Is this the world of card dealers? Yada thieves!

As the game placed Exodia's cards one by one on the dueling platform, Exodia's chained limbs slowly emerged from the magic circle—left hand, right hand, left foot, right foot—until finally, its head. The once towering Blue-Eyes White Dragon looked like three small lizards compared to Exodia's terrifying height!

The game places the card representing the "torso" onto the field, and [Exodia] is fully unsealed. To everyone's astonishment, it tears off the five chains that bind it: "This is my wrath, this is your sin! [Exodia Flame] Attack!"

A blinding flash of light streaked across the screen, and the first thing Hayato did after recovering from the glare was look at the Life Score calculator above the dueling ring. Kaiba's Life Score, marked "KAIBA," had reached zero. This meant that he had won the game.

But the game's punishment for the seahorse wasn't over yet.

Seeing Kaiba's expression of utter disbelief, Yugi extended a finger and shouted, "Mind Shatter!" Kaiba suddenly collapsed to his knees before the dueling platform, looking utterly dejected. Even after Hayato helped Yugi away, he remained in shock for a long time.

Chapter 37 I am irreconcilably opposed to gambling and drugs

The next day arrived, but neither Yugi, Hayato, nor Kaiba came to school.

"Hey, Kyoko, do you know where the games went?" During the break, Jonouchi approached Kyoko, who was touching up her makeup in front of the mirror. "Also, why are you putting on makeup today? Are you going on a blind date somewhere?"

"Do you think I'm like you guys? Drink up~" Halfway through her sentence, Kyoko couldn't help but let out a yawn that was anything but ladylike, which made Jonouchi catch it and yawn involuntarily as well. "You and Honda weren't here last night, something big happened."

"Could it be that the game met a blonde, long-legged woman on its way home and fell in love at first sight?" Honda joked, but then quietly shut his mouth and listened to Kyoko recount what happened last night.

Upon hearing that Kaiba had forcibly taken away Grandpa Sugoroku, both of them were furious: "Damn it, how dare he treat Grandpa Sugoroku like that! I'm going to settle the score with that bastard Kaiba!"

“Then you probably can’t do it.” Kyoko glared at Jonouchi, who had interrupted her with a commotion. “Do you guys remember the virtual imaging system that Manjoume used last time? There’s a complete version on the top floor of the Kaiba Corporation building. It not only perfected the sound simulation, but it can even recreate the impact of an attack.”

"Yesterday, Yugi summoned an invincible monster called something like Exodia, with infinite attack power, which drove that bastard Kaiba insane." After a pause, Kyoko continued, "However, during the duel, Kaiba summoned Blue-Eyes White Dragon, which reduced Yugi's base score to only 50 at one point, so Yugi collapsed from exhaustion right after the duel last night."

"As for Hayato, he relayed the details of those duels to me, saying you'd all be curious. He took Yugi out of the Kaiba Building and then took care of the unconscious Sugoroku-san at the hospital all night. He didn't close his eyes until this morning when Yugi woke up, which is why he took sick leave and didn't come."

"Those two idiots, Yugi and Hayato, didn't even tell us about something this big. Not only did we make a wasted trip to Kameji Game Shop yesterday, but we only just found out about it." Jonouchi looked angry, but the worry for Hayato and Yugi was impossible to hide in his eyes.

Honda chimed in, "Exactly! They don't treat us like brothers at all. Good friends can share any problem with each other. Let's go visit them this afternoon."

“Sure, no problem.” Kyoko readily agreed, but Honda looked a little embarrassed.

"Hey Honda, you're not saying you don't want to go, are you?"

"No, it's just that... there's something else I'm not sure if I should say." Honda hesitated for a moment, scratching his head before finally saying, "Yesterday, I didn't give away that puzzle set."

"Didn't we agree that you would give the gift out when the classroom was empty after school?"

"Well, I felt a little embarrassed to look through a female classmate's desk..."

————Still not sent————

Jonouchi and the others first went to Domino City Hospital to check on Grandpa Sugoroku's condition. Although he had fainted from fright yesterday, Grandpa Sugoroku, being a player of [Exodia], was naturally not too unlucky. Also, thanks to Masashi Manjoume's excellent driving skills, he was able to get to the hospital in time and had already woken up last night.

However, considering that heart problems are not minor matters, the doctor still recommended that Grandpa Shuangliu be hospitalized for a period of time.

"Thank you all for coming to visit Chicken Sauce." Yugi was deeply moved to see Jonouchi, Honda, and Kyoko visiting their grandfather and bowed deeply to his friends.

"Don't think you can get away with this by saying thank you, Yugi." Seeing how serious Yugi was, Jonouchi stepped forward and used his forearm to protect Yugi's big head. "Such a big thing happened and you didn't even tell us. If there's a next time, I'll definitely teach you a lesson."

"Haha, you guys really have a good relationship." Sitting on the hospital bed, eating an apple that Apricot had peeled, Grandpa Sugoroku watched Yugi and Jonouchi and the others playing around and smiled with satisfaction.

"Oh right, Chicken-san, I heard from Yugi that you used to be a pretty good duelist, is that true?" Jonouchi asked, releasing Yugi's large head as if remembering something.

Muto Sugoroku said nostalgically, "Of course! I was quite a formidable duelist back in the day, top-notch in skill. If you were to become my apprentice, I might be able to teach you a few moves."

"Really?" Jonouchi seemed very excited. "Then Chicken-chan, you'd better get better soon and teach me how to duel!"

The group stayed at the hospital for a little while longer before deciding to leave and not disturb Grandpa Sugoroku's rest any longer. They also planned to visit Hayato at his house next.

Although Yugi really wanted to go, he didn't plan to leave because Chicken needed someone to take care of him. However, Grandpa Sugoroku patted his chest to show that he was in good health and then kicked Yugi out of the ward so that he could also go and visit Hayato, who had stayed by his side all night.

Kyoko got Hayato's address from the teacher. After all, Yugi hadn't been to school today, and if Jonouchi and Honda went to ask, the teacher would only suspect that they were there to seek revenge. Only Kyoko, who was a girl, usually well-behaved, and had good grades, could use the excuse of "delivering today's class notes" to get Hayato's address from the teacher.

"I never imagined Hayato would live in such a luxurious place~" Looking up from the bottom of the slope, one could see a large residential area at the top of the slope, where Hayato's house was located.

Honda looked around at the surrounding environment: "Although this area has not been planned as a wealthy residential area such as a villa area, many rich and powerful people tend to live here because of the complete supporting facilities, convenient transportation, and a large sea view."

As they went up the slope, they soon found a two-story house with a wooden sign that read "Kobayashi's House" next to the gate.

"Ding dong~"

They rang the doorbell, and before the game could even identify themselves, Hayato's voice came through the intercom on the door:

"I don't order takeout, I don't shop online, I've paid my water and electricity bills for a year, my house doesn't have natural gas, and I would never gamble or do drugs!"

Chapter 38 Hayato, and Little Puff too! You can take them all.

"Hayato, aren't you being a little too wary?" Jonouchi, who hadn't even taken off his shoes before being ushered into the house by Hayato from the doorway, started complaining about the recording he had just heard at the door.

Hayato shrugged helplessly: "After all, I was robbed at gunpoint last time, so it's not too much to be a little cautious. The security guards at the property management company are all paid a fixed salary, so if you want to protect your life, you have to take precautions on a regular basis."

“That’s right, Hayato did that for safety’s sake. It’s already incredibly unlucky for someone to experience something like that even once in their life,” Kyoko said, changing into the indoor slippers Hayato had provided. She was also holding a document in her hand. “Hayato-kun, these are my notes from today’s class.”

"Thank you so much, Anzu."

Hayato led them into the living room and asked them to sit down and rest for a while, since the distance from the hospital to his house was quite long. He then went into the kitchen to prepare tea and snacks for them as a welcome.

"Hayato's house is really big! The living room alone is nearly forty square meters, and the TV screen is so big!" Jonouchi, who came from a poor family, looked around Hayato's house like a country bumpkin visiting a grand garden. He was quite surprised by everything, from the flat-screen TV without a CRT monitor to the intelligent voice-activated home assistant and the robot vacuum cleaner on the floor.

"Honda's house must be very big, right?" Yugi looked at Honda. Among the group, apart from Hayato, Honda's house was the most well-off.

Honda estimated: "My living room is only a little more than half the size of Hayato's house. Although it has an LCD TV, it's not nearly as big as a wall, not to mention the robot vacuum and the voice assistant."

"Snacks are here~ Please help yourselves." Hayato came out of the kitchen carrying a tray with coconut juice, orange juice, and soda, as well as a large plate of desserts and snacks. He placed the tray on the table and prepared a cup for each person. "What were you all talking about just now?"

“We were saying, Hayato, your house is huge!” Jonouchi poured himself a glass of orange juice, then downed it in one gulp. After finishing the juice, he asked, “Do you live alone?”

“No, I live with my parents, but my father is a diplomat and went to England.” Hayato poured himself a half-cup of soda into a special container, and ate a microwaved egg tart as he spoke. “My mother works at a company and is currently on annual leave, but except for the first day, she flew to London to visit my father on the second day.”

"Ah, speaking of which, I almost forgot something." Yu-Gi-Oh, holding a cup of coconut juice in one hand and a slice of chocolate cake in the other, was about to put it in her mouth when she suddenly seemed to remember something and hurriedly rummaged through her backpack.

In no time, the game player pulled a golden box out of his backpack. The box was covered with ancient Egyptian writing, and the front of it was marked with the symbol of the Eye of Sigatur.

"Yugi, what's this?" Hayato asked, puzzled. If he remembered correctly, this was the box that was originally used to hold the Millennium Puzzle that hadn't been fully assembled, right? Why was Yugi carrying this with him?

"Because I saw that you always put your deck in that metal box to keep it safe, Hayato, I thought that was a good way to protect your deck, so I got a metal box too."

This is seriously problematic, Gamer. My metal box is light, and I usually keep it in the system's [warehouse]. If I remember correctly, yours is pure gold, right? Let's assume everyone is a saint who wouldn't be greedy if they saw a large piece of gold. So you're not tired of wearing the Millennium Puzzle around your neck? No wonder you've never grown taller.

Hayato's thoughts went unheard by Yugi. He opened the lid of the golden chest, took out his deck, rummaged through a few cards, and then pulled out a card from the deck. He handed it to Hayato with both hands, saying, "Hayato-kun, here's your card back. I was able to defeat Kaiba thanks to this powerful card."

It was the [Man-Eating Insect] card that Hayato lent to the game.

Listen to this, what is the art of speaking? Hayato was an observer of the duel, how could he not know what happened? Yes, the Man-Eating Insect did kill one of Kaiba's Blue Eyes and reduced his HP by a full 1500 points, but didn't Kaiba revive the Blue Eye in no time?

Moreover, Yugi's victory over Kaiba wasn't due to this card, but rather his incredibly lucky draw of [Exodia]. Yet, in Yugi's words, Hayato became the biggest contributor to his victory. Hayato couldn't help but think to himself—Yugi is so eloquent, so why does he have so few friends? It must be because his card-playing is so unpredictable!

Thinking this, Hayato didn't take the [Man-Eating Bug] card that Yugi handed him. Instead, he pushed it back: "This card is yours, Yugi."

"Huh? Hayato-kun, why?"

There are some things I don't understand about the game.

"Hey, do I need a reason to give you a card? I'm glad I can help you, don't be so polite." Hayato said dismissively, but seeing Yugi's serious expression, he told the truth, "Actually, I feel that this monster doesn't fit into my deck."

"Isn't this [Man-Eating Insect] supposed to be a very powerful card?" Jonouchi chimed in, puzzled by the simple and straightforward effect of the [Man-Eating Insect]. "If this monster is summoned in the first turn, wouldn't the opponent be doomed to lose after just one attack?"

“Think about what kind of monsters are in my deck,” Hayato explained. “Dragon, Warrior, and a few Beast monsters, mostly regular monsters, so that I can maximize the effect of my [Spirit Eater's Demon Blade]. But look, [Man-Eating Insect] is an Effect Monster, and it’s an Insect-type, so it can’t accept the enhancements from my Spell Cards.”

"Thinking about it that way, it seems to make sense, doesn't it?" Jonouchi was somewhat convinced, and Hayato immediately added, "Anyway, I wouldn't add it to my deck even if you gave it back to me, and you wouldn't want this card to go to waste, right? So just keep it."

"Yes, I will make good use of this monster, Hayato-kun." Since Hayato had put it that way, Yugi couldn't refuse and had no choice but to accept the [Man-Eating Insect] card.

"Speaking of which, these pastries taste amazing! Hayato-kun, where did you buy them?" Kyoko used a fork to pick up a cherry-shaped chocolate from the cake and put it in her mouth, savoring the taste of cream and chocolate melting in her mouth. She closed her eyes and enjoyed it immensely.

"Some of the things are ready-made meals that my mother made and froze in the freezer. They can be heated up when you want to eat them, like egg tarts and cookies. These cakes and mini cream puffs are ones I made at home by myself this afternoon. I hope you like them. I have too many to eat, so you can take some home if you want."

"Really? Thank you so much, Hayato." Jonouchi doesn't usually get to eat such a lavish dessert feast, let alone take some home.

Time flew by, and after resting at Hayato's house for quite some time, Yugi and the others left with Hayato seeing them off.

As Hayato closed the front door, he heard the television in the living room suddenly turn on without anyone touching it, and a strange voice came from it: "To give such a powerful card to your friend, I'm truly moved by your friendship, Hayato boy~"

Looking at the silver-haired man on TV, Hayato showed no surprise. He pulled up a chair and sat down facing the television, glancing at the [Mission] section lit up on the system interface, and muttered vaguely, "Who knows if I truly intended to give it to him?"

Chapter 39 This guy wants to go to your place.

The real reason Hayato gave the "Man-Eating Insect" to Yugi wasn't what he told Yugi. That was just a pretext to get Hayato to accept it. It all started when Hayato bought that "Custom Booster Pack," which he still regrets to this day.

The description of that booster pack clearly states that all the cards in the pack are supplementary cards that can be added to Hayato's existing card pool, and there is a guaranteed 1 UR and 3 SR rare cards. There is also a guaranteed R-rank card in every 100 card packs.

In other words, no matter how bad Hayato's luck is, he can at least get 100 R cards, 3 SR cards, and 1 UR card, all of which can be added to his card pool. This prevents him from getting a bunch of Chaos Warrior support cards when he is playing the Divine Eagle deck.

Hayato initially thought so too, but to his utter surprise, the "card pack replenishment based on the current card pool," which he valued most, turned out to be the biggest pitfall. This was because the card packs were based not on the "deck," but on the card pool itself.

When Hayato bought the card pack, his deck was mostly Warrior-type monsters, followed by four Dragon-type monsters and the three Disruptors. The most common monster attribute was "Earth".

Therefore, Hayato's first card pack yielded an extremely powerful SR card—[Gransol, the Earth Spirit God].

[Grantor, the Earth Spirit] [8☆/Earth] [Beast Warrior/Effect] [2800/2200]

Although this well-built monster has limitations such as "cannot be Normal Summoned" and "can only be Special Summoned when there are exactly 5 [EARTH] monsters in the Graveyard," and also has the negative effect of "skipping its next Battle Phase" after leaving the field, its first effect is powerful enough—

Revive a monster from your or your opponent's graveyard to your field; this is essentially a monster effect version of "Monster Resurrection".

Hayato was naturally quite happy to draw such a card, especially such a great start. However, his smile immediately disappeared from the second pack of cards onwards.

I opened thirty card packs in one go, and without exception, all the R cards inside were Earth-type monsters, ranging from Insect and Warrior to Machine, Rock, and even a few Dragons.

The only thing that made Hayato somewhat relieved was that, in the thirty-first pack, he finally got a card he had his eye on before—[Dragon Knight Gaia].

Although it was just a regular fusion monster, it was the first fusion monster card Hayato had ever obtained, and it was a dragon-type monster. His "Dragon Mirror," which had been gathering dust in his storage room for a long time, finally had a use.

The subsequent card packs followed a similar pattern of good and bad, and in the end, Hayato ended up recycling about fifty cards from the pile he opened, gaining only about 500 DP. However, not all the remaining cards were useless; the [Gigantify] card that Hayato had used before and the [Man-Eating Insect] card he gave to Yugi were two UR cards he opened.

Although Hayato pulled two UR cards as a guaranteed reward, he still got exactly ten SR cards. Besides [Dragon Knight Gaia] and [Gransol, Earth Spirit God], there were several general-purpose support cards for Warrior-type decks, and one [Disruptive Land] useful for [Disruptive] decks. It's worth noting that the system also classifies [Fusion] spell cards as SR, and Hayato pulled one this time as well.

When Hayato opened his 40th card pack, he remembered he had a quest to "collect R-rank or higher cards." After claiming the 1000 dp reward, the quest list refreshed, and a new quest appeared—

This guy wants to come over to your place.

Gift a card of UR rarity or higher to another person.

Rewards: 1000 dp, one random [Kuriboh] series card

After receiving the reward for completing the task from the system, Hayato didn't check which Kuriboh card he had randomly drawn. After confirming that he now had 4500 DP, he looked at the figure on the TV screen.

“So, shall we continue the topic we were interrupted about, Mr. Pegasus? What do you think of my previous suggestion?” He shook the glass of soda in his hand as if it were a glass of wine, but then quickly put the glass back down after realizing that this action would only accelerate the escape of the bubbles.

"Oh, Hayato boy~, to be honest, I'm really amazed by the novel ideas in your head." The TV currently playing on Hayato's screen was just a pre-recorded videotape, but Pegasus in the video seemed to be having a video call with Hayato, talking to him, "Perpetually existing magic cards, equipment and fields, and quick-play magic cards that reflect the speed of spells."