'Sheva is being too cautious here.' Anna frowned as she stared at the board from behind Sheva's place intently. 'It is not bad to solidify his defense first, as the mysterious man's battery of dark bishop and queen is quite scary. However, as long as he doesn't take it, Sheva shouldn't have a problem.'

The girl couldn't see the evaluation bar, but she didn't need to do that as she understood the basics of the King's Gambit. It required the player's aggressiveness on the board, and one late timing mistake would be enough to destroy all the advantage that the white piece had built since the beginning of the game. Hell, since it was a gambit game, if the strategy failed, it would be the white piece who was at a disadvantage, since he lost a pawn pretty early in the game.

Well, the decision turned out to be a good one, as in the next turn, when the mysterious man tried to infiltrate through Sheva's defense with that battery, the boy just kicked it out by threatening to take the bishop with his king. This not only forced the mysterious man to waste his two moves aimlessly, but also put Sheva's king into a quite safe spot, getting isolated on the corner of the board.

Seeing this, Anna couldn't help but give the boy an approving nod, knowing that everything was quite stable.

"Is zat your boyfriend?" Suddenly, a voice greeted her from behind. When Anna turned around, she could see an old man looking back and forth at her and Sheva curiously.

"Um… Excuse me?" Anna asked, not quite catching the question before.

"Is zat your boyfriend?" The old man repeated his question with a strong German accent, pointing his finger at Sheva. "He did do well, you know? Trying to impress you with something fancy and still hold his own ground against that man. Be sure to praise him, okay?"

Anna felt her brain crash for a second, before everything was connected together to make blood creep on her cheek instantly.

"B—Boyfriend?! We are not that yet!" She squeaked in panic. Even though the date experience today was wonderful, she was not ready to commit to any relationship here, and Sheva himself also hadn't said anything about it yet.

"Ah… So, you are still in this phase of the relationship…" The old man nodded with a smile of understanding, as if he saw everything straight away. "Well, don't forget to praise him after this, okay? You might not know how impressive the thing he has done on the board, but at least know that he is trying to impress you."

Well, the advice was genuine, as if the old man wanted to act as a wingman here. What he didn't know, though, was that Anna herself knew exactly how impressive what Sheva did right now. Well, the old man also didn't know that she was a chess player, so at least she could forgive him for that.

However, she couldn't even give an answer to his words as right now, her brain was fried. Her mind went blank the moment the man thought she and Sheva were a couple, and it took quite a long time for her to recover. Hell, she even missed half of the game on the board, before the exclamation from the spectators around snapped her from her own thought.

"Oh! That's it!"

"The boy is killing him! Come on!"

"Who the fuck is he?!"

"Hey, I remember! He is the miracle boy from Indonesia who won second place yesterday, right?!"

"Goddamnit, you are right! No wonder I feel like I know him already! He is Adrian Sheva, the miracle boy from Indonesia!"

Well, it was clear that the people around here were fans of chess and followed the entire tournament that had just ended yesterday. They even knew Sheva's name, although this was the first time the boy played here. However, that was the least concern that Anna had right now. The moment she heard the crowd cheering for her boy, she turned her head quickly and put her focus back on the game.

'Wait, what? Sheva traps his rook?!' She widened her eyes in surprise. 'How could he manage to do that? Damn, there should be no replay for this game, right?' The girl started to regret how she had been distracted by the old man's words earlier.

Anna didn't know how the game developed to this point, but somehow, she saw the mysterious man's rook on the B4 square was trapped by Sheva's pawn. No matter where it went, it would only end up in the grasp of the boy's hand. The mysterious man finally made a mistake by not protecting it well enough deep in the enemy's territory.

*Author note: If you want to visualize the position better, check the comment below.

'Well, all he needs to do is to simplify the game, right?' She couldn't help but think. 'I mean, Sheva would be up for a rook after this, so forcing an exchange would be a winning move for him. However, I am sure that the mysterious man wouldn't just give up without a fight.'

True enough, just as Anna expected, the mysterious man didn't show any sign of resignation, still showing an admirable spirit to fight to the death. He thought for more than 8 seconds, the longest in the day, probably, before finally realizing that his rook was unsavable. After accepting this fact, he racked his brain quickly before taking the pawn in front of the piece, making sure that if it went down, it would go down while helping its other comrades in this battle.

After that, the game continued again. The main explosion had already happened, and now, the only thing left to do was to clean up the aftermath. It wasn't easy for Sheva to do that, since the mysterious man was a really good player. Other than that one mistake, which led the rook to get trapped in Sheva's territory, the man basically played a perfect game, not making a single mistake even once.

Unfortunately, in the endgame phase, Sheva finally recognized the benefit of the title that he received before the game from the system. His concentration skyrocketed instantly, locking his focus completely in the game. Even though it didn't really help the boy by forcing a mistake on his opponent, at least, this title ensured that he wouldn't make any stupid mistakes in the endgame phase, which was important since the boy himself lost quite a lot of games because of that.

In the end, Sheva managed to accumulate his advantage slowly, pushing his pawn one step after another. The mysterious man wanted to resist for a while, but the more he made a move, the tighter the rope on his neck. In the end, when he was forced to exchange his queen, the man finally let out a deep sigh, nodding in a satisfied manner before offering a handshake.

"Irene is right. You are really a monster here."

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