Duels should be played with a smile.

With the first problem solved, Leyou raised some other related questions. With everyone's combined efforts, many problems were easily solved, but Jack's whereabouts remained a mystery.

When the meeting ended, it was already afternoon. As Leyou walked out of the meeting room, only one thought was in her mind.

"This is really weird. Hoarding cards in the world of card games is basically hoarding weapons!"

After a short rest at noon, the group gathered again in the afternoon to discuss a very crucial issue.

That is...

Saving Private Jack

Chapter Seventeen: As everyone knows, daily life is just a pile of nonsense.

"Rainbow Light Neo-Universe Warrior! Direct Attack!"

"Rainbow Light Slash!"

After its appearance, the incredibly powerful Rainbow Neos cleanly and efficiently wiped out the enemy's territory. Without any hesitation, Jaden issued the final attack order and easily defeated the enemy, who was filled with bizarre elements.

"How could there be Faceless Ones in a place like this? And their strength is clearly a bit too high."

Jaden casually picked up the card that the Faceless One had dropped. The card was blank and had no content on it. After thinking for a moment, he put the blank card into his spare card deck, picked up his bag at his feet again, and set off again towards the nearest city.

"Curry, Curry! (Something's not right! A friend told me that a lot of people have been injured here recently.)"

The Winged Kuriboh, flapping its wings, flew back from who-knows-where, followed by a smaller version of the Winged Kuriboh Pokémon.

Seeing the timid way it hid behind it, and those pink wings with bows, Jaden's first thought wasn't about the news Kuriboh had brought back, but rather...

Am I really being a bit embarrassing? Winged Kuriboh just went out for a stroll and...

However, upon sensing that Ubel was about to emerge from his body, Judai quickly dismissed the idea.

I'm on the path to becoming a hero, and with important matters to attend to right now, I can't afford to be distracted by trivial things.

"What happened with the injury you mentioned? Was it done by these Faceless Men?"

"Kuri Kuri! (These are injuries sustained in the Dark Duel, some quite severe, some of which nearly resulted in death)"

"What?!" Jaden suddenly became alert. The two keywords, "dark duel" and "near death," were of extraordinary significance.

When he was still the Overlord, he did receive news about the Faceless Men every now and then, but there were no life-threatening situations at the time...

Thinking back to the Faceless One he had just dealt with, who was clearly too powerful, Jaden felt even heavier.

One of the characteristics of Faceless Ones is that they will pursue duelists who are strong enough. Once Faceless Ones appear, their strength must be comparable to the average strength of the area at that time. It is like a trial sent down by the heavens. Defeating them will bring rewards, while losing will bring punishment, but they will not take lives.

This is a border region; the overall strength of the duelists here is definitely inferior to that of the core area of ​​the fused dimension. If Jaden hadn't encountered and defeated them by chance, the consequences would have been...

Stopping in his tracks, Jaden stood still, hesitated for a moment, and then smiled helplessly.

Jaden took out a keepsake and a pen and paper from his bag, wrote and drew on them, then tossed them to Winged Kuriboh. Jaden turned around and set off again in the direction he had come from.

"Winged Kuriboh, here you go. Take this with you and go to the nearest big city to find someone from the Haima Group, then tell them about the situation here."

"Kuri Kuri? (Are you going back?)"

“Yes, I’m worried. If another Faceless One of this strength, or even stronger, were to appear, something terrible might happen in that small town we passed through before…”

The innocent smiling faces of two children flashed through his mind, and Jaden sighed slightly, his steps becoming more and more firm.

Winged Kuriboh knew Jaden well and knew that once Jaden made a decision, it couldn't change it. So, it took the keepsake and the "partner" that had just come with it, flapped its little wings, and set off in the opposite direction from Jaden.

It rarely separates from the Judai, but each time it does, it seems to be shouldering a heavy responsibility.

"Curry, Curry (Being your partner has never been an easy thing)"

As Jaden and Winged Kuriboh walked further and further away, the surroundings grew increasingly quiet, their footsteps rustling on the fallen leaves.

Hubert's figure quietly appeared, looking at Judai with affection, and subconsciously reached out to stroke his head.

Then—Judai raised his hand, gently blocking and holding it.

"I'm not a child anymore..."

Jaden didn't turn around, but there was a hint of helplessness in his expression. When Winged Kuriboh was still around, Ubel would restrain himself a little, but now that the two of them were alone, even though they had encountered similar situations many times before, he still couldn't quite handle Ubel's excessive enthusiasm towards him.

Or rather, pampering.

"But the things you do are still as carefree as when you were a child, which makes me uneasy."

If we're talking about who loves Jaden the most in this world, then only Hubert deserves to say that. When Jaden changed his mind at the last minute, Hubert really wanted to stop him, but since he was attached to Jaden, he was the one who was pushed back by Jaden.

"Some things always have to be done by someone~" Scratching the back of his head somewhat embarrassedly, Jaden seemed to still be the same cheerful young hero he was a long time ago.

With a smile, enthusiasm, a heart full of love for everything, always confident, and always full of energy.

"But you're not the Overlord anymore... You clearly promised to relinquish the burden of being the Overlord and take a good break, but you still act like this whenever something happens..."

Hubert was full of concern. He wanted to help Judai solve all the problems he was facing, but he also knew what Judai was thinking. So he could only express his feelings and remind Judai from the side so that he would not overwork himself and lose himself.

"Overlord... I am indeed no longer one."

With a smile still on his face and his steps still unwavering, Jaden looked down at the Duel Disk on his arm, his heart filled with a myriad of emotions.

"I am no longer the overlord, but I am still a duelist."

"Not to mention, I'm the strongest hero user!"

With unwavering determination in their eyes, the heroes seemed to respond to his words, revealing themselves from the deck.

At this moment, it seemed that he alone was enough to form an army.

An army composed of heroes, marching forward without hesitation.

"A hero must not desert his post!"

……

"Jack is missing and the Snow Woman has been attacked. There is undoubtedly some connection between these two events... We still don't have enough information to analyze anything."

The discussions about "Saving Private Jack" have ended, and the result is quite simple—Jack is most likely in trouble, but there are no clues. While everyone is worried about Jack's safety, they can only use the simplest method of casting a wide net and searching for relevant clues through various channels.

Leyou also asked Philvo to keep an eye out for relevant clues, but Philvo's reply was that there was no news for the time being, which made Carly, who was already concerned about Jack, feel even more gloomy.

“Um… I might have missed a point before,” Long Ke suddenly raised his hand to report.

"Hmm? Tell me more?"

"It's that... It seems the enemy wasn't actually targeting Yuki-onna before; their target was me, but Yuki-onna stopped them."

Because the Snow Woman was injured because of him, Ryuko had been filled with self-blame all this time, and even when she revealed this information, she seemed very weak.

Upon hearing this, Leyou turned to look at the Snow Woman, who had shrunk in size and was now sitting on his shoulder. He raised an eyebrow, as if to say, 'Why didn't you tell me such crucial information before? Why did you have to make Longke tell me?'

Startled by being suddenly caught, the snow woman shrugged and shrugged, 'I forgot.'

'I'll deal with you later...'

After glaring at the Snow Woman with annoyance, Leyou pondered for a moment and then made a guess about the enemy's intentions.

Leyou had witnessed the entire duel through the Snow Woman's memories. Combining the information that Long Ke had just mentioned with the few words revealed by his opponent during the duel, Leyou felt that he had grasped a key point.

If there's anything noteworthy about Long Ke, it's probably that banned card.

Ancient Fairy Dragon

Some cards don't print the same card once per turn, and sooner or later something bad will happen. Ancient Demon Dragon is clearly one of the more noteworthy ones.

A special summon effect is powerful enough to fill gaps in many situations, and the ability to search for any field spell card will become even more terrifying as time goes on.

Putting everything else aside, the simple operation of searching for things like the Demon Bell Cave is enough to make one's head spin, not to mention that the Ancient Demon Dragon's ability can be incorporated into many FTK strategies.

It's safe to say that Ancient Dragon is a card that's bound to be added to the deck—her existence is hindering DogK from selling new Field Spell Cards, so if she doesn't die, who will?

Once it was confirmed that the enemy's true form might be the descending will of DogK, everything connected instantly.

I don't know why, or perhaps it's because the forbidden cards list contains things that would interfere with DogK's cards, so in this world, whatever DogK wants to do, he has to deal with the forbidden cards list first?

"So...oh no, it seems the anacondas went inside the surface before, and we haven't been able to find the water machine anywhere lately. Could it have been ganked by Dog K?"

Suddenly I realized it was a bit surprising, but upon closer inspection, it made perfect sense – water purifiers are never strange, and this has been the prevailing opinion ever since they came out.

"It seems that besides searching for Jack's whereabouts, we also need to put more effort into finding the water machine..."

"Speaking of which, what was the reason Jack disappeared? It couldn't be because he was bad at the game, loved to play around, and liked to mess things up, could it?"

"To be honest, if the enemy weren't Dog K, and a high-level dog with special privileges at that, I'd really like to try being an undercover agent. Maybe saying something like 'Having wandered half my life without finding a wise master' would have been enough to send him on his way..."

Dispelling the wild thoughts in their minds, they told Yuxing and the others their guesses, and after some discussion, they immediately began to take action.

Crow was already quite well-connected in the Lower City, and he also had a small tavern that was perfect for gathering intelligence in various works. So, he was given the task of finding out about Jack and purchasing cards in the Lower City.

Gui Liu's task is to go back to his own territory and mobilize people. Ordinary people can't make a difference in his area, but once he has prestige, things go more smoothly. In addition, the area is a melting pot of all sorts of people, so he might discover some surprises.

Carly's identity as a reporter is still very useful; she can obtain information that ordinary people cannot access. The Long Ke Long Ya siblings also went along, since it's really hard to say what Carly's dueling strength will be after losing her Earthbound God.

As for Yusei and Aki... as representatives of Team 5DS, what they have to do can be described as simple and direct.

The two men, each in a D-wheeler, headed straight for the police station, intending to have a serious talk with Chief Yego.

Jack was, after all, a former king. For such a big man to disappear in the territory of the police department, someone had to take the blame.

When Youxing and Qiu came to her door, Leyou had already quietly left the Upper City alone.

With the enemy's whereabouts unknown and his own side facing various inconveniences, he had to find a way to take the initiative.

As the saying goes, a trade can turn the tide when you're at a disadvantage. This time, Leyou wants to trade bases with DogK.

……

In the virtual world, after handing over all his tasks to the group of colorful working coders, Philvo stretched and prepared to leave the place where he had stayed for quite some time and return to the real world.

Even though she was a member of the electronic world, after coding in the virtual world for too long, she couldn't help but become somewhat delirious.

If her human form weren't actually a transformation of her true form, many of her long, flowing hairs might have fallen out.

After repeatedly instructing the code talkers to work hard, Philvo reverted to his original form, then switched to his strongest red form. After briefly confirming Leyou's current location, he flew along a newly generated data storm toward the nearest boundary between the real and virtual worlds.

The virtual world is incredibly diverse, especially as more and more people enjoy socializing online. Every day, while searching for and organizing useful information, Philvo encounters countless bizarre comments, fully demonstrating the diversity of life.

For example, she just caught an interesting piece of information—a web novelist was so badly criticized by readers that he had a mental breakdown and ran away on the spot. This made her sigh, and she couldn't help but sigh at the importance of a strong mentality—for example, if someone as carefree as Leyou were to be criticized, he would probably be secretly laughing, treating it like a monkey show.

As he flew toward the border, Philvo took advantage of the spare time to browse various information online, occasionally amused by some of the outrageous comments.

While she is more rational than Leyou when it comes to having fun, who doesn't enjoy having fun?