Duels should be played with a smile.

Seeing Leyou's "frivolous" attitude, the Snow Maiden, who was quite tearful, forgot her pain as soon as she recovered from her wounds and couldn't help but speak up.

"But you said you were going yesterday, and you only dared to say that when the boss wasn't around..."

"Ok?"

"I didn't say anything!" The Snow Woman, like a frightened bird, obediently covered her mouth and completely gave up.

"Don't be so jumpy!"

Like petting a frightened little rabbit, Leyou put down the documents in his hand, rubbed the Snow Maiden's head, and smiled very "kindly".

"I just wanted to say, why don't you go and participate in that tour? I bet there will be a lot of interesting things to happen there."

"Me? You're not thinking about something bad again, are you?" The Snow Woman stared at Le You warily, then shrank back towards the head of the bed, pulling the blanket up with her, looking like a female knight who had just finished a fierce battle.

"How could that be? After reflecting on it last night, I've decided I'll never cause trouble again," Leyou said confidently.

But the Snow Woman doesn't believe a single punctuation mark.

"If you say you'll stop causing trouble, I might believe you... If you don't cause trouble, don't I know you too well?" Snow Maiden retorted disdainfully to Leyou, rolling her eyes and her gaze falling on Ella, who was organizing her card deck.

"Then why didn't you let Ella go?"

"I don't really care whether you go or not, I just value you more, so I wanted to ask for your opinion first~"

Upon hearing this, the Snow Woman once again showed a look of disgust.

"Alright, alright, I'll go. Sigh, a weak, pitiful, and helpless woman like me is destined to be exploited by people like you every day~"

It must be said that, as a deceitful ghost, Yuki-onna's acting skills are superb, bringing to life a character suffering from oppression.

If this were in the film and television industry, winning the top award would be a piece of cake.

At worst, we could summon a hundred demons to force the judges to choose, even if it's a bit violent. At least it wouldn't be like those young idols manipulating the charts!

"Let me correct you. The word 'exploitation' is usually used when you treat me, but when I treat you, it's at most oppression." Leyou corrected Xue Nu's statement in a serious manner, looking just like a righteous gentleman.

But all he received in response was the snow woman's disgusted gaze.

"...Go to hell! You pervert!"

"Ah~ That's right~ That feels good~"

"...Seriously...as expected of you! Would you get even more excited if I kicked you a few more times?"

"No, not at all. I'm not some kind of hardcore otaku or anime fan."

After a series of "friendly talks," the Snow Woman obediently accepted the task of participating in the competition, and Ella, who had never disagreed with Leyou's opinion, naturally accepted it gladly as well.

The competition wouldn't officially start for another day or two, and Leyou planned to take this opportunity to find Professor Chronos to learn some things. However, when he finished getting ready and went out, he happened to see Isono standing in front of the door.

"Speak, what is it?"

A versatile tool is very useful, but its appearance often means a lot of trouble.

"Mr. Leyou, we have just received a notification from above that a Faceless One has appeared in this competition."

"Oh? Isn't that proceeding exactly according to your plan? Why did you specifically come to inform me?"

"This is something that didn't go according to plan... According to our intelligence, the Faceless Ones seem to have made some new changes. According to our original plan, your match was the opening match tomorrow, but when we were preparing to announce the schedule and confirm the players' availability in advance, we discovered that your opponent for tomorrow seems to have disappeared."

Iso's expression was unreadable, but the large number of red crosses on the document he handed over gave Leyou a chill.

"It's not just your rivals; at least a third of the 100 finalists this time are missing."

"Your security... is probably outsourced to the Land of Light."

After glancing at the list and finding that Yuza and Jack were not among the missing persons, Leyou continued to ask questions.

"So, you guessed it was the Faceless Ones who did it? That does fit the Faceless Ones' situation, but there are only three of us here, so we can't fill so many gaps for you. As for finding these missing people... if they were easy to find, you probably wouldn't have come to me."

Isono adjusted his black-rimmed sunglasses, then took out another document and handed it to Leyou.

"In fact, we have already discovered a lot of clues, but it is precisely because there are so many clues and they are so complicated that we came to ask for help."

The thought of the academy's current predicament and the Faceless Ones' ever-growing strength gave Isono a headache.

"Because... these days, there really aren't many people in the academy who can guarantee a win against those Faceless Ones."

Chapter 41 Where Did This God of Gamblers Come From?

The Fusion Academy is very large. Even with a map and navigation, and riding the surfing prosecutor's skateboard all the way, it would take about half an hour for Leyou to get close to the destination.

It's clear that the tournament has brought a lot of life to the academy. Along the way, Leyou saw many people on the street, wearing their Duel Disks and looking for opponents to duel. Most of the people who were invited to duel readily accepted, filling the entire academy with the unique atmosphere of duelists.

This time, Yuki-onna and Ella didn't come with Leyou because Ella was dragged by Yuki-onna to spar. However, Leyou felt that things weren't as simple as they seemed.

However, he didn't care much. What kind of tricks could a mere snow woman possibly pull? Although sometimes the snow woman did have quite a few tricks up her sleeve, and they were pretty good.

Thinking about it this way, the sparring between Ella and Yuki-onna is really quite necessary. They both have things they can learn from each other!

Anyway, Leyou won't lose money no matter what.

If we really have to say who will suffer a loss, then it's probably only Philvo, who's still in the virtual world right now.

……

"That's strange. Why do I have a feeling that someone is talking badly about me behind my back?"

Feeling a chill run down his spine, Philvo, who was navigating through the data stream, stopped and began to examine the data records in the area, but found nothing noteworthy.

"Things here are almost done, it's time to go back and see if that guy went to participate in that competition."

"Faceless Ones... On the surface, that's a fairly fitting name, though it's actually completely unrelated. But if they knew the origins of these things, I guess... Hmm, this feeling of being the only one who knows the secret is actually quite nice. That's probably why some people like to be riddle tellers, right?"

"But why does the Heart of the Elf record the origins of these things, and why were these things born in the first place? How did these two completely unrelated things get mixed up together?"

After a brief moment of thought, Philvo once again conjured a light screen in front of him and distributed some cryptic information to the duel disks of some people.

She's currently in a "the more the merrier" attitude, since based on the information she has so far, the situation is still under control, so there's really no need for her to intervene.

Instead of wasting time, it's better to think about how to prepare more decks and adjust the deck structure so that you can "show your skills" when the time comes.

……

On the back mountain of the Fusion Academy, on the mountain where Yata-U had broken the seal, Leyou is now cautiously searching for any possible traces of the Faceless Ones.

He had already released the spirit that had been given the bonus, but several minutes had passed and he still hadn't found any possible trace of it.

To be honest, if the information hadn't stated that this was the place where the Three Phantom Demons were sealed, Leyou would never have imagined that what was originally a flat area in the original work had become a high hill.

"Search a few more times, if there are still no clues, then go back... Holy crap! The Faceless One?!"

"You suddenly appeared behind me, are you playing a horror game with me?!"

The Faceless One, who suddenly appeared, did not react in the slightest to Leyou's exaggerated attitude. He simply raised the Duel Disk on his arm and pressed it down gently.

Black mist filled the air, just like when Leyou first challenged Pandora to a dark duel. The black mist emanating from the Faceless One's duel disk enveloped both Leyou and the Faceless One.

There were no warning signs whatsoever.

"Duel!"

The powerful voice that came from the Faceless One startled Leyou once again.

The Faceless One he killed earlier by rolling a tire didn't say anything except for the effect explanation, and the clear and distinct pronunciation of "Duel" even sounded somewhat familiar to Leyou.

With the duel board unfolded, Leyou casually drew a deck and placed it aside, thus initiating the duel.

Under Leyou's gaze, a subtle change seemed to occur beneath the Faceless One's black cloak, but the surrounding black mist blocked most of the light, and in such a dark environment, Leyou could not see the face beneath the cloak.

[Faceless One: 5 points]

[Leisure Tour: 3 PM]

"I'll take the first strike."

The Faceless One's tone carried a hint of excitement he had never felt before, and his movements were no longer as stiff as before; instead, they seemed to indicate a strong desire to express himself.

"Activate the Spell Card [Pot of Greed]! Then banish 6 Extra Deck cards face down and draw 2 cards."

The Faceless One paused slightly. Before banishing the cards from his Extra Deck, he instinctively placed his hand on the deck, as if by reflex, wanting to draw a card.

The pause was brief, but Leyou, who had noticed from the beginning that this Faceless One was different, naturally took note of it.

"Interesting... Considering that the Faceless Ones might turn into fragments of their past memories after being extinguished... could this action be that they're mistaking the Pot of Strong Gold for the Pot of Greed?"

"Starting with a powerful golden pot, and coming on with such a fierce momentum, could it be the Golden Kingdom?"

After making some reasonable guesses, Leyou finally had time to look at his starting hand, and he froze as soon as he saw it.

Of the five cards in hand, only one is usable.

"What the hell?! How long has it been since my hand was stuck like this? There's definitely something fishy going on here!"

Just as Leyou was pondering what could possibly affect his "strength," Faceless One, who had just drawn a card and hadn't made a move, slammed another magic card onto the Duel Disk.

"I activate the Spell Card! [Pot of Greed and Humility]!"

"You can only activate 1 card name per turn. During the turn this card is activated, I cannot Special Summon it."

"These cards... are really not as useful as the charity of angels."

"Based on the effect, I flip over 3 cards from the top of my deck, select 1 to add to my hand, and return the rest to the deck!"

Leyou didn't have any hand traps, and his heart was already somewhat heavy.

Putting aside the fact that even the Faceless Ones have started to have emotions and complain, the information revealed by the two cards, Strong Gold Pot and Strong Humility Pot, is enough to make Leyou treat this matter with caution.

One indicates that no additional recruitment is needed, and the other indicates that no special recruitment is needed.

For decks that meet both of these conditions, the first thing that comes to mind for me is True Dragon, Travelling Bird, and the Crimson Lotus Lightning Slide deck, which is a terrible beatdown deck that can make people sick to sleep.

However, the comment "not as good as Heaven's will" has nothing to do with the aforementioned decks.

The brief doubts quickly dissipated, as the three cards that Qiang Qianhu turned over revealed a considerable amount of information.

The three cards revealed were the second Golden Pot, the Life-Slaying Treasure, and... a trap card that Leyou couldn't recognize even after looking at it for a long time, and it seemed to be continuous.

The Golden Pot can only be activated at the start of Main Phase 1, and it also has the self-restriction of not being able to draw cards during the turn. Naturally, the Faceless One is not among the choices to reduce life. After adding that Continuous Trap Card to his hand, the Faceless One stopped again, as if he was thinking about his next move.

This was the second Faceless One that Leyou had faced, and also the first Faceless One he had ever encountered who was deep in thought.

Since the start of this duel, this Faceless One has shown too many differences from the previous Faceless Ones.

Although they are called Faceless Ones, if you remove their mysterious attire, dress them in normal clothes, and take away their dark games, they would probably look no different from an ordinary person.