Is this the world of card dealers? Yada thieves!

"Hmph! Trying to escape?" Jonouchi played a card, "[Lightning Warrior - Guilford], use Lightning Whirlwind Slash!"

—That's what I was going to say, but unfortunately, while Jonouchi himself has some methods for dealing with the supernatural, he mostly relies on the power of the spirits, such as the [Red-Eyes] and the [Flame Swordsmen]. As for [Lightning Warrior - Guildford], although he's been with Jonouchi for many years, awakening a spirit isn't that simple. He simply hasn't achieved it.

But it doesn't matter, the game will take care of it!

"【Destroyer Dragon - Gandora G】!"

With a shout, a dragon claw suddenly appeared in Saiou's flight path, slapping Saiou's flying body with a force that wasn't too heavy but not too light either. Saiou let out another strange "Bugah!" and was knocked to the ground. A colorful starfish stood upright in the forest... cough cough cough, it was just a game with a helpless expression.

“I almost thought that you, Jonouchi, had gotten lost and couldn’t find your way back. It’s been so long.”

Yugi removed the card "Gandora G" from his Duel Disk. Since "Gandora G" was still on display in the exhibition hall, it was the only card he could use. He also didn't dare let "Gandora G" run rampant like he had on the beach, otherwise it might attract a lot of idle students.

"Although I'm not entirely sure what's going on, that person was emanating a rather unsettling aura. I attacked him; I should be fine... right?"

Although he was a few years older and looked much more mature, the core of the game was still the same gentle game. Even though Saiou was radiating a disgusting aura that he loathed when he was running away, he still made the [Destroyer Dragon - Gandora G] hold back a little when it attacked, at most causing a few pains to an ordinary person's body, but not enough to break any bones.

Even when he saw that Saiou had fallen face down on the ground, he was a little worried that he might have used too much force. He should have used the Elf Swordsman as a cushion and let him crash into Saiou directly with his body.

(Cannon Fodder Swordsman: Well, thank you!)

—As mentioned before, although Jonouchi and Yugi were called to the Obelisk-Blue dormitory by Hayato, Jonouchi wanted to find a toilet on the way, which resulted in Yugi and Jonouchi staying near the exhibition hall, while only Hayato went to the Obelisk-Blue dormitory.

This led Hayato to call on Ryo Marufuji and Fubuki Tenjouin to make up for the lack of manpower, and also resulted in the game still waiting near the location of the exhibition hall.

It could be said that Saiou was just incredibly unlucky, or that Jonouchi, who wanted to keep Saiou, this "monster impersonating Hayato," incredibly lucky. Saiou casually picked an escape route, and it happened to be exactly in the direction the game was playing!

"My head... my head hurts so much, I feel like I'm about to throw up!" Clutching his head, Saiou lay on the ground, then looked up at Yugi. "The Nameless Pharaoh's Vessel, Yugi Muto? He's on this island too, and near the exhibition hall where his deck is displayed?"

"Damn it! Where did things go wrong? This shouldn't be how my destiny was predicted!"

A sudden realization struck Saiou, and he used his ability to foresee the future once again, while Yugi remained oblivious to the situation and Jonouchi had not yet arrived at the scene.

How can every divination result be wrong? Since problems keep arising with Katsuya in that castle, why not just avoid divining the future related to him? The future that Saiou wants to foresee this time is about how he will escape from the encirclement of the two legendary duelists.

The moment he saw the future, Saiō's expression froze, as if he felt incredibly aggrieved, but he still endured it. Although it was shameful and undignified to do that, as long as he could leave this place, his future was still promising. Before his plans could be implemented, preserving himself was the most important thing.

Besides, although I couldn't play the pieces I prepared beforehand, it's still appropriate to use them now!

Thinking this, white magical energy suddenly surged from Saiou's body, beginning to brew something, and Yugi immediately noticed the abnormality. If the aura emanating from Saiou before at most made Yugi feel that Saiou might have come into contact with some dark power, then the power emanating from Saiou's body at this moment completely confirmed Yugi's suspicion that Saiou had at least had deep contact with something evil.

What truly confirmed Yugi's belief that Saiou was either controlled by or wielded by supernatural forces was the shout from afar from Jonouchi, who, having regained his senses and was in pursuit of Saiou, cried out: "Don't let him escape, Yugi! This guy is a youkai who can mimic humans!"

"monster?"

Although he didn't quite understand what Jonouchi meant, after glancing at Saiou, Yugi decided to ignore it and just beat him up first. But he had only taken one step when he saw Saiou suddenly jump up from the ground, enduring a headache, and say, "Stand right there, Yugi Muto! Don't come any closer to me!"

“I used my power to infect a little brat on the island. Although I didn’t control her body, I did affect the cards in her deck, forcibly awakening the card spirits.” Saiou said, taking a step back. “Do you know what that means?”

Although the game has never seen anyone else have their card spirits forcibly awakened by external forces, it has heard of such a thing from Hayato. Apparently, it was an opponent he encountered in the first KC Cup who had his spirit forcibly awakened by a card with dark power. His own deck was a vampire deck with an evil focus, which directly led to the duelist being controlled by the awakened spirit and becoming its servant.

"Judging from your eyes, you know what's going to happen, right? So don't come any closer to me, I don't want to remind you anymore!" Noticing that Yugi subconsciously raised his foot, Saiou didn't care what Yugi was going to do and shouted in a dramatic manner, "Although your card was displayed, I checked, not all Pokémon are displayed with the cards, right? You can use your own Pokémon to sense whether what I said is true."

Without the game needing to do anything, the spirits of [Dark Magician] and [Dark Magician Girl] spontaneously flew out of the cards in the game and into the sky, sensing the unique aura throughout the island. Although it was a rough estimate, with the combined efforts of the master and apprentice, they quickly found an aura similar to the white magical energy emanating from Saiou at that moment by the lake on the island.

"That's right, you already know I wasn't lying, right? So don't come near me, just stand there, otherwise I might accidentally manipulate that power from afar and cause the spirit imbued with my power to go out of control and hurt people."

This is the foolproof escape route that Saiou saw in the future. He wasn't sure if the game in front of him would let him go for the safety of a stranger. In any case, he himself would not do that. But this was the only future he saw where he could escape smoothly without being interfered with by Jonouchi Katsuya.

Fortunately, Saiou's gamble paid off. Just as Yugi hesitated and stopped, and Jonouchi caught up to attack Saiou, it was Yugi, who was being threatened by Saiou, who stopped Jonouchi.

If it were Hayato, he might have done something like shouting "This is a necessary sacrifice" before saving someone and killing Saiou before he could act. But Yugi wouldn't risk someone else's life; this is a gentleness he can't change no matter how much he grows up.

After explaining the situation to Jonouchi, Jonouchi went to inform Hayato about it. Yugi stood there, staring at Saiou with a cold smile, before retreating into the bushes and disappearing from sight.

After a few minutes of off-road running by the physically gifted Jonouchi, he quickly arrived at the Obelisk-Blue dormitory standing by the lake, and easily found Hayato and his group, who had just brought David Labb down from upstairs and handed him over to Professor Chronos, looking puzzled.

"The game sensed that some students by the lake were possessed by a special power?" Hayato raised an eyebrow, glancing at the blue dormitory he had just left. "The problem is, I didn't sense any special power in the blue dormitory either. If I had, I would have noticed it long ago. Could it be that it's not in the boys' dormitory but in the girls' dormitory?"

"But then again, who is possessed? I'm thinking that even though I'm the principal, I can't just barge into the girls' dormitories and go looking for everyone."

As he spoke, Hayato shrugged helplessly.

Although she didn't understand what her idol, Master Jonouchi, was saying to the principal, which she couldn't comprehend, Fubuki still chimed in, "Reporting to the principal, there's more to the lakeside than just the Blue Dormitory."

“Of course I know that there’s more than just Obelisk-Blue’s dorms by the lake, my villa is also by the lake…” Hayato stopped mid-sentence, turning his head to look at his residence on the other side of the wide lake, which he could vaguely see across the water. “…Holy crap, how come someone would go to my dorm area?”

Chapter 1236 After the winter break ended, everyone seemed a bit more mature.

Beside a lake on Duel Academy Island, in a secluded rainforest where no one dares to approach, lies Hayato's "Principal's Dormitory." (See Volume 10, Chapter 45)

Calling it a "dormitory" is just a name. Because Hayato extorted that tycoon Kaiba from him, the "dormitory" where he lived alone was turned into a three-story Western-style mansion, and even a clock tower was built to show off its grandeur. After all, he got the construction team from Kaiba Group for free, so Hayato could do without him, but he couldn't do without him.

With its blue translucent glass, red tiled eaves, and the yellow dial of the clock tower, this Western-style mansion combines the representative colors of the three dormitories of Duel Academy, indicating that considerable effort was put into its design. Furthermore, driven by the designer's own quirky sense of humor, the construction team was instructed to use a special technique to create superficial cracks on the exterior walls, making the mansion appear as an old building dating back to the Middle Ages.

Not to mention the garden in front of the mansion, where there are flowerbeds that have obviously been carefully tended and maintained by someone. Even today, as winter approaches, many specially selected hardy flowers are still in bloom, as if time has been paused at their most vibrant moment, unaffected by the season.

Putting everything else aside, Saotome Rei, standing in front of the mansion, was already deeply shocked.

"Wow, could this be the address of that person? It must be! Who else but that person could live in such a magnificent place!" Saotome Rei, who had endless fantasies about the abilities of her idol, stared wide-eyed excitedly at the red mansion shrouded in the night.

Living in such a magnificent mansion, with a lake view right outside the door and such a comfortable garden, that person must have a great mood every day when going to school.

In the hand-drawn map she created at the academy, based on information such as the posted maps and road signs, the first location marker representing the visitor's apartment and the second location marker representing the Obelisk-Blue dormitory had been crossed out. Although she had already been to the Obelisk-Blue dormitory, after seeing Professor Chronos's narcissistic headshot posted at the dormitory entrance, she had completely lost interest in going inside to check if her idol lived there.

No matter how you look at it, the possibility that the person lives here is much greater than that. And what if you accidentally walk into the room of that old man with the "Pot of Greed" hairstyle and feel disgusted? Standing in front of the red mansion, Saotome Rei thought to herself as she looked around for something.

Before long, she found a stone tablet standing on the ground, which seemed to be made from leftover building materials. A note was pasted on it and fluttered in the lakeside breeze, attracting Saotome Rei's attention.

The note bore three large characters: "Xiao Lin Di". In ancient times, "Di" was generally used to refer to the residence of high-ranking officials. Although in recent years, due to the global situation entering a state of overall peace with localized conflicts, and the booming real estate industry leading to the casual naming of various properties, the character "Di" has become quite common and not particularly valuable, simply adding one's surname at the beginning of the name "Xiao Lin Di" still sounds rather arrogant.

Besides "Kobayashi's Residence", there is a line of small print below the note that can be seen up close, clearly stating "Beware of vicious dogs, trespassers will be held responsible", and there is even a cute dog head symbol.

Looking at the note, Saotome Rei couldn't find the "vicious dog" at all. She had already walked around the garden and hadn't seen it. She guessed the note was just something she had written randomly. Without taking the note to heart, she immediately walked through the garden toward the main entrance of the mansion.

It was after she passed the stone tablet that the tape holding the paper strip seemed to lose its stickiness completely, and the paper with "Kobayashi Residence" written on it was blown to the ground by the wind, revealing the inscription on the stone tablet that had been covered up. Red paint filled the gaps, and under the bright moon without any clouds to block out the light, the words "Scarlet Devil Mansion" were clearly reflected. Then the word "scarlet" was crossed out and replaced with "falcon," becoming "Falcon Devil Mansion."

As Saotome Rei walked past them and revealed her back, the seemingly harmless plants in the garden quietly pulled themselves out of the soil and aimed their hideous and sharp limbs at the unsuspecting Saotome Rei. Bloodthirsty creatures followed the scent of living beings and were about to prey on the trespasser who had entered the garden.

However, the next moment, a woman's voice rang out in the garden, and then a bamboo basket, along with a full white cloth, fell to the ground, covering all the plants.

"Whoa—!"

Hearing the sound, Saotome Rei turned around in surprise and saw a blue-haired girl in a maid outfit lying on the ground. It seemed that she had tripped and fallen while walking on flat ground, and the mud-stained clothes in front of her seemed to be the result of the fall. Whether they were dirty before or not, they were now completely dirty.

"Ugh... I've gotten the clothes dirty again. Even though they're dry curtains that haven't been washed yet, I guess I'll have to wash them at least three more times now..." The blue-haired maid looked at the clothes on the ground with a mournful face and tears in her eyes. She belatedly noticed Saotome Rei, who was watching her.

Both sides pointed to the opposite side and shouted at the same time:

"Wow! Someone saw us!" "Cosplaying a maid!"

Upon hearing Li's words, the blue-haired maid—[Half-Dragon Maid, Laundry Dragon Girl]—quickly replied, "It's not like I'm some kind of cheapskate! Although I'm different from Sister Dici and Sister Yaoguang, my dragon horns are real too!"

"And my perfect, soft, and comfortable fluffy tail, my owner can curl it up and play with it until they fall asleep!"

Pointing to the two small horns on her head that looked like hair ornaments clipped to her head in Li's eyes, the maid Xiaolan proudly hugged her fluffy tail and showed off.

Rei couldn't help but retort, "Are you trying to tell me you're some kind of dragon maid? Idiot, what dragon has a tail that's all fluffy? That's just some kind of plush decoration wrapped around its body."

"Little Blue's tail is fluffy! And Little Blue is a dragon maid!" She confidently put her hands on her hips, but then suddenly remembered that every time her master talked about playing a "pure [half-dragon maid] deck," she would never include herself in the deck. Little Blue suddenly lost her confidence. "Maybe?"

"You're not even sure yourself, and you don't even deny that you're an idiot?" Rei said, looking at the shyly scratching Xiao Lan. "But, do you think you're set up to be a maid working here?"

"That's not just a setting, Xiao Lan is actually the maid here, the laundry maid who's in charge of doing the laundry." She patted her thin chest confidently, then added dejectedly, "...Even so, that thing called a 'washing machine' has completely stolen all my work! The master even said I'd break it and wouldn't let me touch it, so now I can only wash the curtains occasionally..."

"Today I'm just unlucky; I got the cloth, which was only clean and only needed one wash, dirty and now I have to wash it several times. Waaah..."

As she spoke, tears welled up in Xiao Lan's eyes again.

Seeing that Xiao Lan, who "seemed" to be about the same age as herself and was just a child, was about to cry, Saotome Rei ignored the child's cries and didn't even think about comforting her. Instead, she suddenly had a cunning idea and revealed a sinister smile of a scheming person: "Hey Xiao Lan, you don't want your master to know that you can't even wash curtains, do you?"

Having heard Xiao Lan mention it so many times, Li already knew that her name should be "Xiao Lan." As a native of Dongguo, she spoke to Xiao Lan in a subtle tone.

Hearing Li's words, Xiao Lan couldn't help but imagine her future. What if she was disliked by her master because she was too useless? Wouldn't that be...?

"No, I don't want that kind of thing! Yaoguang and the others told me that we'd be servants to Master for life, for life!" Xiaolan said to Li in a panic, imagining that she had caused Master to stand in front of Yaoguang and the others and say something like, "I'm here to end my relationship with you servants." "I'm willing to do anything I can."

Looking at Xiao Lan, whom he had successfully threatened, Li smiled and nodded, saying, "Of course, no problem, Xiao Lan. This is a secret between the two of us. But I know your name and where you live, okay?"

"So now—" Rei's eyes were full of anticipation, "take me inside the mansion!"

Exploring on your own is nowhere near as quick and efficient as having an insider lead the way. Just by looking at the outside, you can tell that there are way too many rooms in this mansion. It's so late, and I don't want to explore each room one by one anymore. Luckily, I have Xiao Lan, the maid, who can help me find that person's room directly. It's like using Xiao Lan's horn and my red school uniform to achieve three times the speed!

Hearing Li's request, Xiao Lan looked troubled. Although her master hadn't said she couldn't help outsiders with directions, he hadn't said she could help them either. Would helping others into the mansion anger her master?

If I don't do the housework well and the master finds out, he will be angry. But if I promise to not let the master know about it and then take him to the mansion, and the master still gets angry, then wouldn't I have helped for nothing?

After pondering for a while with the extraordinary wisdom she had learned from her master, Xiao Lan said helplessly, "Waaah, alright then, but you have to be careful and don't let anyone find out that I brought you into the mansion."

Li nodded immediately, watching as Xiao Lan casually stuffed the curtain fabric on the ground into a bamboo basket to be washed later, and then walked ahead towards the mansion. He immediately followed behind, and the two of them slipped into the mansion through the open door.

With Xiao Lan, the "mole," leading the way, Li's infiltration went quite smoothly. The two followed the stairs in the entrance hall of the mansion to the second floor and, under Xiao Lan's guidance, headed to a certain room.

However, it should be noted that although only Hayato lives in the mansion and there are empty rooms available for guests to stay for a long time, this only refers to the fact that there is only one "person" in Hayato. However, he has more than just one or two card spirits.

Leaving aside the active forests and lakeside companions, and the predatory plants in the garden, Xiao Lan's half-dragon maids are the main logistics team for Hayato in the mansion. It's not just Xiao Lan who's out and about. In fact, when Rei followed Xiao Lan into the mansion, the half-dragon maid, Tianfeng Dragon Girl—also known as Xiao Midori—who was waiting at the entrance as the living room dragon girl, had already noticed the two of them. However, she was busy stealing food from Xiao Hong's cooking and didn't show up at the time.

(Little Green: WTF, eat, eat, eat, eat, eat)

Although not as oblivious as Xiao Lan, who hadn't yet sensed the special aura emanating from Li, Xiao Lü wasn't worried at all about what trouble he might cause, after all—

There are plenty of troublesome characters on the second floor.

After passing several strange decorative pieces of furniture—a wall clock with a bat replacing a cuckoo's chime, a stove that looked like a cat—Xiao Lan and Li turned a corner next to a statue of a demon knight leaning on a sword and came to a long corridor.

Completely unaware that the furniture and statues along the way were all watching him, Li asked with some confusion, "Why haven't we reached that person's room yet?"

"Oh dear, we're almost there. Because too many people sneak over at night, Master specially chose the most remote room. He said that this way everyone can keep an eye on each other and not give each other a chance. But I don't quite understand, because every time I come to play with Master, no one stops me."

As Xiao Lan spoke casually, she led Li through several more rooms down the corridor before stopping in front of a tightly closed door. She cautiously asked Li, "You just said you only wanted to take a look at the master's room, is that true? Don't try to lie to me, I'm very smart."

"Although the master hasn't returned yet, it will be too late if we wait until the master gets home, so you can only take a look and not look any longer."

Because Hayato always carried his cards with him and never left them somewhere for others to steal, Ran wasn't worried at all that Rei was going to steal anything. After all, she subconsciously assumed that Rei was also a student on the island, and she believed her excuse that she just wanted to take a look at the master's room.

Although she didn't know what was so interesting about the master's room, and even often went there to play, Xiao Lan thought that it shouldn't be a problem to just take a look, and that taking another look wouldn't cause an explosion. For this reason, Xiao Lan brought the gift to Hayato's room and pushed open the closed door.

However, the moment Xiao Lan pushed open the door, Li suddenly darted into the room and pounced on the bed in the center of the room, a smug look on his face: "Just taking a look? How could that be enough? Who's going to replenish the energy I'm missing from that master? At least let me roll around in the place where that master slept!"

"Hehehe—"

However, the moment Rei lunged forward, countless threads suddenly extended from Hayato's bed, binding Rei in mid-air!

To Xiaolan and Li's disbelief, they saw [Shadowy Midrash] crawl out from under the blankets Hayato had laid out. Though in doll form, it displayed a human-like expression of displeasure: "...It's all your fault...My surprise for Master...is gone..."

"Before you complain about me, Xiao Lan, why were you hiding under the master's blanket, Sister Xiaomi?!"