“You…
Reverse Trap…” The Dark Ritual Priest’s voice had dwindled to a faint rasp.
He could barely force the words out anymore.
Reverse Trap was by no means a powerful or particularly rare card.
Its only function was to reverse ATK and DEF increases and decreases for a single turn, and to most duelists in Satellite, that was far less practical than a straightforward card that simply boosted a monster’s ATK.
No, it wasn’t some overwhelmingly powerful card.
It was merely a card activated at exactly the right moment.
And that had been enough to decide the Duel.
The Dark Ritual Priest couldn’t accept it.
He had been in complete control.
His field had been stronger, his monsters had dominated the board, and victory had seemed all but guaranteed.
Then, out of nowhere, some ridiculous Trap he had barely even heard of had killed him.
If he’d been given the choice, he would honestly have preferred getting flattened by some enormous high-ATK monster instead.
But no matter how bitter he felt, there was no second chance.
A Shadow Duel decided more than victory and defeat.
It decided life and death.
With what little strength remained in him, the dying man forced out one final question.
“What…
exactly…
are you…?” He desperately wanted to know what kind of unknown being had suddenly chosen to stand against the Order.
“I’d really like to know that myself.” Yusuke sighed.
If he knew who his real body had become after transmigrating, perhaps he’d finally understand what that strange temple was, why he was trapped there, and how he was supposed to escape.
“But it’s fine.
I’ll find the answer eventually.” Yusuke walked over to the dying man, crouched down, and carefully removed the Duel Disk from his arm along with the Deck inside it.
Then he said with complete sincerity, “Don’t worry.
I’ll make good use of your Deck too.” He gave the man a reassuring nod.
“You can go in peace.” “You…
y-you…” The Dark Ritual Priest coughed up one final mouthful of blood.
Then he died very much not at peace.
Yusuke equipped himself with his newly acquired Duel Disk, pocketed the Deck, and resumed his walk home.
So that Order really had tracked him down.
Apparently, they knew enough about the sacrifice to identify who had been taken to the ritual site.
That meant today’s attack probably wouldn’t be the last time they came after him.
Then again…
From the sound of things, the Dark Ritual Priest had been a fairly high-ranking member of the organization already.
If this was what passed for senior leadership, Yusuke wasn’t entirely convinced that being pursued by them was a bad thing.
After all, he had only been controlling this body for a single day, and his harvest was already astonishing.
He hadn’t even gone looking for trouble.
Everyone had simply lined up and delivered themselves to him one after another.
Yusuke suddenly felt a little like that meme of the tiger being repeatedly fed by people trying to slide underneath it.
‘Please stop feeding me.
I’m already full.’ …
By the time Yusuke returned home and pushed open the battered front door, the neighborhood had long since gone quiet.
He had barely changed his shoes and put away his newly acquired loot when a slender figure hurried out from deeper inside the house.
“Brother, why are you home so late?” Yukine asked worriedly.
“Oh, nothing happened.” Yusuke brushed a little dust from his sleeve.
“I just talked with Uncle Rud for a while and looked through some of the new stock he had in.” “You never used to come home this late,” Yukine muttered quietly.
“I was just about to go over to Uncle Rud’s shop and look for you.” Yusuke immediately became serious.
“What are you talking about?
Absolutely not.
What did I tell you?
It’s dangerous outside this late.
You’re never to go out alone at night, remember?” The nights in Satellite were never gentle.
Forget a young girl—most grown men avoided walking these streets alone after dark.
Yusuke, naturally, was an exception.
After all, according to the cultist, he apparently wasn’t human.
“I was just worried about you…” Yukine mumbled.
“What was that?” “N-Nothing.” She quickly shook her head and replaced her expression with an obedient smile.
“I heated up water for you already.
You can go take a shower.” Yusuke nodded and headed toward the cramped bathroom.
Warm water poured over him, wrapping his limbs in a comforting heat and washing away the fatigue of the day.
The facilities were crude, but even such a simple shower felt wonderful after everything he’d been through.
Of course, although Yusuke could synchronize with this body’s senses, Fujishiro’s body still wasn’t his true body.
The experience was somewhat like an extremely immersive VR game.
The visuals were completely convincing, and he could receive a degree of tactile feedback through the body, but no matter how realistic the simulation became, there was still a subtle difference from experiencing everything directly.
When Yusuke finished bathing and stepped back out, he found Yukine carrying his discarded clothes toward the washbasin.
He stopped her.
“You don’t need to do that.
I’ll wash them myself.” Yukine blinked.
Surprise flashed through her clear eyes before they curved into a smile.
“Brother, you’re really strange today.
Haven’t I always washed your clothes?” Before Yusuke could argue, she lightly pressed both hands against his back and started pushing him toward his room.
“Come on.
You got home so late today, so you must be tired.
Go rest.
I’ll take care of everything else.” The door closed behind him.
Yusuke stood there for a moment, feeling strangely moved.
At Yukine’s age, she would probably still have been in middle school back in his old world.
Yet she was already so mature that it almost hurt to watch.
The two siblings had spent years relying on each other in this wasteland abandoned by modern civilization.
Naturally, their bond had become incredibly strong.
And if Yusuke, this unexpected intruder from another world, had never appeared…
Yukine’s brother would never have come home today.
Yusuke returned to his room and, as usual, began sorting through his loot.
Tonight’s delivery had brought him an entire Zombie Deck.
He looked through it carefully.
Some of the individual cards were actually fairly decent, but the Deck as a whole was still constructed rather crudely.
Part of that was obviously because Satellite offered very few cards to choose from.
The other problem was that duelists in this world simply seemed to have a relatively underdeveloped understanding of Deck construction.
Even in the anime, it was difficult to find many Decks that would qualify as genuinely sensible builds from a competitive standpoint.
Expecting anything better from the average duelist in Satellite was probably unrealistic.
The most valuable card in the entire haul, as far as Yusuke was concerned, was naturally Vampire Fraulein.
For starters, it was currently the only genuine hand trap he owned.
That alone made it extremely valuable.
Then there was its second effect, which allowed the player to sacrifice Life Points in exchange for an enormous increase to a Zombie monster’s battle stats.
That ability was arguably even stronger in the anime-style environment of this world than it was in the real card game.
After all, duelists here generally couldn’t just inspect every detail of an opponent’s monster whenever they wanted.
If the opponent didn’t know Vampire Fraulein’s effect beforehand, they could easily charge straight into it without realizing what was waiting for them.
Fraulein already had 2000 DEF naturally.
If Yusuke paid the maximum 3000 Life Points during battle, her DEF could jump all the way to 5000.
In a world where Duels generally began at 4000 Life Points, there was a very real chance an unsuspecting opponent could simply attack her and kill themselves.
There was only one problem.
The Dark Ritual Priest had repeatedly called this card a “cursed card.” And judging from what happened every time he used it, Vampire Fraulein really did seem to consume the duelist’s actual life force.
Which raised an uncomfortable question.
‘If I use this thing…
am I going to have to burn my own lifespan too?’ Yusuke stared at the card in his hand.
That was definitely something he needed to test before adding it to his Deck.
It would be a shame not to use it, though.
By the standards of his current card pool, Vampire Fraulein was far too valuable to simply ignore.
Yusuke packed away the Deck, lay down on the crude bed, and closed his eyes to rest.
Yet while the body in Satellite settled peacefully into sleep, far away in the unknown temple, his true body opened its eyes.
Slowly, Yusuke sat up.
Ever since discovering earlier that day that he could remotely control this body, it had felt like finding an entirely new game.
He’d spent the whole day immersed in it, while his actual body had remained seated inside the temple without moving.
Now that the body in Satellite was resting and recovering, Yusuke decided it was a good opportunity to get up and stretch his real limbs.
The enormous temple was as vast and empty as ever, steeped in the weight of an ancient age.
With nothing better to do, Yusuke wandered aimlessly through halls and corridors he had already explored countless times.
Eventually, he drifted into a chamber that resembled a bedroom.
He had been here many times before.
Like nearly everywhere else in the temple, it had always been completely empty.
Which was why, the instant he stepped inside tonight, Yusuke’s breath caught in his chest.
His pupils contracted.
For a moment, he almost forgot how to breathe.
Someone was lying on the stone bed that had always been empty.
A girl.
She was exquisitely beautiful, with skin so pale it was nearly translucent.
Long golden hair spilled across the stone pillow, while a solemn Gothic dress covered her slender body.
Beside the bed, a folded black parasol rested at an angle against the stone.
Her eyes were gently closed.
She looked as though she had been sleeping there for a very long time.
Yusuke knew that face.
It was Vampire Fraulein.