evaluation is incredibly low, while his evaluation of others is very high. In particular, I cannot understand why he rates certain specific people so highly.
One day, while playing multiple online matches simultaneously as usual, the best moves began to appear in my mind instantly upon looking at the board (what is known as first intuition). This phenomenon had happened occasionally in the past, but this time it flowed without stopping. The master called this state "Artificial Intuition," claiming it is a shogi sense that can be acquired through effort, but I do not believe it is something that simple. It is said that many professional players rely on it, but I am confident that what I feel is different.
When I play shogi using this power, it is incredibly easy, and I feel no fatigue whether I win or lose. Since then, the master asked me to start mental training by creating a "beginner" persona inside my mind and conversing with it, claiming it was an experiment to increase mental personas.
... I remember the master once saying that he unconsciously harbors characters within him. I do not know if increasing personas is truly possible, but I feel that if I continue down the same path as the master, I might end up forced to play shogi only as dictated by another personality inside me.
After my match with Ms. Shakado, despite his busy schedule, the master arranged a practice match against me. What happened was not just a game; it was a reenactment of a previous match between the master and the Meijin (Grand Master). At first, I thought we would simply follow the game record, but the atmosphere was strange. The master was emitting a silent aura that said, "Notice it quickly."
... If things continued this way (simply repeating the recorded moves), I would win, and the master would be obligated to grant me one request, whatever it might be. My victory was certain because I was playing the role of the "First Player" in this record, the side that won the original match. Moreover, the First Player in that record was the master himself, so there was no chance I would forget the moves.
I believe that through this confrontation, the master wants me to stop following the same path he took. Otherwise, he would not have set such a condition; he is a person clumsy at expressing his feelings. I am now certain that the reason his openings were scattered in recent matches was that he was preparing many different game records in anticipation of this moment with me.
He was prepared for the possibility that I might be the "Second Player," or that I might play a different move while in the role of the "First Player." His preparation was precise and comprehensive; perhaps he is the type who cannot rest unless his preparations are perfect. However, I had the option to choose a different path after this match ended. If I were an unkind person, I would have naturally sought to win this game by exploiting the situation, wouldn't I?
... I want to surpass my master. I feel that if I take the same path, I will never catch up to his level in my entire life. When I intentionally deviated from the move sequence to break the pattern of imitation, the master looked relieved and began explaining the subsequent developments of the game. After that, I lost cleanly, but I heard words from him that made that defeat seem trivial.
The master now plays shogi by executing the orders of another personality that resides within his experiences. I had suspected he suffered from a split personality, and I considered the possibility that he was playing as instructed. But hearing this confession directly from his mouth is a completely different matter.
My expectations were fifty percent correct and fifty percent wrong. It seems the master has been dual-natured from the start. However, the second personality never surfaces, and the first personality (the one we see) is the one executing the orders. The irony is that the shogi ability of the second personality is the superior one. It is a highly contradictory situation, but I can somewhat imagine why this happened.
The reason is that the other personality holds the vast majority of the experience. This is just a guess, but I believe the two personalities do not share memories related to thinking. Of course, they might share memories of what they see or eat, but there is no sharing of "thought process" memories. Otherwise, how could it be that only the second personality is strong at shogi?
... What if that other personality is a monster playing a hundred shogi matches simultaneously inside his mind? What if it uses that mental shogi board to accumulate experience ceaselessly? Does the second personality live in an environment where it does nothing but play shogi? There are still many unknowns, but the closer I get to seeing the full picture, the more the master's existence seems so far removed from reality that it gives me a headache.
My name is Yashajin Ai. Soon, I will be in the fifth grade of elementary school. My current goal is to draw out my master's true power. And someday, I will defeat this master who is destined to become the strongest in shogi history...
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Isn't this master a bit too much of a piece of junk? Does he really not understand the meaning of giving a diamond necklace as a return gift on "White Day"? True, it is a cheap necklace for me, and he also bought it for a meager sum. However, society's view of such a gift carries deep emotional implications—even I, who am not good at dealing with society, realize that, don't I?
... Huh? Did he really choose it randomly? Did he end up buying it just because he searched for an accessory under forty thousand yen? ... If that is the case, my confusion and the fluttering of emotions I felt make me look like a fool. Despite a full year passing since we met, I am still truly unable to understand this master.
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Read +90 chapters ahead on my p.a.t.r.e.o.n : Raven737