"!"
Xue Lang suddenly realized that there was only one minute left before the end of the beta test.
... Dammit! The reward for the quest was right there, almost within reach!
"What's wrong?" Youyu, noticing Xue Lang had stopped, turned his head to ask.
Xue Lang showed an expression of mixed frustration.
"Uh... I suddenly have an urgent matter, a very urgent one. So, how about we...?"
Youyu understood immediately, guessing that the beta test was almost over.
Youyu made a knowing gesture and waved his hand: "It's fine, go ahead."
Xue Lang automatically understood that the quest could be paused and resumed the next time he logged in, feeling grateful: "Thanks, Brother Youyu!"
After speaking, his body started becoming transparent, and he logged off with satisfaction.
Now, Xue Lang felt that the game design was incredibly user-friendly, allowing tasks to be saved and continued later, so they wouldn't be missed entirely.
Would the NPC complete the quest on its own after he logged out?
How could that be possible?
What kind of NPC steals a player's quest?
... Probably not, right?
Perhaps the hidden quest drained all of Xue Lang's luck for the day, leading to this inconvenient logout.
Up to this point, Youyu was indeed a little hesitant.
Maybe he should have waited for Xue Lang to return and explore the area together?
After all, the quest was discovered by a player, and even if it's just leftovers, he should at least leave some recognition, right?
... Actually, it was because Youyu wasn't very confident about going alone.
One perk of taking players on quests is that no matter what enemy you encounter, you can always let the players go first to investigate.
Players are expendable, and even if they fall, they can respawn later, acting as perfect cannon fodder.
The reason he followed Xue Lang so recklessly was because he had a versatile shield. Even if he encountered danger, it wouldn't matter.
At worst, Xue Lang would take the hit, and Youyu could escape.
But now that the shield was gone, Youyu hesitated about whether to proceed.
However, he soon realized there was no need to hesitate... or rather, he couldn't hesitate anymore.
"Ding!
Quest Triggered! 'Challenge from the Mysterious Person!'
Dark forces from an unknown realm are flowing into the real world. Try to fend off the darkness!
Quest Reward: Unknown."
Although the quest description was once again completely vague, similar to the previous 'Ghouls Challenge Series,' there was no option to decline.
This meant that arriving here was already considered a trigger for a specific quest. Perhaps someone hidden here had already set their sights on him, leaving no path of retreat.
Though Xue Lang seemed timid, he wasn't wrong. When Youyu walked to the middle of the bridge, he faintly heard a voice saying, "Come this way."
The voice wasn't loud, very light and delicate, and indeed sounded like a woman's voice. In this pitch-black environment, it was a bit eerie, but if Youyu listened carefully, the voice was quite pleasant, light and crisp, giving a lively feeling.
Having played so many versions of Linked World in his previous life, Youyu already had experience.
The game's environment wasn't static; players' system card pools, NPC's cards, potential combos and tactics, and even Duel Monsters rules constantly changed with each version.
As the versions updated, the types of cards in both players' and NPCs' hands increased, creating more card deck types and tactical combinations, complicating the environment further. The overall difficulty also increased.
Looking back, the game hadn't even launched version 1.0 yet, and the story was still in the early DM stages. Cards and gameplay were limited, with simpler environments.
Therefore, even with a broken Hero card deck mixed with a Black Magician card set from Pandora, there weren't many duelists capable of matching Youyu in this current context.
Even Jonouchi, the Duelist Kingdom runner-up, lost to him. So conservatively speaking, Youyu estimated his combat ability to be at least... 1.5 Jonouchis above.
With such strength, there shouldn't be many quests Youyu couldn't handle at this stage.
The voice had disappeared, replaced by the louder rush of water beneath the bridge. A brisk wind blew from the river's opposite side, rustling the dark wild grass on the bank.
He looked up, noticing a safety sign installed on the bridge, contracted by Kaiba Company. It depicted a cute, cartoonish Blue-Eyes White Dragon with a comical safety helmet.
Youyu: "..."
It was a testament to President Haima's profound love for 'White' (referring to Blue-Eyes). Haima's sports car had a Blue-Eyes design, as did his jet plane, and even a construction sign was adorned with a Blue-Eyes to emphasize its status.
Such obsession from the president even prompted speculation from meme-loving fans, suggesting that even Haima's special needs products might be Blue-Eyes branded (crossed-out)...
It made sense, considering the Egyptian arc of the original Yu-Gi-Oh! revealed that the Blue-Eyes White Dragon's past life was a fair-skinned, blue-haired beauty with a history with Haima, who was an Egyptian Priest in a past life.
A massive round drainage pipe was placed by the bridge pier, with water continuously flowing into the river.
Youyu furrowed his brows, feeling as if he saw a black mass of gas floating out from the depth of the pipe, circling around his body.
Soon, he realized it wasn't an illusion.
The pitch-black mist billowed out from the pipe, coalescing into a human form before him.
Youyu squinted slightly.
A man clad in black, sporting an arrogant face indifferent to kin, with sunglasses akin to an American secret agent.
In an instant, Youyu recognized him, but was simultaneously shocked.
This was... Mr. T?
The final boss of Yu-Gi-Oh! GX's finale, a mass-produced henchman under Darkness?
In Yu-Gi-Oh! GX's final chapter, the ultimate boss, Darkness, was awakened by the influx of human inner darkness into the Inner World. That boss sought to erase the existence of all humans in the world, assimilating every human consciousness into Darkness.
And Mr. T, standing before Youyu, was the top henchman under that villain. Mr. T was akin to Smith from The Matrix, lacking a physical body, spawning hundreds after one was dealt with, serving as a consumable mass-produced minion.
But... was Darkness not supposed to be the antagonist of Yu-Gi-Oh! GX's finale?
The protagonist of GX, Yuki Judai, was probably somewhere playing in the dirt.
But on second thought, it seemed reasonable.
According to Darkness in the anime, it claimed to be a part of the world's rules, merely awakened by human inner darkness during GX's storyline. In other words, it had always existed.
Thus, it wasn't strange if it awakened early, leaking some darkness from the Inner World.
At this moment, Darkness's lackey, Mr. T, had also noticed Youyu. He chuckled coldly, "A duelist from the human world? Interesting. After such a long slumber, I wonder how far humanity has progressed now."
As he spoke, his gaze beneath the shades grew sharp, a surge of darkness enveloping him, a black mist like a storm erupting, amassing an astonishing might...
Confronting this formidable power, Youyu didn't feel fear... instead, he kind of wanted to duel.
Predictably, after a dramatic energy surge akin to Dragon Ball, Mr. T raised his arm, the black mist on it transforming into a dark Duel Disc.
He smirked, "Let's duel."