"...Activate Magic Card - Last Day of Witch!"
Youyu pressed the button on his Duel Disc, and the card covered on the field flipped over.
It was also a Normal Magic Card, with an image of a wooden cross, a crying woman bound by ropes on her knees, and an executioner in a gold helmet holding a long knife.
Last Day of Witch isn't exactly a Rare Card. In Linked World, cards are divided by rarity into N Card, NR Card, R Card, SR Card, UR Card, and the highest rarity USR Card.
And the rarity of Last Day of Witch is just N, the most common and lowest grade among all cards, extremely easy to acquire, with even the least experienced Linked World players having at least seventy or eighty copies in their Deck.
Although Youyu's initial card deck didn't include it, he exchanged it using the card voucher given by the system when he created his account, specifically to deal with this hidden mission. (After all, the system's free newbie card vouchers didn't seem to be able to redeem anything else useful)
Yet, this ordinary, N Card, which would be dismissed even if given to players for free, was indeed a deadly trump card against Pandora's deck.
"Last Day of Witch can instantly destroy all face-up Spellcaster-Type Monsters on both sides of the field," Youyu chuckled, "even your so-called high-level Dark Magician is no exception!"
"Wh-what!?" Pandora's face suddenly changed, and the white mask on his face almost fell off.
Can there really be such a card?
If you tell me you didn't make this card on-site, I wouldn't believe you, okay!??
Even the King wouldn't dare to blatantly print such a targeting card!
However, no matter how unwilling Pandora was, he could only watch as his two ace monsters, the Dark Magicians, were enveloped by powerful magic power and turned to ash under the absolute force of a Magic Card.
"...Impossible, how can there be such a card?" Pandora's face twisted, starting to question his life choices, "No, before this, why would your deck have... Could it be you knew you would encounter me and also knew I would use Dark Magician!?"
Facing Pandora's shocked questioning, Youyu merely shrugged nonchalantly.
He wasn't wrong about that point, as Youyu really had been waiting for him most of the night, already knowing he would use the Dark Magician.
Furthermore, Pandora didn't seem to find anything wrong with Youyu's action of "activating a Normal Magic Card during his opponent's turn," only finding the effect of Last Day of Witch as fake...
...But then again, as part of the Yu-Gi-Oh World's largest fake card group, Ghouls, he probably wasn't in any position to blame someone for using fake cards. (Moreover, they weren't using fake cards)
"Now, it's my turn!"
The duel continued.
At that moment, Pandora was regretting his decisions immensely.
The Magic Card "Dark Magic Curtain" had the powerful effect of summoning a Dark Magician from the deck unconditionally. However, it wasn't without side effects.
Using this Magic Card required paying half of one's Life Points, and the player couldn't perform any Monster Summon in that turn.
Actually, if he just let the Dark Magician on the field attack, it would have been enough to secure the victory. But he insisted on showing off, wanting to summon another Dark Magician before the final blow, which resulted in his current situation of an empty field and unnecessarily losing 1900 Life Points.
If he hadn't recklessly activated Dark Magic Curtain, even if the Dark Magician on the field was destroyed by Last Day of Witch, he could still summon another one using Dark Magic Curtain, avoiding the awkward empty field situation.
However, it's not over yet, he still had 1900 Life Points remaining.
The kid on the other side had already said that the 1600 attack Normal Monster (referring to Sparkman) was his trump card. Now his field was also empty, so he might not be able to summon a monster to take away his remaining 1900 Life Points in the next turn.
Pandora started comforting himself.
As long as he could survive until his next turn, he still had a chance!
"Draw!"
Youyu glanced at his drawn card: "Summon Elemental Hero Sparkman!"
The blue electricity danced wildly, and the slender blue warrior emerged from the holographic projection.
Elemental Hero Sparkman, second unit!
[Elemental Hero Sparkman, ATK 1600]
Pandora heaved a sigh of relief.
Thankfully, it seemed like that monster indeed had the highest attack in the opponent's deck. Even after taking this round of attacks, he still had 300 Life Points left, and Pandora felt he could continue on...
However, he then saw Youyu draw another card from his hand and insert it into the Duel Disc slot.
"Activate Equip Magic Card... Legendary Sword! Equip Legendary Sword to Elemental Hero Sparkman!"
The sword with a golden hilt appeared out of thin air before Sparkman, who grasped it firmly, as blue electric snakes intertwined around the sword emitting a cold glow.
[Legendary Sword, can only be equipped to Warrior-Type Monsters, increases equipped monster's ATK and DEF by 300]
[Elemental Hero Sparkman, ATK 1600→ATK 1900]
[Pandora, LP 1900]
Pandora.his smile began to freeze.JPG
This... surely he's printing cards, right?
Otherwise, how could such a coincidental situation arise???
"Sparkman!" Youyu pointed forward, "Direct attack!"
Sparkman rushed forward with his sword, suddenly enveloped in electricity, his afterimage as fast as lightning.
The sword surrounded by electricity filled his entire vision. Pandora screamed in terror, hurriedly using his arms to protect his head.
The Thunder Sword struck down with force, bringing a very real impact. Pandora groaned in pain, exaggeratedly rolling his eyes and falling backward on the ground.
[Pandora, LP 1900 → LP 0]
Victory.
Simultaneously, a notification popped up for Youyu's system.
"Hidden mission 'Challenge from the Ghouls' completed!
Reward obtained: [Dark Magician] card. Please check the system card library."
Feeling great.
Youyu promptly opened his deck, happily inspecting the newly acquired Dark Magician.
It's only a pity that his Dark Magician's card image is the version with dark skin and red armor from Pandora's hand, lacking the style of the one Yugi has.
But he was already satisfied.
Considering how few players have acquired Dark Magician even after all these years since Linked World's launch, getting one card is already impressive.
Moreover, his system card library finally had the chance to draw the powerful support cards for Dark Magician!
In the DM era, when duel cards didn't have as many fancy effects, a full set of Dark Magicians was still considerably powerful.
Youyu contentedly packed up his Duel Disc, preparing to leave, but couldn't resist glancing back at Pandora, who lay on the ground with his eyes rolled back.
Honestly, he always wanted to make this comment ever since watching the DM animation. It's clearly just a card game, yet why do all the Ghouls act like they've been struck by a giant sword, collapsing and on the brink of death every time they lose...
Even if ordinary duels would inflict some impact damage, their reaction was too exaggerated, wasn't it?
Could it be that their dramatic master Marik had planted a curse on each of them that "activates when they lose a card game"?
That would be harsh...
Youyu was about to leave when he suddenly thought of something and walked back to the collapsed Pandora, bending down and removing his entire card deck from the left-hand Duel Disc.
"According to card gambling rules, I'll take your Rare Cards," Youyu said seriously, shaking the opponent's deck, "but since I haven't decided which one to take yet, I'll take them all back and slowly choose, no objections, right? Okay, no objections, so that's settled..."
Without waiting for Pandora to respond, he walked away, waltzing with the deck in hand.
Pandora: "@#!%&*"