The sun was beginning to appear on the horizon. It would still take a few hours until night was completely gone but that light showed the special class that they had survived a lot on this one night.
In total they were given 3 hours to rest by The Steps with Mia still not waking up no matter what anyone tried.
“I hope you rested well as it is now my turn to play with you.” Peddle said as he suddenly appeared a few meters in front of the special class.
They all quickly got up with all the boys going up the front, ready to fight and the girl ready to take Mia and run.
“No need to get so violent. I am not like those idiots. I prefer a less violent approach to things. This is how we will see if any of you deserve to be alive.” Puddle said as a strange chess board appeared in between him and the class.
“What!?” Everyone asked in confusion in some way or form.
“Chess. Have you ever heard of it? I am a big fan personally. Of course it’s not normal chess as it would be too boring and fast. First you need to choose who will command the pieces for your side. I will for my side of course.”
Everyone took a look around and unanimously and without saying a word they chose Narissa. The fact that this might not really be normal chess made Katia, who was a really good player due to her memory, not say anything to take the position.
“I guess it will be me. What makes this chess game so special?” Narissa asked once she walked to the board.
“First, the normal board is too small, let’s make it bigger shall we?” Puddle said as he used some mana on the board and it became four times bigger. A 16x16 board. “Next, we nee a few more pieces to fill the board, along with a few special ones. Pawns, Tower, Knight, Bishop, Queen, King, Politician, Merchant, General.” He said as the pieces were put on the board but not really ready to play.
“What are these pieces?” Narissa asked.
“This is part of the fun of these games. Those pieces are all of you.” Puddle answered as the pieces in question connected to the people of the special class.
Klaws was a Tower. Mathias, Kaki, Luminus and Moon were assigned as knights. Shishen was a bishop. Katia was a Politician. Cassandra was a merchant. Narissa was a commander. Onyx was a pawn and Mia was the Queen.
Besides the pieces assigned to the class there were twenty one more. The King, one bishop, one tower, one merchant, one Politician, one commander and fifteen pawns. Puddle had the same piece on his side. Shishen was using the white ones while puddle was using the black ones.
“Before you ask. The commander moves like the King, the merchant moves like the knights and the politician moves like the towers but there are a few extras. The merchant can’t capture any pieces besides pawns and has a special effect, the politician can’t capture anything but the queen or the king; it also has another effect. The commander also has another effect but can capture any other pieces normally.”
“What are these ‘effects’ you speak of?”
“This is not a simple chess game, this is a fight of my kingdom against yours and like any good kingdom it should have cities. I already chose where to put mine” Puddle said as 8 squares on his side of the board suddenly changed color. A strange shiny green that contrasted really strangely with the black and white of the wooden board.
“What are those cities?” Narissa asked somewhat surprised. By any metric the squares should just be a different color but when she concentrates on them even a little she sees a chess piece in the shape of a walled city.
“They are the heart of your kingdom. They will feed your troops.” Puddle said with a very sly smile. Seeing that Narissa wasn’t reacting very positively to all of this and the fact that he had limited time he began to quickly explain how the game would work.
This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.
The game would follow normal chess rules for the most part but with some extra things. First, two pieces could be moved at a time. Second, If a piece wasn’t in the radius of a city square after leaving its starting position for more than 10 turns it would ‘starve’ and die - not be captured by the other player- so it would leave the game. Any piece in a 3 square distance of a commander could move one square freely before following its normal move pattern. The merchant could feed any troops around itself like a city if it visited a city in the last 10 turns. The politician could either create another city if it stayed in a single square for more than 15 turns not counting the starting square or capture one of the opponent’s city if it stayed there for 5 while at least one other piece that isn’t a merchant stays in a square around it. Also the starting positions of all the pieces besides the pawns could be chosen by the players.
After hearing all the rules Narissa put the pieces on the board following more or less how they would in normal chess. With 4 knights she chose to put them on the side of the bishop and then put the new pieces between these knights.
The order, from left to right, Tower, Knight, Merchant, Politician, Commander, Knight, Bishop, Queen, King, Bishop, Knight, Commander, Politician, Merchant, Knight and Tower. Puddle, probably as some sort of twisted gamesmanship, put his pieces in the same order. As for the cities, they would each start with 8 so Narissa evenly distributed them on her side of the board. Puddle put 3 more on the back of the board and the other 5 more towards the middle of the board, spread horizontally.
Before the game could start, Narissa changed the position of the pawn piece that was connected to Onyx and put it in front of the queen piece connected to Mia. She felt that these connections would play a role in the game so in the off-chance something could happen, putting him in front of her might be a good call as it looks like the wolf would naturally do that if he could.
Once the game started, Narissa’s vision shifted and the last thing she saw before waking up was Puddle’s sly smile.
—-
Narissa woke up and found herself in heavy armor in front of a king she didn’t recognize. He ordered her to take command of the military along with another commander in the west and deal with the invading kingdom coming from the north. Narissa couldn’t refuse the request for some reason and even if her mind was trying to make sense of what was happening, she was doing what was asked of her.
She dispatched her troops to scout the land for enemies and create a human ‘wall’ of troops to make sure no enemies would come into the kingdom. She sent her knights to scout the enemy lands and deal with what they could and when an enemy was too open she would dispatch her heavy troops to bulldoze over any enemy in their path. Knowing that troops alone wouldn’t win this war she made sure to contact merchants to keep her troops fed, politicians to help create cities that could be used to feed said troops and maybe capture some of the enemy in case they could infiltrate them. She also made sure to contact the church who dispatched two bishops who would help capture any troops they found without bloodshed. One of those two was a good friend of hers, a healer who could heal most injuries. As a precaution she accompanied her friend to the best of her abilities since losing her could deal a fatal blow to the kingdom. She really wished she could use the queen as she was a terrifying force on the battlefield but she, along with her personal companion, was sick and resting by the King’s side.
Occasionally she would receive reports that her troops weren’t moving like she commanded them to, that they didn’t capture the enemy troops like they should have and choose to retreat. Usually making her have to go personally to the troops and reminding them what was at stake.
On one of those occasions she saw the enemy queen. A woman who could trash an army alone if you let her. Lot’s of other kingdoms didn’t understand why women of such power were crowned as queens in this part of the world but that is exactly why they are chosen. The King is strong but he is limited in what he could do in a battlefield, so putting someone on his side that is an equal but can move more freely allows the kingdoms to grow since the King can focus on other matters.
Narissa was ashamed of herself once she finally managed to run away from the enemy’s queen by sacrificing some of her troops. She promised to get them back but that wasn’t the time to deal with the enemy queen yet. She had to prepare her assault.
—----------------
Narissa suddenly found herself again in front of the chessboard. It seemed like the game was going on for a while. She began to sweat as she looked around and saw that what happened was not limited to her.
“Finally managed to get out, huh? And here I was starting to actually have some fun. So how does it feel to be in command of an actual army, of actual people? You can’t get that out of normal chess.”
“What did you do?”
“Chess is a simulation of war, isn’t it? I just made it a little more real, nothing more. Also, I think we can finally start for real. I hope that isn't all you could do or this will end shortly.”
“What?” Was all Narissa Managed to ask before being sent back to the world of the game, just more self aware and in control than before.