Is this the world of Yu-Gi-Oh? Ada thief!

“Why do you look so unsurprised, Hayato?” Bakura asked curiously, “That’s Sugoroku-sensei, I never knew he was such a great duelist.”

“That’s because you didn’t meet him at that KC Cup, right? That seems to be the most recent duel Sugoroku-sensei participated in besides this one.” Malik said casually, “However, that old guy wasn’t using the current 【Millennium】 deck, but a heavy trap deck.”

“I faced him back then too, and he was just a little short of breaking through my ‘gatekeeper’ position to enter the official tournament. Fortunately, I was more skilled and won in the end, thanks to playing cards with Rishid a lot since I was a kid.”

“Then I’ll reward you with another duel against Rishid?” Hayato teased with a smile.

“No way!” Extending one finger from each hand and crossing them, Malik refused without hesitation.

“Um, Malik-kun. You’re a bit too old to be imitating moe anime characters.” Bakura said gently, but it made Malik look deeply hurt.

“Really?”

“It’s really disgusting, you’re too old to be acting cute.” Hayato sided with Bakura, “You’re so old and still watching anime, it’s really worrying for us elders.”

“Says you, brother-in-law, aren’t you only twenty-four this year? Only two years older than me.” The twenty-two-year-old Malik protested unhappily, “Besides, you’re the one who kept calling your deck that’s not girly or a band at all a ‘Maiden Band’ deck, brother-in-law, you have no right to say anything!”

“Speaking of which, what were you asking me just now, Bakura?”

“You’re pretending you didn’t hear what I said! And acting like it’s obvious!”

Neither Hayato nor Bakura paid attention to Malik’s complaints, and Bakura asked curiously again: “Hayato, when did you realize that ‘King of Games’ was Sugoroku-sensei?”

“An interesting question, then when did you get the idea that I didn’t use Mirror Flower, Water Moon cough cough, I mean why do you think I wouldn’t be able to tell at a glance that ‘King of Games’ is Mutou Sugoroku-sensei?”

Hayato paused, putting his hands on his head to imitate Mutou Sugoroku’s hairstyle, “It’s not me, but it’s hard to find five people in the world with the same hairstyle as Game and his grandfather, one of whom is imitating Game’s hairstyle and the other is from three thousand years ago.”

“Although Sugoroku-sensei’s mask was quite tight and I only knocked it off after the duel, the problem is that he didn’t think about wrapping a turban to cover his hair. Otherwise, if he wrapped his face like 【Thief Kuriboh】, even I would have to spend some time guessing who the short person is.”

“Honda and Otogi, not to mention them, they didn’t even bother to hide their hairstyles, especially Otogi, he didn’t even bother to take off the dice earrings on his ears, not even trying to act.”

Hayato continued, the topic shifting from Mutou Sugoroku to Honda Hiroto and Otogi Ryuji, “And the lousy nicknames they took, Sugoroku-sensei’s ‘King of Games’ at least confused me a bit and made me think I met a colleague, but Honda calls himself ‘Car King’ and Otogi calls himself ‘Dice King’, hard to comment.”

“Fair enough, indeed.” After listening to Hayato’s words, Malik couldn’t help but nod in agreement, “But that’s not a reason for you to avoid my question.”

“A real man has to have the weird rule of daring to touch a frog to be a real man, Malik!”

“Suddenly calling me by my name and saying something inexplicable? And who wants to touch a frog!”

“That’s the weird rule that a real duelist has to have an odd number of times shuffling their deck!”

“I see, I also have a special habit of counting prime numbers when chewing rice.” Bakura said a little embarrassed.

“Ah, I seem to be too, I like to take a bite of the original flavor when eating barbecue and then dip it in various sauces and finally n- the topic is off again, hey!”

Like a straight man act, although it was because Hayato forced him to stop being a shut-in and dragged him out to act with Hayato, Malik was quite energetic.

The three walked around the island towards an unknown location, and soon, a building with a long line in front of it appeared in front of Hayato and the others.

“Earn funds?” Bakura looked at the badge in Hayato’s hand with some surprise, “But didn’t you give this badge to Kaji-sensei and the others for free when you invited them to participate? How can free things make money?”

“Not free.” Raising a finger and shaking it, Hayato said smugly, “Although this badge is given for free to students of our school and recognized powerful duelists as a qualification to participate, don’t forget that in addition to the invited experts, there are also many uninvited participants in this competition.”

“They came to Duel Academy Island, which is open for a limited time and is hosting such a grand event as the ‘Second Underworld Tournament’, and they want to find someone to duel but find that they are not qualified to participate, what should they do at this time?” Pointing to the building behind him, “Tada! Here it is, a designated location for issuing and collecting badges temporarily built by the Kaiba Corporation’s professional construction team for this ‘Second Underworld Tournament’, I named it ‘Exchange’.

"Following a process similar to Duelist Kingdom, the decks of those interested in participating but haven't received an invitation will undergo a check. Then, for a mere 500, you can obtain a badge. For the price of just two 'Tamashis', you have the chance to glimpse the pinnacle of the world."

"That does sound quite cheap, but I understand issuing them. What's the meaning of 'recycling'?" Malik asked curiously, without commenting on whose 'Tamashi' would be priced at a mere 250.

"It means exactly what it sounds like. These badges can be exchanged for money."

Casually dropping a bombshell, Hayato extended a finger to calculate for the two: "Based on the standard of eighty students recruited last year, the Duel Academy has roughly two hundred and forty students across three grades. Adding in the badges received by the teachers in the school, the Duel Academy headquarters alone has over two hundred and sixty GX badges. Then, there are also the forty-odd invitees who received invitations and replied that they would participate, bringing the total to over three hundred. Adding in other personnel interested in participating, I estimate there will be over four hundred participants, which means four hundred badges."

"The rules of this tournament require the loser to hand over all their participation badges to the winner. It's only just started, so even with efficient collecting, the most badges anyone could have is a dozen or twenty at most. Carrying them around is just a bit of a burden, but what about in the last few days?"

"Although a single badge is light, it would be impressive if someone could move with one or two hundred badges on them." Hearing Hayato's calculation, Malik also realized the flaw in the rule. "So, brother-in-law, you've provided a solution to recycle the badges?"

"In the end, the only purpose of this badge is as proof of qualification to participate. It's not like Kaiba's puzzle cards back then, which had such a bizarre design that you could only qualify for competition by collecting different pieces. It's just like collecting lucky characters for good fortune, where you can easily end up with all the other pieces, even duplicates, but just can't find that one last piece."

Even Hayato felt some resentment when mentioning the Duelist Kingdom's past tournament design. After all, he had encountered the situation of repeatedly collecting the same map cards back then, and only managed to advance to the top eight after obtaining the final puzzle card from Rishid.

"Although the value will be halved during recycling, it still gives 250 per badge, the price of a 'Tamashi'. The recycled badges will be recorded as points accumulated in individual files, until the held badges are lost and transferred to the winner along with them. The final winner will get all the badges."

"Regardless of the quantity, it's meaningless, but this also means that even just one badge is enough to continue participating. You can completely hand over the other badges to the Duel Academy for recycling, and the returned amount can motivate people to duel more in this competition."

Bakura did some calculations. According to the data given by Hayato, the winner of this competition, in addition to fame, could actually get four hundred times two hundred and fifty, which is a hundred thousand!

"Although I don't have much pursuit of money, even I'm a little scared by 100,000 US dollars. That's a lot," Bakura said with emotion.

Malik was stunned when he heard Bakura's words: "Ah, not yen?"

Hayato said strangely: "Didn't I say that?"

"It seems like, you really didn't?" Bakura said uncertainly, touching his chin and thinking.

"Then let's just say I'm saying it now. Of course it's US dollars, otherwise, you think you can buy a chance to duel with my student for just 500 yen? Keep dreaming." Hayato sneered, "Besides, 100,000 US dollars isn't much money. Problems that can be solved with money are not— I haven't finished speaking yet, Malik, what are you going to do?"

"I'm going to participate too!" Malik had a determined expression on his face. "You, brother-in-law, who has shares in the International Illusions Corporation, don't understand the hunger of the starving. You don't know what kind of life I'm living. You haven't tasted the bitterness of being broke, so naturally you won't know how tempting this 100,000 US dollars is to me!"

"Don't stop me! I'm going to participate too, I'm going to compete for second place in the world!"

Malik's body emanated the aura of the "Ghouls" leader who made it into the top eight in Duelist Kingdom, after a long absence.

However, Hayato only needed one sentence to make him fall apart: "Very ambitious, but I have a question—do you have 500 US dollars for the registration fee?"

"No, no way! Don't tell me such a cruel reality!" Malik's expression turned to despair upon realizing that he didn't have any startup capital at all. "That's a lie! What a joke!"

"Strange?" Bakura looked at Malik, who was throwing a tantrum on the ground, with some confusion. "How do I remember Hayato saying before that Malik had some unused 'legacy' from the 'Ghouls' on hand?"

"But that was so long ago. Six years ago, he developed a habit of spending money lavishly because he had too much money on hand, and even told us nonsense like 'We must get rid of the bad habit of eating staple foods, and eating lobster can also fill our stomachs'." Hayato spread his hands, "He's been spending money on live broadcasts of costumed people, and he's been compulsively spending because he didn't have a good life before, and he's also fallen into the pit of the second dimension. Even a gold mine would be eaten up by him."

"So, Isis and I discussed it and decided to limit Malik's monthly expenses in the future, and Rishid would manage and operate his property."

Bakura nodded: "That's very much Hayato's usual gentle style."

"Where's the gentleness!" Malik protested, "10,000 US dollars a month is not enough at all. I really want to buy a new flying motorcycle that came out this year. If I have this 100,000 US dollars, I, I, I…"

"Don't be like this, Malik-kun, you'll disturb everyone." Bakura softened a little and wanted to appease Malik, "At worst, I can lend you five hundred—"

"Really?"

"Just kidding, Bakura is saying that he'll pay for me to register." Snatching the few dollar bills that Bakura had just taken out and were about to be grabbed by Malik, Hayato stuffed them back into Bakura's hand and said, "Don't indulge this guy Malik. He says he wants to buy a flying motorcycle, but as soon as he gets the money, he'll definitely go to tip female streamers first."

"Protest! What's wrong with me tipping the Evil☆Twins?" Malik said confidently without being ashamed of being exposed by Hayato. "Besides, brother-in-law, why do you need to participate again?"

"Who said I don't need to? This badge is proof of participation for 'Duel King Hayato Kobayashi'." Putting the badge away and back into his chest, inadvertently revealing the [Millennium Rod] that was restored by the [Quantum Cube] and continuously released the power to modify other people's cognition, Hayato spread his hands and said, "What does it have to do with me, 'Dan Kuroto'?"

"Give out bonuses to the winner? I won't give out a single penny! The bonus is mine, the second place in the world is also mine, 'Dan Kuroto's'!"