Chapter 107: The Top 8 Are Assembled
As the ancients said, if you can't beat them, join them. Kobayashi Durant Chumley looked at the new Deck in his hands, once again marveling at the System's ability to create things out of thin air.
However, although he had redeemed a new Card Archetype, Chumley had no intention of adding it to the Deck he would use in tomorrow's Match. This was a surprise he was preparing for Pegasus, and because this set of cards was of a rather singular Type, it would be easily countered once revealed.
"Although without the Ojama cards to act as a buffer between the two archetypes, it might be a little bit clunky to use. But I've packed it with draw cards, so I shouldn't get a bad hand, right?" After sorting and putting away his Deck, Chumley heard a knock on his door and went to open it.
---The Ojama Monsters Still on Mokuba---
As evening fell, in the castle's banquet hall.
"That Pegasus guy might be a real jerk, but I can't believe he prepared such a sumptuous meal for us," Joey said, having learned the proper way to use a knife and fork from Tristan. He somewhat clumsily cut into a piece of foie gras placed before him. Placing a piece in his mouth, he savored it for a moment.
"So rich. This is foie gras?" He glanced at the foie gras on the plate in front of him. "It's like eating a mouthful of oil. I think steak is better."
Chumley was twirling a mouthful of spaghetti onto his fork, about to put it in his mouth. "The fat content of foie gras is about 40% to 60%, which is roughly equivalent to the decorative cream on a cake. So, strictly speaking, when you eat foie gras, you really are just eating oil."
"More than half of it is oil? Tsk, isn't that just a fatty liver then," Joey said, pushing the foie gras away with a look of disdain and looking at the others. Since the meal provided by Pegasus didn't include his favorite curry, he ended up getting a bowl of creamy mushroom soup and a croissant.
"You guys sure are relaxed." A female voice spoke up. Joey looked up and saw it was Mai Valentine.
"Aren't you worried about tomorrow's matches at all? You don't even know who your opponents are, yet you can still eat so casually," Mai Valentine said, looking at the several empty plates in front of Joey.
Chumley wiped the parmesan from the pasta off the corner of his mouth with a napkin. "If you're hungry, you can't even concentrate on a Duel. Besides, the Top 8 haven't even all gathered yet."
Pegasus had installed a huge Screen in the hall, which displayed in real-time how many people had qualified for the Top 8. Currently, seven Avatar Frames on the Screen were lit up, but to create a sense of mystery, none of them showed who the person was.
Bandit Keith, Mai Valentine, Joey, Yugi, and Chumley. There were five known Top 8 contestants, which meant that aside from them, two more people had qualified over the course of the day. However, Chumley and the others had yet to see these two individuals.
Although Pegasus had said the time limit to qualify for the Top 8 was 48 hours—from 9 a.m. on the first day of the tournament until 9 a.m. on the third day, which was tomorrow—Chumley had learned from a butler that the castle gates would be completely sealed after 8 p.m. tonight, no longer accepting new contestants into the Top 8.
"The Duelist Kingdom tournament is meant to select the strongest duelist. If it takes that long just to qualify, then that duelist doesn't have what it takes to be the strongest." This was apparently what Pegasus had said, of course, with his strange English affectations removed.
Mai Valentine, however, wagged her finger smugly. "That's not necessarily true. Just because you don't know who the other opponents are, doesn't mean I haven't gathered intel on the other contestants~"
The moment she said this, she captured the attention of not only Chumley and Joey, but Yugi as well. But just as they thought she was about to reveal something, Mai Valentine sat down on her own and began eating a taco wrap.
This made Joey anxious. "Don't just say half of it! Do you really know who the other two are?"
"If you don't believe me, then forget it. And here I was, coming over specifically to share intel with you."
"I believe you! Of course I believe you, Mai."
Seeing Joey's fawning expression next to her, Mai Valentine couldn't help but feel a little smug. She took a slow sip of red wine before finally speaking. "Of the other two Top 8 contestants, one of them is from that rather famous dueling dojo in the world of Duel Monsters. And what's more, he's the guaranteed future master of the dojo."
"A dueling dojo?" Yugi was slightly taken aback by the name and asked with some uncertainty, "Miss Mai, you don't mean the 'Cyber Style' Dojo, do you?"
"Cyber Style!?!" Chumley was shocked. "The Cyber Style that uses 'Cyber Dragon'?!"
"Oh? Chumley, you know about the Cyber Style Dojo too?" Mai Valentine looked at Chumley and Yugi in surprise. "Honestly, I thought only pro-duelists knew about the Cyber Style Dojo and was planning to show off in front of you all, but it turns out you already know."
"Of course I know all too well. Cyber Style is something etched into the DNA of countless duelists. It can even make people abandon all meta decks to join the invincible Cyber Dragon," Chumley thought to himself.
When speaking of the representative figure of "Cyber Style," none was more famous than the super-popular character from the second Yu-Gi-Oh! series that inherited the worldview of *Yu-Gi-Oh! Duel Monsters*, *Yu-Gi-Oh! GX*—Zane Truesdale. His dueling technique of sending his Deck to the graveyard was deeply ingrained in people's minds, and in contrast to a host of terrible teammates, he was a rare god-tier teammate for the protagonist Jaden Yuki.
But that was a matter for many years later. Chumley was more concerned with the present. "That guy from the Cyber Style Dojo, is he strong?"
"It's not really a question of whether he's strong or not. After all, I was just probing for information; it's not like he'd willingly reveal his Deck," Mai Valentine said, thinking for a moment. "That guy said he actually collected all his Star Chips yesterday, but he ran into some trouble on the way, which is why he didn't arrive at the castle right away."
"However, the other Top 8 contestant dueled him." Pausing, Mai Valentine noticed Bandit Keith swaggering into the banquet hall from not far away and lowered her voice. "That guy from the Cyber Style Dojo is very good at increasing the Attack of his Monsters and can often pull off an OTK."
"OTK?" Joey was a bit confused. "What's an OTK?"
"The so-called OTK stands for 'One Turn Kill.' It means finishing off your Opponent in a single Turn, like making your Opponent run out of cards in their Deck in one Turn or dealing 4000 Damage in one Turn."
"Oh, so that's what it is." Joey nodded in understanding, but he immediately sensed something was off. He whipped his head around and saw an unfamiliar smiling face.
"You all seem quite relaxed. I, on the other hand, had a hard time making it to the castle," a strange man with long blue hair said with a smile. "Allow me to introduce myself. My name is Camula. It's a pleasure to finally meet you all, my fellow members of the Top 8~"
The large Screen in the banquet hall updated at that very moment. The final Avatar Frame lit up, indicating that all eight duelists had now arrived.
(end of chapter)