Xue Lang coldly looked at the little attachment tightly hugging his arm, and said in an icy voice: "From now on, I'll count to three, and once I reach three, you have to let go."
One... two... three!"
Mia not only didn't let go but hugged even tighter, desperately trying to nestle into the teacher's embrace.
"I said, I will never let go again!" Mia shouted loudly.
Xue Lang looked towards the distance with a hopeless gaze.
Oh heavens, oh earth, what kind of sin is this?
My innocence can be verified by the heavens and the sun and moon. Youyu, you must believe me! I really just want to play cards!
...But alas, the rogue student wants to challenge the teacher!
Xue Lang looked at the student clinging to his arm like a piece of sticky toffee, and couldn't help but sigh helplessly.
Since the end of last semester, when the main storyline of the Light of Destruction invasion ended, Mia has been like this.
Back then, when the Light of Destruction's fleet invaded on a large scale, a whole bunch of aliens was air-dropped onto Duel Academy Island, with the idiots heroically becoming the frontline in the battle against alien duelists.
The strength of those aliens varied greatly; some were weak enough to be useless, while others were quite troublesome. Sometimes players were unlucky and ran into some strong ones, and if they also had bad luck with their cards, well, that's it, they'd die on the spot.
Though Xue Lang was famous in his circle for being incredibly lucky, with a good chance of getting perfect starting hands, the denominator was too big.
That day he charged in bravely, maybe a bit too brave, encountered an alien who might have been an elite monster, and found it harder than expected to defeat. Plus, luck was bad, and the hand was stuck, and after a few rounds, he was beaten by the alien and hung up.
After the battle, Mia was looking all over for her teacher, thinking that he had heroically sacrificed and died fighting the alien army, she couldn't help but cry out loud in grief.
But she suddenly saw Xue Lang, whose resurrection time had just refreshed, urgently logging in to claim his reward not far away, and she was instantly overjoyed, "Waaah" she cried out, rushing up to hug and hold onto the teacher.
Xue Lang was shocked at the time: "Hey, hey, what are you doing in public? Let go now!"
"No way! Oooh, oooh, teacher, where did you go? I thought you... thought you..."
"Come on, I just died, what's all the fuss about?"
Xue Lang hurriedly gestured that they could talk about it, at least stop crying... and don't squash me with your fat!
Mia paused momentarily, then immediately burst into laughter: "Teacher, you really know how to joke..."
Of course, there were definitely more cannon fodder who died in front, but once the resurrection time arrived, these heroic instructors all logged in one after another, without causing any major trouble.
...Except for one.
That was the president of the Hanno Knight Guild, "just a punching bag."
This president had bad luck, generally played cards okay, but whenever it came to crucial deathmatch rounds, would always have a card hand accident.
Actually, the card deck's strength was decent among players, but it always seemed to become cannon fodder to be instantly killed by the opponent...
As a result, just after the storyline passed, Cola Sprite received the punching bag president's private message.
"Dang it! I've used up all the weekly resurrection times, can't log in till next week!"
Cola Sprite was shocked.
President, what on earth have you been doing this week? Could it be sneaking into Kaiba Group to steal Blue-Eyes White Dragon?
Can this game allow you to die so many times in one week?
"What? President has died again?" a guild player asked.
"Yes, and it's one of those fully dead situations this time, resurrection's used up," Cola Sprite sighed, "Looks like I'll have to act as president this week."
"Mourn for the president."
"Mourning."
"..."
By coincidence, little sister Izayoi Sakura overheard this while searching for her teacher at the time, covering her mouth: "Oh? Teacher... teacher he's..."
"Eh? Oh, you're mistaken!" Cola Sprite quickly consoled her, "Your teacher... uh... he just went to a very far place, he'll be back after a while."
It was better not to speak, but hearing this, Sister Sakura's tears flowed "wah" as she cried, "Sprite teacher, you don't need to lie to me, teacher... teacher, he's dead, isn't he?"
Cola Sprite scrambled: "No no! It's not true, it's really not true! President he... alright, he's dead, but not completely dead! This situation is really complicated..."
Sister Sakura sobbed while wiping her tears: "I understand, he'll always live in our hearts."
Cola Sprite: "......"
In fact, similar incidents were not rare, especially since Youyu expanded enrollment resulting in a large number of player instructors, many students discovered that their own instructors had disappeared during battles. But there seemed to be only one like the punching bag president who was completely gone for a week.
Time flies, and it's a new semester again.
Just as the academy was about to welcome the new semester, lots of anomalies started appearing in the Duel Link System.
There were reports from duelists saying that during online battles in "Duel Links," virtual space suddenly began showing signs of chaos, skies flickered unpredictably, space seemed about to crack.
Some players reported seeing phantom-like monsters, including some previously unseen dragons, others with formation of warriors wielding cold weapons.
There were also reports of odd unexplained scenery, like solar storms, auroras, etc. Some thought it might be a little easter egg Kaiba Company put in the game, while others suggested it might be abnormal data, possibly from hacking.
These issues were pretty much the focus of Kaiba Company this month, with the Kaiba brothers and their professional technical team spending a lot of time specifically researching the causes, finally having some clues in the last couple of days.
Mokuba brought it up in casual conversation with Youyu on this day.
"Quantum Cube?" Youyu asked, "Is this thing causing the anomalies appearing in 'Duel Links'?"
"Indeed." Mokuba said, "Brother theorizes, might be that something was done when the 'Light of Destruction' took away the cube, affecting its operation.
We couldn't claim very deep research on the Quantum Cube from the start, and now it's getting even harder to understand.
Alien interference may have changed its original way of functioning, now it's becoming... unstable."
"So what kind of consequences might occur?"
"Who knows. Could cause dimensional fissures? Or open time tunnels? Anything is possible." Mokuba half-jokingly said, "Perhaps it might bring us a 'Terminator,' haha, might be quite thrilling."
"..."
Meanwhile, within the Duel Links world, in a certain empty corner.
Space twisted, like a mirror being punctured. A swirling strong light broke open the space, as if spreading burning scarlet wings and zoomed out with the engine roaring.
A sharp, piercing brake sound, a red motorcycle screeched to a halt in the empty virtual world.
The rider braked, surveyed around, took off the helmet.
Under the helmet hid a non-mainstream explosive crab hairstyle.
"Is this... the past?"