Yugi Muto hadn’t retired?
Now Yushin was a little lost.
Since he already knew he was in the Satellite, he’d assumed he was in the world of Yu-Gi-Oh!
5D’s.
As everyone knew, Yugi Muto was active during the original Yu-Gi-Oh!
Duel Monsters story.
By the time the second-generation anime, Yu-Gi-Oh!
GX, rolled around years later, most of the first generation of legendary duelists, Yugi included, had already retired.
The third-generation anime, Yu-Gi-Oh!
5D’s, took place even further removed from the first two.
Of the original cast, the only one still active on the stage by then was the guy nicknamed the “Yu-Gi-Oh!
living fossil,” Tetsu Trudge.
This guy, Trudge, was famous as the one legendary character who spanned all three generations.
He’d first shown up in the very first chapter of the original Duel Monsters manga as an upperclassman bullying Yugi, and had the dubious honor of becoming the first person in the modern era to get hit with a Mind Crush from the Pharaoh.
Somehow, by the time the third series rolled around, this guy had ended up as a member of Sector Security’s pursuit unit, running an endless cat-and-mouse routine with Yusei Fudo every day…
or actually, more like a mouse toying with the cat.
As far as Yushin knew, aside from this legendary living fossil Trudge, there shouldn’t have been any other original-generation characters still around by the time of 5D’s.
But now Yukine was telling him Yugi never retired?
“Yeah, I saw him just last month, actually.
He was invited to some event in America hosted by Kaiba Corp,” Yukine said.
“I saw it on the TV at the Duel Academy.” Hearing “Kaiba Corp,” Yushin couldn’t help but ask, “What about Seto Kaiba, then?
Is he still around too?” The anime he remembered from his past life had never really explained what happened to Kaiba by the time of 5D’s.
But according to fan rumor, he’d supposedly gone off to the afterlife to duel his good buddy Yami Yugi.
Of course, that meant the Pharaoh, the dark Yugi who’d returned to the afterlife, not the “light” Yugi who was apparently still active in the real world right now.
“Of course he’s around, why wouldn’t he be?” Yukine laughed.
“What kind of nonsense question is that, brother?
Kaiba Corp is the biggest company in the whole world right now.
The invention of the perpetual motion engine, the explosive leap in human technology over the last decade, most of it comes down to President Kaiba’s work.
That’s exactly why he’s called the greatest man alive.” Yushin: “…” The president was still around too, huh?
He thought it over, and couldn’t help asking one more thing.
“What about Jaden Yuki?
You heard that name before?” “Of course,” Yukine said.
“The man who won the seventh Duel City Championship ten years ago and became the third-generation Duel King, also known as the ‘King of Heroes.’ He’s one of the strongest duelists alive today.
How could anyone not know his name?” She paused, then added, “Although, from what I’ve heard, he did challenge the original Duel King, Yugi Muto, once.
It was never made public, but everyone says Yugi must have won…
though apparently the two of them actually get along really well in private.” Yushin: “…” So Jaden Yuki had become Duel King too, and from the way Yukine talked about him, he sounded like he was still pretty active these days.
Yushin was fairly sure that, in the later parts of the GX anime, while Jaden had already reached top-tier strength by the end, he’d rarely made public appearances at tournaments, meaning he never actually claimed the official title of Duel King by the time the series wrapped up.
He couldn’t help rubbing his temples.
Where the hell had this landed him?
Was this even 5D’s anymore?
What kind of world had he actually transmigrated into?
He couldn’t shake the feeling he’d landed in some map where legends just casually walked around everywhere.
By the time they’d talked all this through, the simple meal was mostly finished.
Yukine got up and gathered the bowls and chopsticks back into the kitchen.
Yushin got up meaning to wash the dishes, but was pushed right back out of the kitchen by his sister again.
“Ugh, I already told you, just sit down and behave, brother,” Yukine said with a pout.
“What’s gotten into you today?
Asking all these weird questions, and now you keep trying to steal my chores?” So Yushin gave up and let it go.
Soon the sound of running water and clinking dishes drifted out of the kitchen, along with Yukine’s soft voice humming a cheerful little tune.
Maybe it was because her brother had praised her cooking so much today, or maybe it was because he’d talked with her so much, but either way, she sounded genuinely happy.
With a bit of downtime to himself, Yushin pulled out the cards he’d looted off the cultists and started sorting through his haul.
To Yushin, a modern card game addict, these new cards didn’t really have much going for them effect-wise, but either way, they were still an upgrade over Fujishiro Sakuma’s original all-vanilla deck.
Most of the useful cards came from Arbiter Ryan himself.
Going through them, Yushin figured out Ryan had apparently been a hardcore Dragon-Type fanatic, his deck built almost entirely around Dragons, which wasn’t exactly surprising, given Dragon-Type had always been one of the biggest families in the Yu-Gi-Oh!
card pool.
If there was one thing this game never ran short on, it was Dragon-obsessed diehards and guys who couldn’t resist a good waifu-monster card.
Among them, the standout Yushin picked out first was Assault Pterosaur, the one Ryan had already used in their duel.
A Level 4 monster with 1800 ATK was already solid for this era, not to mention its powerful effect of releasing itself to rush out a higher-Level monster.
This single card’s strength probably already counted as top-tier for the Satellite, which explained why the Ritual Arbiter had been so confident in his own dueling ability.
Yushin also pulled out a Masked Dragon.
This card only had 1400 ATK, but it had a “last words” effect: when destroyed in battle, it could pull another Dragon-Type monster straight out of the deck.
As a veteran of the game, Yushin remembered perfectly well that back in the earliest era of Yu-Gi-Oh!, “last words” effect monsters had been highly regarded, holding an important place in real competitive play for a long stretch of time.
A monster with a last-words effect counted as top-quality material in the limited card pool he currently had access to.
Aside from Arbiter Ryan’s cards, most of what he’d looted off the other cultists wasn’t much use.
The one thing he thought was decent was an Equip Spell called Foolish Axe.
Its main effect raised the equipped monster’s ATK by 1000, but at the cost of negating that monster’s own effect.
Setting everything else aside, Yushin figured that just the “+1000 ATK” part of the effect alone was already pretty standout for the dueling environment in the Satellite.
So thinking it over more carefully, even though his first instinct, shaped by all his past-life dueling experience, was that none of these cultists’ cards were anything worth showing off, overall, in the context of the Satellite, they might genuinely count as elite.
Yushin went through his cards and swapped in the ones he judged relatively stronger to update his own deck.
It was still nothing more than a mismatched pile of random cards, but it was already a big step up from where he’d started.
Yushin remembered that for years, back in the earliest era of real-world Yu-Gi-Oh!
competitive play, the top players had all run their own self-built decks.
For a long stretch of time, it was common knowledge among duelists that the official, pre-built structure decks were mostly cannon fodder.
Only a deck carefully hand-picked, single card by single card, from a bunch of different sets, actually earned a place on the competitive stage.
Of course, that was all ancient history by now.
So holding this freshly upgraded jumble of a deck in his hands, Yushin found himself drifting off for a moment, feeling like he’d been transported straight back to those wild early years.
He even found himself a little eager to find someone to practice against.
Right as that thought crossed his mind, a furious pounding came from outside the door.
Yushin put his deck away and called out, “Who’s there?” “It’s me, Itagaki from the Fang Gang!” a man’s rough voice barked from outside.
Hearing the voice, Yukine rushed out of the kitchen, her small face going pale.
“Oh no, it’s the Fang Gang…
they’re here to collect protection money.”