Is this the world of card dealers? Yada thieves!

"There's no reason for this. I don't remember this place being developed." Guiping ran to the fifth game pod in a daze to check, but because the pod cover was made of semi-transparent frosted glass, he could only see that the person inside had blond hair, but he couldn't tell whether it was a man or a woman.

After adjusting the controls, Guiping frowned: "No, this person is trapped in the game just like my brother. I'm afraid he was also one of the previous test subjects of the Five Elders."

"Those despicable Five Elders, they actually harmed innocent people!" Jonouchi said through gritted teeth, looking at Keihei. "This thing, you just have to sit inside it, right?"

"Just a moment." Guiping skillfully operated several devices, his fingers nimbly tapping on the keyboard. After a few moments of fiddling, the indicator lights on the remaining four game pods lit up, indicating they were running. Next to the armrest inside the game pod, a card slot popped out, its size seemingly just right to hold a deck of cards.

“After putting the deck in, you can use Duel Monsters in the game. The maximum number of cards is 40, so it’s best to check it out.” Guiping walked over, his expression complicated. “The game pod that the Five Elders prepared for my brother had a virus built in, and it didn’t import my brother’s deck data at all. If only I had checked it again back then.”

"Don't blame yourself too much, Keihei-kun," Yugi comforted him, but then awkwardly realized that Keihei was actually a little taller than him. "It's all the fault of the Five Elders, it has nothing to do with you."

Hayato placed the adjusted card deck into a capsule and looked at Keihei: "The most important thing now is to rescue Kaiba. By the way, these guys shouldn't have that virus, right?"

"Oh, it's quite comfortable to lie down in." Jonouchi had already eagerly sat down, enjoying the comfort from behind. "If this game is released in the future, it probably won't be cheap, right? I have to experience it properly now."

Honda glanced at the number of game pods: "Hmm? It seems there are only four usable ones here? But we have five people here."

"I'm going to save my brother!" Guiping said without room for argument, pulling out a deck of cards from his person. "I brought my brother's deck with me. My brother has always been the one protecting me; now it's my turn to save him."

Yugi nodded: "That's really brave, Keihei-kun. In that case, let me, Hayato, Keihei, and Jonouchi go together."

"Oh, go ahead, I'll protect you here!" Honda patted his chest confidently. "I'm none other than Honda Hiro, the fighting king of Domino Middle School."

"Honda's name is too long," Jonouchi muttered, putting away his deck. "I'll leave it to you to watch over the place."

Yugi, Hayato, and Keibai all entered the game pod.

"Alright, it's starting now. Countdown, three." Honda stood by the control panel and pressed the switches in the order that Keipai had instructed him to.

The semi-transparent hatch gradually closed, the card slots for the card decks were retracted, and the game pod began reading the card data.

"two,"

"Everyone, please come back safely."

Looking at the completely closed cabin, Honda offered his blessings.

"Just you wait and see, I'm pretty strong!" Jonouchi replied with a laugh.

Game: "Okay, it's a deal."

Keipai: "Nii-chan..."

"In this kind of situation, this line is definitely the most suitable." Hayato closed his eyes.

"First, let's start the game!"

"Link, you big-headed bastard!"

The dazzling seven-colored light could be seen clearly even with eyes closed. Hayato felt a sense of weightlessness and felt himself falling downwards.

DM World, let's go!

Chapter 187 The Undying Tomb, Level Completed

When Hayato came to his senses and opened his eyes again, he found that the four of them had somehow ended up in a dark forest.

"Is this the world of Duel Monsters?" Hayato patted his chest, regretting that he had forgotten to bring his magenta camera when he went out today.

Jonouchi touched his arm in disbelief: "Is this really a game world? This feels like my own body. Ouch, that hurts!"

Seeing Jonouchi pinching himself until tears streamed down his face, Yugi looked around speechlessly. The damp air, the feel of the wind, the rustling of leaves—it was just like the real world.

"This is what's called a 'fully immersive' game. It uses electronic data to completely simulate all the information the human body can receive, including touch, smell, sight, hearing, and even taste. In other words, it's a second world," Guiping explained enthusiastically. "If we can continue to develop this game further, maybe even the dead can live here."

"To think they could even do something like that, that's unbelievable, Kaiba." Jonouchi was somewhat incredulous. After all, not everyone could easily accept that even the dead could live here.

“Well, there’s something wrong with you. This world wasn’t designed by my brother.” Guiping’s tone was somewhat subtle. “This game, or rather the foundation of this game design—the virtual world—was actually completed before the Haima Group’s transformation.”

"Before Haima Group's transformation? I remember, back then Haima was an arms dealer, right?" Game was a little puzzled. Why would an arms company do something like this? Could it be that they wanted to use a virtual world to simulate war for the soldiers?

"Who knows? Maybe it's used to house the dead. After all, didn't Keipai say that even the dead can continue to live in this world?" Hayato, who knew the deeper meaning of this virtual world, said meaningfully, "However, we can't discuss these things all the time. Our most important thing now is to rescue Kaiba."

As Hayato and the others talked, they didn't forget to move forward. In the short time they were talking, they had already arrived at the edge of a cliff. Looking down the cliff, there was a desolate graveyard below. Tombstones lay haphazardly on the ground, and together with the light mist that enveloped the graveyard, it gave people a strange sense of gloom.

"Everyone, be careful. This world is designed based on Duel Monsters, a 'Hero Quest for Dragons' type of story," Guiping warned, raising a mechanical device in his left hand. "It doesn't look simple up ahead; there might be some monsters there."

Yugi and Jonouchi raised their hands and found that they also had a device in their hands. The card decks they had previously loaded were also placed in the device for easy drawing. Above the card decks was a long, rectangular scoreboard displaying the number "4000". Keihei didn't need to explain; the two immediately guessed that this was probably their base score, or life points, in this game.

Just then, a significant disturbance came from the cemetery they had previously observed. The ground cracked open, and decaying arms emerged one after another, as countless zombie-like monsters crawled out from beneath the tombstones.

"[Skeleton], [Armored Warrior Zombie], [Giant Mummy], and [Dragon Zombie]?" Jonouchi was reminded of some unpleasant memories. "Are all the monsters here undead dueling monsters? Hmph, Jonouchi-sama won't be afraid of you again!"

"Why does the castle say 'again'?" Keihei asked, somewhat puzzled.

The game explained to him, "Back in Duel Kingdom, someone kidnapped Jonouchi and took him to a terrifying cave full of skeletons for a duel, using undead monsters. I remember Jonouchi thought he was in the underworld and was terrified."

"Don't expose my weakness, Yugi!" Jonouchi blushed, turning his gaze to the horde of zombies crawling towards them. "Hey, Keihei, how do I use these cards? Where should I put them after I draw them? There's no dueling arena here!"

“After drawing the card, you have to shout its name loudly, otherwise the card won’t respond,” Guiping said. “According to research, the main target of this video game is young people aged 16 to 30, and this way of calling out the monster’s name before attacking can maximize their enthusiasm for the game.”

Jonouchi nodded, drew the top card of his deck—[Azure Flame Swordsman]: "Alright, let's go then, [Azure—]!"

"[VtoZ], full power!"

Just as Jonouchi raised the card above his head, before he could even finish calling out its name, a massive beam of light was launched from a short distance away, blasting into the zombie-infested graveyard. Accompanying the beam were streams of lasers and homing missiles.

Standing beside the [VWXYZ-Dragon Power Cannon], watching the massive robot behind him plow through the graveyard with its firepower, Hayato nodded with satisfaction.

In this game, the basic principle of monster summoning must also be followed: to summon a fusion monster, you must first summon the materials. So, while Jonouchi and the others were chatting, Hayato had already summoned the five VWXYZ units and combined them to create the invincible [VtoZ].

Yugi and Jonouchi were dumbfounded. The opponents were just a bunch of weak zombies with attack power of less than 2000, why summon [VtoZ]? Besides, Hayato, your monster summoning speed is way too fast! We haven't even had time to summon a single monster, and you've already taken care of all of theirs?

"No, something's not right!" Guiping noticed something amiss in the graveyard that was being bombarded by Hayato's [VtoZ]. Despite being blasted to smithereens by the powerful firepower, under Guiping's gaze, a [Skeleton] was rapidly resurrected into a complete individual from the few remaining bone fragments, and its attack power even seemed to have increased.

The undead monsters here actually increase their attack power as they are defeated?!

Guiping was about to remind Hayato of this, but Hayato already knew this would happen: "Weak, weak, weak! Before my [VtoZ], you are nothing but undead! Watch me utterly annihilate you!"

The firepower of [VtoZ] suddenly increased. The newly resurrected zombies brushed past the suddenly thickened laser cannon and were completely wiped out without leaving a trace. Even their ability to resurrect was completely cut off.

The most powerful aspect of these zombies is that they revive and gain increased attack power after being destroyed and sent to the graveyard. However, their weakness is that they become completely powerless when banished, and their defense is always 0. Coincidentally, the two effects of [VWXYZ-Dragon Strike Cannon] are, one, to banish them directly, and the other, to determine the attack and defense of the attacked monster.

Under the merciless barrage of fire, Hayato plowed the cemetery five or six times, forcibly reducing the ground by about a meter. The originally messy cemetery was cleared away and became perfectly flat.

"Hayabusa, Hayato, this should be... a Western classical world, right?" Jonouchi looked hesitantly at the giant robot standing on the ground behind Hayato. "Don't you think the mechanical monsters and stuff are a bit out of place?"

"Hmph, you don't understand. I'm bringing the blessings of modernization to these people stuck in feudalism, telling them that times have changed." Hayato snapped his fingers, directing [VtoZ] to continue forward. "Let's go, we're going to rescue Kaiba!"

"No, you're going to accidentally kill the seahorse!" The three gamers muttered to themselves as they watched Hayato directing [VtoZ] to clear a path through the forest with firepower.

Chapter 188 Earthquakes, Tsunamis, Volcanic Eruptions, and Game Players

Unfortunately, Hayato's plan to "gather all the monsters beforehand and then sweep through" ultimately failed. The VtoZ's firepower advanced only ten meters before the giant robot's form began to gradually dissipate.

"The fact that the card can only be used when entering the battle phase and the monster will disappear after ten seconds of leaving the battle is a stupid setting. It's like Kamen Rider has to run to the monster with his physical body before he will transform."

Hayato watched helplessly as the [VtoZ] he had painstakingly summoned vanished into nothingness, turning back into five VWXYZ cards. He then returned them, along with the [Armed Dragon LV3] in his hand, to his deck.

He had actually intended to summon the [Armed Dragon Assault Cannon] to speed up the advance.

“If everyone could summon monsters anytime, anywhere, there wouldn’t be any players for this online game!” Guiping held up a card he’d picked up from a graveyard and placed it in Hayato’s hand. “Hey, this is what you got from defeating the monster.”

I took the card; it depicted several gold coins, and the card was labeled "15." It seemed to be the currency used in this game, and there were fifteen of them.

"If there are coins, it means there's some way to exchange coins for something in this game, right?" Jonouchi pondered, stroking his chin, but he quickly revealed that he wasn't suited to be a wise man. "In this kind of world setting, could it be that you can exchange coins for a beautiful orc maid?"

"Even if we got it, what's the use? Haven't you realized it yet, Jonouchi?" Hayato said, making a gesture as if he were taking something out of his pocket. Then, to Jonouchi's astonishment, Hayato's hand actually came out directly from his clothes. "The clothes we're wearing are just textures created by that game pod after scanning us and getting inside."

"So that means?" Jonouchi also tried it and found that his clothes seemed to be non-existent. When he tried to grab them, he grabbed nothing and they passed right through him.

"In other words, you can forget about anything 18+." Hayato said, but suddenly stopped and fixed his gaze on the woods. Following Hayato's gaze, Yugi found what he was looking at.

Hidden among the trees, a tiny sprite, no bigger than a finger, was secretly observing Hayato and his group. It had four wings on its back and wore a small magic robe. When it noticed Hayato and Yugi looking in its direction, it seemed startled; the sprite trembled and flew away into the distance.

"Fairies in games often symbolize clues and treasure, right?" Jonouchi's face lit up with an excited smile, clearly already immersed in the game. "Yosh! Let's go catch it!"

One of them, Jonouchi, took the lead and ran ahead. The other three had no choice but to follow him, since they couldn't let him chase after them alone, and together they disappeared into the jungle.

Thanks to being in a game, he didn't feel any physical fatigue. Jonouchi followed the fairy's flight path, jogging for about five or six minutes until his vision suddenly opened up. Emerging from the dense jungle, he saw that the sky outside was bright, a stark contrast to the scenery inside the jungle.

Hayato, Yugi, and the other two quickly caught up with Jonouchi, who had stopped.

"Is it so dark inside the forest because it's shrouded in mist? No, I remember seeing the starry sky." The game analyzed, "So, the outside and inside of the forest are two different worlds? If it weren't for that fairy leading the way, we probably wouldn't have been able to find our way out at all, right?"

“Speaking of fairies,” Jonouchi looked around, “I was clearly following him the whole time, but the moment we came out of the forest, he disappeared.”

“Maybe that fairy was just an NPC guiding the way.” Guiping looked into the distance. “Look there, there’s a town.”

Nestled in a dense forest surrounded by mountains, there was a small town. Perhaps because it was a game, Hayato could easily see the people moving about in that town, even from a great distance.

"First, there were easily dealt with zombie monsters. After completing the beginner quests, I've already arrived at the beginner village?" Hayato tried to activate the card, hoping to summon a few monsters for transportation. However, because he was not in a battle state, although the card was drawn, he was unable to summon it successfully.

"This road looks quite long. Let's keep going." With a sigh, Hayato put away the card and led the way, asking Keihei, "Keihei, tell me what you know about this game, such as what situations you can't summon monsters besides the battle phase, and how the battle phase is triggered."

"Hmm, apart from the battle phase, there don't seem to be any restrictions, right? And as long as there's a conflict with any target, the battle state can be activated. After all, this game is a side project of Duel Monsters, so if the players can't enjoy Duel Monsters, it won't be attractive enough."

Hayato nodded knowingly, without asking any further questions, and looked towards the distant town, seemingly deep in thought.

After walking for quite a while, the four of them finally arrived at this "starter village". The overall architectural style of this town was somewhat similar to that of Egypt. People on the street were wearing robes and headscarves, and there were Egyptian-style jewelry and toys for sale on the streets, as well as some strange foods. They even saw people selling snakes and lizards in the town.

What's even more surprising is that although half of the town is surrounded by dense jungle, on the other side, the forest seems to be blocked from spreading forward by something, replaced by a dry and hot desert, with hot winds carrying sand and gravel coming from time to time.

As they walked, Yugi noticed something unusual about a product being sold on the street: "Hayato, Jonouchi, come and take a look at this."

"Hmm, what is it?" Jonouchi walked away from the stall of a vendor who looked like a frog, refusing the medicine the vendor was trying to sell. Aside from the fact that he wasn't injured at all, he didn't have a single penny on him and couldn't buy it even if he wanted to.

The owner of the card-selling stall looked like a cow, with extremely thick hair: "Hey handsome, come in and pick one out. If you like it, take it home!"

Upon reaching the game booth, Jonouchi's eyes widened in astonishment: "Oh! These are all super rare cards!"

Before him lay a whole array of Ritual Monster cards, from [King of the End - Demis] and [Goddess of Destruction - Luin] to [Legendary Flamebringer] and [Synthetic Werewolf], all of which were quite powerful and rare. Jonouchi even found [Requiem Demon], which Pegasus had used. It's unknown whether Kaiba Corporation, which secretly wrote the data of this card into the game, paid Pegasus a royalty.

However, the prices listed under each card are quite "powerful," with the most expensive one, [Sacrifice Demon], costing as much as 1 gold coins, while even the cheapest one, [Skeleton Rider], costs 2000 gold coins.

Among their group, even the wealthiest member, Hayato, only had 15 gold coins. These cards were simply there to tempt people.

The shop owner was still mechanically repeating the same words: "Hey handsome, come in and pick one out. If you like it, take it home?"

Hayato glanced around, then pulled out several cards from his deck and held them in his hand. With a smile on his face, he stepped forward and said, "Oh dear, I can't accept this."

Without warning, Hayato grabbed the cloth that was underneath the cards, packed them all up, and ran off into the distance, shouting, "Nigeri da yo~~!!"