Chapter Eight: The King of Schemes in Domino City

"Quite an incredible combo." Having sent his two monsters to the graveyard, Hayato failed to withstand the offensive launched by a serious Pighead Goro, resulting in a massive drop in his Life Points.

[Hayato: 3000 LP → 1350 LP]

"My turn ends." With no cards in his hand, Pighead Goro could not make any further moves and ended his turn. "Come on, Hayato Kobayashi! Show me the limits of a duelist!"

[Goro: Hand 6 → 7 → 0]

"My turn..." Placing his hand on top of his deck, Hayato felt a slight pause. He sensed a long-unfelt sense of familiarity, as if the card about to be drawn was calling out to him.

Looking at Pighead Goro across the field, Hayato smiled and replied, "In that case, I will show you."

"Draw! And summon!"

Without even looking, Hayato drew the monster from the top of his deck and directly placed it onto the field. As expected, it was [Gaia The Fierce Knight]!

[Gaia The Fierce Knight] [ATK 2300]

"Next, I activate my face-down card, [Dragon Capture Jar]—wait, [Killing Sword]! Raising [Gaia]'s attack power by 700 points!"

[Gaia The Fierce Knight] [ATK 2300 → 3000]

The surrounding crowd, seeing Hayato push a monster's attack power to such heights, let out gasps of astonishment:

"It's actually reached the attack power of the legendary, mythical card, [Blue-Eyes White Dragon]!"

"At this level, no matter which monster he attacks, Pighead Goro's Life Points will be wiped out!"

"So strong!"

Hayato calmly pinched the mouths of [Ojama Black] and [Ojama Green], who had popped their heads out from his cards to butter him up, and declared, "[Gaia The Fierce Knight], attack! Crush [Hungry Burger]!"

"Hmph, not bad."

[Goro: 600 LP → 0]

The system's reward promptly popped up:

[Congratulations on winning the duel. Calculating rewards:
Duel Victory: 2000 dp
Used 3 Spell Cards: 100 dp
Faint Resistance (Dealt over 1000 damage with a single attack declaration): 300 dp
Total: 2400 dp
Would you like to use the Newbie Bonus: Score Doubling? (Remaining uses: 9)]

After thinking for a moment, Hayato decided not to let it go to waste. 4800 dp was deposited into his balance. Watching his balance increase to 9300 dp, Hayato wore a satisfied smile.

Pighead Goro neatly packed his deck and walked over to Hayato. Before he could even say a word, Jonouchi and Honda swarmed over, vigilantly blocking Hayato's path.

"You bastard, don't tell me you're planning to welch on a loss!?" Jonouchi raised a hand to block Pighead Goro, who was trying to approach. "I won't let you get a step closer to Hayato."

Yet Pighead Goro merely glanced at Jonouchi and walked around him. "Hmph. Though I, Pighead Goro, am a delinquent, I still have a duelist's pride."

With that, he stopped in front of Hayato and pulled out his deck. "I lost this duel. According to Mr. Pegasus's card-stakes rule, take your trophy from my deck, Hayato Kobayashi."

Hayato looked slightly puzzled. "If I recall correctly, our wager didn't include this rule at the beginning, did it?"

"I don't care about your rules. Just as fish live in water and birds fly in the sky, the game of Duel Monsters to me is a game where you must wager your most precious cards." Although Pighead Goro felt a pang of reluctance at the thought of his card being taken away, he still firmly spread out his deck. "Alright, Hayato Kobayashi, make your choice quickly—unless you don't intend to let our class help move the iron plates back."

"Just as picking a trophy is the privilege of the victor, refusing a trophy is equally the leisure of the victor. I choose to ref—" Hayato had no intention of gambling cards, largely because he didn't care for a single card Pighead Goro had just used; taking one would be pointless.

Just as the word "refuse" was about to leave his lips, Hayato spotted a particular card in Pighead Goro's deck. "—refusing you seems rather impolite. I'll take this card, then."

Seeing Hayato pull a card from the deck, Pighead Goro couldn't help but breathe a sigh of relief. It was partly because Hayato had accepted a card, and partly because the card Hayato took wasn't one of his most prized possessions. "He just took such a useless card? What a soft-hearted guy."

"Hearing a big guy say that is really hard to stomach." Hayato tucked the selected card into his deck box, put it away, and glanced at the iron plate nearby that had just served as the dueling stage. "So now, can you honor your promise from earlier?"

"If you lost, get lost already!" Honda added, but Jonouchi corrected him, "No way! Those guys from Class D still have to help us completely renovate all the damaged parts."

"Small fry should quietly shut their traps. The only strong person I acknowledge is Hayato Kobayashi; you guys have no right to order me around." Facing Hayato, Pighead Goro's attitude was vastly better than it had been before the duel started, but turning back to face Jonouchi, he instantly reverted to his school-bully persona.

"Come to think of it, Class D's area should be right next to Class B's, shouldn't it?" Hayato looked towards the neighboring area from the entrance of his class's zone. Although Class B's area had been wrecked by Pighead Goro and his gang, since the main focus of the game carnival was gaming, a simple patch-up job would fix any issues.

As for Class D's area, despite nearly a full day having passed, it was still completely bare. Tomorrow was the school festival—weren't they worried at all about running out of time?

Pighead Goro sensed the doubt in Hayato's mind and replied, "Our Class D project is an extra-large okonomiyaki. Interior decoration is completely unnecessary because, for us, the greatest use of the venue is as a warehouse to store ingredients and consumables."

Okonomiyaki is a Japanese savory pancake. Ingredients such as ham, corn, chicken, shrimp, and bacon are mixed into a batter of flour and eggs, poured onto an iron plate to fry into palm-sized round cakes, and then topped with bonito flakes and mayonnaise. It's a convenient snack to eat on the go.

Class D was also running takoyaki, skewers, fried noodles, and fried rice that could be prepared alongside the okonomiyaki—all grab-and-go items. Given that, they truly had little need to decorate their "warehouse."

"Your Class D doesn't need an interior, just a display window, whereas our class doesn't need a window, just an interior gaming space." Watching Class D's members being ordered around by Pighead Goro to apologize to Class B while simultaneously fixing up the interior of the shop, Hayato thought of what he believed to be a brilliant idea. "I have a plan!"