Chapter 3: The Debtor is King
During work hours, Amano Rei stood face-to-face with pure confusion.
Floating in the middle of the scrap pile was a strange, blocky object.
[Yuyu] [1-Star LIGHT]
[Angel] [ATK: 300] [DEF: 100]
"Is this a spirit too?"
Comparing the card he'd just picked up, Amano turned to the spirit Eva for confirmation.
Was he really that popular with spirits?
"Probably? Though I've never seen this type of spirit before. It looks..."
Eva tentatively reached out to touch it. Spirit bodies couldn't interact with physical reality, but spirits could interfere with each other.
"It looks like a marshmallow! So soft!" The spirit girl drooled, a mysterious liquid dripping from her mouth.
"Really? I think it looks more like a tofu block." Amano swallowed hard alongside her.
Couldn't help it—the Amano household's last taste of tofu was so long ago, he couldn't even remember when.
Even though Eden Tower could complete ecological cycles independently, genuine ingredients remained extremely precious.
At the Tower's bottom levels, especially District 32, most people supplemented their nutrition with tasteless synthetic food products.
Ingredients like tofu had become New Year's luxuries for the Amano family.
But starting today, the Amano family's fate would be rewritten by eldest son Amano Rei himself.
"You're the final piece!"
Whether it was a card spirit or not, this [Yuyu] undoubtedly became the last component, filling out Amano's initial 40-card deck.
With the final card placed into the deck, Amano Rei officially became a duelist within Eden Tower.
Using cards picked from garbage heaps.
[Duel King System Loading... Current Progress: 1%]
"A system?"
Double happiness!
The voice appearing in Amano's mind was something he'd waited eighteen years for—a system!
When first reborn, Amano had tried every method imaginable.
Every method in every sense of the word.
A transmigrator without a system enhancement.
After nearly giving up, his cheat code finally arrived eighteen years late—the exact moment his deck was completed.
"The Duel King System, huh? Sounds incredible!"
Speaking of Duel Kings, you had to mention Yu-Gi-Oh!'s original protagonist, Yugi Muto, and his ghostly partner Pharaoh Atem.
What would this Duel King System give him?
Maybe the three Egyptian God Cards? Though in Amano's distant card game memories from his previous life, the God Cards weren't particularly powerful in actual play.
But this was the future, 3,000 years after dueling knowledge had been lost, and card spirits actually existed here.
Representing the pinnacle of all spirits, the three God Cards would at least have serious prestige.
Of course, getting a pile of devastating trap cards that struck fear into opponents' hearts would work too. Or maybe a partner spirit with really cool hair who was great at dueling—Amano could accept that.
The more he fantasized, the more impatient Amano became to discover this Duel King System's true nature.
[Duel King System Loading... Current Progress: 1%... 2%]
"This... isn't this kinda slow?"
Unable to focus on work, Amano sat cross-legged in the scrap pile until the sunset turned red.
Waiting ages for just 1% progress was excruciating, especially in this situation—it clawed at his heart.
No, wait. He'd already waited eighteen years. What was a bit more time?
Amano adjusted his mindset.
Deck completed, system obtained. Now the most important thing was considering his next steps.
Meaning: methods to make money using his deck.
Entering tournaments seemed like the obvious path. Or maybe underground arena matches...
Just as Amano contemplated his future, a coworker's shout came from the neighboring scrap section.
"Amano, your little girlfriend's here looking for you! Seems pretty urgent!"
"Little girlfriend?"
Creating friends out of thin air—he didn't have anything that nice!
"Rei!"
But waiting at the scrap yard entrance was a breathless Kikawayu.
Disappointment... yeah, there was definitely some.
No matter how cute Kikawayu's appearance, the guy had an absolutely insurmountable gulf separating him from "girlfriend" territory.
Even gasping for breath, black hair sticking to flushed cheeks with sweat—making Kikawayu look even more attractive—
Absolutely not!
Still, Kikawayu did look genuinely urgent.
"What's wrong?"
"Big trouble, Rei. Those people—those people are back again!"
"Back again?" Amano immediately understood. "Wait, you mean... that shouldn't be possible!"
Amano remembered the debt collection warning he'd ripped off his door this morning.
Didn't they say three more days?
"I don't know what's going on either, but right now they've got your front door blocked, and little Shio's still inside!"
"This is bad. I have to get back. Boss, sorry!"
The scrap yard foreman was a stubbled, rough-looking man in his forties who seemed extremely intimidating and was notoriously strict with his workers.
"Yeah, I got it." The man nodded heavily. "Amano kid, go ahead!"
But that strictness never seemed to actually apply to Amano Rei.
The Amano family's circumstances were known throughout District 32.
Amano Rei's mother had died young from illness. Perhaps due to heredity, his sister Amano Shio developed the same strange disease in early childhood.
To pay for Shio's treatment, their father borrowed money everywhere, working multiple jobs until an accident at work.
When he died, he left behind nothing but a mountain of debt and a wheelchair-bound daughter.
Such a background made even the Tower's bottom-level slum residents feel pity.
So fellow slum dwellers, especially the scrap yard workers, would quietly help Amano out within their means whenever possible.
"Amano kid!" Watching Amano rush off, the foreman couldn't help shouting one more thing. "If you run into trouble, come back and find us!"
"Thanks, boss!"
Amano had long since noticed the slum residents' unspoken care.
But he also knew that relying on others' support wasn't a long-term solution.
Some roads you had to walk yourself.
"Wait—wait up, Rei!" Kikawayu, who'd sprinted all the way here, gradually fell behind Amano's urgent pace on the return trip.
Amano's rush wasn't because he feared Shio would face danger.
According to Eden Tower regulations, all violence within the Tower was absolutely prohibited.
So even in this era, when the 'yakuza' came to collect debts, they could only engage in basic 'intimidation' tactics. Escalating further would violate mainframe Eva's rules.
Even 'dueling'—which replaced violent conflict resolution—required Eva system approval before the victor could gain enforcement power.
So actually, the opposite was true. Amano feared something else entirely...
"No money! I told you we don't have money! Didn't you people just come by?"
Before Amano even reached his doorstep, he could already hear a girl's clear, willful shouting.
This was exactly what Amano worried about.
Three burly men in black suits and sunglasses—despite their fierce, intimidating appearances—currently wore extremely troubled expressions, looking completely at a loss as they surrounded the wheelchair-bound girl.
His overly willful, domineering sister was perfectly demonstrating the attitude that debtors are kings.
Even mobility-impaired, Amano Shio showed zero fear facing these hulking yakuza.
"Anyway, you want money? Don't have it. You want my life... just beat me up then!"
You could only say something like that inside Eden Tower.
Being judged as violent behavior meant light penalties at minimum, exile at worst.
Especially laying hands on a disabled person—that would easily get flagged by mainframe Eva as 'severe' level violence violation.
Of course, simply acting like a deadbeat would also trigger punishment from relevant rules.
Amano Rei stepped in front of Shio. "I'll handle this."
"Brother!" Seeing Amano suddenly appear before her, Shio's expression instantly transformed—zero-second face change—'pitifully' throwing her arms around him.
"Brother, I was so scared just now! You're finally back! They were going to hit me! Waaaah!"
The three black-suited men's lips twitched, clearly struggling to maintain composure.
Little lady, are you even being reasonable? Who's scared of who here?
If not for this emergency situation with the young miss personally ordering them, they'd absolutely refuse this job ten thousand times over.
After all, they were more afraid Amano Shio would ram them with her wheelchair in some violent insurance scam, getting them punished by mainframe Eva instead.
These days, being a bad guy kept getting harder.
Truly, moral standards were rising. Rising indeed.