[Romance System Initiated][Affection Level Check][Checking Target—Wasagawa Yuu][Affection Level: 100 (Until Death Do Us Part)]
"Is there something wrong with my dueling system?"
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In a simple, cramped room, an old ceiling fan creaked and groaned, its noise adding to the irritability of the sweltering heat.
The three people inside, however, were not paying attention to the annoying ambient noise.
Two boys and a girl were gathered around a wooden table, playing a tense and exciting card game—the most popular and widely played game in the world.
Amano Zero: "Four-of-a-kind with two kickers! One card left!"
Wasagawa Yuu: "Wait, hold on, brother! Is this how you play as a teammate?"
Yuu, the fellow "peasant" teammate at the table, hovered over the table in disbelief.
The world's most popular card game: Poker (specifically, "Fight the Landlord").
Zero's key move—four Aces with a pair of 2s—had, as expected, successfully led the "peasant class" to bankruptcy.
Amano Shio: "Yay! I win again!"
The girl, her face blooming with a smile, happily tossed her last cards onto the table. At this moment, Shio looked like any other normal girl, possessing the innocent and straightforward cuteness unique to her age.
If only she wasn't playing cards from a wheelchair.
"Sigh, I really can't beat Shio."
"Bro, quit acting."
Zero, the consecutive ten-year champion of the neighborhood's New Year "Fight the Landlord" tournament, possessed a "Great Luck" that made people tremble when he drew cards. Even so, he had to let his sister win; she was a very sore loser.
Glancing at the old clock hanging on the worn wall, Zero ripped off the white paper strips that had been stuck all over his face as punishment. He finally revealed the handsome face that had been hidden for so long.
"Time's up. If I don't get to work, the foreman is going to lose his temper again."
"Oh!" Yuu's lips curled into a meaningful smile. "Big brother-in-law, you're leaving? Then the remaining time will be just Shio and me alone."
"Get out, get out! Who's your brother-in-law? Don't even think about being alone with Shio. I'm stopping by the card shop on my way; come with me."
"I don't want to! You don't have money, so why go to a card shop anyway?" Yuu began to fake a tantrum. "Shio will be lonely all by herself!"
How should Zero evaluate his childhood friend?
Since they grew up together, Zero could personally vouch for Yuu's integrity and kindness. If his sister, who had mobility issues, ever needed someone to take care of her in the future, Yuu was indeed the best choice.
However, in terms of appearance, Zero found it hard to accept.
It wasn't that Yuu was ugly. Quite the opposite—Yuu was too beautiful.
Dammit, you look way too much like a girl!
He had soft facial lines that lacked any masculinity, a small and straight nose, and agile, clear light-blue eyes. Even though Yuu had short hair and wore a denim jacket and pants, the natural peach-colored highlight in his bangs made people mistake him for a "tomboy" type of beautiful girl.
In terms of looks alone, his childhood friend was many levels cuter than an average girl.
If Zero hadn't grown up with Yuu and even competed to see who could pee the furthest, he would have started to suspect a light-novel plot where "My Childhood Friend is Actually a Girl" was happening to him.
"It's okay, Brother Yuu. I can watch the match recordings at home. My brother gets lonely easier than I do; he needs your company more."
After a moment of hesitation, Yuu gave up on staying. "In that case, let me set up the tape for Shio."
Normally, Sector 32 at the bottom of the Eden Tower couldn't receive television signals from the upper levels. But somehow, Yuu had obtained an antique-grade videotape, along with a player that was even more of an antique than the tape.
Accompanied by his practiced movements, the "big-butt" TV—which was older than Shio—began to show a blurry image through the messy snow on the screen.
"Done. Shio, enjoy. I'll be back after I walk your brother."
"Be careful at home, and don't go racing your wheelchair around the house," Zero reminded her before closing the door.
Even though she had watched this tape many times, the moment the image appeared, Shio let all words go in one ear and out the other. The girl's beautiful eyes, sparkling with light, looked longingly at the handsome figure on the old TV—a figure that even the blurry quality couldn't hide.
A woman with black hair, wearing a long white trench coat, stood in a magnificent arena watched by thousands. Her slender fingers held high a card that was her very soul, showing the world her heroic fighting stance.
"With the dragon's soul as a guide, break the shackles of the nine hells! Seven Stars return to their places; Longyuan descends upon the world! Synchro Summon—Swordsoul Supreme Sovereign - Chengying!"
The instant before Zero closed the door, the TV let out the sound of a boiling crowd's cheers and a dragon's roar that seemed to vibrate the soul.
Outside was the street of Sector 32, composed of piled-up scrap and garbage.
Inside and outside the screen, two worlds were divided.
Zero frowned as he looked at the eye-catching red characters that had been secretly pasted on his door last night.
[Final three-day deadline! If you don't pay back the money within three days, we'll find a Duelist to deal with you!]
It seemed like a nonsensical threat, but in this world, it was exceptionally reasonable.
Zero was a traveler—or more accurately, a reincarnator.
After an accidental death in his previous life, he was reborn into this world. Carrying the memories of his past life, he was born in the slums—Sector 32. Using his young body, he slowly learned about this world and had now lived to the age of 18.
There were differences from his previous world, but unlike other novels where one travels to a world of swords and magic or a Xianxia setting, the disparity wasn't that massive. It felt more like traveling to a certain point in the future development of his original world.
As far as Zero knew, the current time was the year 5026 AD.
On the surface, it was nearly 3,000 years apart from his previous timeline. Logically, 3,000 years should feel like another world entirely, but Zero didn't feel a sense of a "new century." In fact, the living conditions in the slums were far more backward than in his previous life.
The reason was that in this world, humanity had once been destroyed in a war, and civilization had been severed for a thousand years. Large-scale warfare had nearly wiped out all life on the planet's surface. Most environments were contaminated by nuclear energy and were no longer suitable for survival.
The surviving humans could now only live inside a giant structure. It was built on the largest tectonic plate of the planet by the most advanced mechanical lifeform—the Mainframe Eva—as the final Utopia for human civilization.
It covered an area of over a million square kilometers. Its overall image was like an ancient Egyptian pyramid, but much more grand and mechanical. In history books, it was recorded as [Paradise - Eden], commonly known as the Eden Tower. It preserved the embers of humanity.
Inside the Eden Tower, resources could be recycled autonomously, isolated from the hazards of external nuclear pollution. Most importantly, there was no war inside the tower.
Although this final human Utopia seemed to be under the management of a mechanical lifeform, Eva did not impose any restrictions on humans—except for the mandatory regulation of completely eliminating all warlike behavior to prevent humanity from repeating its past mistakes.
Throughout human history, war had never stopped. Yet in Eden, humans of different races and beliefs gathered together without any friction.
That, of course, was impossible. Friction and disputes were everywhere, at all times.
However, to eliminate the seeds of war, the Mainframe Eva established rules to replace conflict within the tower. Using an ancient card game that had long been forgotten and lost in human history as a standard, it replaced human guns and cannons to resolve friction and disputes.
Yu-Gi-Oh! Official Card Game.
Dueling was used to replace all violent behavior. Anyone who did not follow this rule would be directly exiled from Eden.
Zero had been reincarnated into such a world—a world filled with "Duelist Brains" because the rules of survival had been rewritten.
He had seen on TV a man whose eyes were bugging out with rage because his wife cheated on him, looking like he wanted to tear the adulterous couple apart with his bare hands. But in the next second, the man pulled out his cards and a Duel Disk.
"Duel me!"
Police chasing criminals would ride motorcycles and start a duel. Corporate conglomerates, rich enough to buy the tower, would recruit powerful Duelists as their figureheads. The content taught in schools also focused on Yu-Gi-Oh cards.
It was as if as long as you were good enough at cards, you could stand at the apex of the Eden Tower. In this world, everyone was forced to have a Duelist Brain.
Fortunately, before his reincarnation, Zero was also a "card gamer" and had a fairly good understanding of Yu-Gi-Oh. At least compared to the people in the tower who had a thousand-year gap in knowledge, no reference materials, and had never even seen the anime, Zero felt his understanding of dueling was much more advanced.
Now, someone might ask—
Amano, Amano~If this world respects dueling above all, and you think you're so good at it, how come so many years have passed and you're still living in the slums at the bottom of the tower?
Initially, Zero thought the same. As a reincarnator in a world full of Duelist Brains, even if he didn't reach the peak of life, he should at least be able to make a name for himself.
As it turned out, he was too naive. Whether it was 3,000 years ago or 3,000 years later, there was one unchanging truth in society: It is very hard for poor people to turn their lives around.
The bottom level of the Eden Tower consisted of 36 sectors, arranged according to economic level. When Zero, born in Sector 32, discovered that he couldn't even put together a basic 40-card deck, he finally saw reality clearly.
No wonder the slums at the bottom weren't chaotic like the movies in his past life; they were actually quite harmonious. Forget friction and disputes—most people didn't even have the qualification to duel.
Without disputes and without the means to resolve them, Sector 32 was forcibly harmonious. Although life was inconvenient, people wouldn't starve to death. Many poor people at the bottom chose to live their lives in a daze, never thinking about using dueling to change anything.
But Zero refused to accept his fate!
As a reincarnator in a world of Duelists, how could he just drift through life? Starting today, all of that would change.
Zero had been preparing for this day for two years.
Two years ago, when he turned sixteen, Zero was assigned his first job in Sector 32: recycling and organizing scrap. It was a mediocre job. The work involved sorting through trash discarded by people in the upper levels of Eden, classifying it, and recovering items that could be reused.
However, when Zero unexpectedly found a Duel Monster card in a messy, foul-smelling garbage heap, the nature of the job suddenly changed.
The overly affluent people in the upper sectors would naturally throw away "useless" cards. Even though that card was something the upper-level people despised enough to toss in the trash—a weak, low-level monster they couldn't even be bothered to summon—Zero saw a faint ray of light shining into the slums, falling back onto him.
Since he could pick up cards from the trash, as long as he collected 40, wouldn't he become a Duelist?
Even if they were just weak monsters thrown into the bin, the famous Duel King and protagonist of Yu-Gi-Oh! 5D's, Yusei Fudo, once said: The weak have their own way of fighting!
Just like the weak Amano had his own way of fighting life.
However, the process of collecting cards was not as smooth as Zero had imagined. Not every trip to the trash heap yielded a reward. And of course, expecting to find a "Junk/Synchron" deck in the trash like Yusei Fudo was pure fantasy.
The scavenging took two whole years.
So, besides those unwanted weak Vanillas, had Zero picked up any other useful cards in those two years?
Yes, brothers, yes!
Zero pulled out his unfinished deck from his pocket and flipped to the top card. This was probably the strongest monster he had found so far.
It was also a low-level monster, and also a Vanilla with no effect. But the moment he picked her up, Zero knew this card was destined to be different from the others. That night, the card seemed to glow brilliantly in the dark trash heap, shimmering with starlight.
On the card face, a cute girl with long blue hair, holding a staff shaped like a key, floated above a colorful radiance.
[The World Chalice Priestess] [Level 2 / Water][Spellcaster / Normal] [ATK: 0 / DEF: 2100]
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Yu-ki-oh:King of the Scraps (52 Chapters, Ongoing)
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