Yugioh [879-881] (Patreon)

Chapter 879 – "Rescue"

Academy Island.

Deep in the woods. A dark, windy night—perfect time to get things done.

The Dark Scorpion gang was huddled together, moving through the bushes and tall grass.

"Seriously, why did they have to build this school on some random island?"

 As he walked, Chick kept glancing left and right, muttering under his breath.

 "This creepy vibe is way too scary…"

Meanae shot him a contemptuous look. "You're a member of our Dark Scorpion Burglars, and you're this much of a wimp? You're disgracing the whole gang."

Cliff pushed his glasses up and squinted at Meanae. "Meanae, there's a snake at your feet."

Meanae's pretty face went pale. She practically jumped away on reflex. "Aaaah!"

Chick looked annoyed. "You're a spirit and you're still scared of snakes? You're not any better than me."

Meanae: "Shut up!"

The big guy, Gorg, rubbed his stomach, eyes looking like his soul had already left his body. "I'm hungry…"

In the end, it was their big bro, Zaloog, who stepped up. He turned around impatiently.

 "Hey. We're professionals, remember? Can you guys at least act a little professional?

The boss has more and more powerful people under him now. If we keep messing around like this, we're gonna lose our spot real soon!"

The noisy burglars went dead quiet in an instant.

Yeah… that did sound like a real problem.

In fact, they'd already started to feel the pressure. The spirits under Kira kept getting stronger, and there were more and more heavy hitters. The few of them squeezed in the middle always felt like tiny shrimps…

"Hold up."

Cliff suddenly spoke.

Zaloog snapped, "What now? I just said—"

"No, boss. I think I've found something."

A cold glint flashed off Cliff's lenses. "There's someone else's presence."

The burglars instantly tensed up.

"I don't feel anything."

 Meanae lowered her voice. Then again, her senses had never been as sharp as Cliff's.

"Is it the spirit we're supposed to be looking for? Should we… let the master know?"

"No, I'm afraid not." Cliff's voice sank. "It's the presence of a living human. Not a spirit."

At that, the burglars all showed strange expressions.

They were searching in the academy's restricted area, not far from the abandoned dorms. Under normal circumstances, there shouldn't be anyone here.

Another intruder?

There really had been a lot of intruders at the academy lately…

But since they were already here, they didn't mind taking care of the intruder for their master while they were at it.

They'd hardly taken a few steps in that direction when someone in their formation suddenly yelled, "Ah!"

Everyone jumped and spun around. The scream came from Chick.

Chick had stepped on something. His ankle was suddenly snared by some kind of energy line and yanked upward. He was jerked into the air and left hanging upside down. A capsule-like device then popped open with a bang and snapped shut around him, trapping him inside.

Everyone was shocked.

"A trap!?"

"This is human tech!" Cliff said in a low, serious voice.

Inside the capsule, Chick struggled with all his might. "Human tech? But that's impossible, this—ugh aaagh!"

Electricity suddenly crackled inside the capsule, shocking him into a string of miserable screams.

"Chick!"

Their hearts all lurched—and at the same time, a question rose in their minds. technology… could actually hurt spirits?

As they were still frozen in shock, footsteps sounded from ahead in the woods.

A dark silhouette stepped out slowly.

…

…

Within a single day, the rumor had already spread.

They said that Professor Viper, who'd come from another school, and the academy's own Duel King had clashed over differing educational philosophies, and that a disagreement had escalated straight into a card fight. In the end, after one duel, the Lord of Yellow had sent that clueless out-of-town professor straight into the ICU, and he still hadn't woken up.

"People really love making stuff up these days."

In his lab, Kira shook his head over and over, expressing his indignation at the moral decline of modern society.

"Always spreading untrue stories and smearing people's reputations."

As if he were some unforgivable fiend, the academy's tyrant dictator who used duels to silence all opposition to his rule…

On the side, Misawa and Alexis watched Kira complain while he fiddled with the deck that looked very much like it had been ripped straight out of Professor Viper's Duel Disk.

They exchanged glances.

They were both thinking the same thing: You really don't have any right to say that while you're literally playing with the spoils of war…

The fact that Professor Viper had ended up in the ICU was also true. But heaven and earth could testify—Kira insisted that this time, he'd really done nothing.

Yes, they'd fought a Shadow Duel, but Viper was the one who started it. Kira had never used his own power to inflict real damage, and in the end, he wasn't the one who dealt the fatal blow—it was Yubel.

From the moment Professor Viper discovered Yubel, who had fallen back to Earth from the stars, he was basically already her slave. Once he'd lost his value, he went from puppet to Yubel's food.

Yubel had the ability to draw out the darkness in people's hearts. She liked to foster that darkness, grow it until it became enormous, and then devour it, which allowed her to restore her own power.

In the original story, when she nurtured Adrian and guided him to seek his king's road in another dimension, it was for the same purpose. She just played it a bit too big that time and almost overreached—she nearly got reverse swept by Adrian's completed Exodia.

Right now, Kira was indeed going through Viper's deck.

To be fair, in terms of raw deck quality, Professor Viper's Venom deck was kind of trashy. …Well, okay, maybe blaming it all on the Venom deck wasn't entirely fair.

More accurately, it was a problem with the entire Reptile-Type as a whole.

The fact that Reptiles had a busted support card like "Snake Rain" and were still half-dead as an archetype really spoke for itself.

But while the deck wasn't great, Viper's boss monster was absolutely no joke.

Vennominaga the Deity of Poisonous Snakes.

"No matter how you slice it, we still picked up a pretty incredible card this time," Vampire Fraulein said with a smile, holding her parasol.

"Looks like our team is getting yet another heavyweight on board."

"Yeah. Full immunities, high ATK, alternate win condition," Kira nodded. "If not for that ridiculously strict summoning requirement, it'd basically be invincible."

At that moment, the deck let out a muffled sort of sound. A transparent burst of fire flickered for a second, as if expressing displeasure.

That was the Lava Golem, who spent most of his time lurking and silently watching the screen.

Kira chuckled. "Of course, it still can't compare to my Ace Lava Golem. Having full immunities isn't that big a deal."

The flame flickered out, seemingly satisfied now that it had been reaffirmed.

While it was indeed very difficult to handle Vennominaga, Kira had already thought up one or two deck builds that might actually work in practice. Setting aside the possibility of her getting eaten by Lava Golem, once she hit the field, her ability to lock down the game was absolutely top-tier…

"Hm?"

He sensed something. He took a deck from the card case at his waist and pulled out the cards of the Dark Scorpion Burglars.

Those guys had gone out on a mission, but he'd kept their cards with him. Just in case anything happened to them, and so he could communicate with them remotely through the cards.

"So? You found something?" Kira asked.

"Boss!"

Chick's card was the first to start shaking, his voice tumbling out, incoherent.

"Help! Help! Heeelp!"

Chapter 880 – Trapper

"Huff… huff…"

Zaloog panted heavily, his face bruised and swollen. Beside him, Meanae and Cliff were both injured as well. As for Gorg and Chick, they were already locked inside transparent energy capsules, hanging upside down.

The man stood in front of them, a Duel Disk on his arm, an energy whip in his hand, and an amused smile on his face.

"That's all you've got?" he sneered. "Come on, how about you just give up and come with me quietly?"

"Go lick your grandpa's ass!"

Zaloog roared in fury.

"I haven't even warmed up yet— cough, cough, cough—"

He tried to force himself forward, but after a few steps, his injuries seemed to flare. He dropped to one knee, clutching his chest.

Zaloog stared at the man, shocked.

The whole thing was just too strange.

That capture capsule, and that weird weapon in the man's hand—the energy whip. They were clearly human technology, yet they could actually injure spirits like them.

Even shifting into a non-physical, intangible state didn't help. All those weapons seemed capable of ignoring intangibility entirely; not even ghosts could avoid them.

And Zaloog could feel the wounds on his body right now too. This wasn't damage to a temporary physical manifestation. It was a much deeper, more fundamental kind of injury.

He hadn't even known it was possible for him to be hurt in this world.

"Boss!"

Meanae suddenly blurted out in surprise and relief.

Zaloog turned his head. "What?"

Then he immediately realized—oh, she wasn't calling him.

She was calling their bigger boss.

Kira walked out from between the trees and came to stand before them. The burglars immediately started pouring out their grievances.

Meanae: "Boss, you've gotta stand up for us!"

In his capsule, Chick stretched his hands out as far as he could. "Boss! Help! Help!"

Kira frowned slightly, glancing first at the two spirits locked inside the capsules, then at the man across from him.

The man studied him for a moment as well, his own brows drawing together slightly.

 "Huh. Didn't expect that. I just randomly nab a few spirits, and it turns out the master behind them is actually the Duel King?"

"Let me guess," Kira stared at the man. "A spirit hunter?"

"As expected of the Duel King. Sharp eyes."

The man laughed.

"That's right. I'm Trapper."

Kira remembered him now.

This guy also showed up in the GX anime, around this time in the story. The reason he'd come to Duel Academy Island was Jesse Anderson—or, more accurately, Jesse's Crystal Beasts.

As the name suggested, Trappers specialized in hunting Duel Spirits. But unlike rare card hunters like Rare Hunters in DM, who relied on Shadow Duels or high-stakes gambling duels, Trappers were despised even in the official dueling world and among Shadow Duelists.

Because to them, dueling was a last resort, not the norm. Most of the time, they didn't like using duels to hunt.

They preferred to just straight-up rob people.

Like they'd just demonstrated—they had their own technological means to injure and capture spirits. They liked to launch surprise attacks, taking advantage of moments when the master wasn't paying attention, and use technology to snare spirits in a flash. Then they'd grab the spirits and run. If possible, they avoided a head-on duel with the spirit's master.

That was why even Shadow Duelists looked down on this lot.

"Since we've got a guest, we'll have to treat you properly."

Kira smiled and raised his Duel Disk.

Since he'd caught this hunter, the guy wouldn't be allowed to just run off. Not that this particular hunter seemed interested in running.

"Sure, I was hoping you'd say that." Trapper laughed lightly. "Running into the King here on the island was unexpected, but visiting you was already part of my plan for this trip."

"Oh?"

"One of the reasons I came this time was to acquire the legendary, priceless Crystal Beast spirits. As for my other goal…"

Trapper Trapper narrowed his eyes.

"The whole underground knows the current Duel King commands god-level spirits. And I am the finest hunter among hunters. I've long wanted to try my hand at a really heavyweight spirit…"

"That so?" Kira unfolded his Duel Disk. "Fine, then.

If I lose, all of my spirits are yours. You can pick and choose however you want.

But in exchange—"

He hadn't even finished when Trapper let out a cold chuckle.

"Of course, all the spirits I've captured in my entire career will be yours to dispose of as you please. And I'll wash my hands of hunting for good. No—better yet, I'll never touch cards again. I'll quit dueling entirely. How about that?"

"Deal."

A fair wager.

"Duel!" x2

[Kira, LP 4000]

[Trapper, LP 4000]

"I'll go first. Draw!"

Trapper drew a card and glanced at his opening hand.

"I summon 'Lure Phantom' in defense mode." (Anime card)

Since it wasn't printed in real life, in this world it existed as a card privately produced by the hunter organization. Many of the cards Trappers used were hunter-exclusive, designed to suit their profession and hunting style.

The monster that appeared was a clump of shadow. It rose up off the ground, taking on the vague outline of a body, with a creepy little smiling face and black eyes, its body formed like clear smoke.

[Lure Phantom, DEF 0]

"Then I set one card face-down and end my turn."

The moment she saw that phantom, Meanae felt something was off. "That guy's deck feels weird too. Boss, be careful."

"I know." Kira smiled. "My turn. Draw."

He glanced at his hand, pulled out one card, and set it.

"I set one card face-down.

Then I activate the Spell Card 'Card Destruction.'"

He sent his remaining hand to the Graveyard in one go.

"Both players discard their entire hands and then draw the same number of cards from their decks."

Trapper said nothing, silently complying—sending his hand to the Grave and drawing a new one.

As soon as he finished redrawing, Kira flipped his face-down card.

"I activate the Spell Card 'Dual Gate.'

By banishing another copy of 'Dual Gate' with the same name from my Graveyard, I can draw two cards from my deck.

I banish another 'Dual Gate' from my Graveyard and draw two."

Chapter 881 – Hunting Spirits

"Dual Gate's effect: draw two cards."

Kira drew, then immediately played one of the cards he'd drawn.

"I activate the Spell Card 'Fiend's Sanctuary.' I Special Summon a 'Metal Fiend Token' to my field."

A magical barrier spread open, and a small metal demon made of countless tiny spheres appeared on Kira's field.

[Metal Fiend Token, ATK 0]

"Then I tribute 'Metal Fiend Token' to Tribute Summon a Level 6 monster—

—Storm Caller!"

A Level 6 psychic warrior. Waves of psychic force swept across the field as a green tempest rose up. A towering figure stepped forth from within the storm and landed with a heavy crash.

[Storm Caller, ATK 2300]

"Oh? Going straight into a Tribute Summon and attacking right away, huh?"

Trapper chuckled internally.

Good. The stronger the monster, the better. Come on, attack. Harder, harder.

Kira seemed not to notice what was going through his opponent's mind. He just raised his hand.

"Battle.

Storm Caller, attack 'Lure Phantom'!"

The Summoner spread his arms, and a storm of psychic wind howled forth. Green gales crackling with electricity surged toward the transparent phantom.

Trapper finally couldn't hold back the smirk tugging at his lips.

Here it comes.

"Ha ha ha ha, perfect timing!" Trapper laughed. "At this moment, Lure Phantom's effect activates!

When an opponent's monster declares an attack, I can return 'Lure Phantom' on the field to my hand, and in exchange, one attacking monster you control is also returned to your hand!"

Meanae clicked her tongue. "Knew it. That thing was a trap…"

"And that's not all!" Trapper laughed. "I also activate my face-down counter trap, 'Hunting Net'!

When an effect that returns a monster on your opponent's field to the hand is activated, this card can be activated. That opponent's monster is not returned to the hand, but is instead captured and placed in my Spell & Trap Zone, and it gains one 'Prey Counter'!"

The trap activated. The Storm Caller, his mind already muddled by the Lure Phantom, suddenly froze. From the trap card, a massive net shot forth.

It wrapped around the Storm Caller like a fisherman's net. The net tightened and yanked him back, dropping him into one of Trapper's Spell & Trap Zones.

Zaloog roared, "He actually stole the opponent's monster! This kind of dirty trick is way too low!"

But the moment he said it, Meanae elbowed him in the ribs and coughed twice.

Zaloog then remembered that, come to think of it, there probably wasn't a single person more low than their own boss…

The Trapper burst out laughing. "They say the Duel King's duels are something extraordinary, but it looks like you still can't properly show your stuff in front of a Spirit Hunter. That hard-earned Tribute monster got captured by me just like that."

He let out a dark chuckle.

"Well, that wasn't a spirit, so it's not that interesting. Rumor has it the Duel King can command countless powerful spirits. Why not bring them all out and let me have a look?"

"To snatch away my monster right off the bat… you really are a thoroughbred hunter."

Kira's tone was calm.

"I'll set one card in my back row and end my turn."

Trapper grew even more arrogant.

"Ending like that? Then you're in real danger now…

My turn. Draw!"

Trapper drew.

"I Normal Summon 'Malice Doll of Demise'!"

A creepy little doll straight out of a horror movie appeared, wielding an axe bigger than its entire body.

[Malice Doll of Demise, ATK 1600]

"Well, I'd love to have your monster attack you, but unfortunately, captured monsters have to stay trapped in the web and can't attack."

In the anime, the monster looked like it was caught in the capture net, but in terms of the rules, it was treated as a Spell/Trap card placed in the back row, similar to how Crystal Beasts worked.

Trapper continued, "So I'll have 'Malice Doll of Demise' attack you directly."

The doll's wild eyes rolled madly as its half-dislocated jaw flapped up and down. It rushed at Kira and brought its axe down in a heavy chop.

"I activate a trap," Kira said. "Trap Card 'Back to the Front.' I Special Summon one monster from my Graveyard in Defense Position.

I Special Summon this card from the Graveyard…"

He revealed the card he was reviving.

"'Flying Kamakiri #1,' in Defense Position."

A green dragonfly with huge eyes fluttered onto Kira's field, its wings beating so fast they became a blur.

[Flying Kamakiri #1, DEF 900]

"Using a little trash monster as a wall, huh?" Trapper scoffed. "Cursed Doll, chop it apart."

The axe came down in a brutal swing. Flying Kamakiri #1 was split cleanly in two, and both halves scattered into golden dust.

"Flying Kamakiri #1's monster effect," Kira said. "When it's destroyed by battle and sent to the Graveyard, I can Special Summon one WIND monster with 1500 ATK or less from my Deck in Attack Position."

Kira drew out the card that popped out of his deck.

"I Special Summon 'Matriarch of Nephthys' from my deck."

A green whirlwind rose, then suddenly ignited, turning into a storm of fire. When the fiery wind dispersed, a curvaceous female spellcaster clad in golden armor appeared, flames dancing in her palms.

[Matriarch of Nephthys, ATK 600]

"Nephthys?"

Trapper frowned.

He'd heard of the Sacred Phoenix of Nephthys—a pretty powerful rare monster. But he wasn't familiar with the Nephthys-archetype as a whole.

Still, at the end of the day, it was just a 600-ATK little spellcaster…

Trapper: "I'll set one card and end my turn."

He didn't re-summon Lure Phantom this turn. One reason was that he needed to go on the offensive and deal damage. Another was that he'd already used the Phantom once, and now that its effect was exposed, it was much less valuable.

Lure Phantom was a gotcha kind of card that needed the opponent to attack into it. It worked best when the opponent didn't know what it did. Once they learned its effect, they wouldn't attack it so easily, and its value dropped sharply.

But that was fine.

Trapper's gaze slid toward his set back row, and he kept sneering inwardly.

Trappers had way more tricks than just the ones he'd already shown. He'd already dug another pit and was just waiting for his prey to jump in.

For hunters, winning the duel wasn't the only goal. The more important part was plunder. They were the predators; spirits were the prey. Snatching away the opponent's spirits mid-duel, watching them rage helplessly, breaking the bond between duelist and spirit to disrupt the opponent's performance—sometimes, they could even win without really fighting.

"My turn. Draw."

Kira drew, his hand pausing for a moment. He slowly lifted his gaze.

"Since you're so obsessed with spirits… fine. Works out perfectly, actually."

He narrowed his eyes and smiled.

"Then I'll summon a spirit on my side too. One that's absolutely unique in this world, a one-of-a-kind, ultra-rare spirit just for you."