A/N: I don't own the rights to Yu-Gi-Oh! Also, this fanfic does take some inspiration from the anime Overlord. Also, I'm keeping the part where Kaiba doesn't believe in magic and all from the 4Kids version, at least initially.
King Merobos III licked his lips as he expectantly waited for the main course to arrive. He sipped a little bit of wine out of the human skull he had made into a drinking cup.
Many races, particularly beastmen had a habit of collecting their victim's bones, skulls in particular, as ornaments. The tribe that King Merobos III belonged to, the Merobonians had no such practices in their traditions, but the fact remained that the skull of this particular human in question was a rather special one. A trophy, as one might call it.
"Hail King Merobos III!" these cries came from the rest of his tribesmen. The Merobonians were a race of beastmen which resembled centaurs in that their lower bodies, rather than being those of a horse, were those of a tiger, and their upper bodies resembled those of humans, however they had the heads of lions and thick fur covered their chests.
"Thank you, my tribesmen," Kinge Merobos III declared. 'Today is a special day, as it marks two weeks since our victory over this human city! My heart swells as I think of your valor! And, to add to my happiness, my queen has finally given birth to a cub- a suitable heir. for our tribe!"
The gathered Merobonians all cheered. Since they had taken the city, eighty percent of its human population had been killed. The rest of the twenty percent were not alive out of any form of kindness on part of the Merobonians, no, they were kept alive because their stomachs had been filled for the time being.
King Merobos III's mouth began to water as the main course arrived. While there was more than enough food for all the tribesmen, this particular delicacy was something reserved for members of the royal family, and that too on special days.
A strange scent met his nostrils- ah, the human female presented to him had soiled herself much as a pig before slaughter would have. That was only to be expected, of course. The woman in question was painfully thin but had a protruding stomach.
King Merobos III smiled to himself once more.
Ah yes, a six-months-old human foetus served within its mother's womb- clearly a delicacy worthy of such royalty as himself!
Of course, the Merobonians, like all beastmen and demihumans, preferred their meat served live and fresh on the table itself.
"Hey bro, I think I found something," Mokuba said.
Seto Kaiba looked up from his laptop.
Two months had passed since the duel in the desert, where apparently Yugi Muto had dueled with an ancient Egyptian pharaoh and sent him back to the afterlife.
Kaiba growled. He didn't believe in such things- or at least he told himself that, but given what all had happened since then, he couldn't but help realize there had always been truth to what Ishizu and the others had told him.
As such, this meant that the spirit of the pharaoh was his real opponent and Seto Kaiba was looking for a way to get a rematch.
Asking Yugi was out of the question, as he was just told that Atem, which was apparently the pharaoh's real name, was not coming back.
Kaiba had a few ideas on how he could still challenge the man, and one of them involved a space elevator, but he kept that idea in the back of his head for now.
Instead, Plan A was to now wait and see if there was anything that KaibaCorp could find regarding this ancient Egyptian lore. Till now, they had been unsuccessful, but Mokuba had found something interesting in the records department.
"We don't know how this book got there bro, it wasn't in the archives list." Mokuba said.
Kaiba took the book. It looked fairly old and had a black cover on it which had no title on it. There was description on the back however, in English no less.
Behold, the book commonly referred to as the 'Dark Souls' of the isekai genre of novels, which has gotten wide acclaim from readers and reviewers worldwide.
There was nothing more. The rest of the text looked like it had been worn out.
"And?" Kaiba asked questioningly. "What exactly is an 'isekai' huh? And what is this 'Dark Souls' thing?"
"Uh, I Googled it and it said that 'isekai' is a genre of Japanese novels where the protagonist finds themselves in a new world," Mokuba said. "And Dark Souls is a video game series, but I don't know how that works out."
Kaiba opened the book and flipped through the pages. They were all blank.
"Huh?" he wondered. There weren't even faded marks suggesting that there had been text there, it was as if the book had been printed all blank from the get-go.
Suddenly, a blinding light came from the pages of the book.
"It never did that before!" Mokuba explained.
And before he knew it, Seto Kaiba found himself sucked into it.
For someone who had suddenly found himself lost in a strange forest, Seto Kaiba was surprisingly calm.
The first thing he had to figure out was whether he was in an actual forest, in that he had been teleported somewhere, or if this was a virtual reality simulation.
He closed his eyes for a minute to try and concentrate, and as he did, he was able to see how many life points he had and the cards he had in his deck.
Well he couldn't actually 'see' them per se, rather, he somehow knew what they were the moment he closed his eyes, as if the information was being directly processed into his brain.
He looked at his wrist. He didn't have his duel disk, and neither did he have his cards, but the cards in his deck were identical to the ones he had been using up till now.
He sighed.
So this was some sort of video game.
Of course, something like this had happened twice before. Once, the Big Five had tricked him. The other time, his evil stepbrother (man did that feel weird to think about) had kidnapped him without his knowledge.
This seemed to be like the second time in that he didn't remember how he had gotten here- he had not gotten into a pod or hooked himself up to a virtual console or anything like that. So that meant that probably someone had kidnapped him and hooked him to one.
He was mostly calm- but there was something that propelled him to go further and further into the forest.
It was the fact that if someone had kidnapped him, they had probably kidnapped his brother as well.
As such, he had to find his brother as quickly as possible.
As he walked through the forest, he suddenly crested a hill, and a long path to a what appeared to be a city appeared before him. The sun was high overhead, which meant most likely it was near noon.
Well, there was no where else to go but towards the city, so he might as well head there.
The two guards squinted their eyes.
Of course, the eyes of the Merobonians were very sharp, but that wasn't why they were squinting.
They were squinting because they couldn't comprehend the sight which was unfolding before them.
Behind them was the gate to the human city which they had taken together along with the rest of their tribe.
In front of them was a long path on which there was a solitary traveler- human in shape, and as it came closer, it was obvious it was a human.
But there was just one.
The two of them glanced at each other.
This thing made no sense at all.
Had this human come to rescue the others within this city? If so, why was it alone?
In that case, was this a trap?
Or did a human just wander by chance towards the city- no that was impossible. They had shepherded all of the humans in the surrounding settlements back into the city, and hunted those hiding in the forest.
Oh well, there was nothing to do but to go ahead and 'greet' the human before them.
As it was, these two were in a rather bad mood. Here they were guarding the gate, and behind them, in the city the rest of their tribesmen were enjoying themselves and gorging their bellies on fresh human meat.
Maybe hearing this human scream would bring some sort of relief to them.
The human was dressed funnily, in a strange spotless white cloak which hung above the earth as if it defied gravity itself. It was probably magical in nature. He had dark brown fur on top of his head like most humans did.
Strangely enough, the human did not run away from them when it saw them. It did not seem fazed, on the contrary, it sped up towards them.
"Huh, so is this the tutorial?" the man asked. At least, the guards thought it was a man. They weren't that good at differentiating human genders unless the humans in question were naked.
"What is your name human?" one of them asked, at a loss for words. "What is your business here?"
"And what the hell is a tutorial?" the other one said.
"Oh great," the man said. "Is everyone in this city a talking animal? Was this game designed by a furry? I bet Wheeler would have a blast here."
The guards thought the man's voice was condescending- human voices were a bit hard for them to comprehend, but it appeared that way. One of them had had enough and drew his sword and swung it at the strange man.
The man seemed surprised by this, but the blade's speed left no room for him to try and avoid it, especially given the Beastmen's natural superiority to humans in both speed and strength.
But for some reason, the blade connected with the man's face and with a loud clank! it bounced off, having done nothing at all to him.
The other guard drew his battle-ax, but this was also deflected.
As the two guards stared at this man, stupefied, the man made his move.
He grabbed one of the guards' daggers out of its sheath and then lunged for the guard's neck.
However, the dagger was only a dagger for the Merobonians, for a human it was as large as a sword and far too heavy for the human to swing with any force. The guard sidestepped it easily.
The human dropped the dagger and clutched his hand- it was far too big for him and he had what the guards guessed was a sour expression on his face.
"What is this? What the hell is this!?"
The tone with which this human spoke was authoritative and demanding, as if he expected the two Merobonians to bow before him.
The guards couldn't understand- the only thing they had ever heard from humans were shrieks and whimpers, or else silent sobs.
What was this human?
However, the two of them realized why their weapons had no effect on this human.
"You're a duelist, aren't you?"
The man answered, 'Oh you bet I am."
"We need to get the captain then."
Wordlessly, the two guards retreated towards the city.
Captain Barbaros was not exactly a very astonishing specimen among the Merobonians. As a matter of fact, he was smaller than most of the other males, almost small enough to pass for a female. No one within the tribe would challenge him however.
That was because Captain Barbaros was a duelist- one of the three duelists within the entire tribe of the Merobonians. This human city had had more than three duelists, but most of the human duelists had been weak and fallen easily to him and King Merobos III.
He had been sleeping just a few minutes ago, but now he found himself roused as the alarm had been sounded. After he had finished smacking the two guards responsible for delivering the news to him for waking him up he tread towards the gate.
The two guards mumbled to each other, but they would not dare complain about Captain Barbaros's conduct towards them. After all, Barbaros was a duelist, and that meant that even though these two were far bigger than him and could easily overcome him in any physical fight he far outranked them.
That was because a duelist was immune to all attacks both physical and magical- and could only be harmed within a duel. As such, Barbaros knew these two had no way to harm him in return.
Of course, this fact which let him rule over so many of his tribesmen without any regard for consequences was also why this human the two had reported could not be handled by them. Only another duelist could kill a duelist. He ordered the gate be opened.
At first, he had not believed their report in that single human had appeared to attack the city.
Surely the humans had no recourse against the Merobonians. They knew for a fact that demihuman tribes were raiding the humans' territory towards the north, and therefore, they, who had attacked the south, should have had no opposition.
But, if they had decided to mount a force to repel the invading Merobonians, they would have sent an army, not a single man!
But, no matter how he thought about it, Barbaros had to note that the human before him was truly alone. The only other option was that this was some sort of trap, but even if his eyes had been deceived his nose could not possibly mistake the fact that there were no other humans.
As it stood, this human piqued his curiosity to some extent. It was dressed funnily, and its clothes did not carry the usual scent of wool, silk, or animal hide. Its cape floated above the ground- clearly it was enchanted. Not to mention it had a scent slightly different from other humans- devoid of dirt and grime.
That was not all. Barbaros could feel the aura around this man. Without a doubt, he was a duelist.
So, the two guards had not been wrong in informing him about this man. But Barbaros still felt no guilt for how he had treated them. The strong ruled over the weak, and that was how the world worked. His subordinates had long since grown used to being the outlet for his rages.
And now, he would take out his frustration at having been woken up on this human.
"You there human!" Barbaros roared. "Prepare to duel!"
The human did not whimper, run away scared, or soil itself. It simply cocked its head and said, "I don't have a duel disk, and neither do you."
Barbaros frowned. "I do not know what a duel disk is, but I do not care to hear your words. Duel!"
And with that, the duel was initiated. Though the others could not see anything, Barbaros could see his hand with his mind's eye. He could even see his opponent's life points, the number of cards in his opponent's hand and deck. He could not of course see what his opponent's hand was of course.
And then he gulped in confusion.
Why was this human starting out with 8,000 life points? He himself had only 1,500 life points- and wait! Barbaros had only fifteen cards in his deck in total, but this human had a total exceeding forty! Even King Merobos III only had 3,000 life points.
"Oh, so there's a forbidden list here too?" the human mused. "Funny, why is Exodia banned in this game and not just limited like in the real world?"
Barbaros was not listening. This series of events sent a chill down his spine.
Barbaros however, knew he could not show any weakness, especially before his guards. But a cold sweat began to roll over him.
Could it be possible- the humans had sent only one person because one person was enough?
No way
A single soldier capable of conquering a city all by himself- such things only happened in the legends of old! And this was real life!
Barbaros set a monster card face down and ended his turn.
The card in question had 1050 defense, which was quite formidable. He had no doubt that it would take time for this human to find a card that could tear through such a defense, if he even had one at all in the first place. Of course, King Merobos III had a card which could do so, but a lowly human could not rival the king of their tribe.
"All right then, I summon Vorse Raider in attack mode," the man said.
Barbaros's eyes nearly popped out of his head. "1900 attack! Impossible!" Even the human king of this city did not have a card with that much firepower!
"Attack!" the man said. "Wait- was that card really that weak? Did you have only that card in your hand? Huh, guess this was a tutorial mission after all."
Barbaros knew in that moment he was finished. The highest powered monster in his deck had 1150 attack. He had no noteworthy spells or traps to speak of.
In other words, he was finished.
Barbaros set a card face down before a ray of hope struck him.
True, he could not win- but he knew for a fact that King Merobos III had a card that could beat this monster. He barked to the two guards. "Both of you! Inform the king that a powerful duelist has arrived at this city!"
Both of the guards knew why he was so agitated. Though they could not see the hands that the two of them had nor their life points, they could see the monsters and other cards on the field.
It would appear that his king would have to avenge him.
"I summon Kaiser Seahorse in attack mode!" the human said and summoned a monster with 1800 attack. With that, the man swept aside his face down which had been a monster with only 550 defense and then attacked him directly with Vorse Raider, bringing Barbaros's life points to zero.
The strike caused pain to course through his body, but it was nothing compared to the shock of losing.
"Well that's that then," Barbaros said and sank to the ground.
However, as he awaited death, he noticed that none came.
The winner of the duel held the loser's life in his hands, but this human had not killed Barbaros yet.
Clearly, he wanted to inflict a severe and humiliating death upon Barbaros.
Barbaros had taken countless lives in the past, but now that his own death was upon him, he found that he could not face it and tears began to track down his eyes.
"Well, what's next then?" the human spat.
Barbaros growled. "You may have bested me human- but you will not last against our king."
"Really? Why don't you call him down here then?"
Barbaros couldn't believe his ears. Was this human letting Barbaros go? And that too just so Barbaros could act as a messenger?
Even after what Barbaros had done to the humans here?
The human's expression hadn't changed- and it was then that it hit Barbaros.
Arrogance.
This was the arrogance of the strong. This human was strong, no doubt about it. Given that he had defeated Barbaros so cleanly, it was doubtful that there were more than a handful of other humans that could rival him.
Come to think of it, he was definitely stronger than the king of this city.
In other words, this human did not consider Barbaros as an opponent worth killing.
"All right. I will fetch him myself," Barbaros said with a smirk. He would enjoy watching this human wail for his life as he was defeated by their great king.
Barbaros turned around, and began marching towards the castle in the center of the city.
Or at least, he tried to tell himself he was marching, but anyone else watching him would've immediately said that he was running much like how a deer would flee from a lion.
Seto Kaiba prided himself in keeping a cool demeanor at all times. Even when it seemed the world was ending and he was dealing with forces beyond any normal person's comprehension, he was able to keep himself calm.
As such, he would be deeply embarrassed if anyone saw him as he was now.
The strange beast-centaur like creatures had left the gates to the city open, and so Seto Kaiba had strolled right in. They said they were going to get their king- which Kaiba assumed was the boss of this area or something.
But, the moment he had wandered into the city, the smell hit him like a brick wall.
And oh did it smell bad.
He had vomited out his lunch. And breakfast. And last night's dinner too. And finally, when nothing was left, just his stomach contents.
He had never smelt something like this before in his life.
As a matter of fact, now that he thought about it, it was weird that he could smell things.
Smell was different from vision and hearing- it was very hard to go ahead and simulate it. In order to simulate smell, you would have to directly and very finely stimulate particular nerve endings. And do that first, you needed to correlate different smells together- for that you would need to monitor a large group of volunteers as they sampled thousands if not millions of different smells and mapped out which areas of the brain each scent lit up.
KaibaCorp, even with its best current technology, could not replicate smell on this level.
Kaiba began to have doubts about his prior iron-clad belief that this was a simulation.
But if it wasn't a simulation, why did the world work like this? Why was it that these weird creatures couldn't hurt him but could duel him? And why could he 'see' his life points and cards somehow?
Come to think of it, if he had been kidnapped like previously with Noah, who had done so this time? Noah was dead.
The only enemies that Kaiba had currently were Pegasus- who was a 'good guy' now and Marik Ishtar. Of course, he had many more enemies, but they were the only ones that came to mind when he thought of powerful people. Industrial Illusions might have been working on virtual technology, but it was doubtful they could make something like this. As for the Ishtars, Ishizu was probably keeping her brother in check even if he went off the deep end again and they didn't have anything that could do this.
As such, he didn't know anyone else capable of doing this.
And that wasn't the only question he had. He had fought that strange beast in a duel, but it had only had 1500 life points and only 15 cards in its deck. The Duel Monsters rules dictated that decks had to have a minimum of 40 cards in them.
This meant that this game operated on different rules than the ones back home- and that disturbed him. He had not found a rulebook anywhere, and he needed to know the rules else he might leave himself open in some way later on in the future.
As it was, there was a forbidden/limited/semi-limited list. He had somehow known about the moment that duel started. A few cards of him violated the list, and he had taken Pot of Greed and Monster Reborn out of his deck.
Once he was done retching, he glanced around the city.
The people of this city seemed to have no sanitation readily available given how many piles of dung there were everywhere. Granted, that was realistic given the setting, but if this was a game Kaiba had designed, he would have definitely thought that there was line to be drawn when realism extended to the bowels of the denizens of a city.
In the center, the castle was clearly visible. Anyone who had played video games for half as long as Kaiba had would've immediately guessed that this was the place where the boss was.
That beast-centaur Seto had fought had said that he would bring the king to Seto, but he figured he might as well go towards him. After all, time was of the essence to him. He wanted to break out of this virtual world as soon as possible.
As he walked though, he saw a human skeleton which had been torn in off.
He frowned. It kind of broke the sense of immersion of a game like this to have beast-centaur things and humans together, but oh well, maybe this skeleton had just been put there for aesthetic appeal.
A/N: Thank you for reading. Just want to clarify, although that beastman was named Barbaros, he isn't the card 'Barbaros: The King of All Beasts' and his name is a coincidence.
And do leave a review if you have any questions/comments.
