You really can’t play Yu-Gi-Oh!
without money, huh?
Yushin sighed inwardly, figuring that dueling really was a rich man’s game after all.
Sure, Mirror Force was still a powerful Trap in the current meta, but at the end of the day it was still an old card from over thirty years ago.
If one copy of Mirror Force alone cost hundreds of thousands, what kind of astronomical price would something even rarer, maybe even one-of-a-kind in the current era, actually go for?
No, actually, he could already imagine it: cards rare enough to be truly one-of-a-kind probably weren’t for sale at any price, no matter how much money you threw at them.
Seeming to notice how stunned Yushin looked, Rude smiled.
“That’s nothing.
Mirror Force is an old card after all, so there’s a limit to how expensive it gets.
High-class duelists in the main city these days are mostly running Synchro Monsters.
Those represent the actual future of Duel Monsters evolution.
That’s where the real money is…” After digging around a bit more with Rude, Yushin learned that even though this new “Synchro” summoning method was the whole face of the Yu-Gi-Oh!
5D’s anime, this kind of cutting-edge technology had absolutely nothing to do with the Satellite’s poor.
Made sense, actually.
In episode one of the anime, when Yusei pulled off a Synchro Summon, Trudge, the pursuing Sector Security officer facing him, had reacted with total shock, demanding how some piece of Satellite trash could possibly know how to Synchro Summon.
And back then, Trudge himself, an officer of Sector Security, hadn’t even had a single Synchro card of his own.
It wasn’t until later, when he got a special deck authorized from higher up for pursuit duels, that he gained access to Synchro Summoning at all.
Duel Monsters as a whole may have entered the Synchro era by now, but it was still extremely rare in the Satellite.
Even judging by the anime, it wasn’t especially common even among main-city duelists.
Back in the anime’s early Fortune Cup arc, Sector Security invited strong duelists from all over to compete in the Fortune Cup tournament.
You could see characters like the Knight Duelist, the Duel Profiler, and Enjou Shigai in the lineup, all established as top-level main-city duelists in their own right, and not one of them had access to Synchro Summoning.
Which just went to show, even in the main city, Synchro was still a novelty.
So now you might be wondering: if Synchro Monster cards were scarce even in the main city, how did Satellite protagonists like Yusei Fudo or Jack Atlas ever get their hands on any?
Well, this was exactly where Yu-Gi-Oh!
protagonist crews earned their reputation.
They just print their own cards…
Sure, Yusei technically scavenged a top-tier deck out of a scrapheap, but what he actually scavenged were mostly Main Deck pieces, the Extra Deck cards were almost certainly ones he’d basically conjured up himself.
Not something a normal person could ever pull off.
“The high-end scene in the main city’s all Riding Duels now, dueling while actually riding a Duel Runner,” Rude said, a look of longing crossing his face.
“Ugh, I have no idea if I’ll ever get the chance to see a real Duel Runner in this lifetime.
If I could just touch one, ride one once, I could die happy…” A Duel Runner was a motorcycle purpose-built for Riding Duels, powered by an engine that never ran out of fuel, a genuine perpetual motion machine, the stuff of dreams.
Naturally, cutting-edge technology like that had no business showing up in the Satellite either, as a rule…
…Except, of course, for Yusei Fudo, who’d hand-built one out of scrapyard junk.
Yushin said, “I picked up some cards the other day, Uncle Rude.
Mind taking a look and telling me what they’re worth?” “Oh?
Lucky you, finding cards out there.” Rude said.
“Sure, let’s see them.” Then, when Yushin fanned out a dozen or so cards across the counter, Rude’s eyes went wide.
“You picked up this many cards in one go?
Off someone’s body, more like?” “What’re you talking about, old man?
Relax, I promise they’re all unclaimed property,” Yushin said.
“Quit stalling and give me a price already.” The original owners were dead.
That definitely made them unclaimed property, no argument there, as far as Yushin was concerned.
He’d only picked out the cards he was sure were useless.
Anything he thought might be useful now, or possibly useful down the line, he was holding onto for the time being, to sell off later if he ever needed to.
Rude studied them for a good while, thought it over, then said, “9000 DP.” Yushin said, “Really?
That’s a lot of cards, Uncle Rude.
Shouldn’t it at least round up to an even 10,000?” Rude rolled his eyes.
“Oh, now you’re haggling with me?
Like I’d ever shortchange you, kid.” Yushin thought about it, and fair enough.
Uncle Rude had given the original body’s whole starting deck away for free in the first place.
The cards he’d picked out as useless probably weren’t worth all that much to begin with, and Uncle Rude’s offer was probably already generous by Satellite standards.
So Yushin just smiled.
“Old habits.
Fine, 9000 it is.” Rude took the cards and transferred 9000 DP over to him right away.
Add in the 2000 DP already transferred from Itagaki and the Fang Gang, and on his very first day in this body, Yushin had already pulled in 11,000 DP total…
and that wasn’t even counting the other cards he was still holding onto.
Yushin did the math again in his head.
The original owner of this body had worked himself half to death at various factories, doing the roughest, most exhausting physical labor there was, and still constantly facing the risk of finding no work at all on any given day.
And even then, working himself to the bone from dawn to dusk, he’d only made a little over 100 DP a day.
Grinding for an entire month straight, without eating or drinking, would only net him about 3000 DP total.
So Yushin’s decision was immediate.
Damn it, why bother working a real job at all?
Robbery…
er, no, picking up cards was way more efficient.
He browsed the shop a bit longer, but didn’t spot anything else that caught his eye, so he just picked out a few random cards that might come in handy.
He did notice something, though: this part of the Satellite seemed to have a fair number of cards Yusei Fudo had actually used, mostly Level 1 and 2 low-tier monsters.
Take this one, Road Runner, for instance: a Level 1 monster, effect being that it can’t be destroyed in battle by a monster with 1900 or more ATK.
That was pretty solid proof Yusei’s deck really had been assembled out of a scrapheap.
It really did seem to be built out of cards common in the Satellite.
From where Yushin stood, the cards in the Satellite were, well, pathetic in the effects department…
actually, no, this whole era didn’t really have the concept of “good card effects” yet at all.
Finding one useful card at all already counted as a win.
He thought it over, then asked, “Oh, by the way, Uncle Rude, if I wanted rare cards, or at least ones a little stronger, cards that came down from the main city, is there any way to get them?” “Oh-ho, one taste of spare cash and now you’re too good for my stock.” Rude said, mildly annoyed.
“You said it yourself, main-city cards.
How’s the Satellite supposed to get its hands on those?
What I’ve got here is already the best you’re gonna find.” He paused, thought about it for a second, then added, “Unless…” Yushin’s eyes lit up.
He hadn’t expected there to actually be a real angle here from a casual question.
“Please, Uncle Rude, enlighten me.” Rude chuckled.
“There is one way to get main-city cards out here in the Satellite.
There’s an organization out here that came from the main city, right?
Obviously they’d have main-city cards.” An organization from the main city?
Was there one?
Yushin blinked, then said, on instinct, “You mean the Duel Academy?
I already asked Yukine about that.
She said the cards sold through the Satellite branch are nothing special…” “You idiot, not the Duel Academy.
There’s another one, isn’t there?
Besides the Duel Academy, another main-city organization set up here in the Satellite that duels its way through everything.” With that nudge, it finally clicked for Yushin.
“An organization that duels its way through everything…
you mean Sector Security?” “Obviously.” Rude said with a grin.
“If you’re good enough to actually get yourself into Sector Security, forget main-city cards, word is you might even get a shot at the legendary Synchro Monsters.
Assuming, of course, that those stuck-up officers even bother noticing someone like you in the first place, ha ha ha…” What Rude was saying held up, too.
As the saying went, everything in the universe eventually comes back to landing a stable government position.
In a world with a class system this rigid, and starting off as a low-life from the Satellite of all places, the difficulty of actually landing a spot in Sector Security barely needed explaining.
Satellite residents generally despised Sector Security, seeing them as attack dogs for the ruling class.
And Sector Security, in turn, looked down on Satellite residents right back, dismissing everyone living in the slums as garbage the world had no use for.
Leaving Rude’s general store, Yushin walked on, lost in thought.
So, in that case, all the best resources in the Satellite were concentrated in Sector Security’s hands.
If he could get in, not only would he have access to better cards, but the possibility of climbing out of the Satellite and into the main city might not be off the table either…
But that was a problem for later.
As for tomorrow’s shift…
Sorting through the memories in his head, Yushin remembered that the original body had apparently planned to keep going back to the factory to work tomorrow.
But of course, he had absolutely zero interest in that anymore.
Work a shift?
What was the point of that?
Nothing made money faster than a good duel.
By the time he left the general store, it was already getting dark.
Plenty of the streets in the Satellite had no working lights at all, leaving the surroundings thick with jagged shadows and a distinct sense of danger.
As Yushin walked, glancing at the darkness pressing in from every side, a thought suddenly occurred to him.
Could a nice bro maybe show up and try to mug him again?
That’d net him another whole deck.
Pretty please, with sugar on top!
And then, right on cue, a hooded man emerged from the darkness ahead, a Duel Disk strapped to his arm, blocking his path.