Is this the poker world?Ada thief!

Chapter 1704 The Fallen Students
"Someone else is in trouble?" In the Duel Academy's school infirmary, looking at yet another student with unusual symptoms being brought in by two classmates, Ayukawa Megumi frowned. "But there are no vacancies in the school infirmary."

Although at the Togoku school where Ms. Ayukawa Emi previously worked, the school mostly ignored students' claims of physical discomfort, regardless of whether they were truly unwell. They would assume that students were genuinely suffering and let them skip class and sleep in the infirmary if they wanted.

However, this is not the case at Duel Academy. Normally, Mr. Ayukawa would diligently fulfill his duties as a health and physical education teacher and carefully check the students' physical condition. After all, Mr. Ayukawa was in charge of physical education classes at Duel Academy, and the grades in this course were quite important.

However, right now, Ayukawa Emi doesn't have the mood to check each student's physical condition to confirm whether it's true or not. One reason is, as she just said, the school's infirmary is already full of students, and there isn't enough space for them to rest, regardless of whether they are truly healthy or not.

It's important to know that the Duel Academy's medical room isn't like the typical medical room in a regular school with five or six beds; it has a full twenty beds for students. This is one of the results of the Duel Academy's renovation and expansion last year. Even before the expansion, there were already ten beds here, which was enough to handle any unexpected situations that might occur on campus under normal circumstances.

Furthermore, since the Duel Academy's largest investor is the Haima Group, the school clinic has an extremely abundant supply of medical equipment, and many medical supplies from the dismantled Shadow Maru Medical have also been sent to the Duel Academy for students to use.

Even under these circumstances, the number of students lying in the medical wards has increased to an unbearable level, and so far no one has successfully recovered—even though the outbreak of special illnesses among the students has only lasted for 24 hours, it is still quite exaggerated considering the technological level of Haima Group's medical devices.

Even more absurdly, despite using the latest medical equipment from the Haima Group, the experienced medical specialist Megumi Ayukawa was unable to find any specific illnesses or external wounds on the students. Their unique symptoms were all the same – the exact same "exhaustion" symptoms as John Anderson, who had conducted a demonstrative "exposing duel" at the beginning of the semester.

"Ms. Ayukawa! The gymnasium is ready!" Professor Chronos called out to Ayukawa Megumi from afar. He came running over, panting and sweating profusely, clearly having been busy. "We can take the students who are feeling unwell over now."

"Thank you so much, Professor Chronos. I was worried that we didn't have enough space in the medical room." Ayukawa Emi breathed a sigh of relief upon hearing this, but the thought that this only meant she could receive more students who were unwell, but could not alleviate their pain, made her feel anything but happy.

"All the medical equipment has been moved over, aru." Behind Professor Chronos, Coach Napoleon also came along with his short legs, peering into the medical room. "When we left, there were about ten empty seats, but in the blink of an eye, it's full, aru?"

“Everyone is showing signs of extreme fatigue,” Ayukawa-sensei bit her nail. “Although there is no evidence or proof, this situation is undoubtedly caused by that ‘exposing duel’ and the ‘death bracelet’!”

“I’ve also suspected there was something wrong with that ‘death bracelet’ for a while now. But, Professor Ayukawa, didn’t we disassemble that bracelet before?” Professor Chronos said, directing several of the students’ classmates who were with the collapsed students, along with the school staff, to move the students to a specially reserved gymnasium for a unified physical examination and care. “And after disassembling the bracelet, we couldn’t find anything wrong with it.”

"Misawa Sora, who claimed to have 'some knowledge' in this area, provided assistance, but he only managed to discover that the bracelet had some function of absorbing energy and releasing special signals. Professor Klaus explained that it was the 'Death Bracelet's' built-in charging function and the function of sending the collected duel data, aru."

Napoleon paused, then said, "But even I can see that this is just an excuse."

"Not only that, Professor Cobra has also disappeared!" Compared to Instructor Napoleon and Professor Chronos, Professor Ayukawa was much less polite to Professor Cobra, referring to him directly by his nickname among the students. "And, coincidentally, it was only at this time yesterday, when the number of students experiencing this kind of physical exhaustion began to surge, that he was finally nowhere to be found!"

"It looks like a guilty conscience!"

"Moreover, the 'death glove,' which he previously threatened to expel if he took it off, has suddenly been locked and can no longer be removed!" Coach Napoleon gritted his teeth in anger. "Using external force to dismantle it will cause it to suddenly operate at full power, leaving people exhausted or even unconscious, which further proves that the current situation was caused by Professor Cobra and his 'death glove'!"

So angry was he started calling Napoleon "Professor Cobra," just like Ayukawa.

As for why he knows so much? Just look at one of the students being wheeled out of the infirmary, the boy wearing the Sun God-Yellow dormitory uniform—that's none other than this year's freshman, Ghana Malden!
Napoleon Bonaparte had a secret: although his name was Jean-Louis Bonaparte, Garna Malden was actually his son. The reason his biological son didn't take his surname was because he had divorced his wife, and Garna Malden now took his mother's surname.

Having witnessed his parents' arguments before their divorce as a child, coupled with the loneliness and lack of love caused by living in a divorced single-parent family, Garner Malden became withdrawn and introverted. The Napoleonic coach felt a great responsibility; he regretted but could accept his wife's departure, but he was always filled with guilt towards his son.

Although the Duel Academy has never stipulated that teachers' children cannot receive education and enroll, even if Gana Malden truly entered the Sun God-Yellow based on his own true ability, Coach Napoleon was still somewhat unable to tell others that he was his son, for fear that others would doubt Malden's true ability.

However, in private, Napoleon did approach Malden when no one else was around to express his long-standing guilt and longing for him. But Malden remained silent in response to Napoleon, showing no reaction whatsoever. Napoleon, who was not good at reading minds, was unaware of his son's thoughts and only felt increasingly guilty towards him.

—Although he was an education expert, Napoleon was a first-time parent and had little experience when it came to his own child's education.

Since yesterday morning, the previously well-organized "exposé duel" suddenly took a turn for the worse. Students generally felt extremely exhausted after the duel, with some experiencing the same kind of fatigue as John Anderson recently, feeling completely drained and uncomfortable, like someone who had been running for five consecutive nights without sleep. Even worse, many students collapsed and fainted. Almost immediately after the incident, Professor Chronos tried to forcibly stop the "exposé duel." Even the best intentions for student growth shouldn't come at the expense of their physical health. However, at that very moment, Professor Chronos couldn't find Professor Cobra and was unable to order him to end the activity.

Because Ayukawa Emi had previously received the "Death Grip," and because she was a faculty member and didn't need to worry about being "expelled" by Professor Cobra, she and Professor Chronos had disassembled it. At the time, Coach Napoleon was also present and confirmed that disassembling the "Death Grip" itself was not dangerous.

Fearing that Garner Malden might experience physical discomfort like the others, Coach Napoleon hurriedly approached Malden and called him aside, insisting that Malden remove his bracelet even though he might be expelled later due to the still-expired rule of "duel of denunciation".

As a result, an unexpected incident occurred. The "death bracelet," which had not encountered any problems during the disassembly process, began to mutate after the students started experiencing issues. While Coach Napoleon was removing the bracelet from Malden, the built-in energy absorption device activated at full power on its own, sucking Malden unconscious right in front of Coach Napoleon. He was even in the worst condition among all the students, and had been receiving glucose and other treatments continuously since collapsing.

"Have you started transferring the students who collapsed?" Outside the medical room, Judai also arrived.

Since the incident yesterday, Professor Chronos has ordered everyone to absolutely refrain from dueling due to Professor Cobra's disappearance. However, this order has not been able to restrain everyone, resulting in new patients even after a day. But Jaden and his friends, from the very beginning, obediently followed Professor Chronos's instructions and stopped dueling because of Jaden's resistance to "revealing the duel."

However, because it was too painful to prevent Judai from dueling, he, who couldn't stay idle, simply came to the infirmary to see if he could help in any way.

"Is there anything I can help you with, Professor Chronos?"

“Judai-kun, Tenjōin-kun, and Saotome-kun!” Upon seeing Judai and his companions Tenjōin Asuka and Saotome Rei, Professor Chronos raised an eyebrow, restraining himself from gossiping, and said with considerable delight, “It seems you’ve been behaving well and haven’t continued the duel. That’s great, isn’t it?”

“Because I felt from the beginning that ‘exposing the duel’ was dangerous, but I just didn’t have any evidence. But now, the evidence has come a little too late.” Jaden said, explaining to Professor Chronos, “However, it’s really hard not to duel, so I thought I’d come here to see if there’s anything I can do to help. As for Rei and Asuka, they’re like me, but they’re also here to visit the patient.”

"Gana Malden has already been taken to the gym." A male voice came from a hospital bed as they passed by Judai and the others. The boy, despite being a patient, was holding a ukulele and said flippantly to Asuka, "You actually came all this way to visit your older brother, Asuka-chan? Love~"

"Lie down in bed, Fubuki-san!" Ayukawa Emi pressed Fubuki, who was clearly weak and even pale, but still had to put on a show of being at ease in front of her sister, back down and dragged her hospital bed away.

"Ugh, that's so violent, Emi-chan! I haven't even said goodbye to Asuka yet."

"Forget it, you idiot brother, I never intended to visit you." Asuka said to Fubuki, who was being dragged away, and sighed and rubbed her forehead. "What was that idiot doing, trying to prove that Professor Chronos wasn't exaggerating? He actually gathered a large number of students for a public duel to prove that Professor Chronos wasn't exaggerating, and ended up in the infirmary himself. He's such a big idiot."

“But Fubuki chose this method, which maximizes his fame and influence, in order to prevent others from getting hurt as much as possible. Even if Asuka calls him an idiot, I think Fubuki is at least a pretty cool idiot,” Judai comforted Asuka.

"If it weren't for Fubuki-senpai, the number of people who fell would probably have been several times higher, right? But even so, Koma and many others still fell because of it." Saotome Rei clenched her fists in frustration. "I absolutely have to find that Cobra professor and beat him up!"

“Just as I thought, Rei! Professor Cobra went too far!” Judai nodded in agreement. “Not only Fubuki and Malden, but also Sho and Kenzan’s grudge—I must settle accounts with him!”

The first victims of the "exposing duel" that occurred a day earlier were none other than Jaden's two underlings, Marufuji Sho and Dilano Kenzan. That morning, the two argued over "who is qualified to bring breakfast to their big brother" and decided to settle their dispute with a duel. However, at the very moment their duel ended, the "death gauntlet," which had never had any problems in previous attempts, began to abnormally absorb their stamina, causing both of them to collapse.

Although both of them had participated in Hayato's "Great Expedition" and had their Duel Disks specially modified, they had forgotten to charge their Duel Disks that morning and had to borrow someone else's, which directly led to them being exhausted under the influence of the abnormal "Death Gloves".

However, their condition was less severe than that of the other students who had collapsed, so they simply stayed in their dorm room to rest, just like John, without taking up the limited medical resources in the infirmary. Incidentally, after a few days of rest, John had almost fully recovered, although he still felt a little unwell, but he could basically be said to be cured.

“This is another reason why we came to find you, teachers.” Asuka looked at the two teachers with the highest positions in the Duel Academy, now that the two principals were absent and Professor Cobra was hiding, and said, “Instructor Gene, Professor Chronos, Jim from the South Campus said he might be able to find Professor Klaus’s whereabouts.”

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(End of this chapter)