It's truly been a long day, and many things have happened. Most of them bad. However, I can't help but be excited for tomorrow. I'll be heading to the Slum's Official Duel Arena.
Now, I need to sleep so I can rest for tomorrow.
I'm gonna need all the energy I can get.
[The Next Day]
I wake up excited. Today's gonna be an important day, the day I start making my way to 15k Duel Points. It's Saturday, which means I only need to work during the morning. Then, in the afternoon, I'll make my way to the Slum's Official Duel Arena.
The plan is NOT to fight this afternoon. I need to scout first to identify the strong duelists and the weaker ones. The duelists with troublesome decks for mine, and those I have an advantage against.
If I manage to carefully identify them, I should be able to prepare myself and choose the right people to fight. That is my plan, which should work somewhat fine. Though I've never been to that Duel Arena so I don't know if there are any unique rules I don't know. I hope there aren't.
Anyway, I tidy up my bed, dress up, and say goodbye to my little brother. Long day ahead, I'll make it worth.
My walk to the dump is long, so I have time to think about my Deck. I need to improve it; that is a fact. But to improve my Deck, I need to get new cards. Cards that fit my Archetype. Well, I have some shopping points, maybe I can buy new cards?
I check my terminal to see how many SDP, Shopping Duel Points, I have. I got 1100 from Lukas yesterday, and had 300 from a Duel I made a couple of years ago at school. I used a borrowed Deck but it was a small Tournament at school. So it was kind of official.
Essentially, it just counted for points. I don't really remember what my Deck even was. I only remember I won with 300 overload damage during the first round, and then immediately lost and was disqualified. I hadn't had a chance to duel since then, but I spent countless hours watching videos from the top duelists.
What allat means is that I have 1400 SDP. You can buy 1 random card that fits your archetype for 1500 SDP, and 10 cards that fit your archetype with 10000 SDP. It is certainly better to wait for the 10k SDP for 10 cards, since it is simply more cards for the same price.
I guess I'll wait to buy 10 cards. That should be the best way to go about it. Right?
Upon arriving at work, I notice Lukas is in the entrance, and he quickly notices me. Next to him is our Boss... Aw, dammit.
"Hello, Boss."
"Hello, Yoshiro"
The boss is a tall, muscular man. I'd describe him as the kind of guy who not only has to lean down to fit through doors, but also has to walk sideways to fit through. Of course, the second part is an exaggeration. But you get the idea.
I am honestly already going through acceptance. I expect Lukas to have told Boss I skipped work, partially, yesterday. And that means I can say goodbye to Employee of the Month. As I suspected, Boss quickly addresses the elephant in the room.
"Yoshiro, I heard you skipped two hours yesterday."
"I apologise, Boss. That is true."
"I see... Well, you've been a great asset for this company, but you surely understand I cannot have you as our Employee of the Month after that incident."
"I do understand, sir."
"Good. Lukas also told me you dueled him and were close to winning."
"Yeah, Boss. I'm telling ya, he almost got me!"
"W-well, yeah... I guess I almost did."
The boss laughs, breaking that intimidating façade he probably couldn't hold on to any longer. Boss looks like a beast, the strictest person in this city. However, in truth, he is just as soft as a marshmallow.
"That's quite the feat, in the ten years Lukas has been working here, only one person has beaten him. Me! Everyone else hasn't been able to drop his LP under the 2000 threshold."
"Is that so? I guess I'm honoured, then."
"I bet you went missing for a reason, so I'll compensate in this way."
He approaches his terminal to mine, and I hear a beep. No way, is he really giving me Shopping points? I never expected him to do that. Those are valuable and rare here. I look at my terminal.
Oh... Okay. I guess that makes sense.
[SDP: 1400 --> 1500]
Well, that's enough money for one card. Though it's probably better to wait, I guess I have this backup plan in case I need a card right away.
"I'd give you more, but that's all the points I have left."
"It's fine, Boss. You didn't need to give me even one single point."
He laughs again and taps me on the back. Almost throwing me to the ground.
"Now, I don't wanna see you slacking again. Go, there's a lot of work to do."
I nod at him and walk into the slums. I check the terminal for the hour, as always. 6:03 am. Only 8 hours and I'll be off for today, then I'll be able to prepare myself for fighting for Duel Points. Which I have 0 right now, by the way.
[9 Hours Later]
I yawn, I'm tired. But at least I already finished working for today, and also cooked lunch for my brother and me. We just finished eating, so I rush to stand up. He seems confused. I usually stay home on Saturday afternoons.
"Where you going, Yuta?"
"We're a bit short in money this month, so I'm gonna work some extra hours."
"You should rest, we're always short of money... It's no big deal."
"Don't worry, I'll be fine."
After giving my brother a goodbye hug, I leave our hut to give us a chance to live inside an actual house. The Duel Arena is about 20 minutes away, walking. So being 3:29 pm right now means I'll get there before 4.
I can't help but keep being tempted to get one single card right now, thinking any card will help me be able to win. Which will make me gain even more money. However, that isn't something I can allow myself to do. I need to save for 10 cards, which will make me get even more profit.
One card will probably not make such a change. If I play with all my tools available, I'll surely be able to win. Especially if I target Decks that don't have an advantage against mine.
Soon enough. I find myself in front of the Slum's Official Duel Arena. If you expected a huge building with epic lighting, music booming from inside, and huge expectations given immediately from looking at it. You expected wrong.
This Arena is just a small building in the corner of the street. It has 3 floors, and unlike what you might expect, it doesn't have the stronger players playing at the top. Actually, players aren't even forcibly separated.
According to the signs in the entrance, the first and second floors are just identical, open spaces with designated areas to Duel. However, the third floor is actually different. It has a huge, actual arena for Dueling. Only those who are close to getting 10k Dueling Points are allowed to duel up there.
I guess it'd be cool to Duel there.
Before getting inside, I am forced to register my Duel Disk at the entrance. There is an annoyingly long and small text down next to the machine, but I assume it's the basic terms and conditions you find everywhere, and I ignore it.
Anyways, let's focus. I look at a random duelist in the room, who actually looks back at me. He is a bald man with a moustache. To be honest, his moustache doesn't really look good. He looks kinda laughable. He wears some Texan pants and a black shirt. Over his shirt, he wears a black leather jacket.
A sharp pain suddenly hits me, as if my right eye was pierced through with a needle. However, I try to keep my composure. I feel I learned everything about that guy's Deck, but my brain doesn't remember everything right away.
If I did, I'd probably be overloaded by all the information and straight away lose consciousness. So, I decide that I'll instead focus on remembering individual information from his Deck.
Let's see, I'll start with his Extra Deck. A smaller headache follows my attempt at remembering it. However, I do 'remember' what his Extra Deck exactly has: 'Superdreadnought Rail Cannon Gustav Max', 'Googly-Eyes Drum Dragon', 'Number 52: Diamond Crab King', 'Gagaga Cowboy', 'Link Spider'.
Out of those five, I only recognise one immediately. Link Spider, it's an Earth Link 1 monster that lets you summon one Level 4 monster. I think its requirement to be Link Summoned was slightly inconvenient, and that might be why it isn't limited.
'Gagaga Cowboy', I don't remember well, but I do recall it had some sort of damage burn while being in Defense Mode. I just heard some people talk about it, but I didn't really care at that time.
The eye doesn't give me the information about the cards if I don't focus on remembering what they do exactly. So that is what I do- Ngh, the pain from remembering the information of four cards at once isn't pleasant.
It's significantly higher than just remembering their names.
But now I know what his, probably, stronger monsters do. And they aren't quite bad. They all have an insanely high ATK or DEF. Or both even. This guy probably stole those cards from some rich guy or something.
Regardless, I now know who I'm not gonna figh-
"You, kid!"
I look at the person pointing their finger at me. It's the Earth Archetype guy.
"I see you've got a Deck. There's no running away now."
"Excuse me?"
"If you enter the Slum's Official Duel Arena with a Deck, you're forced to fight against six duelists. For every duel you win, we'll give you some valuable rewards. So, wanna fight us or test your luck against some random potential assholes?"
It's a truly tempting offer, but there has to be some sort of benefit for them. And it doesn't look like there is right now. Well, or maybe there is?
"So is that how you lure weak duelists to fight you and your gang to get easy Duel Points?"
"Maybe. Are you in or out?"
"I'm not interested."
As I turn around, five more guys quickly walk in my way. Preventing me from leaving. Fuck it, I'm doing it. I quickly click my terminal, buying the deal for one single card that fits my archetype. I do it by showing my whole Deck to the terminal and targeting a card, this time 'Toon Bookmark', since I'm looking for perhaps a trap I can search and use.
[Congratulations, you have obtained the card 'Toon World'!]
The text on my terminal says I got another copy of Toon World? There was probably way better stuff to get, but whatever. It gives me consistency. I switch it from my Side Deck to my Main Deck, switching it with my second copy of 'Toon Mask.'
The Earth guy stands up from his seat and walks towards me, activating his Duel Disk. I already noticed there was no backing out from this one, so I sigh and activate my Duel Disk.
"We're six siblings, each of us has made a Deck around one Attribute and has a different playstyle."
"Is that all?"
"No, we have powerful cards that we've snatched from rich folks who were too drunk to give a damn." Figures, your strong monsters are not easy to find around here.
"I'm the EARTH sibling, good luck. You'll need it."
He says, showing his back. His leather jacket has the symbol of the Duel Monsters' EARTH attribute.
Heh, great. I won't have real good luck even if my opponent gives it to me.