My eyelids fluttered open.
A dull, low ceiling greeted me, washed in the soft blue hue of early morning light. I groggily sat up, pulling back the bedcovers. My hands froze as I glanced around the unfamiliar room.
"What the hell... I was in the convention center," I muttered, eyes darting across the space.
The entire room looked like a collector's shrine dedicated to Yu-Gi-Oh! Action figures of Dark Magician, Blue-Eyes White Dragon, and the Red-Eyes Black Dragon were lined up neatly along floating shelves. Posters from early Duel Monsters tournaments covered the walls, curling slightly at the corners. Random cards were scattered haphazardly across the desk, bed, and even the floor. The room's dark blue walls made the bright packaging of the toys pop, making the environment feel like the dream room of a child with too much allowance.
I blinked rapidly, still groggy from… something. A memory? No—more like a fracture in my memory. That blinding light, the pain, the scream that caught in my throat—where was I?
"Someone must have dragged me here," I whispered as I rubbed my temples. "Into some brat's room? Seriously?"
My expression twisted into a scowl, lips curling downward and eyebrows furrowing. A knot of anxiety tightened in my chest. My hands were trembling faintly. Whatever happened after that psycho scientist triggered his isekai machine, I wasn't just unconscious—I was somewhere completely different.
Cautiously, I slid off the bed and tiptoed across the room. Each step was deliberate, quiet. I reached for the door, my fingers brushing against the cool metal knob. I twisted it slowly to avoid making any noise, pushing the door open by inches.
Muffled voices floated from downstairs.
"There are people talking… I can't make out what they're saying," I thought grimly, narrowing my eyes.
I leaned forward slightly, holding my breath. The voices were calm, even friendly. Not like kidnappers or… well, anyone who'd drag a full-grown man from a convention and drop him in a child's bed. But I wasn't taking any chances.
Nope, I thought. I'd rather not explain to some pissed-off parents why I'm in their kid's room. That's a headline I don't want to be part of.
Creeping into the hallway, I moved with the awkward grace of someone avoiding every floorboard. The house felt too familiar for comfort—suburban quiet, framed pictures on pastel walls, the faint smell of syrup and toast wafting from below. I stepped into the bathroom with a sigh of relief.
"Please let there be a window… Jackpot."
There it was. A square window above the tub, its white curtain gently rustling in the breeze. I approached it, noting the distance to the roof. Manageable. Risky, but not death-defying. I could probably land on the roof without snapping an ankle.
I looked up—and froze.
Hanging above the bathroom window was a family photo.
Three people. A blonde woman. A man with a kind smile. And a young boy with messy blonde hair and bright blue eyes, grinning like a lunatic with a toy in his hands.
My breath hitched.
The blood drained from my face.
My knees buckled slightly.
"No. No. No—" I turned and yanked the curtain aside, catching my reflection in the window's glare. The boy from the photo stared back at me.
A blue-eyed brat. Blonde hair. Round cheeks. I even had a little mole near my chin.
"What the fuck—that can't be—no. No no no no no—"
I stumbled backward, crashing into the sink. My reflection wobbled in the mirror as my eyes widened, pupils dilated in sheer disbelief. My face—this face—wasn't mine. This was a kid. That kid. The one from the photo.
"Connor, are you okay?" a voice called from downstairs—a soft, maternal tone. Feminine, worried.
I froze again. I clutched the sink counter like it was a lifeline, eyes shut tight. My chest heaved. My heart galloped in my ribs. Calm down. Calm down.
I took three slow, shaky breaths.
You've taught brats. You've dealt with tantrums. You can survive being one.
"Everything is alright, Mom," I lied, forcing my voice to sound light and bratty.
"Come down soon, honey. You don't want your breakfast to get cold!"
I winced. Her voice sounded warm. Loving. Like the kind of voice that might actually belong to a real parent. That's not my mom, I reminded myself. That's his mom.
I shuffled slowly down the stairs. The dining room opened up before me—clean, white-tiled, too perfect. There she was. A woman in her 30s with curled blonde hair, an apron tied around her waist. She smiled at me like everything was normal.
I felt like the room itself rejected me. My skin crawled, like I was some parasite nesting in someone else's identity.
My hand gripped the back of the wooden chair, trembling. The cold wood grounded me as I forced my legs to move. I sat stiffly, posture unnaturally upright.
"Please don't find out I'm a body jacker," I thought. "Please don't ask questions I can't answer."
"Are you nervous about your upcoming Duel Monsters tournament?" she asked, smiling.
"Y-Yeah," I mumbled, voice cracking. "Do you know when the tournament starts?"
"Your father will pick you up in two hours."
I shoveled down the lukewarm breakfast, barely tasting the food. Every bite was robotic. I stood abruptly and muttered, "Thanks," before dashing upstairs.
Each step of the staircase creaked, reminding me I didn't belong here.
Back in the room, I spotted a bulky desktop computer. Early 2000s model. Beige casing. CRT monitor. "What a piece of junk," I muttered. I booted it up with a groan.
The homepage loaded. A flashing headline popped up: "Yugi Muto Wins Duelist Kingdom!"
My face dropped. Jaw slightly agape, eyes wide in disbelief.
"That batshit old man actually did it. He isekai'd me into the Yu-Gi-Oh! universe."
I typed quickly, looking up the rules. "Better safe than sorry," I murmured. "I'm not about to duel using TCG rules and get my ass handed to me in anime logic."
The rulebook page looked awful. Dark brown. Flashing gifs. Like a relic from 2002. But it confirmed my worst fears: this world's rules were a hybrid of trading card game mechanics and anime nonsense. Quick-play spells everywhere. Normal summons without tribute. Traps could trigger instantly.
"Thank fuck it's not the season one D&D nonsense," I breathed in relief.
I clicked off the site and turned to the messy card tins on the floor. After twenty minutes of searching, I assembled the best deck I could. It was… mediocre. But workable.
"I'm going to get better cards after this event. Prize money should help," I said aloud, trying to reassure myself.
My legs moved on their own, carrying me back to the old computer chair with the faint squeak of rusted joints. The faux-leather seat gave a pitiful creak beneath me, and the armrests wobbled slightly when I placed my elbows on them. Still, it was better than standing there doing nothing.
I booted up the clunky computer, watching as the screen flickered to life with a buzz that made my teeth grind. The operating system was ancient—some pre-2010 horror show with a low-res search bar and a loading icon that looked like it might crash from effort.
As the desktop finally loaded, I stared blankly for a moment, then began typing.
"I like history," I muttered under my breath, fingers tapping rapidly, "but I hate teaching it to a bunch of brats."
A sigh escaped me, long and tired, like the exhale of someone whose soul had already been drained from years of homework excuses and detention slips.
"But now I'm stuck in a world that's clearly running on some alternate historical crack," I thought. "If Duel Monsters were weapons of war in ancient Egypt, there's no way the rest of human history didn't get twisted."
I typed " the timeline of duel monsters" into the search bar.
The loading wheel spun longer than I liked. When the results popped up, my eyebrows lifted almost immediately.
There it was.
A black-and-white portrait of Napoleon Bonaparte. But instead of his traditional military uniform, he was depicted standing tall, eyes cold, with the Millennium Ring gleaming around his neck like a grotesque medallion of power.
"What the fuck?" I whispered aloud, leaning closer until my nose almost touched the screen.
My face twisted into disbelief. Brows drawn low, lips parted in stunned silence. My eyes flicked back and forth across the screen as I clicked on the link.
"Is this some kind of insane filler arc from the manga I missed?" I asked myself. "Why the hell is Napoleon suddenly Bakura?!"
The thought made me groan and press a hand to my forehead, raking fingers through my now-blonde hair in frustration.
"I should've read the manga more carefully," I muttered. "Goddamn it, this is going to bite me in the ass, I know it."
I scrolled past the article and clicked another image—this time, a photograph of an old green statue. It looked like a bronze sculpture, oxidized with age, depicting Alexander the Great holding a tablet in one hand and the Millennium Ring in the other. The eerie accuracy of the artifact made my stomach twist.
My lips curled in discomfort as I leaned back in the chair, the springs underneath groaning.
"Okay. The filler is canon in this world," I thought grimly, face paling a little. "That old lunatic actually dropped me into an isekai where Yu-Gi-Oh! completely rewrote human history."
A nervous chuckle escaped my throat, dry and hollow.
"I should at least read more about Napoleon just in case something big changed."
Click.
The article loaded, revealing a simple white background and bold header text: "NAPOLEON BONAPARTE — ONE OF HISTORY'S GREATEST MONSTERS."
My mouth went dry. My chest tightened.
This… this isn't just historical revisionism. This is nightmare fuel.
I read the opening paragraph, each word sending a jolt through me like static.
"In the year 1799, Napoleon Bonaparte uncovered the hidden ruins beneath the Great Sphinx of Giza, where he located the dormant Millennium Ring and awakened the Shadow Magic that had been sealed for over 3,000 years…"
My eyes grew wide. I could feel my heartbeat in my temples. My knuckles turned white as I gripped the armrest.
"What did he do in this timeline?" I muttered, mouth dry as sand. "In the real timeline, he found the Rosetta Stone. But this… this is something else."
I kept reading.
"Napoleon harnessed the power of Shadow Duels and duel spirits, integrating them into military campaigns. His army was bolstered by magical beasts, dragons, and summoned monsters tethered to human sacrifices."
I recoiled slightly, lips pulled back in a silent snarl of disbelief.
"No fucking way," I hissed through clenched teeth. "He figured out how to summon duel monsters?! That's not canon. That's not even fanon."
I shook my head, frustration bubbling beneath the surface. "This has to be fake news. There's no way this level of fantasy crept into actual world history."
My hands moved faster than my mind could keep up. I typed "Napoleon duel monsters history sources", slamming the keys. The mechanical clacks echoed loudly in the otherwise quiet room, an annoying reminder of the shoddy tech I had to work with.
Every single source said the same thing.
Napoleon had used the Millennium Ring to enslave Duel Spirits. His conquests were aided by magical monsters in full-scale battlefield operations. Duel monsters were no longer just holograms—they were real.
He'd gone far beyond Europe. The alternate timeline recorded that he conquered most of Asia, northern Africa, and Eastern Europe.
The casualty count?
One hundred and fifty million.
The words stared back at me like a death sentence.
I leaned forward again, now breathing heavily. My chest rose and fell in quick, shallow bursts. The air felt thicker, harder to breathe. I rested my hands on the desk, my fingers trembling slightly. Sweat beaded along my hairline.
"That's… that's double the death toll of World War II," I muttered, voice cracking.
The monitor's dim glow flickered slightly. My pale reflection mirrored the fear etched across my face.
"Human sacrifices. Shadow magic. Uncontrollable monsters—what kind of fucked-up version of history is this?" I whispered.
I felt sick. Like the world was tilting under me.
More sources confirmed it: weaker versions of the Millennium Items had been mass-produced during Napoleon's reign. Every military general was issued at least one. The shadow dueling became mandatory training. Some duel monsters had even been genetically created—some kind of alchemy or biotech nightmare.
And I was living in this world now.
"Canon knowledge is trash here," I said aloud, running a hand down my face. "All of it's shaky at best. Nothing I know from the anime or the games can be trusted."
I closed the tabs, leaned back in the chair, and stared at the ceiling, lips pressed into a tight line.
No wonder the kid had so many toys. In this world, Duel Monsters isn't just a game—it's history, war, religion. Hell, maybe even economy.
My head lolled to the side.
I looked back at the screen, blank now, just the desktop staring at me with cheerful icons that felt like a cruel joke.
I licked my lips, which had gone dry.
"Well," I whispered to no one.
My expression was blank. Not from peace—just the kind of numb shock that follows the realization that everything you once knew was dust.
My fingers curled against the armrest.
"Fuck me."