A/N:
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The pod's doors opened with a hiss, illuminating the dark pod with light.
Covering his eyes, he lets them adjust to the light before he heard a series of claps.
"Oh, Yusou-boyya, you've really outdone yourself!"
Pegasus congratulated as he helped Ken out of the pod.
"The King of Games! My goodness, I cannot believe it, you beat Yugi-boyya in a duel, with his Dark Magician deck no less!"
He laughs with pride as Ken looked around, the staff around him looking at him like a celebrity.
"So, Yusou-kun, how was the Nexus?"
Yugi asked once he came out of his own pod next to his earlier.
"It was as if I never left reality."
He gave them his honest take. It felt too much like reality than a virtual world.
"The automatic shuffling was a very good addition, no need to manually shuffle anymore.
Also, the hologram that shows every card that was currently playing was good too. I don't have to move and ask what an effect is anymore.
Overall, it was very smooth. The cards played without any delays, the Duel Disk worked as what a normal one does, and nothing really makes the experience dull, with the visual effects being top-notch as always.
The only thing that I didn't like was the user interface, it's a little too small and hard to see."
Giving back the feedback, Pegasus hummed as Yugi politely asked staff to write it down.
"Very good feedback, Yusou-boyya. As expected, you really love this game, as you give more expressions each time I bring up Duel Monsters, ohoho!"
That prompted Ken to frown slightly. He's not that emotionless, he just doesn't like expressing much, its become a habit due to his horrible social skills that accumulated in both this world and his past.
"Pegasus-san..."
Yugi just facepalmed before apologizing with a sheepish smile.
"Sorry, he's very invasive, and his words sometimes are very grating to listen to."
"Why, Yugi-boyya, I'd never!"
Ken just nodded, ignoring the two's bickering as he recalled the few conversations prior before he asked.
"Excuse me, but how are you going to sell Virtual Nexus then? The pods should cost a fortune with all this technology, and not many houses would install one in their homes..."
Pegasus' face lit up when he asked that question, happy that someone addressed the pod's situation.
"Wonderful question, Yusou-boyya! Well, it's simple really.
We just retail it to card and game shops! Then, we will encourage the card shops to lean into promoting per hour gaming, meaning it will be just like the internet café days, where people would pay a low fee per hour to play in the Nexus!
And since there are about ten thousand card stores in Domino alone, in theory, there should be millions on launch!"
...
That was a pretty good idea.
Nodding in understanding, Yugi brought up another topic, facing the team.
"Well, moving on to important matters, I can confidently approve that the testing phase is complete then. Good work, everyone, I think we should be ready even before the initial launch with a couple more tweaks!"
That prompted a cheer from the team as Yugi faced Ken.
"Thank you for coming, Yusou-kun. I'm glad that I dueled you."
"Me too, Yugi-san. It was a great duel."
Shaking hands, Ken left alone as Pegasus wanted to have a talk with Yugi, meaning he had to traverse the Kaiba Corp alone.
And since Pegasus gave him an access card, maybe some exploration was due. Especially floor 30 to 40. He was quite interested with the next-gen dueling zones that Pegasus talked about.
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Once Yusou-kun left the floor, he looked over at Pegasus who brought them into his office (It was very weird to have his own office).
"He has Duel Spirits, I reckon all of his deck's monsters are."
He told Pegasus who hummed in thought.
"I see. I asked Yusou-boyya about his monsters doing unusual animations prior briefly, and he agreed that they were animated strangely. But it seems that he hasn't come in contact with them yet."
"That means that the Darklords are hiding themselves from him for now, maybe until he was worthy."
Yugi thought about it before agreeing with what he just said. Some Duel Spirits hide from their partners due to the need of seeing whether they were worthy.
"But it's interesting that Yusou-boyya has so many Duel Spirits that follow him around. Aren't they usually territorial with their partners?"
That was another question. Most people only have 1 Duel Spirit that are partnered with them, no matter if they can see them or not. If one Duel Spirit had already marked a person, then most other Duel Spirits just leave to find others.
But Yusou-kun already has a total of 3, and still counting from what he felt from his deck, the amount of the Spirits' presence was staggering.
How did he know that? Well, when you're dealing with the supernatural like him ever since he was in high school on a natural basis, you'd pick up a thing or two about magic and spirits.
"In any case, too many Spirits for one person is slightly disturbing. Pegasus-san, you already know about the influence on a person that has bonded with a Duel Spirit, they change based on their bonds."
People don't realize this, but a Spirit may also change one's behavior and personality by bonding with them if the partnered human has weak willpower. A good example was Inspector Haga.
His personality was really terrible because of his Duel Spirit, the Great Moth, that hated humans with a passion. Yes, he still tries to be a good person after the Orichalcos incident, but with a weak will, the Great Moth's personality had influenced Haga to be cruel overall.
"There's already a problem, Yugi-boyya. From my research, it seems that The First Darklord had already made an effect on Yusou-boyya's psyche."
Taking out a file of documents, Yugi took a glance at them before frowning.
"This is..."
Psych evaluations?
"... Pegasus-san, you're going a little too far."
He glared at Pegasus who had a relaxed expression.
"What? I treat my employee's health seriously you know?
Besides, this was procedure for all Industrial Illusions employees to have an extensive health check, and Yusou-boyya just happened to need a more... "intense" psych evac."
Pegasus skilfully played with his words, causing Yugi to sigh in annoyance at his behaviour. Well, what would you expect from a shrewd businessman? He sure does know how to make the situation look normal.
He was thankful that Pegasus was on his side, even if they had some rough times in the past.
Looking at the documents, his eyes narrowed further.
"Yes, he's actually a very talkative person from the evaluations, it's just his unwillingness to socialize, a trait that The First Darklord is known for.
And I did some testing myself. Every time the subject of Duel Monsters comes into the conversation, his eyes would shine so brightly.
Ah, that's the expression I love when talking about Duel Monsters."
Pegasus explained as Yugi sighs. The First Darklord was known to show no emotions at all, only talking when needed, especially in front of his own kind.
"But he still shows some emotion, though only when he has intense emotions. And he's not like The First Darklord whose known to be cruel, the duel showed me that he really enjoys the game."
Yugi commented as he keeps the documents back into the file, not wanting to snoop into Yusou-kun's backstory or information as it breaches his privacy.
"True, true. I doubt he will become The First Darklord, but we should keep an eye out, yes?"
"... Alright, but no snooping into his background. The gods know dealing with you in the Duelist Kingdom was horrible."
"But that's what makes me me, Yugi-boyya! Ohohoho!"
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A month later...
Resting his head on his fist, he sighs as his maths teacher went on and on about algebra, specifically simultaneous linear equation.
It's been a month since the meet with Yugi, and here he was, listening his teacher drone about maths. Sigh...
Sure, he loved maths, especially since he was Asian (It's a long-running joke for him since he was Asian in America, and he was Japanese English in this world), but having to learn it once again is unbearable.
Yawning in boredom, he was about to doze off when suddenly the school's P.A. system rang.
"Can the student Yusou Ken please come to the principal's office? I repeat, can the student Yusou Ken please come to the principal's office?"
... Uh oh. What did he do this time?
Getting up, he quickly walks to the principal's office and opened the door...
To see Pegasus with his usual close eyed smile that sent shivers down his spine on how creepy it was.
"Ah, Yusou-boyya. Good news, Virtual Nexus is launching in an hour!"
"... I see."
That was good news! He was quite excited for it too, since Pegasus told him that there was going to be a rank mode.
"Yes, and as per contract, you will have to stream it to millions of people upon launch!"
...
Oh, shit —
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