Turns Out I'm Super Strong

As his consciousness gradually returned, Kira seemed to feel warm sunlight, a gentle breeze, and faint traces of fragrance.

He slowly opened his eyes. The sunlight stung them for a moment, and he instinctively raised an arm in front of himself. He could feel that he seemed to be sitting on some kind of damp grass.

As he tried to sit up, a hand supported his arm and helped him to his feet.

"Hmm?"

Kira stood up and turned to look, only to abruptly turn his head back. The one supporting him was Silent Magician, her white robes fluttering as she studied him with a trace of concern in her eyes.

Maybe she was worried Master had fallen stupid.

But the instant she met his gaze, the girl gave another start, let go as though electrocuted, lowered her head, and uneasily retreated to the side with her staff in hand.

Well, at least she had not turned around and run straight back into the deck. Kira felt that counted as progress in their relationship.

Wait, something was off.

Kira noticed it too. Frowning, he seriously stepped up to Silent Magician.

Then he reached out and tried pinching her snow-white cheek.

It felt soft, and warm too—so lifelike, just like a real person.

That was not scientific.

Silent Magician: "???"

Holding her staff, she was at a loss for a moment, as though she could not understand what Master was trying to do.

"I see. Spirits can be touched physically..."

Kira looked around at the surroundings.

Fine golden sunlight filtered through the dense forest and scattered across the ground, forming dappled patterns of light and shadow. The tall, straight trees were lush with branches and leaves, like enormous green umbrellas.

It was not as though spirits could not materialize, but shedding their spiritual forms in the real world was generally difficult and could not be maintained for long. Besides, considering that his own spirit was a shut-in, yet she had neither turned into a spirit nor crawled back into the deck, then it was highly likely...

"Am I in the Spirit World?" Kira boldly guessed.

Silent Magician nodded.

So he really was.

The reason Kira could immediately make that guess was because something similar had happened in the original story. For instance, Yugi and Pharaoh had been transported to the Spirit World, where Dark Magician Girl asked them to defeat God of Orichalcos and save the Spirit World. Then there was the part in Yu-Gi-Oh! 5DS where little Ruka traveled to the Spirit World to rescue Ancient Fairy Dragon.

"Was that stone tablet in the ruins a gateway to the Spirit World?" Kira pondered.

Yet the research team excavating the ruins seemed to have noticed nothing at all. Could it have reacted only when he approached?

And he was certain that before entering, he had heard a voice from the direction of the stone tablet saying, "Here."

Something was calling to him.

While he was thinking, he suddenly heard rustling from the woods behind him. Turning around, he saw several pitch-black humanoid figures emerge from the bushes, carrying spear-like weapons.

They looked like some kind of dark-skinned goblin race.

"Human!"

The black creature at the front let out a strange cry.

For a moment, he was surprised that he could understand spirits, but then he remembered that the spirit languages in all kinds of Yu-Gi-Oh! dimensions seemed to be mutually intelligible with human language. Nothing too strange about that.

Kira was also certain it was a warning upon discovering an invader, rather than an enthusiastic welcome for a guest.

More shouts immediately answered from all directions. A large group of blackened creatures came rushing out with a clatter, brandishing spears as though they intended to turn him into tonight's extra dish.

Kira's heart skipped a beat. Damn, these natives had no Dueling Etiquette. They were actually summoning themselves for a group beatdown and not even giving him a chance to play cards?

Silent Magician charged out first. With a sweep of her staff, she drew a ring of light that exploded, blasting over the goblins at the very front.

"Take down that magic guard first!"

The goblins were not frightened off. Instead, they charged even more fiercely. Silent Magician repeatedly tapped her staff, and Magic Light Bullets continuously exploded in every direction. But there were simply too many enemies. Goblins throwing javelins and firing bows began appearing from both flanks.

The natives even had different unit types, for fuck's sake.

Silent Magician kept casting spells at the enemy while also having to divide her attention to protect Master, putting her under tremendous pressure.

But Kira's thoughts raced, and an idea suddenly flashed through his mind.

Wait. If this was the Spirit World, where the power of cards could materialize...

The situation was too urgent to think it through. In one motion, he drew more than a dozen cards from the Top of Deck, swept his gaze over them, swiftly picked one out, and slapped it onto his Duel Disk.

A summoning effect appeared before him as a circle of summoning light unfolded. A warrior in red armor, his cape billowing, leaped forth. Shield in his left hand, he drew his sword with his right and charged into the enemy ranks, flashing blade-light as he began cutting them down like vegetables.

Buster Blader, the Destruction Swordsman.

Sure enough, just like in the Different Dimension Arc of Yu-Gi-Oh! GX, even monsters without spirits residing in them could materialize.

And it was not just monsters.

Kira directly spread open his deck, picked out a card, and inserted it into the Duel Disk.

"Eek!"

A goblin foot soldier in the woods screamed, drew his bow, and fired at him. The arrow shot through the air, but when it was still a meter away from Kira, it was as though it had struck an invisible wall and was forcibly stopped.

A hemispherical barrier that had originally been transparent and invisible to the naked eye seemed to have been triggered into revealing itself by that arrow.

Sacred Barrier - Mirror Force!

That's right, Kira had realized that in the Spirit World, there were basically no rules outside of dueling.

The cards in a duelist's hand were weapons. They could be slapped down like spells that cost nothing. Play a Spell Card like Fireball and it became a fireball spell; play Mystical Space Typhoon and it became a storm spell. There were no incantations, no skill windups. In theory, he could even unleash up to five different abilities at once.

Realizing that he could fight back after all, Kira immediately relaxed. In high spirits, he swept out an arm. "Feel Hanoi's Sublime Power, then fall into the endless abyss!"

Well, no one else in the Spirit World was watching anyway. A little cosplay of Leader Zuo to celebrate was fine.

Oh, his own spirit, Silent Magician, had seen it. But that was no big deal. As she watched the light rain from Mirror Force sweep across the entire screen and mow down the enemy ranks, she was looking at her Master with admiration.

Astonishing power erupted from the transparent barrier. Vast blue radiance burst outward, spreading into a sky full of light rain that swept through the entire forest.

A full-screen AOE was simply a dimensionality-reduction strike against goblins wielding swords, bows, and arrows. The first row of goblins charging at the front bore the brunt of it, crushed into pulp by the light without any chance to resist.

The goblins behind them were even more terrified, turning and running at once.

"Duelist! There's a duelist!"

"Mom! Retreat! Run!"

Sure enough, in this world, the term "duelist" seemed to refer to an exceptionally terrifying kind of creature.

From a spirit's perspective, a "duelist" was an Overpowered Player who walked around carrying a portable arsenal, could pull out massive monsters with three or four thousand ATK from their pockets to crush everything, and casually hurl all kinds of full-screen, instant-kill spell ultimates as though they cost nothing.

Only a duelist could punish another duelist.

The only way for two duelists to fight to the death was through the legendary "Ritual of Sacred Battle."

Commonly known as playing cards.

Having instantly cleared the battlefield and defused the crisis, Kira finally felt somewhat at ease.

What the heck? So I was actually pretty strong even in the Spirit World.

Today, I'm searching for cards. Tomorrow, I'm playing cards.