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Chapter 840: Forgot to title the previous chapter, but can't change it after publishing
Because Ishtar's identity was unexpectedly useful, after sneaking into the Restricted Area within the Scenic Area without tickets, they were discovered by two Staff. However, instead of being driven away, they were warmly guided and told which places within the Scenic Area were most worth visiting.
Three thousand years ago, both Hayato and Atem were more familiar with this area than the Staff, but after three thousand years, the Staff were clearer on what had disappeared and what remained.
Refusing the two Security Personnel whose attitudes had drastically changed and who eagerly volunteered to act as Tour Guide, the group followed the Passage within the Scenic Area towards the recommended attractions.
"Speaking of Pegasus, are you still doing card design?" Hayato asked Pegasus on the way. "You've been in Egypt for several days now, but I haven't seen you take out any design drafts or anything."
Hearing Hayato's words, Pegasus, who had originally been quite cheerful and looking forward to the upcoming journey, felt the smile on his face stiffen slightly, and his steps paused briefly.
He gave a dry laugh and said, "Oh ho ho ho, my cards are progressing very smoothly. Thanks to Hayato boy and Yugi-boy, me's inspiration is gushing like a god possessed. Compared to the progress before coming to Egypt, it has advanced by 1000%."
Bakura had also learned from Hayato before that Pegasus's goal in organizing this Tour Group was to find inspiration for creating new cards. Hearing this, he naively said, "That's great, Mr. Pegasus. In that case, I'm sure you'll finish creating the new cards very soon, right?"
However, this time Pegasus couldn't even maintain his fake smile, and the expression on his face completely fell.
"Huh? Did I say something wrong?" Bakura was startled and quickly asked Hayato beside him, worried that he might have said something he shouldn't have.
But Hayato didn't need to say anything. Joey Wheeler, standing nearby, said with a confident look, "Heh heh heh, at times like this, Great Detective Joey Wheeler should step in. No one is more familiar with that expression on Pegasus's face than me."
"Hayato, Yugi, Bakura, you were good students who got good grades in class and always finished your homework on time. But I'm different. I know better than any of you that expression on Pegasus's face when you played video games too happily the night before and only remembered the homework assigned wasn't done until the next morning."
"No, to be more precise, it's the expression when you haven't done your homework and also discover that everyone else has finished and submitted theirs, and you don't even have the opportunity to copy someone's work!" Tristan, standing next to Joey Wheeler, also said with full confidence.
"There is only one truth, Pegasus, your card creation progress before coming to Egypt was 0%. Even if it's 1000% of the original, which is ten times, it's still 0!" X2
Joey Wheeler and Tristan, standing back to back, simultaneously pointed their fingers at Pegasus and said in unison.
Marik's twitched mouth: "Where should I even start ranting? The fact that Pegasus can openly slack off for so long, or the examples you two used for comparison?"
"What do you know? Can a creator's work be called slacking off?" Pegasus argued forcefully under everyone's gaze, saying things like "Extensive research is needed to decide which plan to adopt" and "Only carefully crafted cards have soul."
"But didn't you say before that the card design was basically half finished?" Hayato looked at Pegasus helplessly. "Don't tell me that half refers to having finished creating a new folder."
Pegasus also sighed and said helplessly, "Even me wouldn't do something so tasteless to keep people in suspense. Actually, this is related to you, Hayato boy."
As he spoke, Pegasus took out a notebook from his backpack behind him, his expression conflicted and his movements somewhat hesitant. However, in the end, he made up his mind and spread open the notebook. "Because it's Yugi-boy and Hayato boy, me thinks me can show you me's manuscript. But please, absolutely do not spread anything from this around."
The others were also made curious by Pegasus's rare serious tone and gathered around to look at the contents of the notebook. On the page Pegasus had spread open, the most prominent feature was seven gems of different shapes and vibrant colors, which the group also knew what they were.
Due to the global ocean current anomaly caused by Dartz earlier, Industrial Illusions had salvaged the national treasure of a certain ancient country—seven gems said to have magical power. This was Pegasus's drawing of the gems' appearance. The core goal of this trip was for Pegasus to design new cards based on these gems.
But next to the clean seven gems were numerous images related to "gem" and "crystal". They had learned about this from Pegasus before and knew that he had always been unable to find the most suitable design that resonated with him.
But what did this have to do with Hayato?
Pegasus also saw the group's confused look, pointed his finger to the outermost position, and said, "Actually, after coming to Egypt, thanks to your luck, Hayato boy, me got a vague idea for some cards. This monster is one of the Duel Monsters me vaguely sensed from the ancient gems."
At the position Pegasus pointed to, he had redrawn one of the seven precious gems, the azure precious gem, and next to the gemstone, he drew a unicorn pegasus spreading its wings and soaring.
"A Pegasus... 'Pegasus'? Is this your personal preference? This is what The Other Me said." Yugi relayed Atem's words from within the Millennium Puzzle. It seemed he was also very interested in new cards, even though he had just been influenced by Shadi's words. "However, I also feel this appearance is very suitable."
Pegasus glanced at Yugi and nodded approvingly. "Compared to the Pharaoh's Soul, who has an imposing presence in Duel Monsters, Yugi boy, perhaps you have more talent in card design."
"Many people think that designing a card only requires simply drawing the card's image and designing an effect to complete the creation of a new card, but actually, that's not the case. The most important things for creating new cards, besides inspiration, are feeling and that subconscious feeling of resonating with the Duel Monster's spirit and helping them come into the card."
"If this card is created, me would want to name it 【Azure Gem Pegasus】. The prefix term would be 【Crystal Beast】. Me would design seven different creatures around the seven gems. As for the pegasus's appearance, it's simply a coincidence."
Regarding the fact that the designed 【Crystal Beast・Azure Gem Pegasus】 happened to share a name with his own name, "Pegasus," Pegasus also helplessly spread open his hand, and then pointed seriously at 【Crystal Beast・Azure Gem Pegasus】 and said, "Don't you think it's very cool? As a Card Designer, me thinks this is too cool. It fits me's imagination of 'gems' perfectly, full of natural charm and illusion."
However, compared to Yugi, the others' talent in card design was not very obvious. They couldn't feel the kind of subconscious feeling that Yugi and Pegasus spoke of, that "this card should look like this," nor could they feel anything cool about the 【Crystal Beast・Azure Gem Pegasus】 which was still just a pencil sketch.
More than that, they felt that Pegasus was still inserting his personal preferences into the card creation. After all, he had done so before, and this time, just inserting his own name was already quite restrained.
"But even so, what does it have to do with Hayato?" Bakura asked curiously.
Pegasus looked at Bakura, who had also come closer, feeling a bit uncomfortable in his heart. Even though a considerable amount of time had passed and he knew that Dark Bakura had disappeared from Bakura's body, at that time, Dark Bakura had also approached him with a harmless appearance just like the current Bakura, and then struck ruthlessly, gouging out his Millennium Eye and almost killing him.
To this day, Pegasus still feels a faint phantom pain in his left eye when he sees Bakura. After subtly putting half a step's distance between himself and Bakura, he pointed to another drawing next to the 【Crystal Beast・Azure Gem Pegasus】 in the notebook. "Originally, if there were no accidents, me would only use 【Azure Gem Pegasus】 as a starting point for the rest of the journey, completing the other 【Crystal Beast】, and then adding some Spell/Trap Cards to declare the completion of the new cards."
"But the problem is, just now, me saw this unforgettable monster from Hayato boy."
The position Pegasus pointed to was a sketch of a monster that everyone had seen before—the **El Shaddoll Construct**, which Hayato had Fusion Summoned with **El Shaddoll Nephilim** and **Volcanic Blade** in the duel against Exodia, a sketch of which had been handed over to the Staff.
"I was wondering what you were doing scribbling in that notebook back then. Turns out you were sketching Brother-in-law's monster," Marik said, somewhat confused. "But I still can't understand. Aren't 【Shaddoll】 monsters all creatures made of silk thread, shadow, and the like? How can this be related to a few pieces of gemstone?"
Marik just said it casually, but Pegasus actually nodded. "That's me's idea. Although creating entirely new monsters from scratch is fun, adding new elements to existing monsters to pioneer another possibility is also very interesting, just like the cute 【Toon】 monsters."
Pegasus paused, then looked at the sketch of **El Shaddoll Construct** with a slightly confused expression. "Also, perhaps me's inspiration has gone off course, but me always has the illusion that compared to 【Shaddoll】, the 'gem' itself is more important to this monster. And if me separate the gems on **El Shaddoll Construct** and use **El Shaddoll Construct's** knight image for the design, me feels that a name like 【Gem-Knight】 would sound better."
"That's certainly a statement in your style, Pegasus," Joey Wheeler ranted. "Why don't you just make non-humanoid monsters like Dragon-Type monsters into armor or something to be worn by humanoid monsters someday? That way, you can create a whole new Deck series."
"Isn't that just blatant plagiarism of 'Monster Hunter'?" Tristan, who often played games online with Joey Wheeler, naturally recognized the game where Joey Wheeler's inspiration came from immediately and ranted.
"But me thinks the possibility is quite good."
"You two... one dares to say it, and the other dares to listen..."
Hayato, on the other hand, sighed slightly in his heart. Although Pegasus was a bit of a scumbag and even an NTR Deck Player, which Hayato, the Pure Love War God, disdained the most, his talent as a Duel Monsters card designer had to be acknowledged as truly strong.
The 【Shaddoll】 Deck, in its lore, is not a naturally existing species. Instead, it is a group composed of countless monsters between life and death, intercepted from the normal Cycle of Life and Death System by a certain evil will for the purpose of reviving itself, and manipulated as puppets.
This is why 【Shaddoll】 monsters mostly have the element of "silk thread" and why most of their lower-level monsters are Spellcaster Type.
Because their source is the Cycle of Life and Death System, 【Shaddoll】 monsters can actually be almost regarded as products of certain originally existing monsters becoming 【Shaddoll】 after death. This means their source is as messy as the composition of Hayato's Deck, almost covering every species they can involve.
For example, 【Shaddoll Falcon】 was originally 【Gusto Falcon】 from the 【Gusto】 Deck, 【Shaddoll Beast】 was originally 【Naturia Beast】 from the 【Naturia】 Deck, and the prototypes of **El Shaddoll Nephilim** and **El Shaddoll Construct** are from the 【Gem-Knight】 Deck: 【Gem-Knight Lazuli】 and 【Gem-Knight Crystal】.
Just a blind guess based on intuition unexpectedly guessed the name 【Gem-Knight】, which is why Hayato felt admiration for Pegasus's talent.
"But if you can't choose, why not just create both series?" Hayato asked curiously. "For you, Pegasus, there shouldn't be a possibility that after creating one, you lose interest in the other possibility, or don't have the money or energy to create a second set of cards, right?"
Although the 【Gem-Knight】 cards were also available for purchase in the System Shop, and besides the useful but indeed expensive boss monsters, the main Deck lower-level monsters were relatively cheap, Hayato wasn't someone who had to collect every Deck he saw. If that were the case, who knew when Hayato would be able to assemble the tens of thousands of cards in the System Shop.
Rather than buying cards, Hayato still preferred to watch Pegasus create the 【Gem-Knight】 cards, so they wouldn't only exist in a certain official fan anime work. I'm sure no one would disagree that A5 is a fan work, right?
However, Pegasus shook his head. "That kind of thing, if me could, me would definitely want to create as many cards as possible. But it's not that me is unwilling to create both types of cards, but that me cannot."
"There are only those seven gems with strange power. Naturally, only seven basic gem cards can be completed. Me can even imagine a future where, after completing the basic cards, me will find it difficult to create support cards."
Because Ishtar's identity was unexpectedly useful, after sneaking into the Restricted Area within the Scenic Area without tickets, they were discovered by two Staff. However, instead of being driven away, they were warmly guided and told which places within the Scenic Area were most worth visiting.
Three thousand years ago, both Hayato and Atem were more familiar with this area than the Staff, but after three thousand years, the Staff were clearer on what had disappeared and what remained.
Refusing the two Security Personnel whose attitudes had drastically changed and who eagerly volunteered to act as Tour Guide, the group followed the Passage within the Scenic Area towards the recommended attractions.
"Speaking of Pegasus, are you still doing card design?" Hayato asked Pegasus on the way. "You've been in Egypt for several days now, but I haven't seen you take out any design drafts or anything."
Hearing Hayato's words, Pegasus, who had originally been quite cheerful and looking forward to the upcoming journey, felt the smile on his face stiffen slightly, and his steps paused briefly.
He gave a dry laugh and said, "Oh ho ho ho, my cards are progressing very smoothly. Thanks to Hayato boy and Yugi-boy, me's inspiration is gushing like a god possessed. Compared to the progress before coming to Egypt, it has advanced by 1000%."
Bakura had also learned from Hayato before that Pegasus's goal in organizing this Tour Group was to find inspiration for creating new cards. Hearing this, he naively said, "That's great, Mr. Pegasus. In that case, I'm sure you'll finish creating the new cards very soon, right?"
However, this time Pegasus couldn't even maintain his fake smile, and the expression on his face completely fell.
"Huh? Did I say something wrong?" Bakura was startled and quickly asked Hayato beside him, worried that he might have said something he shouldn't have.
But Hayato didn't need to say anything. Joey Wheeler, standing nearby, said with a confident look, "Heh heh heh, at times like this, Great Detective Joey Wheeler should step in. No one is more familiar with that expression on Pegasus's face than me."
"Hayato, Yugi, Bakura, you were good students who got good grades in class and always finished your homework on time. But I'm different. I know better than any of you that expression on Pegasus's face when you played video games too happily the night before and only remembered the homework assigned wasn't done until the next morning."
"No, to be more precise, it's the expression when you haven't done your homework and also discover that everyone else has finished and submitted theirs, and you don't even have the opportunity to copy someone's work!" Tristan, standing next to Joey Wheeler, also said with full confidence.
"There is only one truth, Pegasus, your card creation progress before coming to Egypt was 0%. Even if it's 1000% of the original, which is ten times, it's still 0!" X2
Joey Wheeler and Tristan, standing back to back, simultaneously pointed their fingers at Pegasus and said in unison.
Marik's twitched mouth: "Where should I even start ranting? The fact that Pegasus can openly slack off for so long, or the examples you two used for comparison?"
"What do you know? Can a creator's work be called slacking off?" Pegasus argued forcefully under everyone's gaze, saying things like "Extensive research is needed to decide which plan to adopt" and "Only carefully crafted cards have soul."
"But didn't you say before that the card design was basically half finished?" Hayato looked at Pegasus helplessly. "Don't tell me that half refers to having finished creating a new folder."
Pegasus also sighed and said helplessly, "Even me wouldn't do something so tasteless to keep people in suspense. Actually, this is related to you, Hayato boy."
As he spoke, Pegasus took out a notebook from his backpack behind him, his expression conflicted and his movements somewhat hesitant. However, in the end, he made up his mind and spread open the notebook. "Because it's Yugi-boy and Hayato boy, me thinks me can show you me's manuscript. But please, absolutely do not spread anything from this around."
The others were also made curious by Pegasus's rare serious tone and gathered around to look at the contents of the notebook. On the page Pegasus had spread open, the most prominent feature was seven gems of different shapes and vibrant colors, which the group also knew what they were.
Due to the global ocean current anomaly caused by Dartz earlier, Industrial Illusions had salvaged the national treasure of a certain ancient country—seven gems said to have magical power. This was Pegasus's drawing of the gems' appearance. The core goal of this trip was for Pegasus to design new cards based on these gems.
But next to the clean seven gems were numerous images related to "gem" and "crystal". They had learned about this from Pegasus before and knew that he had always been unable to find the most suitable design that resonated with him.
But what did this have to do with Hayato?
Pegasus also saw the group's confused look, pointed his finger to the outermost position, and said, "Actually, after coming to Egypt, thanks to your luck, Hayato boy, me got a vague idea for some cards. This monster is one of the Duel Monsters me vaguely sensed from the ancient gems."
At the position Pegasus pointed to, he had redrawn one of the seven precious gems, the azure precious gem, and next to the gemstone, he drew a unicorn pegasus spreading its wings and soaring.
"A Pegasus... 'Pegasus'? Is this your personal preference? This is what The Other Me said." Yugi relayed Atem's words from within the Millennium Puzzle. It seemed he was also very interested in new cards, even though he had just been influenced by Shadi's words. "However, I also feel this appearance is very suitable."
Pegasus glanced at Yugi and nodded approvingly. "Compared to the Pharaoh's Soul, who has an imposing presence in Duel Monsters, Yugi boy, perhaps you have more talent in card design."
"Many people think that designing a card only requires simply drawing the card's image and designing an effect to complete the creation of a new card, but actually, that's not the case. The most important things for creating new cards, besides inspiration, are feeling and that subconscious feeling of resonating with the Duel Monster's spirit and helping them come into the card."
"If this card is created, me would want to name it 【Azure Gem Pegasus】. The prefix term would be 【Crystal Beast】. Me would design seven different creatures around the seven gems. As for the pegasus's appearance, it's simply a coincidence."
Regarding the fact that the designed 【Crystal Beast・Azure Gem Pegasus】 happened to share a name with his own name, "Pegasus," Pegasus also helplessly spread open his hand, and then pointed seriously at 【Crystal Beast・Azure Gem Pegasus】 and said, "Don't you think it's very cool? As a Card Designer, me thinks this is too cool. It fits me's imagination of 'gems' perfectly, full of natural charm and illusion."
However, compared to Yugi, the others' talent in card design was not very obvious. They couldn't feel the kind of subconscious feeling that Yugi and Pegasus spoke of, that "this card should look like this," nor could they feel anything cool about the 【Crystal Beast・Azure Gem Pegasus】 which was still just a pencil sketch.
More than that, they felt that Pegasus was still inserting his personal preferences into the card creation. After all, he had done so before, and this time, just inserting his own name was already quite restrained.
"But even so, what does it have to do with Hayato?" Bakura asked curiously.
Pegasus looked at Bakura, who had also come closer, feeling a bit uncomfortable in his heart. Even though a considerable amount of time had passed and he knew that Dark Bakura had disappeared from Bakura's body, at that time, Dark Bakura had also approached him with a harmless appearance just like the current Bakura, and then struck ruthlessly, gouging out his Millennium Eye and almost killing him.
To this day, Pegasus still feels a faint phantom pain in his left eye when he sees Bakura. After subtly putting half a step's distance between himself and Bakura, he pointed to another drawing next to the 【Crystal Beast・Azure Gem Pegasus】 in the notebook. "Originally, if there were no accidents, me would only use 【Azure Gem Pegasus】 as a starting point for the rest of the journey, completing the other 【Crystal Beast】, and then adding some Spell/Trap Cards to declare the completion of the new cards."
"But the problem is, just now, me saw this unforgettable monster from Hayato boy."
The position Pegasus pointed to was a sketch of a monster that everyone had seen before—the **El Shaddoll Construct**, which Hayato had Fusion Summoned with **El Shaddoll Nephilim** and **Volcanic Blade** in the duel against Exodia, a sketch of which had been handed over to the Staff.
"I was wondering what you were doing scribbling in that notebook back then. Turns out you were sketching Brother-in-law's monster," Marik said, somewhat confused. "But I still can't understand. Aren't 【Shaddoll】 monsters all creatures made of silk thread, shadow, and the like? How can this be related to a few pieces of gemstone?"
Marik just said it casually, but Pegasus actually nodded. "That's me's idea. Although creating entirely new monsters from scratch is fun, adding new elements to existing monsters to pioneer another possibility is also very interesting, just like the cute 【Toon】 monsters."
Pegasus paused, then looked at the sketch of **El Shaddoll Construct** with a slightly confused expression. "Also, perhaps me's inspiration has gone off course, but me always has the illusion that compared to 【Shaddoll】, the 'gem' itself is more important to this monster. And if me separate the gems on **El Shaddoll Construct** and use **El Shaddoll Construct's** knight image for the design, me feels that a name like 【Gem-Knight】 would sound better."
"That's certainly a statement in your style, Pegasus," Joey Wheeler ranted. "Why don't you just make non-humanoid monsters like Dragon-Type monsters into armor or something to be worn by humanoid monsters someday? That way, you can create a whole new Deck series."
"Isn't that just blatant plagiarism of 'Monster Hunter'?" Tristan, who often played games online with Joey Wheeler, naturally recognized the game where Joey Wheeler's inspiration came from immediately and ranted.
"But me thinks the possibility is quite good."
"You two... one dares to say it, and the other dares to listen..."
Hayato, on the other hand, sighed slightly in his heart. Although Pegasus was a bit of a scumbag and even an NTR Deck Player, which Hayato, the Pure Love War God, disdained the most, his talent as a Duel Monsters card designer had to be acknowledged as truly strong.
The 【Shaddoll】 Deck, in its lore, is not a naturally existing species. Instead, it is a group composed of countless monsters between life and death, intercepted from the normal Cycle of Life and Death System by a certain evil will for the purpose of reviving itself, and manipulated as puppets.
This is why 【Shaddoll】 monsters mostly have the element of "silk thread" and why most of their lower-level monsters are Spellcaster Type.
Because their source is the Cycle of Life and Death System, 【Shaddoll】 monsters can actually be almost regarded as products of certain originally existing monsters becoming 【Shaddoll】 after death. This means their source is as messy as the composition of Hayato's Deck, almost covering every species they can involve.
For example, 【Shaddoll Falcon】 was originally 【Gusto Falcon】 from the 【Gusto】 Deck, 【Shaddoll Beast】 was originally 【Naturia Beast】 from the 【Naturia】 Deck, and the prototypes of **El Shaddoll Nephilim** and **El Shaddoll Construct** are from the 【Gem-Knight】 Deck: 【Gem-Knight Lazuli】 and 【Gem-Knight Crystal】.
Just a blind guess based on intuition unexpectedly guessed the name 【Gem-Knight】, which is why Hayato felt admiration for Pegasus's talent.
"But if you can't choose, why not just create both series?" Hayato asked curiously. "For you, Pegasus, there shouldn't be a possibility that after creating one, you lose interest in the other possibility, or don't have the money or energy to create a second set of cards, right?"
Although the 【Gem-Knight】 cards were also available for purchase in the System Shop, and besides the useful but indeed expensive boss monsters, the main Deck lower-level monsters were relatively cheap, Hayato wasn't someone who had to collect every Deck he saw. If that were the case, who knew when Hayato would be able to assemble the tens of thousands of cards in the System Shop.
Rather than buying cards, Hayato still preferred to watch Pegasus create the 【Gem-Knight】 cards, so they wouldn't only exist in a certain official fan anime work. I'm sure no one would disagree that A5 is a fan work, right?
However, Pegasus shook his head. "That kind of thing, if me could, me would definitely want to create as many cards as possible. But it's not that me is unwilling to create both types of cards, but that me cannot."
"There are only those seven gems with strange power. Naturally, only seven basic gem cards can be completed. Me can even imagine a future where, after completing the basic cards, me will find it difficult to create support cards."
