Road to be the Best Chess Player in the World!-Chapter 488: The Gathering of Monster!

"Slow down, Pragg! Bagas is still behind!" Sheva sighed helplessly as Praggnanandhaa guided him into... Well, he himself didn’t know, as the boy was still tight-lipped about it. "Can you at least give me an idea of where we are going now?" He asked, trying to match the Indian boy’s fast walking.

"Don’t worry, I assure you that you will not regret this." Pragg grinned mysteriously. The hint of mischievousness on his face couldn’t escape Sheva’s sharp eyesight, but since the boy was determined to keep it secret, he could only sigh once again in acceptance.

"Gas, how could you be so slow?!" Sheva clicked his tongue in annoyance as he turned slightly just to find that Bagas was still panting behind, struggling to keep up the pace. "Also, why would you bring a camera to this kind of an occasion?"

"Don’t... Don’t worry about me..." The boy panted, his chest rising and falling slightly. "I just... I just smell great content... A viral one if I have to guess... In the place where we are going to be! It... Don’t mind me... I’ll just be there to record..."

Sheva couldn’t really understand what Bagas meant by smelling a great content or something like that, but since the fat boy said so, he just shrugged silently, letting his best friend do whatever he wanted. Little did he know, though, that Bagas’s instinct for viral content was so sharp that what he said really became the reality.

"What the...." Sheva was too speechless as he saw the scene once they arrived at the destination. "What the hell is going on here?!" He asked, demanding an answer from the Indian prodigy who just dragged him here. As an answer, Pragg just grinned, showing a pure excitement that Sheva had never seen before.

Here, they were in the venue that was used to hold the tournament, and Sheva could see a small crowd gathering at one of the tables there. It wasn’t just an ordinary crowd, but filled with a bunch of players who fought in the master section yesterday.

"You invite Adrian Sheva, knowing that Magnus himself is here? Boy, you really are so brave!" Wesley So, the American-Philippine GM, exclaimed in surprise, in his hand was a bag of potato chips.

"Hah! Are they youngsters if they are afraid of us oldies?" Anish Giri, the one who won the entire master section yesterday, snorted as he had one hand on the table, staring at the chessboard there intently.

"Well, you are not wrong, Anish!" Levon Aronian, the American-Armenian GM, laughed boisterously, giving Sheva a polite nod. "Come on, just sit here! Don’t be shy, okay?"

Magnus himself, the only one who was sitting at the table, growled irritably. "Are we going to play or not?" He snapped, his accent was heavy due to his flaring temper. It seemed that he was still quite angry for not being able to win the tournament yesterday, and coupled with Sheva’s presence here, his mood went downhill instantly.

"Yeah, yeah, okay, drama queen." Anish teased the man bravely, sitting on the other side of the table immediately.

It wasn’t just those four, but two more people were also standing awkwardly there. It was clear, though, that the last two were not familiar with the others. After all, based on age, they were the juniors here compared to the veterans at the table. Those two were the Uzbekistan genius, Nordibek Abdusattorov, and the German superstar, Vincent Keymer. 𝙛𝒓𝓮𝙚𝔀𝒆𝒃𝓷𝒐𝓿𝙚𝓵.𝙘𝒐𝒎

Seeing that the old guys started to set up the board enthusiastically, while the others just accepted everything, Sheva felt his brain crash as he asked, "What is going on here?! What are you guys doing?! And also, why am I here?!"

His crash out silenced everyone here, and before Sheva could have the answer he wanted, he was greeted with chuckles from Levon and Anish. Even Magnus himself had a little smirk on his face, while the others were just smiling at him. That was when Sheva knew that he just made a fool of himself, and his face turned red as he was too flustered to react.

"So, Pragg hasn’t told you anything, huh?" Anish decided to take pity on him and explained. "Well, this is going to be our last day here, so I gather all the players who haven’t gone back to their country yet to have some fun. Anyway, just stay here, I promise that you will enjoy it."

Sheva could feel the corner of his lips twitching madly, and when he turned around, he could see Pragg had a mocking grin on his face, clearly enjoying how Sheva made a fool of himself. Bagas also held back his laughter, enjoying the scene unfolding in front of his eyes. Fortunately, the attention shifted once again quickly, so Sheva didn’t have to die from embarrassment.

"Anyway, how should we do this?" Magnus asked, straight to the point. This definitely suited his personality, no nonsense.

Honestly, Sheva himself was surprised to see Magnus joining this shenanigan, feeling like, sometimes, the GOAT himself was always full of arrogance and never wanted to socialize with any other player in the tournament he played. Who would’ve thought that the man was going to be the most enthusiastic one here?

Seeing that no one really answered Magnus’s question, Levon Aronian suddenly grinned mischievously as he made an interesting suggestion. "Since we have 8 people here, how about a 4v4 blitz game, but we will take turns for every move?"

"Oh?" This time, almost everyone was intrigued. Sheva himself just narrowed his eyes suspiciously, having a bad feeling that the old man was up to no good.

"Yeah, to ensure that we all have fun, let’s just play this team game. One move, I back down, and you replace me, Anish. Then, you make your move, and you will be replaced by Wesley for the next turn, and so on." He explained shortly. "As for the team..." The grin got wider, making some of them gulp nervously. "Let’s just go for the vets versus the youngsters!"