Velder Military Academy, noon. Daily at this time of the day, the Academy's cadets were allowed 45 minutes of free time after lunch. Some not hesitated to doze off, some chatting with their mates, some spending times reading books…
Today Raven Cronwell and Owen Felford were playing chess in the aforementioned daily break time. The match had went well in favor of Owen after Raven made some serious blunder moves:
_ And check.
Owen announced with a soft and trivia tone of voice the thing which Raven dreaded happening.
After a while thinking, Raven surrendered the match.
_ Man, how can you're so good at this. Let's play another match, this time I will play as white.
Raven pleaded and Owen just lazily nodded.
_ Be my guess... By the way, what's the total results between us again? I want to know if you have improved in this matter at all.
_ Wow Owen, you can't be serious. I appreciate your efforts of tutoring us in some classes and our results also became better, but shouldn't its limit extends to even including games?
Owen thought for a moment, then he looked up to stare at Raven's face:
_ I apologize if it bothers you, but I think it's not so different between chess and classes. You see, chess is a game when you move the pieces of your side to win against the opposing side who doing the same thing, moving their own pieces. Now what's we're studying in the classes again? We're studying military, wouldn't it be the same thing as playing this game but with soldiers in the place of chess pieces? So I think becoming good at this game can also help us developing skills which may be helpful in our career in the future...
Raven covered his ears while Seris - who had always watched her friends playing chess - was chuckling.
_ Stop, you're at it again. Alright, alright, it benefits us, I won't argue against you anymore, just stop the lecture and let the rematch begins.
_ But I still need the results.
Owen repeated while covering his mouth to suppress a yawn, while Raven rolling his eyes.
_ It's 17 wins, 3 draws and 2 losses in favor of you, Owen.
Seris kindly spoke for Raven's sake.
Owen didn't further ask for anything anymore, by then calmly placing the pieces for the next match... It was just about 20 minutes after that and Raven - now on white side, lost it again.
_ I'm not in the mood to play this today anymore. Let's stop.
Raven was obviously disheartened and disappointed. They agreed to stop playing and Raven put the chess board and pieces - they're his possessions - into his backpack. He felt like he was wasting time, he could have spent those minutes practicing swordplay. He hardly bothered to practice playing chess before coming to this school.
Raven personally felt playing chess having very little relevant in combat. The situations on the chess board does not reflect circumstances of combats in practice at all. There had been hardly any recorded case in history when the battles occured between two or more belligerent forces having the same number of troops or all combatants having equal strength, or each corresponding arms of each sides having equal quantity and quality, and the commanding officers having total control who micromanaging the troops under their command like that…
The day after, Raven practiced swordplay with Seris while Owen predictably refused when Raven invited him to, and doing his usual stuffs instead.
Many months later. After times and again, Raven gradually improved upon his chess playing skill, the only skill practicing with Owen which he found the most fruitless, but in gratitudes for his friend, he tried his best to cope with nevertheless. He used to lose all of the times. Now more often than not Raven even won.
Seris was also usually present when Owen and Raven playing chess game. Her presence was one of the biggest motivations for Raven to "endure" through these sessions with Owen, Raven increasingly felt like he wanted to win matches to impress Seris…
Not today though. Raven felt like slacking, he was exhausted because of yesterday works. Owen was about to complain, but Seris suddenly suggested:
_ Owen, let me play this match in Raven's stead.
_ Wow this is new. Our loyal audience has finally stepped up to play a role in this show.
Owen said sarcastically and Raven smiled because of Seris's sudden demand.
Raven moved aside and Seris took his spot in front of Owen. Raven felt relieved because he could relax that day.
Seris's moves seemed rashly. She made some moves which cost her some valuable pieces. Owen also went with the flow, he didn't seem to spend much time considering each of his moves, just instinctively moving his pieces similar to the methodological norm he had been following.
Raven couldn't hold his voice when Seris moved her queen piece only for Owen to quickly eliminate it:
_ That was a big mistake. You just gifted Owen that high scores piece.
_ Sshhush… Raven, don't intervene on our match.
Owen reminded Raven with a smile. He looked up and couldn't see Seris's face, she was busy looking down at the chess board as if she was lost in thoughts. At first Owen didn't expect Seris to pack much a challenge, and at that point he was sure victory was near.
…Seris moved a pawn forward. Owen suddenly realized the situation. That piece had moved that far unheeded. If in the following turn it could move toward the last of the line, then…
Owen was still thinking hard. How could he left that pawn piece to slip that far. At that point he couldn't do anything in one turn to prevent it from reaching the last line anymore. After a while he found no plausible move, he stopped trying a way to deal with that piece. He moved, and then it was Seris's turn again…
_ Promotion!
One of chess's few rules including if a pawn – the most numerous but having lowest score piece reached the opposite end of the board, it could be promoted and becoming a different piece instead. The pawn could become a knight, a bishop, a rook or…
_ Let's see, I will promote this pawn piece to a queen piece.
Seris removed the pawn piece and placed her previously eliminated queen piece back onto the board again, albeit at the position the pawn piece was.
Owen was amazed when he realized he was near check. In the end he had eliminated most of Seris's high scores pieces while retaining a large portion of his forces. But the advantages in the quantity of pieces on his side - at that point - only served to hinder his king piece with very limited movement options, and Seris was in a position to about to check him.
Owen was forced to sacrifice a number of his pieces attempting to prevent his king from being checked, but after a couple of moves he was out of options and finally yielded…
_ Seris, you're a genius!
Raven yelled loudly making many cadets momentarily breaking away from whatever they were doing at that time to look at him. He was delighted because he didn't expect Seris who he had never seen playing chess could defeat Owen in one try, when Raven himself took quite a long time to catch up to him.
Seris quickly turned to face Raven, not saying anything and smiled brightly with her usual beautiful and innocent smile. Raven was about to step forward to hug her, but he tried his best to supress his desire and stopped at the middle of the way, his hands were half-way raising up but he immediately retracted them.
Seeing Raven's clumsy and redundant actions, Seris bursted into into laughter while covering her mouth with her hands, her shoulders trembling because of her suppresed laughters.
_ Uhm…eh…I… Ah yes, let me treat you two with drinks then, wait for me. Great job Seris!
Raven patted on Owen's shoulders, Owen's making eye contacts signaled him to just go on with what Raven intended to.
After Raven left and waited for Seris's laughters to die down, Owen smiled dryly and with his calm facial expressions, politely asking for a rematch with Seris.
_ No, I won't play anymore.
Owen didn't expect her to be refused blankly like that. He put away the smile on his face and answered calmly as:
_ Okay, not today then. How about the day after, because tomorrow we have other schedules.
_ Sorry I didn't make it clear enough, I meant I will not play chess with you any further. Let me remind you, not that long ago, after we won the siege warfare mock battle, you compared me and Raven with "chess pieces", and you took chess so seriously that you compared chess with conflicts between opposing forces in reality. If you perceived chess as similar to real combats with men of flesh and blood, then there would be no rematch, the winning side had already annihilated the losing side, so you only needed to win the match once.
Owen was surprised of Seris's sudden venting. He didn't expect Seris to recall that comparision of his friends as his chess pieces, when his tongue slipped out what he actually thought. He believed Seris was even more guillible than Raven and couldn't read between the lines, he himself had forgotten he had uttered those words until being reminded by Seris just then.
Owen interrupted Seris by saying:
_ Apologize me then. I just felt it was a shame when you have talent in this subject and I lost the chance to to learn more from you. Your determination when planning and counterattack were excellent, according to statistics, the number of matches in which the pawn of any side could reach the last line of enemy's side and got promoted is extremely rare.
_ I had observed chess matches between Raven and you, Owen, and I extracted experiences from them. I can largely deducing your gists, while you had no idea how I would play chess, I had the element of surprise on my side. As you can see, even if the match seemed lost, almost every valuable pieces were wiped out, but you still wouldn't lose so long as your king piece was not in check…
Seris paused for a second to take a breath, then continued:
_ The other pieces the winning side had retained were more valuable, but if they couldn't do anything to bring victory, they would be worthless and even a dead weight at the ending phase. The pawn piece despite, or perhaps because of, initially having very little values , but given circumstances, it was in the position to enact simulatineously and total collapse of its opposing side, with its ability to promote into even the strongest pieces, after having carried on for so long and passed undetected.
For the first time in his life, Owen Felford was aware of this side of Seris. She was much more perceptive and sophisticated than she usually appeared to be. Owen felt increasingly uneasy, what underlying message was she truly trying to tell him. He pretended to look out of the window to not facing Seris and was lost in his train of thought for a while until Raven was back with the drinks...
After Seris, Raven and Owen had graduated from their academy, the chess scores between them were:
_ Owen and Raven: 43 wins, 7 draws and 16 lossses. Raven winning 24% of the times.
_ Seris and Owen: 1 win, 0 draw and 0 loss. Seris winning 100% of the times.
End.