017. Escape and Fate
“There he is!!”
Weee-!!
The siren sound and the people’s screams pierced my ears.
The noise echoed loudly, but my legs did not stop.
“Catch that guy!!”
“He’s an escapee!”
“Escapee? That’s a bit harsh.”
I’m just a free soul who wants to get out of this unjust oppression.
As a free soul, I’m going to find my freedom, but why are they making such a fuss? I don’t understand.
“Bind him with a duel!!”
“Whoever catches the escapee will get a card as a reward!”
What the hell?
They can’t catch me by themselves, so now they’re dragging the town’s citizens into this.
They can’t even catch one escapee properly, I wonder if they should be called the apostles of justice or the apostles of uselessness.
But they did use their brains for once.
“They’re giving out cards?”
“Free cards! Catch him!!”
“The apostles said they would give us cards! We can’t just sit back and do nothing!”
“Right! We have to protect the peace of the street too!”
In a world where people are crazy about Duel, there is no one who would refuse a card.
Ever since the apostles of justice put a card on my neck, everyone around me has been possessed by a model citizen.
“I have no choice, I have to use some dirty tricks too.”
While running, I quickly bought some cards from the menu and summoned them.
And then I scattered cards all over the place.
Cheap cards that cost 500DP each.
From Noble mtl dot com
It was a big expense, but now was not the time to be picky.
“Ca, cards!!”
“The one who picks them up is the owner!!”
“Don’t fall for the cards that the escapee dropped! As you can see, the cards he is scattering around are cheap cards, while the reward we will give you is a rare card!”
“Rare card…!!”
Oh, I wonder if they will give me a rare card if I surrender voluntarily?
‘That’s unlikely.’
I was slightly tempted by the word rare card, but I saw a future where they would take it back from me even if I got it from them.
It’s absurd to begin with that they would give a reward to the criminal for confessing.
“Please focus on catching the escapee!”
“A rare card is definitely worth a try!”
“Geez, if you’re going to run away, you should at least scatter some good cards. Tsk, tsk!”
“That’s what I’m saying. I wouldn’t take these cards even if you gave them to me.”
They all seemed to misunderstand, but I didn’t scatter cards around just to use them as bait.
My true trick was hidden in the cards I threw.
“Ugh!!”
“W-what is this?!”
“Ahh!! S-someone help me!!”
The cards scattered on the floor seeped into the ground.
As the people who were chasing me stepped on them, a large pit suddenly appeared and dragged them inside.
[Fall into an Evil Scheme], [Fall into a Cunning Scheme], [Fall into a Malicious Scheme]
These were the names of the cards I threw in the air, commonly known as the ‘Scheme’ series of trap cards.
They were usually activated when a monster was summoned, but this time they reflected reality and bound the people’s feet.
After seeing the battery man with the flashlight, I realized something through various experiments and it shone brightly.
‘My magic and trap cards are one-time use, but they reflect reality. That’s why ‘Mind Control’ was a rare card.’
The power of reality reflection came from the gods, and in my case, Anubis gave me his power and told me so himself.
I was really grateful to her for sharing this power with me.
I’m sorry for using it for bad things, though.
“Kugh! How dare you use such a despicable trick…!”
“We don’t know the location of the traps, so further pursuit is impossible!”
“What do we do now?”
“……There’s nothing we can do. We give up the chase and clean up the area! And write a wanted poster for the escapee and spread it around the town!”
“““Yup!”””
The sound of the leader-like apostle’s tongue clicking reaches my ears from afar.
I somehow managed to shake him off.
“But what should I do now?”
Should I just leave the village?
But considering that the gatekeepers are also apostles of justice, escaping right now is too risky.
“Hmm….”
“Master!”
“Oh, you also succeeded in escaping! How did you do it?”
“I set fire to a nearby building, and they all got distracted and left me alone to put out the fire.”
There was someone more extreme than me here.
I at least made sure that no one got hurt by using traps that had no lethal power to escape.
But Phineas….
“Don’t you think arson is too much?”
“Don’t worry about that. I set fire to the apostles’ resting place, which was empty because they were busy catching us.”
“Then there’s no problem!”
“Right?”
There was no loss of life, and I burned down the building of the hostile organization to prevent them from chasing us for a while.
I express my deep regret to the apostles who won’t be able to enjoy a comfortable rest for a while.
“By the way, master. You looked unhappy just before. Is there anything that worries you?”
“It’s just that I’m worried about what to do with the future policy.”
Things were going smoothly enough to say that they were sailing right now, but the problem was what came next.
It was risky to go out of the village because of the clashes with the gatekeepers, and it was uneasy to hide in the village because of the bounty.
It was a situation where there was no way out.
He wanted to go to the leader of the apostles and ask for a pardon and challenge him to a duel.
But there was no way that the countless apostles of justice would let him pass.
‘I’ll have to take down at least 10 apostles.’
But the nature of TCG, which loses when the deck runs out, made a 10-win streak impossible.
He had suffered a lot when he received a 10-win mission while broadcasting for a while…
But there was no penalty for the broadcast mission, but this 10-win mission was prison if he lost.
He’d rather not do it.
“I happened to find a good place to hide on the way, how about you stay there for a while?”
“But our faces are already known, so we can’t get the supplies we need when we hide, right?”
“It’s okay. There are plenty of people there who will help us!”
“There is such a place…?”
“Yes!”
He didn’t believe it, but he had no choice but to listen to Phineas’s suggestion.
He arrived at the place with half doubt and half hope, and it was a slum in the village.
The street was crowded with rotting stench and collapsing buildings.
He wasn’t very squeamish, but he felt uncomfortable stepping on the ground with the eyes pouring down before he even entered.
“Are you not coming in?”
“No, I will go in, but do we really need to hide in a place like this?”
“It’s impossible for us to hide in a normal house with our situation. On the other hand, in the slums, there are many people who will work like fish if you give them a small amount of DP or cards. It’s a perfect place to hide, except for the hygiene and security.”
“Does that mean they could also sell us to the apostles?”
“We have to prevent that by catching a weak one and educating them well.”
“What if they resist?”
“Do you think there is anyone who has a strong deck enough to resist in a place where it’s hard to survive? I bet the people of the slums won’t be able to beat you, master, even if they swarm you. But how dare they resist you… If that ever happens, it would be so fun!”
Phineas was smiling brightly, but his hidden intentions were very cruel.
A smile in his eyes that said he would show no mercy to anyone who defied us.
He would not kill them nicely if they had even a little bit of malice.
That attitude was evident.
“…I see. I understand why you recommended the slums.”
“Thank you for understanding!”
“Then we will decide where to hide by ourselves from now on?”
“That’s right.”
“It’s troublesome, I’m not very happy with the situation where I have to watch out for others.”
“Do you want me to threaten them if they bother you?”
“There’s no need to go that far, but I have one thing I want to ask you.”
“Please ask me anything.”
“Is there any discrimination in this world?”
“Discrimination? Ah… You’re saying that after seeing that.”
At the end of his gaze, there was a girl with horns on her head crouching down.
A frail girl who was being beaten mercilessly by the children of the slums.
Pale skin, goat-like horns, bat-like wings, and a dragon-like sharp and hard tail.
She was a mixture of various elements, but in one word, she was a ‘demon’.
“I don’t know why there is a child of the demon race in this village, but the nature of Justice Village is ‘good’. It’s natural that the demon race, who have an innate ‘evil’ nature, are ostracized.”
“Is that so? Then which side are we on?”
“The nature of Anubis God is neutral, so I guess you are neutral for now.”
“Then it doesn’t matter which side I take?”
“Don’t tell me you’re thinking of helping that child?”
“It’s no fun if you just tell me. Try to guess what I’m going to do. Then I’ll listen to your opinion.”
“Then there’s no need to guess. I’m going to follow you quietly whatever you do.”
“How boring.”
I took out my deck and approached the slum children who were tormenting the demon girl.
The demon girl’s appearance became clearer and clearer.
There was no doubt. She was a bit different from what I remembered, but when I saw her up close, she was the face I knew.
The demon girl’s name was Lilith.
This delicate girl would later grow up to be the core monster card of the NTR deck.
“It’s a duel!”
Lilith coin, buy it all!!
Since he’s the one stealing, it should be a ntl deck…right?