CHAPTER 47: THE FINAL DAY - ANOTHER DOUBLE HEADER!

"Man, why does this tournament have two double-header days?" Sheva moaned weakly, feeling his body aching after having a bad sleep last night. "This is going to be an exhausting day, isn’t it?" He turned his head at Bagas, who was busy with his laptop.

"Oh, it is worse, Sheva." The fat boy grinned teasingly. "Not only would you have to deal with the last two rounds of this tournament, but after everything is over, there will also be the closing ceremony. Normally, not a lot of players would go. But unfortunately, if you completed your miracle tournament by winning it all, you have to attend it, and I am sure you will enjoy the ceremony a lot."

"Yeah, fuck you too!" Sheva made a series of rude hand gestures at Bagas’s mocking smile. After having had enough of doing nothing, he took a glance at what Bagas was doing, couldn’t help but feel curious. "Oh, is that the YouTube account? How is it doing?" He crooked one of his eyebrows at the sight in front of him.

"Not that bad, I guess. I mean, the number of viewers in the live streaming game is still pitifully low, around 40 people on average. But for a three-week-old account, I can say that it is doing well." Bagas explained, not even turning his head from the screen. Then, a mischievous smile suddenly formed on his face as the boy added, "What I can say, though, is out of the three players I broadcast in this tournament, you are the most popular one, and I mean it in a bad way."

"In a bad way?" This time, Sheva couldn’t hold back his curiosity anymore. He frowned a little, taking over Bagas’s laptop for a moment. "Let me take a look first." There, he saw so many nasty comments directed at him.

Bajikari234: Man, why are you still here watching this trash play? He only started playing at the age of 17; he has no hope in chess!

BoluTirus: I don’t know what the admin of this channel smokes, but why did he always stream this little boy’s game? Anna’s game is better, and she is also eye candy!

Golakan12: I know, right?! This bastard must be paying the admin here!

Si_Putih: Well, I don’t know about you guys, but I wouldn’t watch the stream again if the focus is still on this boy. I mean, he is ugly as fuck

Golakan12: Yeah, he doesn’t look intelligent at all! Are you sure he is a chess player and not a drug addict?

The more Sheva read the comment, the more he felt disgusted at what he had seen. If he could, he would bleach his eyes with all kinds of holy waters in the world and erase this part from his memory. He turned around for a moment, just to find out that Bagas was grinning at his reaction.

"Pretty bad, right?" The fat boy asked. "I mean, I have been dealing with this kind of shit for the last couple of days, and I didn’t expect that you would gather so many haters here. What you just read is the tame ones compared to what I have been removing for a while."

"This is the tame one?" Sheva was dumbfounded. "Are you sure that we should continue this? I mean, the haters would be increased as time goes by, right? I don’t think this is beneficial for me." He wouldn’t say it out loud, but the prospect of having a lot of haters didn’t sit quite well inside his head.

Honestly, imagining more than five people hating on him was quite intimidating, even though he himself would never see their faces at all. After all, what kind of haters would be brave enough to confront the object of their hate directly? They would only hide cowardly behind their fake account while also smearing a lot of nasty things just to get more attention. It was pathetic, truth to be told.

"Nah, don’t worry about it." Bagas waved his hand nonchalantly. "These kinds of haters would be drowned immediately once we have more regular viewers. They wouldn’t last long, trust me. Also, you are wrong about one thing. Even though you don’t see this as beneficial, I can assure you that having an account to promote your game like this would be important in your future."

"Oh? Any reason why?" Sheva asked.

"Easy. Because after your rating is quite high enough, if you want to challenge yourself and earn more money, you need to play in the invitation-based tournament. That is the kind of tournament that would gather strong players from all around the world. To get the invitation, rating alone is not enough." Bagas explained. "I mean, I can tell you some of the super GMs whose ratings have already passed the 2700 threshold, yet they haven’t played in a lot of tournaments, and that is because they didn’t get any invitation at all. If you want to take a look, just search for Yu Yangyi from China or Vladimir Fedoseev from Russia."

Sheva just stared at his best friend with a blank face, not even knowing a single name that Bagas just spouted. It seemed that he had to learn more about the chess world and all the top players in it. "Well, I will let you handle this. You are the pro in this, right?" He asked. "Still, don’t you think you are thinking too far here? I mean, I haven’t even gotten my rating, and you have already thought about me standing in a super tournament like that. Do you really trust me that much?"

In return, he got the ’Are you stupid?’ gaze from Bagas.

"I mean, duh, of course, I trust you." The fat boy rolled his eyes sarcastically. "I mean, why do you think I would stick with you to Vietnam even with my own money on your first ever tournament?"

His blunt honesty caught Sheva off guard. However, after a while, a genuine smile formed on Sheva’s face as the boy really appreciated his best friend’s support. For all the flaws that the fat boy had, there was one quality that Sheva liked from him the most, and that was his loyalty. It had been like this in the past, and Sheva was sure that it would continue to be like this in the future.

"Well, enough for all of this mushy topic!" Bagas suddenly shouted, checking the clock. It was 6:40 in the morning, still one and a half hours before the eighth round began. "So, are you ready for this final day?" The fat boy asked.

Sheva just grinned widely, answering shortly, "Of course, I am. Don’t worry, just sit still and wait outside. I will bring you the championship later."