Chapter 3: Do Common Bone Decks Dream of *Hypnosis Sheep* (Normal Monster)?
With no one around, Hayato casually pulled out the square metal object he had touched from his pocket.
It was a metal box, and it wasn't locked; he could open it right away.
"What amazing technology, creating something out of nothing."
Opening the metal box, a stack of Cards was neatly placed inside. According to the "SaiQ Duelist System" that spoke before Hayato's eyes, this Deck was Hayato's Newbie Gift Pack.
That morning, upon arriving at the classroom and seeing Yugi Muto with his starfish hair, a translucent, illusory screen suddenly appeared before Hayato's eyes. It read, "Welcome to the SaiQ Duelist System, please claim your Starter Pack," along with a "Claim" button.
After trying, Hayato found that no one else seemed to see or touch this transparent screen besides himself. He could also adjust its visibility with a simple thought; it could instantly appear when needed and vanish when not, never obstructing his view.
Considering the crowded classroom and his unfamiliarity with how the System distributed the Starter Pack, and since there was no time limit on the "Claim" button, Hayato stubbornly waited an entire morning, holding back from claiming it. Only now, with no one around, did he actively touch the Claim button.
The back of the Cards featured the familiar vortex pattern, and the familiar brown and gold color scheme filled Hayato, alone in this foreign world, with a sense of warmth. Taking out the Deck, Hayato began to examine the Deck's composition one Card at a time.
* A Level 3 Normal Monster, EARTH Attribute Warrior-Type, *Earth Star Swordsman*;
* A Level 3 Normal Monster, EARTH Attribute Warrior-Type, *Man-Eater Doll*;
* A Level 4 Normal Monster, EARTH Attribute Warrior-Type, *Underworld Watchman*;
* A Level 3 Normal Monster, EARTH Attribute Warrior-Type, *Judgment Hand*;
As he looked, Hayato's speed in flipping to the next Card grew faster and faster. After a long while, he finally opened his eyes halfway, remarking calmly, "Though I expected it, it's impossible for me to get a powerful Deck like *Tri-Brigade* or *Floowandereeze* in the DM era. But I thought at the very least it would be the overworked *Elemental HERO* Archetype."
"These are all just trash *Normal Monsters*!"
After reviewing the sixty Cards in the metal box, the number of Monster Cards was an astonishing 50, with only ten *Spell Cards*, all of which were strange Cards of dubious meaning. If the Monsters were powerful, it might be forgivable, but all fifty Monster Cards were, without exception, *Normal Monsters*, commonly known as "Common Bones." Most were low-Level fodder monsters barely fit to be battle fodder, with terrible Stats.
From the "Card pile" he had just flipped through—Hayato really didn't want to call it a Deck, it was utterly useless—he drew three Cards and placed them at the very front of the Deck. Among these sixty Cards, only these three barely caught Hayato's eye:
* A Level 7 *Normal Monster*, EARTH Attribute Warrior-Type, "*Gaia The Fierce Knight*";
* A Level 4 *Normal Monster*, LIGHT Attribute Warrior-Type, "*Noble Knight Artorigus*";
* And, *Sword of Dragon's Soul*, a future *Equip Spell Card* that had not yet been categorized separately from general *Spell Cards*.
*Gaia The Fierce Knight* goes without saying; as protagonist Yugi Muto's frequently used early Card, it was active on many occasions, and later even spawned the "*Gaia*" Card Archetype, with a number of Archetype/Variants comparable to the famous Archetype King, "*Gem-Knight Sapphire*". Moreover, its 2300 ATK/2100 DEF were top-tier among the Common Bones in Hayato's hand. In the early *Duel Monsters* rules, where it could be Summoned without a Tribute, it was sufficient to serve as Hayato's current Ace Card.
The second Card, "*Noble Knight Artorigus*", boasted a respectable 1800 ATK/DEF, but Hayato valued the future potential of the "*Noble Knight*" Archetype more. Although the *Noble Knight* Deck, which focused on *Xyz Summons* and excelled at using *Equip Spells*, wouldn't have its powerful *Xyz Monsters* appear due to the era's limitations, its efficient *Search* and *Recycle* methods were something Hayato could look forward to.
As for *Sword of Dragon's Soul*?
A single Card increasing ATK by 700 was quite rare in the DM era. Its side effect, "If this card battles a Dragon-Type Monster, destroy that Monster at the end of the Battle Phase," practically screamed "counter" for all to see. Especially for a certain Dragon-obsessed Player addicted to Dueling, their Ace Card's 3000 ATK was practically made for the "*Gaia The Fierce Knight*" + "*Sword of Dragon's Soul*" Combo.
In summary, the Starter Deck provided by the System felt to Hayato like "it's playable, but not *really* playable," and "it's unusable, but not *completely* useless." Putting the Deck back into the metal box and tucking it away, Hayato was about to return to the classroom when he heard several voices conversing from downstairs:
"Hey, will he really come?"
"Y-yes."
"He's so slow~"
Leaning over the corridor railing, Hayato saw several people squatting together in the bushes beside the teaching building, talking in low voices. Their clothing didn't look like student uniforms, and one person even had camera equipment on their shoulder.
As the words fell, one of the people gathered from the ground picked up a school uniform jacket and put it on, muttering to himself as he walked out of the bushes, "Why isn't Yugi Muto showing up yet? My job depends on this…"
Hayato frowned, looking down with some confusion. Although he hadn't inherited the original body's memories after his transmigration, the man downstairs putting on the school uniform didn't look like a student at all.
It wasn't due to his physical appearance; after all, in this high school, Hayato had seen people as short as elementary schoolers like Yugi Muto, and others nearly two meters tall, like the professional basketball player-like Tetsu Ushio. The main issue was that the man in the school uniform's demeanor didn't resemble a student in the slightest. Not even a student involved with the mafia; instead, he seemed more like an office worker who had been through the corporate grind?
At that moment, Hayato saw a short figure with golden, black, and red starfish hair emerge from a nearby classroom door, walking quickly towards the stairs with an expectant look.
Who else could it be but Yugi Muto?
Suddenly, Hayato remembered that he seemed to know what was about to happen downstairs.
Hayato had seen this scene in the *Yu-Gi-Oh!* manga in his previous life. There was a popular morning entertainment program called "*Survival Morning*", and its latest project was about "bullying." The director focused on "school bullying." This should have been an excellent project.
But the director wasn't interested in finding a genuine victim of "school bullying." Instead, he directly chose Yugi Muto, who looked very easy to bully, as the program's "**protagonist**," then found people to pretend to be students to "bully" him and filmed it himself.
(end of chapter)