Is this the poker world?Ada thief!

Kaiba felt extremely pleased after utterly annihilating Jonouchi with his strongest and most dazzling [Ultimate Dragon Mage] and [Blue-Eyes Ultimate Spirit Dragon].

"Hmph, a mediocre person is indeed just a mediocre person. I'm afraid you have no idea how much my Blue Eyes has been strengthened since you humiliatingly defeated me with that pathetic combo. Now, this Blue Eyes, which has mastered the power of 'Synchro,' is far more perfect than you can imagine!"

"My evolution speed is faster than light! No one in the entire universe can keep up with my speed!"

Upon hearing this, Jonouchi couldn't help but retort, "Was that your line? Does Hayato know that you're using that line to show off in front of me behind his back?"

"Hmph, you duelist with a second-rate deck, you should first accept your loss and hang up this sign properly."

Kaiba glanced at Jonouchi and arrogantly tossed out the tag he had sent to Isono online before the duel began, which he had already completed and delivered to him before the duel ended.

Jonouchi instinctively caught the tag. Its design was exactly the same as the employee badges inside the Haima Group. However, the position where the employee's head should have been placed was instead occupied by the head of "Red-Eyes Black Dragon". The job information and other details were removed and replaced with the sentence "Red-Eyes is the district".

On the other side, there's even a laser-engraved line: "You're a third-rate duelist with a fourth-rate deck," brimming with sarcasm.

"Gulp... I'll remember this grudge and get my revenge sooner or later."

Although reluctant, Jōnei always valued the spirit of contracts, so he put on the employee badge.

When he first met Otogi Ryuji, he lost the Monster Dragon Dice after a bet. Jonouchi even wore a dog suit and acted as Otogi's "pet dog" for a whole day, and didn't forget to add the "woof" verbal tic to himself.

It was only because Hayato defeated Otogi Ryuji that the "master-servant contract" was dissolved; otherwise, Jonouchi would probably have kept his promise and remained a "castle dog" in the literal sense.

Because he had promised before the duel that if he lost, he would have to wear his employee badge for the whole day, Jonouchi obediently put on his badge, but still said to Kaiba, "I'll hold back for now and avoid a confrontation!"

"The loser should just get out of my sight."

With an impatient wave, Kaiba shooed Jonouchi away. Jonouchi had already helped him test the new dueling system and played a game of cards with him, which had relieved his card addiction triggered by witnessing Hayato's duel. So, at least for now, Jonouchi was no longer of any use to Kaiba here.

"Tsk, I don't want to be in the same room as you." Jonouchi pouted and walked out unhappily. After taking a few steps, he subconsciously looked down at the name tag on his chest, feeling extremely annoyed.

After the castle was empty, Kaiba turned back to the dueling arena, plugging the USB drive back in to activate the new dueling system.

Although it's an early product, merely turning the ideas in the seahorse's mind into reality, and hasn't even been given a codename yet, the duel just now gave the seahorse a lot of confidence, making him feel that this thing might really be able to meet his needs.

It is extremely difficult to quantify a person with fixed data. Even with the world's most advanced hardware and software systems, the fact that Haima Group has not yet been able to create a dueling robot that can replicate the level of Hayato Kobayashi speaks volumes.

However, the limits of data are not the limits of humans. Just like writing control code for robots, even for a simple action like picking up a water glass, countless entries need to be written, but for humans, picking up a glass of water is almost as easy as using your hands.

The same applies to recreating the duels of legendary duelists.

Previously, dueling robots needed to constantly connect to the Haima Group's servers and access a large amount of data to barely recreate duelists. Now, they can achieve almost 99% accuracy by simply using one party's "impression" of the other.

Although Kaiba previously concluded that the "Darz in my heart" would "go wrong" because of a data overflow caused by not clearing the cache in time, according to his calculations, if it were like the game and Jonouchi, which only restores Kajiki Ryota and the Gluth Hunter, it would take another 500 to have the same situation.

This amount of data is sufficient for normal use throughout the day without any issues. Considering that the other duelists—Yugi and Jonouchi—are also very strong duelists, an average person could go a month without clearing the cache.

Ultimately, it must be because Hayato knew Dartz too well and knew too many of his secrets that caused the duel system to generate too much data garbage when it was recreating Dartz.
However, on the other hand, the system error was caused by not clearing the cache, but not clearing the cache doesn't mean it's all bad.

In conventional software systems, caching can reduce the time required for users to access the same content the next time and save computing power; however, the cache in this duel system is being manually exported by the seahorse and reproduced on the field.

Fortunately, Kaiba didn't have too many people to test. After removing Kajiki Ryota's data and the data of the Gurus Hunter, a green-haired man in a white robe quickly appeared in front of Kaiba.

"Whole Brain Simulation. Loading;"

"Individual-Specific Increments (King-Of-Atlantis/Mark-II). Applications;"

"Sensory circuit. Load;"

"Running test suite. Complete;"

"Brain function recovery complete;"

"Polling... Complete;"

"Wake up. Error, Error!"

The earlier parts went smoothly, but when it came to finally recreating Dartz, Kaiba found himself unable to complete it. Even though all the data was normal, and Dartz did indeed resemble the person Kaiba remembered, he simply couldn't wake up.

It's as if Dartz now lacks something essential for thought and activity compared to the Dartz before. However, Kaiba had clearly restored the data exactly as it was—except that Hayato Kobayashi wasn't present.

First of all, it is certain that even Hayato was using this new system for the first time. He had no prior experience with it than Yugi and Jonouchi, so it was impossible for him to have done anything with it. Moreover, his previous operations were entirely under Kaiba's guidance.

It can't be because Hayato actually carries a special card containing some kind of "clone" or "consciousness" of Dartz, which is why he can use this duel system to recreate Dartz in a lifelike way, and the data overflow is caused by processing two consciousnesses in parallel, right?
Leaving aside the feasibility of this baseless speculation, Kaiba doesn't believe Hayato would possess such a card. Even if things like "card spirits" exist, the idea that even human consciousness could become a spirit is simply unbelievable.

"My adoptive father died. He never returned after going out to sea." On stage, a blonde girl wearing a mask is performing in a play.

If this were the set of some girl band's film, perhaps in the following plot, the girl would escape her "original family," become infatuated with her niece, and even perform a gravity-based crawling motion on stage.

However, this is the world of the card players, so while the girl band and the card players do share the same worldview, at least this blonde girl on stage will become—

Raising her left arm to hold the duel disk, the girl proudly pointed to the card placed on it: "Because I still couldn't find my dad in the end, I had to build his grave on the shore. This card is the one my dad came to me after he went missing at sea for three years."

"To me, this card is my dad's alter ego, so it's my absolute and ultimate trump card!"

Across from the girl, another girl wearing the same uniform as Jonouchi shouted, "That's amazing, Kajiki Ryouko, but I, Jonouchi Kuri, also have my reasons for winning this duel!"

"Bring it on! Red-Eyes will never lose!"

"Ooh ooh ooh ooh!"

"Oh oh oh ah ah ah!"

As a backdrop to the two girls' actions, the virtual projection system in the theater displayed virtual images at the opportune moment when the plot finally reached Climax.

Previously, there were no special effects, but now that they have been added, even though virtual images of Duel Monsters are now almost ubiquitous with the popularity of Duel Disks, the contrast between before and after makes the [Red-Eyes Black Dragon] and [Legendary Fisherman] appear more exquisite and gorgeous.

(The original work of "The Legendary Fisherman" hints at the existence of spirits.)
Especially the latter, in order to restore the special realism of the original "Legendary Fisherman" in Kajiki Ryota's hands as much as possible, most of the theater's computing power seemed to be concentrated on that side, resulting in the "Red-Eyes Black Dragon" attacking movements becoming quite stiff.

As the monster moved, the two girls on the stage did not simply command the monster to fight like regular duelists. Instead, they rushed out with the monster, throwing punches and kicks at their opponent and performing very beautiful moves.

The final result of the performance was a victory for "Jounouchi Kuri's" side. The girl, who was also wearing a mask, maintained her persona and made a facial expression that Hayato and Yugi recognized very well: "Okay, we won!"

While the theater wasn't packed with people because it was a free day at the Seahorse Park, nearly a hundred people still watched the performance, far more than the audience for the first performance of a certain first-generation anime idol group.

(Author's note: I am not trying to stir up trouble for Guo Huang; I am also a lesbian.)

Among these nearly one hundred people were Hayato and Yugi.

Watching the two actors bowing to the audience as the curtain fell, Yugi clapped and turned to Hayato, saying, "That performance was truly wonderful and moving."

"This is the kind of emotional experience I want to incorporate into my game."

It's clear that the game drew a lot of inspiration from this performance.

Hayato, standing next to him, clapped his hands in satisfaction: "I must say, it's really good."

Following the advice of their junior schoolmate, Fujiwara Yukino, who was "working" at Kaiba Park as part of community service at Domino City High School, Hayato and Yugi went to the fifth floor of Kaiba Park but did not watch the movies.

The game recommended a play to Hayato with a title that was easy to misunderstand: "Water and Fire in Two Heavens! The Giant Dragon of the Sea!" The two of them happened to be there when the play started, so they went into the theater and have been watching ever since.

"You recommended this to me, but I thought, with such advanced virtual projection technology and all the memorable duels we've had, why bother coming to the theater for this kind of performance? Now it seems it really has its merits."

"The plot adaptation was subtle and well-executed, and the virtual projection system used only at crucial moments was a brilliant touch. However, what's most delightful is definitely 'that.'"

Hayato, getting carried away, said, "The passion of two girls is more appealing to fans than that of two men. The person who came up with the idea of ​​'gender swapping' is a genius, and changing the way monsters fight from virtual images to duelists fighting in person is a stroke of genius!"

"I love watching women fight!"

Yugi refrained from commenting on Hayato's eccentricities, but turned to look around with some confusion: "But it's so strange, why hasn't Jonouchi arrived yet—how many rounds has he fought Kaiba?"

"Not really. This performance is half an hour long. Even if they were playing a drawn-out game, they would have emptied their decks by now," Hayato said casually. "I guess Jonouchi is too embarrassed to come and watch the performance, that's why he hasn't shown up yet?"

"Although this performance is based on the duel between Kajiki Ryota and Jonouchi in Duelist City, I remember that Jonouchi and Kajiki Ryota obtained authorization from each of them before the adaptation, right?" Yugi asked with some doubt. "After all, it involves plot adaptation and casting."

"It can't be because, although Kajiki Ryota's side has given the authorization, Jonouchi's side is completely unaware that Kaiba Group is going to put on a gender-swapped duel performance between him and Kajiki Ryota because he went on a honeymoon trip around the world with Mai and handed over all the authority to the agency."

"So by the time he found out about this, the play had already been released for some time. He could only feel ashamed and helpless, so he simply decided not to come and avoid seeing it, to keep quiet about it?"

Upon hearing the game casually utter a long and complex sentence, Hayato remarked, "There's more I don't know than I do know in the classics."

Because the virtual projection system technology has been deployed on a large scale in the Seahorse Park, and even installed on the stage of the theater, a considerable part of the originally complex and important stage scenery has been completed by virtual projection technology, with only some interactive objects remaining.

So, another performance was scheduled to begin in half an hour after this one. However, Hayato and the game had already seen enough, and they didn't plan to watch any more movies.

Of course, this has nothing to do with the next performance, which will be performed by three actors and is titled "Invincible Toon Army? The Magic of Bonds!", which seems to be an adaptation of the final battle in Duel Kingdom, where Hayato and Yugi fought Pegasus together.

No, absolutely not! (End of Chapter)