Chapter 3: Does the Bystial Deck Dream of Hypnotic Sheep (Normal Monster)?

With no one around, Hayato reached into his pocket and pulled out the square metal object he had felt.

It was an iron box, and it wasn't locked; it could be opened directly.

"Truly a miraculous technology, creating something out of nothing."

Opening the iron box, he found a stack of cards neatly placed inside. According to the "Sai-Q Duelist System" that had appeared before Hayato's eyes, this deck was his beginner's gift pack.

Earlier this morning, when he had just arrived at the classroom and seen the starfish-haired Yugi Mutou, a translucent, illusory screen had suddenly appeared before Kobayashi Hayato’s eyes. On it were the words, "Welcome to the Sai-Q Duelist System, please claim your starter deck," along with a "Confirm Claim" button.

After experimenting, Hayato discovered that it seemed no one else could see or touch this transparent screen except for him. Furthermore, he could adjust the screen's visibility through mere thought; it could appear instantly when needed and vanish when not, without obstructing his view.

Considering the classroom was crowded and he didn't quite understand how the system distributed the starter deck—and since the "Claim" button had no time limit—Hayato had stubbornly held off on claiming it for the entire morning. Only now, with no one around, did he actively touch the claim button.

The back of the cards featured the vortex pattern Hayato was incredibly familiar with. The familiar brown and gold color scheme made Hayato, who was alone in a different world, feel a sense of warmth. Taking out the deck, Hayato began to verify the deck's composition card by card.

3☆ Normal Monster, Warrior-Type EARTH, "Terra the Terrible,"

3☆ Normal Monster, Warrior-Type EARTH, "Man-Eating Treasure Chest,"

4☆ Normal Monster, Warrior-Type EARTH, "Gatekeeper,"

3☆ Normal Monster, Warrior-Type EARTH, "Judge Man,"

As he looked, Hayato flipped through the cards faster and faster. After a long while, he half-opened his eyes and muttered with a calm expression, "Though I expected as much—the DM era wouldn't give me a viable deck like Tri-Brigade or Floowandereeze—I at least thought it would be something like Elemental HEROes, even if they are overworked."

"These are all just small-fry vanillas!"

A quick glance at the sixty cards in the iron box revealed a staggering 50 monster cards, with only ten spell cards, all of which were strange, mean☆ing☆less cards. If the monsters were decent, that would be one thing, but all fifty monster cards were, without exception, what are commonly known as "vanillas"—Normal Monsters. Most were low-level small fry that weren't even qualified to act as walls, with abysmal stats.

From the "pile of cards" he had just flipped through—Hayato really didn't want to call this a deck; it was incredibly salty—he pulled out three cards and placed them at the very front. In this sixty-card pile, only these three were barely worth Hayato's attention

7☆ Normal Monster, Warrior-Type EARTH, "Gaia the Fierce Knight,"

4☆ Normal Monster, Warrior-Type LIGHT, "Noble Knight Artorigus,"

And the future Equip Spell card that hadn't yet been separated from the general spell category, "Dragon Capture Jar."

"Gaia the Fierce Knight" goes without saying. As a card frequently used by the protagonist Yugi Mutou in the early stages, it was active many times, and later, the "Gaia" series of cards was derived from it. The number of its variants is enough to rival the famous "Gem-Knight Pearl." Moreover, its 2300/2100 attack and defense were top-tier among the vanillas in Hayato's possession. Under the early DM rules where no tribute was required, it was enough to serve as Hayato's current trump card.

As for the second card, "Noble Knight Artorigus," while its 1800 attack and defense stats were quite good, what Hayato valued more was the future potential of the "Noble Knight" archetype. Although the Noble Knight deck, which focuses on Xyz Summoning and using Equip Spells, wouldn't have a chance to shine due to the era's limitations, its efficient searching and recovery methods were worth Hayato's anticipation.

And as for the Dragon Capture Jar.

Increasing attack power by 700 with a single card was already quite rare in the DM era, and the side effect—destroying a Dragon-type monster at the end of the Battle Phase if it battled—was practically screaming "counter-play" to the world. Especially for a certain dragon-obsessed player addicted to card games, whose trump card had 3000 attack points, it was practically prepared for the "Gaia the Fierce Knight" + "Dragon Capture Jar" combo.

In short, the feeling this system-provided starter deck gave Hayato was: "It's playable, but not entirely playable," and "It's unusable, but not entirely unusable." Putting the deck back into the iron box, Hayato had just thought about returning to the classroom when he heard the sound of several people talking downstairs

"Hey, is he really coming?"

"Y-yes..."

"So slow~"

Leaning out over the corridor railing, Hayato saw several people squatting together in the bushes on the side of the school building, whispering to each other. Their attire didn't look like that of students, and one of them even had camera equipment slung over their shoulder.

As the voice trailed off, one of the people gathered picked up a school uniform from the ground and put it on. As he walked out of the bushes, he muttered, "Why isn't that kid Yugi here yet? This concerns my livelihood..."

Hayato frowned, looking down with a strange expression. Although he hadn't inherited the memories of the original body after transmigrating, the man putting on the school uniform downstairs didn't look like a student at all.

It wasn't about his physique or anything; after all, in this high school, Hayato had seen people as short as Yugi Mutou, who looked like an elementary schooler, and Ushio Tetsu, who was nearly two meters tall and looked like a professional basketball player. The main issue was that the man wearing the uniform didn't have the aura of a student—not even a delinquent student. He looked more like a salaryman who had been grinding away in a company.

Just then, Hayato saw a short figure with a gold, black, and red starfish-shaped hairstyle walk out of the classroom door not far away, walking briskly toward the stairs with an expectant look on his face.

Who else could it be but Yugi Mutou?

Suddenly, Hayato recalled that he seemed to know what was about to happen downstairs.

Hayato had seen a scene like this in the *Yu-Gi-Oh!* manga in his previous life. It was said to be a morning entertainment program called *Morning Survival*, and the latest episode's project was about "bullying." The director had set his sights on "school bullying." This should have been a fairly excellent project.

But the director had no intention of finding a real victim of "school bullying." Instead, he directly chose the very easy-to-bully Yugi Mutou as the "protagonist" of the program, then found people to dress up as students to "bully" him, and filmed it himself.

Please bookmark and recommend, wiggle wiggle~

(End of chapter)