Chapter 190: Sheva’s Next Tournament?!
"Oh, yeah, I just remember!" Sheva almost choked when he heard his name called. All the people there also turned around at him, wanting to know the reason he called for this meeting. "It is just... The people from BNI called me yesterday, asking me if I have a tournament I want to go to in the near future. Well, not asking, per se, but urging me to think about that. What do you think about this?"
A pin-drop silence fell in the room, as some of them felt the corner of their mouth twitching unconsciously. They didn’t know whether Sheva wanted to ask for advice or was this a deliberate attempt to show off, but the words that came out of his mouth were enough to infuriate all the chess players there.
"Man, I still cannot believe that you will get this kind of a blank check to play chess as much as you like!" Arfan suddenly whined, forking a piece of meat on his plate with a fork a little bit cruelly. "I mean, I would want to have one too! How unfair!"
Even though it was a childish complaint, none of them could say that they disagreed, though. Even a high-profile player like Irene, who was the first WGM in Indonesian history and had achieved a lot of sponsorship during her career, also felt jealous; never in her life had she gotten any unconditional support like this.
Sheva himself could only scratch the back of his head awkwardly. It wasn’t like he deliberately rubbed this sponsorship on their faces—Well, a little, maybe—but he really needed help right now. Also, he still somehow felt guilty, especially since the others also deserved the same kind of unconditional support just like he had right now. Unfortunately, they didn’t have a system to support their career, so they could only complain or curse silently here, while Sheva would leave them all to the dust in the future.
[Thank you foryour compliment, Host.]
Sheva felt the corner of his mouth twitching when he heard the system’s sudden answer in his head. ’Are you stalking me?!’ The boy couldn’t help but ask.
[... Host, the System could hear all of your thoughts, you know?]
This time, it was Sheva who was speechless at his answer. He could also feel the heat on his face, somehow getting embarrassed at the thought that all of his dirty minds and fantasies were seen by the system. Fortunately, the system didn’t have a face, or he would be embarrassed more when the boy saw the system’s infuriating expression.
"Anyway!" Irfan suddenly raised his voice, snapping Sheva from his thought, "I am sure you are not here just to brag, so why don’t you tell me about your problem?" His gaze was sharp as if the man warned Sheva to mind his words, and coupled with the glare coming from Medina’s side, the boy winced unconsciously, trying his best to think about how to ask this matter without offending anyone else.
"Urgh... You see... Even though the BNI side is urging me to go and play, we are currently still in the middle of our Olympiad’s preparation, right? Would it be okay if I go?" He looked at everyone’s eyes very carefully, ready to flee if someone’s temper suddenly erupted.
However, the answer he got was unexpected. All the eyes suddenly turned at him, looking at the boy with the ’Are you stupid or what?’ expression, enough to make Sheva squirm uncomfortably. "What? It is a valid question!" He tried to defend himself. Hell, Claudia even stiffened her giggle, and Sheva was sure that she would never let him live it down later.
Bonk!
"Ouch!" Sheva winced unconsciously, not expecting Novendra to come at him, and gave a karate chop strike at his head. "What the hell is that?!" He complained.
"Well, that is for your stupid question!" The GM scolded him. "This training camp is informal, you know?! This is only for us mere mortals who would never have any chance to play in the other top tournaments before the Olympiad! After all, what else could we do to prepare ourselves besides this?! So, if you have a chance, just go! The best way to prepare yourself is to play against players whose ratings are higher than yours!"
"Exactly." Medina also nodded. Then, she didn’t forget to make a sarcastic comment about this. "For a genius, your mind sure is not that flexible, huh?"
"Hey, no need to insult me like that!" Sheva said in a faux-offended tone.
"That is not an insult. If you want one, here. For a genius, you sure can be an idiot, huh?" The woman smiled viciously, which only made Sheva depressed more. "You forget that even though the Olympiad is a team competition, we wouldn’t need any teamwork, so no matter how long we are in a training camp, our aim is still to improve our individual skills. If you have a chance to do that outside, then just go!"
This time, Sheva was a little bit embarrassed by his late realization.
Indeed, unlike any other team sport where a training camp was needed to improve the cooperation between new teammates, chess didn’t really need that. Even though the theme was a group battle, in reality, it was just a 1v1 game in five different tables, and the result for each game would be accumulated in the end.
They also couldn’t help each other during the game, so in the end, it was just an individual competition with a little twist in it. That way, the training camp didn’t really help that much except to let the players exchange ideas, and when it mattered the most, they still had to rely on their individual skills.
"So... I can just... Go?" Sheva asked once again for confirmation.
"Sure, you can." Irfan nodded slightly, giving the answer that Sheva wanted. "So, what tournament do you want to go to? Any idea?"
"This..." Yeah, Sheva himself still wasn’t sure about it. Although he still had a list of high-level tournaments that he could enter for this year—this was the list that Dina, the person from BNI, brought—Sheva was still unsure about how to select one of them. It was clear that entering all of them was impossible, so he had to pick them up carefully.
"Oh, well, since you don’t have an idea yet, how about I recommend you one?"