Title: Game On

Summary: This is not the kind of duel I had in mind.

"I'm surprised you were able to assemble a deck so quickly, but then again, Angelica likely just supplied you a deck to save face. Do you even know how to play," Brad sneered from across the field.

"Oh I always knew how to play, I just find it stupid that we settle disputes with a children's card game when we literally train ourselves with death machines, swordsmanship, and magic. For crying out loud, Chris is supposed to be the next Sword Saint and he doesn't settle things with a sword."

"Armored duels are so barbaric," Brad said with a scoff.

I didn't necessarily disagree with him since I much preferred not risking my life (assuming no anime bullshit like Shadow Games), but I felt idiotic when I had heard what the challenge was. The school had certainly laughed at my ignorance.

But alas, it was a game I was familiar with at least before I grew out of it, and fortunately Luxion indicated that the current New Human format only had ritual and fusion summoning. No Synchro, XYZ, Pendulum, or any of the other mechanics. I would have been completely out of my depth if those mechanics had been included.

"Whatever, can we get on with this children's card game?"

"You seem oddly fixated on the concept of this being a children's card game instead of an honorable duel."

"We live in a society that literally raids dungeons for a living! Playing card games isn't exactly as glorious or exciting!"

"Have you not been picking up the loot from the dungeons?"

Now that he mentioned it, I noticed a lot of chests also contained card packs and singles in addition to gold and equipment. I had initially thought the chests were simply filled with the loot of adventurers who had died in the dungeons. The fact that they were Yugioh cards had been mildly concerning, but I had chalked it up to the game being a popular hobby.

"What?!" I angrily yelled as the stark realization that the real treasure were the cards I collected on the way.

"Yeah, we risk our life to plunder dungeons since some of the best cards are found there."

"... I'm fucking done with this," I said as I inserted my deck into the duel disk Angelica gave me.

"I'll save you the embarrassment and make this quick," Brad said with genuine pity as he came to the conclusion I was a moron.

We both drew five cards.

"Since you likely don't know the basics, I'll go first. First I normal summon Magician's Valkyria from my hand. This monster's effect makes it so that monsters you control cannot attack my face up Spellcaster type monsters except for her. Then, I activate Foolish Burial to send a Magician's Valkyria from my deck to my graveyard. Finally from my hand, I activate Premature Burial. I pay 800 life points to activate this card, but this lets me bring back my Magician's Valkyria from my graveyard to my field with Premature Burial equipped. I'll end my turn here. With my two Magician's Valkyrias on the field, you can't attack either with your monsters," Brad bragged.

Idiot didn't have any field protection.

Drawing a card, I looked at my hand.

"Question, how much is our starting life points?"

"... 4000 you ignoramus. Do you also need me to tell you how much I have left?"

"Just making sure that I had OTK."

"Huh?"

"First, I play Darkhole, which destroys both your monsters. Next, I activate Future Fusion. I reveal Five-Headed Dragon from my extra deck and send five dragon monsters from my deck to the grave. Then, I activate Monster Reborn to summon Horus The Black Flame Dragon Lv 6 from my graveyard. Then I play Level Up! from my hand. This allows me to send my Lv 6 back to the grave and summon his Lv 8 form from my deck. I will also normal summon Masked Dragon in attack mode. Moving onto the battle phase, I attack you with both my monsters."

"... I lost? How?! How did I lose to someone who knows nothing about the game?!"

"You didn't put up any protection and just relied on me not having card destructions."

Well that and because Luxion stacked the deck and selected cards that best matched against the heirs' decks (though I semi questioned how good the deck was since an AI built my deck), but honestly, Yugioh had enough bullshit cards that Brad should've at least put some basic protections.

"I was trying not to embarrass you by playing my last card facedown!"

"Your fault for not doing so. Also, I had a Mystical Space Typhoon in hand so I doubt your card would have done anything... unless it was something like Waboku... was it waboku?"

"Trap cards aren't honorable!"

"Well my Horus thanks you for only playing spell cards."

"... It's not fair! How can you have so many rare cards in your deck?!" Brad said while he collapsed on his knees.

"Rare?"

"Damn you," Brad said as he got up and approached me. He took his deck out and pulled out one card, which he offered to me.

We were playing by ante rules?

Looking at the card I saw it was the Dark Magician Girl.

"This is my rarest card," Brad said.

"... Brad, I have six... and mine are all holo or foiled."

"... can I interest you in a trade?"

"No."

"You just got lucky. There is no other way to explain how you could defeat Brad in one turn," Greg said confidently as he stepped forward.

He wasn't wrong since I technically could be considered bricked since I hadn't drawn any of my draw cards and any successful spell negation would probably have made me lose in the next turn.

"But I'm not like Brad. He was the weakest of the five of us. Luck won't save you this time."

"Uh-huh."

"Unlike with Brad, I don't rely on bullshit effects to stall the game."

"It is a viable strategy though," I muttered as I pulled out my dragon deck from my duel disk.

"I've also dived into the dungeons and have assembled a deck from their depths. There is no way it will let me down."

Rather than respond, I opened my jacket to tuck away my deck and pull out a second one.

"What the?! You have more than one deck?!"

"Well yeah, one for each of you. I'm not going to give you the advantage of knowing my decks."

"Have you no shame?!"

"The hell are you on about now?"

"A deck is the embodiment of the duelist! How can you so simply switch cards?! A real man would only have one deck!"

"It's a children's card game!"

"I should have expected someone supporting Angelica to be so callous!"

"Enough of the heart of the card bullshit! It's just ink on paper!"

"Enough talk, I'll show you how a real man plays!" Greg hollered as he drew five.

"Fucking vanilla Flame Swordsman! Seriously?! That's the best you got?!"

"Unlike Brad and Greg, I won't underestimate you."

"... Can we just turn this into a sword duel and stab each other to death?"

Chris gave a snort.

"Are you scared of being disgraced? You've made your bed. I'll not let you escape disgrace by falling to my blade. No, you'll have the honor of falling to my Swordsman deck."

"Another Flame Swordsman deck?! So much for Greg's spiel of a deck being the embodiment of the duelist!"

"He was talking about how you have no loyalty to your deck!"

"Well obviously Flame Swordsman doesn't think much of you if it's both yours and Greg's ace monster!"

"Jilk, you play a trap card deck, right?"

"How do you know?"

"Tell me, do you know what Jinzo does?"

"... Fuck."

"You bricked again, didn't you," I asked when Julius played Avian on the field and no back row.

I had felt bad for the boy since he lost in the first turn. When I offered him a second duel, he gladly took the chance and bricked again. This went on for quite some time.

"One more chance. I just know I'll pull my fusion card."

"How many fusion cards do you even run?"

"... one..."

"Just one? Julius, your deck has forty cards! Why do you only use one fusion spell?!"

"... sixty actually."

"... just put the damn card in your hand. I don't care anymore."

"Did you even care to begin with?"

"Don't test me, Julius."

"Leon! How could you?" Livia cried out.

I had just shot a pirate after he had the audacity to try to rob my by challenging me to a game of Yugioh with the condition that if he won he would rob me blind, claim Livia, and murder me.

"He's a pirate, Livia. He would have either been executed or worked to death in the crystal mines."

"No, you idiot! How could you do something so dishonorable as to kill him without dueling him first!" Greg yelled at me.

"... You can't be serious. He's a pirate! Like he was going to simply walk away or surrender if he lost!"

"Even pirates have more honor than you," Brad said with a sneer.

"Fine! Next time I'll shoot the damn pirate after I've beaten him in a duel! Will that make you lot happy!"

"Yes!"

Facing down Vandal, he pointed his sword at me in an obvious challenge to the death. No card game bullshit. Just a good old fashioned duel to the death. No duel disk in sight. No comically large playing cards. Just steel clashing steel.

"Fucking finally. No more..."

"I challenge you to a shadow game," Vandal said as his blade expanded to reveal card slots. His sword doubled as a duel disk for his armor.

Looking around, I saw many other armors engaging in Yugioh duels in the sky.

"Luxion, enact scorched Earth protocol. New Humanity is not worth saving," I said to my AI who had decided to cosplay as a Kuriboh to mess with me.

"Kuri!"

AN:

1) I stopped playing Yugioh well before the GX arc and never was interested in competitive. That is the main reason why the only real duel shown ends in an OTK.

2) All the decks and monsters mentioned for the heirs are more or less supposed to represent their character: Brad(magical girl deck due to his speciality and flirty attitude), Greg and Chris (Flame Swordsman as hotheaded warriors or sword masters), Jilk (traps since he is a sneak), and Julius (Heroes since later additions would add masked heroes). Leon's use of the decks are specifically supposed to be the antithesis of each.

3) While I am aware of later mechanics and generally how they are supposed to work, I limited it to GX era rules since Mobuseka's plot does center on the Academy.

4) Honestly, the cultural norms of Yugioh fit surprisingly well with Mobuseka. While I have no plans to ever write another chapter for this, I could legitimately see a more polished version doing surprisingly well. Of course, it would definitely need a lot more polish.

5) What does Pot of Greed do?

Review Response:

Rodvek97: I read that manga after you mentioned it, and I totally see where you are coming from.

NewFanDamz: The evil verse. That actually sounds pretty interesting. I imagine it would be an alternative world of my Villainous Villainess.

daimahou: Honestly could go either way since I didn't think too much into the future. Angelica is obviously making overtures to Leon, which could be misconstrued (even though true in this case) as her trying to get in the way as she offers to find someone to adopt Olivia so that Leon could marry her.

Phlebiac: So I probably could have made it more clear, but Olivia does not initially dislike the five in the previous chapter. It's more like she finds them pleasant enough and could find herself falling in love with one given time. She only starts to dislike them when she has Leon to compare them with. Even though Leon is gruff, his only interactions with her is to give her advice, ask if she is okay, and ask if she would like some assistance. The heirs, because this is an Otome game, only talk about themselves, which is not a recipe for a successful relationship.

As for your idea, funnily enough I do have a draft of such an idea in my backlog. I just don't know how to continue it after Leon makes the decision to woo Angelica after he accidentally accepts the fact that he could be her ugly baron.

KirovAirshipMixOptimal: So rum tea is an actual thing. I was more commenting on the fact that there were enough similarities in structure and ideas between my fic and the other that it threw me off when I first read it. I'm fairly certain theirs is also original because I can reasonably see how they came up with each aspect.

Etiquette teacher starting the conversation: he's the etiquette teacher and would likely start any conversation involving how to court women.

Leon not accepting the status quo: literally a major idea when considering how awful the noblewomen are portrayed.

Families entreating Leon about his movement/resources: literally how nobles work.

Rum tea: Their culture revolves around tea. Adding rum is natural at some point.

Leon being an alcoholic: rum tea.

I could list more similarities, and after a while, you could probably see why I thought the resemblance was uncanny. It also got me wondering if I had written a wide enough book for topics and situations that I was likely to see aspects in other fics, which someone said probably. Just an observation more or less.