"Skeleton (lv1)" "Attribute/Dark" "Race/Undead" "ATK/300 DEF/200"
"You used my familiar to summon such an idiot?!"
The moment that smooth, frail monster appeared, Hades, who had shown little emotional change until then, let out a roar that seemed capable of shaking heaven and earth.
"You knew you were facing me, yet you still stuffed such useless trash into your deck!"
The piercing sound seemed to tear through the air, shaking not only Yu Ming's ears but also battering his brain.
When he recovered from that brief daze, Yu Ming had only one thought left:
So you get offended that easily?
He reached up and dug at his ear.
"You were acting like a deaf man while spouting nonsense, so I thought you were trying to toughen your skin and become a Superheavy Samurai who fights people with his ass..."
"Who taught you to do that?!"
"..."
"Tell me who it was!"
Facing Hades's gaze, which looked like it wanted to devour someone, Yu Ming really wanted to say something, but he realized he did not seem to have the chance.
"Were you traumatized..."
"Was it him?!"
"Ah..."
"Was it that Holy Knight?!"
"..."
At last, on some unknown day after his death, Yu Ming came to understand a very profound truth:
Being deaf and brain-dead did not seem mutually exclusive. They could absolutely exist in the same person.
"It must have been him!"
"It had to be him. Only he would look down on me. Only he would still hate me so much."
Perhaps because he had been slashed earlier, Yu Ming suddenly felt exhausted.
He felt like he should not have run his mouth out of habit. What kind of thing had he provoked?
With this guy, they were not even arguing on the same channel!
"Holy Knight, I have never lost to you, do you hear me?!"
"I did not lose back then!"
Watching this scene, not only Yu Ming, but even Mr. Skeleton, who had just answered the summon and stepped onto the field from the hand, could not help rubbing the back of his head.
"I'm still too weak."
That uncle-like sigh made Yu Ming tilt his head.
"You can talk?"
"Just learned how."
"Did Hades, that lunatic, piss you into learning?"
"...Not exactly."
After a moment of silence, Mr. Skeleton could not help answering.
"It's just that I've been by your side for so long, Master, and the energy I absorbed was rather..."
"Forget it. It's not important anyway."
"..."
Yu Ming did not know whether it was just his imagination, but he felt Skeleton's slightly lowered head looked like one of those nameless reaction memes he used to see.
It was melancholy and somewhat helpless, but that did not really matter.
"Anyway, I have an idea. See if it works."
Yu Ming spoke while Skeleton was inexplicably silent.
"What?"
"Run over there and punch him. Use that fist of yours that can shoot up to ten thousand ATK and knock him out. Then the two of us can finish this duel."
"Master, is it possible that my card plainly states that my attack power is very low?"
"But doesn't 'Skeleton' shoot up to ten thousand ATK?"
"...Is it possible that your mental state is not much better than that guy's?"
"How could that be? My mental state is excellent."
"But you're standing here talking to me."
"Huh?"
When Yu Ming came back to his senses, Skeleton had already fallen silent.
The guy stood steadily at the very front without even turning his head, as if their previous conversation had never happened.
"Could my mental state really be messed up?"
"Hard to say."
"...Did you just speak again?"
"No. You misheard."
"..."
After staring at Skeleton's thin back, draped in a ragged piece of cloth, for quite a while, Yu Ming finally turned his attention back to his opponent.
"Bastard, I am the exalted Pluto! How dare he look down on me? How dare he?!"
Mr. Hades. Well... how should he put this? They should just keep playing cards.
But how had he planned to play again?
"Oh, right."
Glancing at his simple hand, Yu Ming rinsed off the line of thought that had nearly been flushed down the toilet earlier and put it back into his mind.
"I have not performed my Normal Summon this turn."
"Are we going to have a companion? I think the warrior who was on my right before was very strong."
"You're so annoying, Skeleton. Shut up..."
Yu Ming paused for a moment.
"I summon 'Warrior of Darkworld - Dark Blade.'"
"Warrior of Darkworld - Dark Blade (lv4)" "Attribute/Dark" "Race/Warrior" "ATK/1800 DEF/1500"
A pitch-black cloak fluttered in the scorching wind of demonic descent. The warrior who answered the summon slowly raised his twin blades, as though he intended to defend his master.
Unfortunately, beside that cool scene, there happened to be a skeleton muttering softly:
"You told me to shut up, but you still summoned him."
"That's why you're so annoying... Then I set one card in my back row."
"I activate the art I set earlier!"
"Huh?"
Just as Yu Ming placed the card into the Spell/Trap Zone of his Duel Disk, a thunderous shout came from ahead.
The nearly explosive boom made the entire Pandemonium rumble, leaving his ears buzzing.
"I thought you didn't care about this duel and were completely immersed in your own delusions, but you still..."
"Using life as tribute, I can temporarily summon the demon slumbering in my graveyard!!"
Of course, in a sense, he might not have been wrong.
After having his snark interrupted again, Yu Ming could not help sighing.
He ignored Hades's rambling and merely looked at the card that had been flipped up in the other man's back row:
"Demon's Roar"!
A Graveyard Special Summon card exclusive to Demon monsters. Although Yu Ming had never seen anyone run this thing, he still knew its effect.
"Pay 500 LP to activate it. Select one 'Demon' monster from the graveyard and Special Summon it."
Though Hades's explanation was as incomprehensible as ever, it was broadly accurate.
"But I'm really tired..."
"OOOOOOH!"
In the end, Yu Ming was not even given a chance to lament.
Before he could even sigh, Hades's roar, as though he were enduring supreme agony, drowned out everything else.
Though the guy had only lost 500 LP.
Hades LP: 4000→3500
"Return, 'Berserk Demon'!!"
"Berserk Demon (lv6)" "Attribute/Dark" "Race/Demon" "ATK/2000 DEF/0"
Right in front of them, the minotaur demon that had already been sent to the Graveyard returned to Hades's field.
However, compared to his healthy state before, he was now semi-transparent like a ghost. Cracks covered his entire body, even radiating a frailty completely at odds with his physique.
After all, that Trap Card was not without side effects.
"Monsters summoned by 'Demon's Roar' cannot be used as tribute and are destroyed at the end of the turn..."
On its own, that looked like a drawback, but with "Pandemonium" currently on the field, it was an opportunity to search.
But at the moment, that did not seem to be the most important issue.
The important thing was that this situation seemed avoidable.
Thinking that, Yu Ming looked back at his monster.
"Skeleton, if you had quietly shut up like I told you earlier, would I have gotten away with it?"
"..."
"Skeleton, say something. I won't hurt you."
"Then can you tell me what your Set Card is?"
Yu Ming merely shrugged.
"Unfortunately, then there's nothing to talk about."
Then...
"End turn."
Bang!
The instant the words fell, "Berserk Demon" shattered.
Amid an explosion like fireworks, the minotaur demon that had only just returned went back to his faithful abyss.
Before you continue