Chapter 10: The 87 Million Eva Point Blue-Eyes White Dragon
Next morning.
Amano Shio: "Have a good trip, brother!"
Kikawayu: "Finally my turn alone with little Shio today. Go ahead without worries, Rei~"
The dialogue matched any normal workday morning—seemingly just another unchanging day in the Amano household. Yet imperceptibly, everything had changed.
[Kikawayu: Affection 100 (Undying Devotion)]
You better actually be interested in my sister, pal.
Originally designated as the best brother-in-law candidate, the man who could take care of Shio's daily needs.
Now it seemed—entrusting Shio to this guy made Amano a bit uneasy.
Relying on outsiders, even Kikawayu, ultimately couldn't work long-term.
The task of caring for his sister—Amano decided to handle it personally.
Now, with debts fully cleared, Amano's primary objective remained making money.
Supposedly using Eden Tower technology, with enough money, he could get Amano Shio mechanical prosthetic limbs, letting her leave the wheelchair for life approaching normalcy.
Mechanical prosthetics sounded pretty cyberpunk, but considering the year 5026, even with humanity's broken historical timeline, this necessary tech tree branch appearing wasn't strange at all.
Of course, the price would definitely be astronomical for current Amano.
Honestly working at the scrap yard, he probably couldn't save up in this lifetime.
So Amano left early this morning—not to be a corporate slave.
Current Amano had easier money-making methods than working.
—Dueling!
Though his deck currently consisted of garbage scavenged from scrap heaps, the system reward granted Amano the ability to print all Dragon-type Extra Deck cards during duels.
No wonder Amano Shio said her brother had supernatural luck.
From the full Extra Deck type roulette, landing on Dragon-type was the most suitable result for Amano.
After all, based on Amano's previous life experience, Konami—the company publishing Yu-Gi-Oh! cards—was jokingly called "Dragon Cancer Company" by countless players.
Dragon-type cards weren't necessarily the most numerous, but definitely the flashiest, with guaranteed quality.
Forget Konami being Dragon Cancer Company—plenty of Dragon Cancer players existed among card nerds too.
As long as he could summon powerful Dragon-type monsters from the Extra Deck, given this world's 3,000-year dueling knowledge gap, Amano could dominate the lower districts.
Of course, whether he could actually deploy powerful Extra Deck monsters—meaning meeting Special Summon conditions—depended on Main Deck coordination.
This was why Amano left so early.
He was heading to neighboring District 31.
Amano's District 32 was practically the Tower's poorest bottom-level area, lacking even basic facilities.
And Amano needed a specific facility—the Duelist Service Center.
Using the Eva Terminal on his wrist to connect with the Duelist Service Center would unlock various functions.
Most important among these—duel gene identification.
Mainframe Eva would match different people's genes and identities with the most suitable deck archetypes.
Whether he could deploy powerful Dragon-type monsters sleeping in the Extra Deck depended on whether Amano could identify a practical deck "archetype."
Unable to afford transportation, relying only on his iron legs for city walking, cross-district travel took Amano nearly an entire morning to finally reach District 31's city center.
If he hadn't left at dawn, he'd probably return home after dark.
Incidentally, along the way Amano tried using the system to check affection, with zero results.
Neither roadside aunties selling miscellaneous goods nor fruit-selling uncles displayed affection ratings.
Seemed this [Romance Development System] only showed affection for pursuable targets.
So that meant Kikawayu was pursuable?
District 31 city center—despite being the closest bottom-level area neighboring District 32, the aesthetic differed dramatically.
Apparently due to different industries, unlike District 32 handling waste recovery, District 31 primarily provided modernized convenience services for bottom-level residents.
Amano had only visited twice before with his old man, both times when very young.
Noon sunlight illuminated the massive holographic projection screen in the street center, dense text forming advertisement spam scrolling rapidly past like bullet comments.
Occasionally major corporations rented entire screen time slots, hiring glamorous professional duelists as spokespersons promoting their prized products.
Amano had zero interest in these ads. He just wanted to quickly identify his duel genes.
The Duelist Service Center counted as an iconic District 31 landmark.
Standing at the entrance observing foot traffic, even though Tower bottom-level duelists remained relatively few, the service center interior seemed fairly lively.
"Excuse me sir, what service do you need?"
The receptionist's smile was sweet, attitude friendly.
Except all Duel Center reception staff looked identical. Probably so-called artificial life-forms, specifically designed for low-difficulty mechanical service work.
"Duel gene identification." Amano stated his purpose.
"Duel gene identification requires waiting in the lobby. Approximately 30 minutes, we'll remind you through Eva Terminal when entering the testing area. Additionally, testing requires paying 5,000 Eva Points, so please prepare in advance."
"Got it."
Just duel gene identification cost 5,000 Eva Points.
Calculating Amano's monthly wages—not eating or drinking, nearly half a year's savings.
And that didn't even count money needed for collecting deck cards.
No wonder bottom-level districts had so few duelists.
While waiting for his number, Amano watched projection screens on lobby walls.
Unlike street shampoo commercials, Duel Monster card-related advertisements inside the Duelist Service Center actually interested Amano more.
[Former professional duelist one-on-one tutoring, helping your child advance faster in dueling!]
Oh, selling courses.
[Duel Disk upgrade accessories, make your Duel Disk more unique!]
Oh, selling skins.
[Professional Legend Selection Card Pack Volume 3, rare UR trap "Self-Destruct Button" drop rate UP, giving you a chance to trade one-for-one with pros!]
Oh, gacha.
Why's this exactly like mobile games?
Remember, most cards in this world originated from Eva Terminals.
These card packs were just major corporations bundling worthless trash cards with a few rare cards for sale, exploiting human greed to lure suckers wanting cheap rare cards.
Even knowing it was a trap, Amano couldn't help checking the price.
After all, his luck was pretty good.
Holy crap—6,000 Eva Points per pack. Really expensive. Whales' money was easy money indeed.
Even with best luck hitting jackpot first try, trading 6,000 Eva Points for one [Self-Destruct Button]—Amano still found it completely unnecessary.
See, all useless advertisements.
Just thinking this, the next ad—more accurately, news broadcast—suddenly grabbed Amano's attention.
[Kaiba Corporation boldly declares: Three thousand years ago was humanity's historical peak period for Duel Monsters card development.]
[Kaiba Corporation has organized an extra-Tower expedition team, excavating super-ancient duel ruins from 3,000 years ago.]
[Kaiba Corporation discovered three strongest monster cards "Blue-Eyes White Dragon" in super-ancient duel ruins.]
[Through historical text analysis, Kaiba Corporation confirms four total "Blue-Eyes White Dragon" cards existed in human history.]
[Kaiba Corp President offers worldwide bounty for the fourth "Blue-Eyes White Dragon" card. Bounty amount: 87 million.]
This string of Kaiba Corporation news completely stunned Amano.
Kaiba Corporation excavating 3,000-year-old super-ancient duel ruins?
Kaiba Corp President bounty for the fourth Blue-Eyes White Dragon?
If Amano hadn't lived in this world eighteen years, seeing these headlines might actually make him think he'd transmigrated into Yu-Gi-Oh! Duel Monsters.
Remember—the current year was 5026.
Super-ancient ruins from 3,000 years ago didn't contain sleeping Egyptian Pharaohs, but card nerds from 2026.
And Amano himself was that card nerd from 2026.
Wait a minute—Kaiba, you want to excavate me?