"Haaah —!"
Taking off the special Duel Disk inside the cockpit, Hoshino shook her hair and let out a long breath.
"That was really not easy, Yugi."
"But in the end, we still won, Hoshino!" Yugi said excitedly. "The other me said so too — our teamwork was absolutely perfect!"
"Well, of course. That kind of spur-of-the-moment infinite loop isn't something just anyone can pull off. Maybe the two of us are simply born with maxed-out synergy!"
Giving Yugi a thumbs-up, Hoshino smiled brightly.
"And not only was our coordination perfect, the rewards were unexpectedly amazing too~"
[Duelist Rank evaluation complete
King Utgarda
Overall Rank: EX
King's Proof bonus doubled
Saint Quartz reward: 280
Remaining Saint Quartz: 300]
They had already defeated other Kings before, but this was the first time a King's evaluation had caused the Saint Quartz reward to be doubled.
Whether that was because King Utgarda was unlike the previous Kings and had possessed two King's Proof cards, or because Merlin's effect had copied King's Proof – All Things, Hoshino still couldn't tell. She would have to ask Da Vinci — the omniscient one — when she had time.
Still, once she did ask Da Vinci, she had a feeling the 300 Quartz she had just painstakingly earned would immediately get targeted again.
"Rewards?" the Dwarf King, shown in the lower-right corner of the monitor, finally recovered from her victorious keyboard-smashing frenzy.
"Mm. This victory itself was the greatest reward!"
At that moment, everyone inside the giant Savior Mk. II could see through the monitor —
The sun slowly rising at the edge of the sea, and King Utgarda gradually collapsing after its defeat, the two scenes combining into a strangely beautiful, end-of-the-world kind of spectacle.
"It feels almost like a dream… this battle tonight," Akasha said with a yawn. Now that the Duel was over, sleepiness hit her once more. "I'll just take the nearest bed and crash in Hoshino-nee's room later~"
"In that case, at least Duel Academy Island should be safe for now, no ne!" Crowler said with relief.
"It's too early to say we've completely escaped danger," Kaiba countered.
After all, in a world born from super fusion like this, nowhere could truly be called completely safe.
Not to mention that besides the gigantic King Utgarda, there were still two unknown Kings remaining in this world.
"Yes, President Kaiba!" Crowler answered respectfully.
As a subordinate's subordinate, Crowler still held Kaiba in a certain degree of awe.
"Everyone!" The Dwarf King enlarged her image in the lower-right corner of the screen and proudly announced:
"Though the enemy we faced — King Utgarda — far surpassed us in strength, we still relied on courage and wisdom to seize the only road to survival!"
["Lady King… is she talking to me?"]
Merlin: "This is the duty of a king, after all~ The King of the Dwarves is proclaiming the victory her people have awaited for ten thousand years. This scene is probably being broadcast to the entire Dwarven Kingdom."
["I see… wait, why are you interrupting my private channel with Aibo, Merlin? Get out!"]
"— And now, I hereby formally declare the Gurren Lagann Breakthrough operation a complete success! Victory has been seized by our hands!!"
"(╯°Д°)╯ Ooooooooooh!" Eve, trembling with excitement, somehow started shouting along as well.
"A fool's condition isn't contagious, is it?" Minazuki said, warily stepping back.
"You're probably the least likely to catch it among us, though~" Akasha quipped mercilessly.
The long battle was officially over.
After leaving Savior Mk. II, Hoshino — who had basically pulled an all-nighter — collapsed back onto her bed and no longer wanted to deal with any troublesome matters, falling asleep in seconds.
Originally, she had thought that even though it was a nighttime battle, a Duel of this scale — with continent-sized monsters and meteor-impact-level destruction — would surely wake the students and residents, causing a huge uproar across the island.
However, perhaps because of the "cognitive interference field" the Dwarf King had mentioned earlier, the students and residents on Duel Academy Island had shown no reaction whatsoever to the battle. They acted as though they knew nothing at all.
That did save the academy a great deal of trouble.
The world after super fusion had already left everyone tense once the island was sealed off.
Principal Sheppard probably held the belief that it was better to avoid trouble when possible, and did not want to over-stimulate the students and residents any further.
In the afternoon —
Someone once summarized life's greatest happiness as sleeping until you naturally wake up, and counting money until your hand cramps.
Although the latter wasn't possible, Hoshino — now the Headmistress of Duel Academy, able to come to work whenever she wanted or skip work whenever she pleased — had at least completed half of that life goal.
After the Duel ended, Hoshino lay down at 6 a.m. and did not wake up until a little after 2 p.m., looking utterly satisfied.
Even without exercise, as long as she could maintain a solid eight hours of sleep every day, her lifestyle could still be considered reasonably healthy.
"Mmmnya… I'm kind of hungry…"
Half-asleep, Hoshino rolled over to the right and felt something familiar and soft beneath her hand.
"Nobu!"
A displeased Nobu flailed its tiny limbs in protest.
Because this villa provided by the Kaiba Group was far too large, if Hoshino and Emiya were left to clean it by themselves, they probably would have no time left in the day for anything else.
So the Nobus — hired as the main cleaning force for the mansion (paid leave still under discussion) — would occasionally sneak into her room and tidy up while Hoshino was asleep.
Accidentally rolling over onto a Nobu while sleeping had already become nothing out of the ordinary for Hoshino.
"Oh, sorry, sorry!"
Pulling her arm back, the still-dazed Hoshino rolled over to the left.
"Yah, nobu~"
"Why is there another Nobu on the left?" Hoshino rubbed it, but something about this Nobu's voice sounded a little odd, and the texture also felt off.
"…Da Vinci-chan, what are you doing?"
Although the size was about the same, the one on the left was clearly the version of Da Vinci used in this world to sell cute merchandise — the scammer Da Vinci.
"Heehee, you noticed, Hoshino-chan~" Da Vinci stuck out her tongue. "It's already two in the afternoon, so as a staff member in charge of monitoring your health, I'm here to wake you up!"
"The busy Da Vinci actually came in person to wake me up?" Rubbing her eyes as she sat up, Hoshino looked suspicious. "No good deed goes unpunished. This has got to be a trap!"
At that, Hoshino suddenly remembered the 300 fresh Saint Quartz in her pocket.
Immediately, the scammer Da Vinci's round and cute cheeks took on a sinister and wicked quality in Hoshino's eyes.
"Please spare me. I really don't have even a single drop left!" Knowing she definitely couldn't outplay the cunning merchant, Hoshino immediately begged for mercy.
"Don't be so scared, Hoshino-chan. I'm not going to eat you~"
"You will!"
"Hoshino-chan, you're so lewd. Saying that in bed." Da Vinci's little face turned red as she glanced at Hoshino in her pajamas, at the fair skin visible beneath the collar, and said "shyly."
"Nobu, nobu!" In its excited state, the Nobu on the bed kept bouncing up and down — until Hoshino kicked it right off.
"Alright, back to the point. You worked hard in yesterday's battle, Hoshino-chan. The battle against King Utgarda was impossible to avoid from the very beginning. Only by crossing this hurdle do we have any hope of returning to our original world."
"Returning to our original world, huh. Right!"
Hoshino suddenly remembered that Da Vinci had said she needed three days to analyze the structure of the dimensional fusion and identify the key point for restoring the world.
And now the three-day deadline had arrived. It was time to welcome back the all-capable genius.
"That's right. The method for restoring the super-fused world is something I wanted to explain to you personally, Hoshino."
"So you really found a way! That's Da Vinci-chan for you. Nothing can stop you!"
Finally seeing hope, Hoshino's eyes lit up — even Da Vinci's crafty merchant face seemed bright and pleasant now.
"But before I formally explain it, I hope Hoshino-chan will first understand the truth of this world."
With that, Da Vinci turned on the LCD TV in Hoshino's room and projected the footage she had already prepared.
— What appeared on the screen was just an ordinary human city, no different from everyday life.
"Where is this, Da Vinci-chan? Does it have anything to do with the truth of this world?"
"Keep watching and you'll understand, Hoshino-chan."
The image zoomed in, and it was easy to see two people wearing Duel Disks standing on a street corner.
"A street Duel?" Hoshino's interest was immediately piqued, and her sleepiness vanished as she stared at the screen.
"Rise up and fly, me!"
With a line full of spirit, combined with an incredibly difficult card-draw declaration that involved three backflips and a full split, the Duelist in the video pulled off a beautiful comeback from a terrible disadvantage.
"Wow, amazing. Where is this Duel from, Da Vinci-chan? They even use Xyz Summoning so skillfully?"
Even at Duel Academy, because Xyz Summoning was a very new summoning method, many students — including elite Obelisk Blue students — had not yet fully mastered or adapted to it.
But the Duel Da Vinci showed Hoshino, taking place in some unknown city, beautifully captured the essence of Xyz Summoning on both sides.
"This is the Duel of the Duelists in the world of Yggdrasil. Just as Fusion is the mainstream in our world, a world where Xyz Summoning is mainstream would naturally use it with great skill," Da Vinci replied.
"Yggdrasil?" Hoshino blinked in confusion before asking: "You mean the World Tree of the Nine Realms, Yggdrasil? But this looks like a normal human city no matter how you look at it."
"It is a human city, yes. Whether it's the level of civilization, the direction of culture, or the flow of history — every factor is thoroughly 'human.' So they are human."
"But when the Valkyries explained the Nine Realms before, they never mentioned anything about a human realm. I thought the ones living in the other world were all things like fairies, undead, or dwarves."
"King Frodi was originally the king who ruled humanity in that world," Da Vinci explained.
"But that was ten thousand years ago. In today's Yggdrasil, the human world has long since separated itself from the Nine Realms and become independent."
"A human world that split off from the Nine Realms. After ten thousand years of development, it gave birth to a culture just like ours."
The familiar sense of déjà vu made Hoshino blurt out: "W-Wouldn't that count as a Lostbelt?"
Not a Singular Point, but a Lostbelt formed over ten thousand years of history. The humans in Yggdrasil were a complete world with their own historical progression.
"A Lostbelt, yes," Da Vinci nodded.
Just like the Frozen Soil Empire of Russia, the Infinite Iceflame Century of Scandinavia, and the Human Order United Empire of Qin.
"Even if they have their own history, Lostbelts still have to be pruned. Worlds without an ending, worlds that have already hit a dead end — those are incorrect worlds."
"So that's the truth of this world you wanted to explain to me, Da Vinci?" Hoshino swallowed nervously.
Da Vinci shook her head and said seriously: "What I'm going to tell you now is the truth of this world… not about the World Tree, but about the truth of our world."
A history of failures based on wrong choices and wrong prosperity.
A "human history that has reached a dead end," cut off as something "unnecessary," even abandoned by the theory of parallel worlds.
— These are called "Lostbelts."
"Hoshino-chan, if we understand this through the concept of a Lostbelt… then our original world is actually the incorrect world that should be pruned, while the human world in Yggdrasil is the correct one."
"You're saying… we're the Lostbelt…?" Hoshino said blankly.
Hoshino had been mentally prepared and resolute enough that, whether it was a Singular Point or a Lostbelt, she would absolutely overcome it and restore their original world.
But Da Vinci's so-called "truth" scattered all of that resolve in an instant.
She had always stood from the perspective of Proper Human History, fully aware that she was on the "right" side — even if it meant reluctantly pruning one "wrong" Lostbelt after another.
But if you stood from the perspective of a Lostbelt, would you willingly disappear? Even knowing your world was a dead end — a human history with no ending?
"So that's how it is. Doctor already knew this world was a wrong history destined to be destroyed in the distant future."
Recalling Dr. Romani's words from the higher-dimensional space, Hoshino gradually sorted out the situation.
Da Vinci added: "Now then, let me explain how to restore the dimension after the super fusion. It's very simple and direct: between the two worlds, only one can remain. Only one world — the correct world in Yggdrasil or our incorrect world — can be restored to its original state."
"And the other world?"
"It will be pruned. Even if not now, one of the worlds is destined to end in destruction in the future."
"Heh heh heh, then there's nothing to think about at all~ Da Vinci-chan, you really know how to build suspense."
Hoshino suddenly clutched her stomach and laughed out loud.
"How ironic. 'Proper Human History' being the correct world? That's total nonsense!"
Having once insisted on the correctness of Proper Human History and pruned each Lostbelt under the banner of justice, now that she herself had become part of the wrong history —
Humans would only want to fight for the chance to survive.