Staring outside the limousine's windows as it moved past a park, he saw the kids in the park playing Duel Monsters with their Duel Disks.
It's been 3 days since Pegasus offered him the sponsorship, and ever since he got back home on the same day, packages had already stacked up in front of his door.
Opening the packages one by one was time-consuming as hell, but damn, did he not regret signing that contract.
Pegasus gave him 500 boxes of booster packs. 500 boxes. He decided to keep them all in a safe place for now, to resell them. One booster pack box in this universe is thrice the price from the real world, as instead of having a set amount of foil cards per box, it was rare cards that are limited printed.
The likes of said cards were famous cards that had peaked Duel Monsters, like Dark Magician core cards, Red Eyes Black Dragon, and of course, Blue Eyes White Dragon. To this day, there are still only 3 Blue Eyes' in existence, which made Ken suspect that Kaiba was bribing Pegasus to not release any more of them.
Sure, you can draw Dark Magician if you're lucky. The card is a 1 in 500,000 boxes, each box has 10 packs for some reason in this universe, meaning you had to be extremely lucky to even get a copy.
Another big package that Pegasus gave was a PC and a phone. A whole ass computer along with the best phone in existence by Kaiba Corp. And the reason behind the gift was very disturbing.
-
"Oh, I hired some people to make sure that you had the perfect specs for the upcoming project, but they've reported back saying that you don't even have a phone, so I bought them for my employee!"
...
"What? Why —"
"Now now, don't look at me like that, it was just a harmless observation. Besides, you get to have a new computer and a phone! I see this as an absolute win, ohohoho..."
-
That man is just so creepy.
Setting up both the computer and phone took a while, but when it finally came online, there was a voice message on the computer from someone with the contact name "Toon Employer", which made his eye twitch.
They even messed with his computer… Damn, there's no privacy at all, huh?
=
=
=
Entering Kaiba Corp, Ken calms himself down as Pegasus instructed him to follow him into a VIP elevator for staff members. Inside the elevator, Ken almost did a spit take at the number of levels of the building.
150 stories high and 250 stories underground?!
What in the name of God is that?! And why does the Kaiba Corp even need so many fucking floors?!
"That's a good face you're making, Yusou-boyya, in contrast to your normally emotionless face! It is quite hilarious that Kaiba-boyya has so many floors for his HQ, no?"
Pegasus chuckled as he hit the button for floor -80.
"Floor 80 to 200 is all for Solid Vision R&D along with other related matters regarding the Duel Disks. I heard that Kaiba-boyya is making a new one that's coming out soon, ohohoho!"
Damn, imagine the electricity cost for that. Must be in the hundred thousands.
"Also, floor 30-40 is the dueling floors with state-of-the-art dueling zones, mostly for enjoyment for the employees during their break. I've even heard they have weekly competitions amongst themselves with a nice prize pool!"
Damn, this company is so cool.
After a little while more, eventually they reached underground floor 80. The doors opened, and it revealed to be a high techie room with a bunch of computer stations, along with a zone at the back of the room.
His eyes, however, immediately glanced at a man near a console. He was talking to an employee when he turned around at the sound of the elevator opening.
"Good morning, sir. It's been a while."
The young man's voice snapped him out of it, as Ken examines the person in front of him.
With messy, three colored hair, the man wore somewhat gothic like, with a closed buckled collar on his neck, a black linen shirt tight enough to see his lean yet muscular build, a pair of leather pants, and metal accessories to boot.
"Ah, Yugi-boyya! It's been quite the while! How are you?"
Muto fucking Yugi was in front of him. The man, the myth, the legend. His man was his childhood. He looked so much taller, and more muscular than when Duel Monsters stopped.
"It's been good, Mr. Pegasus."
His eyes met Ken's. His purple eyes staring into his. He smiles before raising his hand.
"Ah, Yusou Ken-kun, right? Champion for the U-15 tournament? I saw your match, it was very decisive."
Ken responded with a nod, unable to speak at all as he shook Yugi's hand.
"Haha, a normal reaction when meeting the King of Games!"
Pegasus gave out a hearty laugh at his expression before asking one of the staff members who was on the computer typing away.
"Is it ready for testing?"
"Yes, sir! Everything is online."
"Good."
He looked over at Ken's confused expression.
"Oh, right, I haven't really explained to you the reason of you being here, yes?"
Ken shook his head, his mind still in shambles as he found his voice back.
"No, sir."
"That would be because of me, Yusou-kun."
His head turned to Yugi who had a sheepish smile, scratching his nape awkwardly.
"I really want to duel you after I saw the O.T.K. Seto had asked me to supervise this project, and its almost complete, that means we needed someone to duel me to make sure that the system was working, so I thought to myself "Might as well call you to a duel!"... Sorry about this, I know it's sudden."
...
Muto Yugi wants to fight him?
Holy hell.
He wants to duel him.
"This project... It's the Virtual Duel Monsters thing in the contract, right?"
Ken asked Pegasus who snapped his fingers in agreement.
"That's right! Basically, Kaiba Corp and Industrial Illusions had partnered up to create a project for players to duel in a virtual world, so that anyone from anywhere could duel together!
It took about 2 years to finally reach this point, and everything should work as intended. We just need samples of duels to double-check before we launch it in 2 months time.
We're calling it, Virtual Nexus!"
He explained as he flamboyantly extended his hand, causing Yugi to follow with it, clapping after his presentation.
Holy, this was fascinating.
"What do I do?"
Yugi started explaining how it worked.
"Well, you see that pod over there? There should be a cable to insert into your Duel Disk's charging slot. You then put your deck inside the normal deck zone, and a screen will show you your cards in the deck.
Next, you wear the helmet provided. It will automatically do a few scans of your physical body to make sure that the virtual version of you is perfect, before a screen with the link transfer will appear.
All you have to do after that is to initiate the link transfer by tapping on "YES" and follow the instructions. The staff will guide you, don't worry."
Taking a second to absorb everything, Ken took off his backpack before taking out his deck box and Duel Disk. Choosing the deck that he wanted, he walked over to the pod that Yugi pointed at before entering it.
It was big enough to sit inside, as big as something like a mobile suit piloting station, but without the controls.
The moment he closed the door to the pod, the outside sound completely muted before a hidden speaker in the pod rang.
"Yusou-boyya, the cable should be to your left."
Finding the cable, he jabs it into the charging port when a holographic screen suddenly appeared in front of him with all his cards.
"The helmet is under the seat. Pull the drawer, take it out. Also, please don't accidentally unplug and mind the cables."
Following the instruction, he carefully moved the helmet so that the cables were behind the seat before wearing it. A few seconds of waiting later, a 3D version of himself appeared on the holographic screen with his measurements.
Huh, so he was 142.2 centimeters tall and weighed 37.3 kilograms. That was interesting to know.
"Press on Initiate Link and press YES to enter the Nexus."
Doing as so, he suddenly feels tired. Leaning on the chair, he heard Yugi's voice.
"You'll start to lose consciousness, your mind will transfer into the Nexus, so don't be afraid and let go to enter the Nexus, Yusou-kun."
Breathing deeply, he lets go as his consciousness faded into the Nexus.
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