Is this the world of card dealers? Yada thieves!

"Don't think we'll let you off the hook just because you're cute! Give me back my skewers, or no one will come to save you no matter how much you scream!"

Upon hearing Judai's words, the pink cat meowed twice more, then looked up at the sky and suddenly stopped moving.

"Don't think you can get away with just spacing out!" Amelda said, her face darkening, as she was about to pull out her card to attack. She knew how to go easy on Marufuji and his gang of brats using [New-Style Chef], and the card Marufuji had set up during his Monster Total Attack was even [Explosive Armor], showing just how much she'd held back. But a thief who stole her food?

I must summon the dump trucks immediately! [Mech Force - Destruction Force], run this Hakimi over!

However, Jaden also looked up and suddenly asked Ameruda, "Mr. Ameruda, did the weather forecast say there would be a meteor today?"

"Which weather forecast predicts meteors? Clear skies turning into a desolate wasteland with a falling star?" Ameruda scoffed, then frowned and asked, "Why are you suddenly asking this?"

Marufuji Sho also raised his head, pointed to the sky, and said, "Because—"

"Wow, a shooting star really fell! And it was heading this way!"

Chapter 1481 Speedy Papa... Speedy Papa Maru Fujisho!

"Oh oh oh oh oh oh——" (BGM: Rise-And-Fall)

After spotting the meteorite heading their way, Jaden and his friends no longer cared about the food thief right in front of them; instead, they wanted to leave as quickly as possible.

(The "meteorite" that was precisely aimed at Jaden at sea in the original work)

"What bad luck! Why are meteorites falling?!" Marufuji Sho complained as he ran. "It's like we're tracking some kind of untraceable adversary and this is the world's misfortune targeting us!"

"You've been reading too many manga, Sho! That thief isn't some kind of 'miracle for you,' we're just unlucky!" Jaden also looked distressed. "Hayato-sensei said that users of the [Hero] deck are inherently incompatible with 'meteors,' and I didn't believe it. Who would have thought we'd actually encounter a meteor?"

“Compared to ‘miracle for you,’ that shooting star seems more like ‘planetary fluctuation,’ I say.” Although he usually appears serious and aloof, that’s just a habit Amelda has developed over the years. After all, he’s a young man in his early twenties, and he’s also a fan of the shonen manga that Jaden and Sho love to read. He can even pick up on the joke Jaden and Sho were talking about at this moment, “Look closely, that thing seems to be following us the whole time?!”

Upon hearing this, while continuing to run, Marufuji Sho and Judai also looked back at the sky and found that the falling meteor was indeed firmly locked on their side. As they ran away from the edge of the cliff, it made a very obvious turn and continued to fall, as if it was determined to hit one of them!

"Meow!?" Not only Jaden, but even the "thief" exclaimed in surprise.

"Wait a minute, why is this guy with us?" Marufuji Sho, only noticing the "cat" that stole their food was also running away with them after he became a "thief," pointed at the "cat" and said, "This strange cat!"

"Although it looks a bit abstract, I feel that it is actually a 'leopard cat' rather than a cat." Judai looked at the "cat" at his feet and corrected.

"Is this the time to worry about that?" Ameruda glanced at the shooting star and noticed that it was getting closer and closer to the group, constantly adjusting its trajectory according to their movements. He frowned and said, "This kind of supernatural thing shouldn't have anything to do with you kids. Maybe it's coming for me."

In an instant, he thought of the mad destroyer he had served in the past, who could manipulate global ocean currents and gravity to make a sunken underwater city rise into the sky. It seemed that pulling a meteor down from outer space was not impossible for him. It couldn't be that the meteor was some kind of "stand-in attack," could it?

Although it was just a guess, Ameluda could only think of a madman like Daz who was capable of creating the supernatural phenomena at the moment, and he felt that the other party did have a reason to take action to avenge himself as a traitor from the past. So he immediately turned and ran in a different direction from Jaden and the others, intending to divert the meteor from their direction.

"I'm going this way to distract the meteors, don't follow me!"

As he spoke, Amelda drew his card, preparing to unleash a "star-slaying" attack with his monster. However, to his surprise, although the meteor did adjust its direction after he separated from Jaden and the others, it wasn't heading towards him; instead, it remained locked onto Jaden and his group!

First, let's rule out the possibility of Marufuji Sho. Could it be that the meteor was aimed at Yuki Jaden or the "leopard cat" that stole the food?

Seeing that Amelda had separated from them and the meteor was still heading their way, Jaden immediately turned his suspicious gaze to the "Leopard Cat" at his feet and said anxiously, "It must be this guy! This guy might be the Stand user of 'Planetary Pulse,' this is a Stand attack!"

"Big brother, you always say I read too many comics, but you've read just as many!" Marufuji Sho looked at the shooting star getting closer and closer, and finally made up his mind. "This thing just won't leave, so big brother, let me grab it and then you hurry up—"

"Meow!" Before Marufuji Sho could finish speaking, upon hearing that the other party was actually trying to grab him, the "leopard cat" immediately jumped up and slapped Marufuji Sho's face hard with its tail. The physical creature startled Marufuji Sho, causing him to stumble. Although he didn't fall, he was still separated from Judai and fell behind.

Although he failed to catch the annoying cat in front of him, Marufuji Sho managed to create distance between it and Judai as he had expected. He excitedly said to Judai, "Big brother, I've successfully held it off! You'd better run!"

"Although Sho, what you did did did make you look cool..." Judai didn't stop running but kept running, but his words made Marufuji Sho pause in surprise, "But the problem is that the shooting star is still chasing me!"

Under the watchful eyes of Ameluda, Marufuji Sho, and the "leopard cat" who was tearing a skewer of burnt kebabs from the bubbles around him and eating it, the red meteor in the sky was firmly locked onto Jaden, aiming straight down at him no matter how he tried to escape.

During this period of escape, they only ran a little over a hundred meters, but the meteor that was just a point of light in the sky before was now very close to the ground and was about to collide with Judai!

But the next moment, a red light flashed across the meteor, the dazzling light obscuring the vision of those present. A loud bang followed, as if the meteor had finally fallen to the ground, and the ground trembled violently!

(A sphere glowing red from outer space, a traffic accident, identified as a tribute to the legendary crash-resistant king, Susumu Hayata)

Covering his eyes, which were watering from the bright light, Marufuji Sho cried out urgently, "Big brother!!!"

As the intense light gradually dissipated, Amelda rushed forward against the gale-force winds brought by the shockwave, only to find that after the light faded, a huge crater had appeared where Jaden had been standing, about ten meters in diameter and three or four meters deep.

The huge crater in front of him puzzled Ameruda—although he hadn't received much formal education, how could a meteorite fall with such a tremendous force leave such a small crater? It didn't look like it was caused by a meteorite at all, but rather by some low-yield missile.

— In this regard, Ameruda was more than experienced. After all, Gosaburo Kaiba had tested all sorts of weapons in his hometown, targeting armored forces, buildings, and underground bunkers. There was even a smart-locking split-submunition bomb specifically designed for infantry, which I think was called "Jellicoe." Ameruda had seen the marks it left behind many times, and they were not much different from the crater in front of him.

In the center of the pit, Amelda saw Jaden Yuki, who had been "struck" by the meteor earlier, lying there in a rather bizarre pose, just like Yamcha. Amelda subconsciously exclaimed, "The resemblance is really high."

He noticed that although Jaden Yuki was suspected of being hit by a meteor, there was no trace of dust or torn clothing on his body, and even the rise and fall of his body was very obvious, making him look as if he were asleep. That's why he said that with a sense of relief.

However, Marufuji Sho didn't have that level of observation skills. Even if he did, he didn't have the patience right now. Just seeing Judai lying in the middle of the pit in such a miserable state was enough to make him extremely anxious.

"Big brother!"

Before Ameruda could even stop him, Marufuji Sho had already jumped into the pit along the circular ramp at the edge of the pit. Just as he was about to reach the bottom of the pit where Judai was, he suddenly tripped over something and rolled up, crashing into Judai like a bowling ball.

"B-Big Brother..." His eyes turned into mosquito coils, and Marufuji Sho also turned into "Speed-Down" Marufuji Sho, lying directly on the ground and not moving anymore. It seemed that his stupid operation had knocked him unconscious. However, even though he was unconscious, he was still calling out for Judai, and even stubbornly pointed a finger in the direction where Judai was.

"Ouch! That hurts!" As if someone had to pass out, Judai was jolted awake by Marufuji Sho's head bumping against Judai's. He clutched the large bump on his head and looked around in a daze. "Where am I?"

"Where are we now? You're still on Earth, or would you be in Hawaii?" Ameruda, who was also sliding down the slope, teased Jaden, who seemed to be in good spirits.

To everyone's surprise, Jaden breathed a sigh of relief after hearing Ameruda's words, patted his chest and said, "So I was just dreaming. I thought I had really arrived at Jupiter's Io."

“IO?” Ameruda’s first thought was of a defense map in an online game he had been playing recently, but he quickly realized that Judai was probably not talking about the game, but about the real-world moon Io, the moon named after Argai, one of Zeus’ lovers in ancient Greek mythology and the ancestor of many kings and heroes.

"Uh, Mr. Ameruda, don't worry about it, because that was probably just something I came up with in my dream." Judai scratched the back of his head awkwardly, then looked around strangely. "But where is this? I don't remember anything about it. And what happened to Sho?"

"You were probably hit by a meteor just now, so your little brother had a hard time figuring out how to wake you up." Looking at the unconscious Marufuji Sho, Ameluda wondered if the physical trouble could even be considered trouble? "But you should be fine, since he was just calling for you."

“It’s normal that you don’t remember this place, because it just appeared recently, right after you lost consciousness.” After a pause, Ameruda, who had been searching for something since the beginning, finally saw what she was looking for. She kicked the dirt on the ground, revealing a gray solid. “This is what this ‘meteor’ just created—if this really is a meteor.”

Although Ameruda did find Marufuji Sho's movements somewhat clumsy, the way he tripped didn't seem to be his own fault, but rather as if he had really tripped over something. And coincidentally, Ameruda didn't see the meteorite that created the crater at the bottom of the crater either. After searching for a while along the path Marufuji Sho slid down, he actually found the "meteor" itself.

"I got hit by a meteor!?" Jaden looked surprised, as if he had forgotten what had happened before, but then he quickly remembered, "Oh right, after I went with Sho and you, Mr. Ameruda, to chase that 'food thief,' we were 'chased' by a meteor."

"Is this the meteor?" Jaden paused, looking at the corner of the "meteor" that Ameruda had found, which was almost completely covered by soil. The metallic reflection on it startled him. He subconsciously said, "I think I dreamed about this thing just now. Is it something from the Kaiba Corporation?"

"Hmm? Kaiba Corporation?" Ameruda raised an eyebrow, not expecting Judai to suddenly say that this was something from Kaiba Corporation. He subconsciously recalled the history of Kaiba Corporation's rise to power, and his expression turned somewhat unpleasant. "Could this be a new weapon that Kaiba guy is researching? Is that guy starting to give up and follow in the footsteps of Gosaburo Kaiba because he can't beat Hayato Kobayashi and Yugi Muto at cards?"

It's no wonder Ameruda thought that way. With its precision-guided targeting and ability to create massive craters, even though the Jaden was unharmed, the credibility of this strange sphere not being a weapon was extremely low, especially considering the Kaiba Corporation's history. Although he had long since let go of his hatred, he had never forgotten it. If Kaiba dared to revive the Kaiba Corporation's past arms manufacturing business, he would be the first to attack.

Seeing Ameruda suddenly become so serious, Jaden quickly explained, "No, no, this isn't a weapon. This is something very important, at least it was in my dream."

Seeing that Ameluda was holding him back as if he were a bomb and carrying Marufuji Sho on the ground, preventing him from getting any closer to the thing on the ground, Judai explained his experience of being hit by the "meteor".

As Ameruda listened, her lips twitched: "You mean, a huge beam of light suddenly shot out from the universe, and you were enveloped by that beam of light and saw many scenes from your past, even scenes from the past of other people you've never met, and finally you traveled to Io, chatted with a dolphin with legs and played a game of cards with an alien?"

(The peculiar metaphor of the ten generations)

“Yeah, yeah, in my dream I even remembered how, when I was a kid, with the help of Kaiba Corporation, we launched cards into space to create Duel Monsters,” Jaden said with a laugh, a touch of nostalgia in his voice. “If only what happened in my dream were real, I’d really like to see if the cards I created back then have actually become the new [Hero]—it just feels like I’ve forgotten something.”

"Being knocked unconscious will definitely have some impact, but judging from your appearance, you shouldn't suffer from permanent amnesia." Ameruda looked at Jaden. "Can you sense which parts of your life you've forgotten?"

"I feel like I remember everything, but I just can't seem to recall what I put into space back then." Jaden counted on his fingers. "I remember designing three cards, and I think I also launched two cards into outer space. I think they were Dolphin Man, Ultraman Neos, and Dandelion Lion? Oh no, Dandelion Lion was made back then but wasn't launched into outer space."

"I have a feeling that there's something I absolutely can't forget..." Jaden didn't continue. Even though he couldn't remember what the third card he launched into outer space was, a tear involuntarily rolled down his cheek, and a sadness welled up inside him.

Chapter 1482 The N in Neos is the N in Nexus

Sometime later, the "leopard cat" also ran into the pit and rubbed against Jaden's trouser leg.

Looking at Jaden and then at the thing still buried in the ground behind him, Amelda still felt that Jaden's dream was a bit outrageous, but his intuition told him that Jaden might have actually been to Io in the less than a minute that he had been unconscious.

"If I can't remember, maybe I can find out by opening that thing?" That is, provided that what Judai said is true, but that doesn't stop Ameruda from approaching the underground thing again with the same attitude she would have used for dealing with bombs.

Before long, Ameruda had completely dug out the "meteorite" from the ground, and at the same time, he pulled out a set of tools that looked quite sophisticated from somewhere.

"Mr. Ameruda, what are you doing?" Judai asked, puzzled as he watched Ameruda carefully examining the metal sphere on the ground with screwdrivers, pliers, a voltage tester, and even a hammer and a handsaw—things that didn't seem like something a chef would carry.

“In the kitchen, there are many places where explosions can easily occur if you’re not careful, such as gas cylinders or dust explosions,” Ameruda said with a straight face, making up nonsense. “So as a chef, it’s perfectly reasonable for me to know a little about bomb disposal.”

"Oh? Did you also train at the Hawaii Training Center in Domino City?"

"More or less, but I mainly practiced it myself in the Middle East."

"You also worked as a chef in the Middle East?"

"I've worked as a chef in Egypt, and in other places, it's not limited to just being a chef."

After some probing and research, Ameruda tentatively ruled out the possibility that the thing was a bomb. He also cleared away a large amount of soil from the surface, revealing a nameplate with the words "Seahorse Group" written on it.

(Hippo Group (Confirmed))

"Oh, oh, oh, it's exactly the same as in my dream! It has the name of the Kaiba Group, and it even covers up the 'I' in 'KAIBA' to make it 'KABA'." Jaden squatted on the ground, looking at the sphere in front of him, and then pointed to the side. "If I remember correctly, the right side will automatically open and then extend a capsule containing a deck of cards."

"Hmm?" Ameruda said, somewhat puzzled. "Didn't you say you only launched three cards into space? Why has it become a deck?"

"Yeah, why? I'm looking for the reason too." Jaden shrugged, saying nonchalantly, "Maybe it's just the magic of Duel Monsters?"

As they were talking, just as Jaden had described, a cover on the right side of the sphere suddenly slid open on its own, revealing a sealed capsule hidden inside the sphere's storage compartment. According to Jaden, the capsule inside seemed to contain the cards he had previously launched into space.

However, just as the capsule emerged from the sphere, the clasp securing it seemed to come loose, causing the capsule to roll down and crash onto the solid ground, then split in two, revealing a piece of cloth that appeared to have been wrapped around something, but otherwise it was empty.

"Eh?"

The current situation was beyond Jaden's expectations. The previous parts and reality corresponded to his dream, so why did he fail at the last moment when he could get the card?

"No cards?" But unlike Jaden, who genuinely thought he was dreaming, Amelda, seeing that there were no cards in the opened capsule, realized something instead. "In that case, Jaden, perhaps you weren't dreaming before. Take a look at your deck."

"My deck?" Jaden was confused and didn't understand why Amelda said his previous absurd "dream" wasn't a dream, but he still took out his deck and said, "Now you're showing me your deck? Does Mr. Amelda want to duel me?"

"Is dueling all you can think about?" Amelda retorted, pointing helplessly at Jaden's deck. "I didn't bring out your deck for dueling. If I'm not mistaken, you probably already put the cards from this capsule into your deck in that 'dream'."

Upon hearing this, Jaden looked at his deck and was surprised to find a brand new card that had never appeared in his previous decks, but which he had just used in his recent "dream"!

"【C·Little Dolphin】!" Jaden couldn't help but read out the name of the card in his hand. The picture he had drawn in the past appeared in his mind's eye, and he understood Ameruda's meaning.

"So, I wasn't dreaming before, but the cards I created in the past, which contained my fantasies, really resonated with the power of the 'new space' in the universe, and then a brand new [Hero] was born!"

Seeing Jaden's excitement, Amelda glanced at the card in his hand and said, "The 'C' in the card name is 'Chrysalis,' a cocoon-like form? It does look like it's wrapped in a cocoon. However, there's no description of your [Hero] on this card. Is it because there's an advanced form?"

“Mr. Ameruda, you really know a lot.”

Upon hearing that Ameruda was interested in his card, Jaden enthusiastically began to explain, "In my vision, 'Dolphin' is Hero's partner. As a child, it can only follow the hero. However, inspired by a heart of justice, it will grow rapidly and transform into a new hero with the same power of justice."

"This card grants the ultimate transformation—[N·Water Wave Dolphin]!"

Looking at the humanoid dolphin in Jaden's hand, Amelda couldn't help but retort, "Playing Pokémon games like this. First, it's a regular dolphin in its ordinary form, and then it can transform into an all-powerful Dolphin Man, right?"

"It feels... not as good as the Speaker Shuai Xia."

"My [N·Water Wave Dolphin] was designed earlier, I designed it five years ago, but the Pokémon World of the International Illusion Company only released Dolphin Man with the same design in the Pokémon World of Azusa and Azusa a few years ago." Hearing Ameruda's comment, Jaden argued, "Hayato-sensei even gave me a licensing fee for using the design."

"Furthermore, the 'N' in [N·Water Wave Dolphin] represents the new space 'Neo,' which can work together with this card to unleash unparalleled power!"