Is this the world of Yu-Gi-Oh? Ada thief!

“Let me see who's performing the best among the current participants.”

“Kaito's record is pretty good, he's already won ten matches.”

“Is Syrus that amazing? He's also taken down ten opponents.”

“Jaden and that kid Jesse ran into each other? It's destiny, I guess.”

Using the surveillance system I left on Duel Academy Island, I compiled the data collected by all the duel disks of the "World Duel Carnival" participants and displayed it in front of me, Hayato muttered to himself as he looked at the data before him. After a moment, he saw the last piece of data and was a little surprised.

“Seriously, what's up with Samejima, is that little robot still chasing me?”

After carefully looking at Samejima's recent duel data, he found that his opponent was actually Principal Ichinose from the Northern Branch School. Hayato understood everything now. It was nothing more than Samejima revealing to his old rival that one of the prizes for winning the "World Duel Carnival" was something he'd arbitrarily added, like the school store's "Tomei's Kiss", and then the two hot-blooded middle-aged men started dueling.

Hayato didn't plan to stop Samejima's rare childish antics. After all, he had personally appointed him as the acting principal, and as the principal, his rights at Duel Academy were naturally unlimited!

The current time was the afternoon after Samejima announced the start of the "World Duel Carnival". After a morning of intense battles, the vast majority of people in the academy had completed their daily duel quota, and many had lost their qualifications to participate, especially with people like Kaito who had already realized that strong people from all over the world would soon be landing on Duel Academy Island, actively eliminating more participants.

And as it turned out, Kaito's plan was quite correct, because even earlier than Hayato, Ryota Kajiki and Keith had already landed on the island, carrying the participation badges that had been sent to them along with the invitations, and started their duels.

Because of the restrictions of the rules of this "World Duel Carnival", everyone couldn't refuse their first duel of the day, but they had to duel once, which easily led to the situation where the opponent you wanted to duel with had already dueled with someone else before meeting you and then refused the challenge you issued to them.

Reducing the number of students, who made up the main part of the participants, not only allowed you to collect a large number of badges as proof of your strength, but more importantly, it also effectively increased your chances of successfully challenging the duelist you wanted to duel with. Under the rules of this competition, the strong would be constantly screened out, and then the strong would fight each other to determine the stronger - on this stage of fate where no one could predict what would happen!

Yes, no one could predict. Just like at this moment - Hayato didn't expect that someone was actually lying in wait for him!

“World Duel Carnival, isn't that a very interesting name, because it sounds like it directly determines who is the world's number one.” A short figure with a face covered by a mask and gray-white hair said arrogantly, “As a duelist, you should definitely challenge the strongest person!”

“Since it was said that everyone on the island could participate in the duel, that naturally includes you, Kobayashi Hayato, the principal of Duel Academy.” Although he was wearing a headscarf, his bullet-like hairstyle still stubbornly stood up, and the masked man said.

“In other words, you, like everyone else, can't refuse our challenge for your first duel of the day!” The third person, with a red mask with dice patterns on it, said.

Next to Hayato, Bakura looked suspiciously at the three masked men, two tall and one short, on the pier, feeling that something was strange, and couldn't help but ask Hayato, “So, who are they?”

“Good question! I am, Dice King!”

“I am, Car King!”

The two tall guys on the left and right introduced themselves one by one, and then took a step back to let the shorter one standing in the middle stand in front: “And, this is our boss - Game King!”

“That's right, ohohoho!” Laughing with full vigor, the gray-haired dwarf called "Game King" raised the duel disk on his wrist and provoked Hayato, who was still standing on the boat, “So, do you dare to accept my challenge, Kobayashi Hayato?”

“Oh, no problem at all.” Hayato glanced at the other party's hairstyle, not pointing it out, and said with a smile, “But at such an old age, you shouldn't be so scared by the realistic sense of presence of the virtual projection system that you have a heart attack, right?”

“Who, who would do that!” Although there was a mask on his face, Hayato could see at a glance that the "Game King" on the opposite side was a little blushing, “Even if there is such a situation, it's just because it's the first time seeing the virtual projection system so I'm not used to it, not because I'm scared!”

“Hurry up and take out your deck, Hayato kid!” Saying that, “Game King” excitedly inserted a deck into the duel disk, “Duel!”

["Game King": 4000LP, Hand 5]

Hearing other things, Malik might feel so-so, but Hayato said he was playing the "Band Girls" deck? You say that and he's wide awake!

“In Duel Monsters, there seem to be decks related to musical instruments, but is there a deck called 'Band Girls'?” Bakura tilted his head in confusion. As a star figure employed by Kaiba Corporation, although Bakura was not a professional duelist, he had been paying attention to the new cards launched by Industrial Illusions every time due to his work, but he had no impression of the "Band Girls" that Hayato said.

“It's not that the name is 'Band Girls', it's probably just a code name that big bro-in-law came up with temporarily, right? Anyway, wait and hope.” Malik said excitedly, “I like watching women fight the most!”

“Clang!”

Although it was very ungentlemanly to lie in wait for Hayato, who had just returned to Duel Academy, on the pier, that "Game King" honestly chose to use a coin toss to decide the order of the duel with Hayato, instead of using the draw-and-attack method, which was a bit of old-fashioned ritual.

The coin rotated and landed in the air, and finally stayed on the front printed with [Blue-Eyes White Dragon].

The most ⊥ new ⊥ small ⊥ say ⊥ in ⊥ six ⊥ 9 ⊥⊥ book ⊥⊥ bar ⊥⊥ first ⊥ hair!

“Then, I'll take the first move. My turn, draw!” The man called "Game King" said, drawing a card, and he laughed triumphantly, seeming to have drawn a good card, “Ohohoho, I actually drew this card on the first draw.”

Hearing Malik's words, "Game King" said unhappily: “To say that this card is a fake card is simply an insult to my identity, and an insult to the many years of friendship between me and my friend, and even tarnishes the heart of my grandson and others.”

After a pause, he continued: “Although [Blue-Eyes White Dragon] is known to the world as the three cards in Kaiba Seto's deck, this [Blue-Eyes] is a brand new card remade with the fourth [Blue-Eyes White Dragon] not in Kaiba's hands - [Blue-Eyes White Dragon of Deep Azure]!”

“Discard this card from my hand to activate its effect, I add one [Millennium Cross] from my deck to my hand!”

Behind "Game King", [Blue-Eyes White Dragon], or rather [Blue-Eyes White Dragon of Deep Azure], roared, its body turned into countless ancient Egyptian priest characters and dissipated, and then reorganized into a golden cross somewhat similar to "Ankh", which easily reminded people of the [Millennium Key] with the same style and color, but the circle at the top was replaced by the "Eye of Horus".

“That card is, [Millennium Key]?” Not only did Hayato think so, but even Malik, who was watching the battle from the side, had the same feeling. Even the card name of that [Millennium Cross] clearly stated that it was "Ankh".

“But, do you think I'll just watch you complete the search?” Seeing that "Game King" was about to add the [Millennium Cross], which was extremely similar to [Millennium Key], to his hand, Hayato showed a card in his hand, “Chain the search of [Blue-Eyes White Dragon of Deep Azure], I want to use this yellow-haired cleaning lady who works odd jobs in the band - Ash Blossom!”

“I'm not a cleaning lady!” From Hayato's hand, a little girl with short yellow hair made a flying kick towards Hayato, but Hayato didn't even look at it, just tilted his head to easily dodge it, and then watched [Ash Blossom] kick the card that "Game King" was about to add to his hand back into the deck while shouting a protest.

“So, you don't deny that you're in charge of mopping the floor in the band at all?” Hayato joked with a smile, then showed the card to "Game King" and sent it to the graveyard, “When the effect of a magic, trap, or monster that includes any of the following effects is activated, adding a card from the deck to the hand, special summoning a monster, or sending a card to the graveyard, I discard [Ash Blossom] from my hand to activate its effect, and negate that effect.”

“Unfortunately, no matter which version of [Blue-Eyes], I'm very good at dealing with it.”

Seeing this, "Game King" sighed regretfully: “It didn't surprise me too much, but at least I tested out one of your hand cards, Hayato. It's just a pity that [Blue-Eyes White Dragon of Deep Azure] didn't successfully activate its effect.”

“However, fortunately I have more than one card that I can use.” After a pause, “Game King” played another card, “Lend me your strength, old buddies! Let the young people of today also see how powerful we old guys are!”

“Come out, [Millennium Golem]!”

[Millennium Golem] is a very old card, almost from the earliest days of Duel Monsters, but because it is a level 6☆ normal monster, its attack power and defense power are not outstanding, and the card art is not handsome enough, this card is not very popular among duelists.

However, Hayato remembered that Yugi's grandfather, Sugoroku Mutou, still had [Millennium Golem] left behind by others in his store, and he treated it the same as other cards, collecting it and maintaining it from time to time.

And after "Game King" called out the name [Millennium Golem], a stone block painted with the "Eye of Horus" rose behind him, and a large number of bricks continuously converged with that stone as the source, and a huge stone man rose from the ground and stood behind "Game King"!?

But in the next moment, the stone figure's body warped and transformed into a pointed, stone structure.

“No, in your current form, it should be called something else.” Realizing belatedly that the name of the card behind him shouldn't be [Millennium Stone Man], “Yu-Gi-Oh” corrected himself, “When this card is in my hand, I can activate its effect and place it face-up in my Spell \u0026 Trap Zone as a Continuous Spell Card. Appear—[Stone Guardian of the Millennium Treasures]!”