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**Chapter 868: Sorry, I Can't Do It**
The commotion caused by Sho Marufuji among the Cyber Style apprentices finally ended with Sho Marufuji himself and his older brother, Ryo Marufuji, falling unconscious. As for the apprentices he had incited, although they initially demanded a refund and flinched slightly upon witnessing two people fall unconscious from a duel, they quickly gave up that idea.
"Refund? Absolutely no problem, but the registration fee was paid at the American system Dojo, and the refund is in the Himalayan Mountains. You'll have to find the exact location yourselves."
That's what Valon said, claiming that the reason was that the refund location didn't move with the Cyber Style Dojo when it relocated to the American system, as it was in the Himalayan Mountains before the move. The credibility of this was quite low.
However, the actual reason was that Valon was clarifying the slander Sho Marufuji had made earlier. In this regard, he was quite diligent, although it stemmed from the thought that "if the Cyber Style's fame goes bad and I can't recruit apprentices, won't I be unemployed again?" But the result was that he did let those apprentices know that although Sho Marufuji was Ryo Marufuji's younger brother, there wasn't much credibility to his words.
On this point, even if Valon hadn't said anything, the apprentices who watched the duel had somewhat realized it. After all, they could see a bit from how Sho Marufuji looked like a completely different person during the duel and the expression he had when he knocked his brother unconscious.
After the commotion was dispelled, Valon also took the apprentices and the still unconscious Marufuji brothers onto the tour bus. While it couldn't be denied that the initial intention was to raise funds, Master Samejima of the Cyber Style agreed to Valon's "slacking trip" plan because the training trip would definitely have an effect. By experiencing the passage of time, it could increase the apprentices' skill level.
Therefore, Valon was taking the apprentices to continue to the next training location with a long history. Since he wasn't going the same direction as Hayato and the others, he bid them farewell. Under the watchful gaze of Hayato and the others in front of the Hotel, he drove the bus away into the distance. Although the funds arranged by Samejima actually included a portion for hiring a driver, Valon seemed to have taken a kickback from this portion and was driving it himself to earn the driver's pay.
About an hour after the bus drove off, Ryo Marufuji, who had been unconscious in the tour guide seat, finally woke up. He held his head with one hand, seemingly not fully recovered from the influence of the Dark Game.
"Oh, you're awake, Kid," Valon, in the driver's seat, glanced at Ryo Marufuji's movement and said casually, but he felt a sense of relief in his heart.
He, who had always only been able to destroy but never protect, was actually quite worried about Ryo Marufuji's state. Even though Hayato, Marik, and Pegasus had all unanimously stated that Ryo Marufuji was truly not injured, he had been unable to feel at ease. The direction the bus was heading was actually towards the Hospital.
But now, it looks like Hayato Kobayashi and the others were indeed not wrong. He flicked the turn signal lever and signaled a turn. Valon changed lanes, not going straight towards the Hospital but turning onto the direction leading to the Highway.
"Have we already left the hotel, Mr. Valon?"
"Yeah, after all, today's journey isn't short. Besides, Hayato Kobayashi said that you and your younger brother are fine and don't need to go to the Hospital. I'm heading onto the Highway now."
Although from what Hayato and the others said, Sho Marufuji, who was also unconscious, was different from Ryo Marufuji and had suffered some damage from the Dark Game, people are different. While Valon cared about Ryo Marufuji, he didn't care what happened to Sho Marufuji. That Kid's behavior before made Valon look down on him even now.
Anyway, Hayato also said that whether they were sent to the Hospital or not would only influence how long it would take them to wake up. The damage from a Dark Game couldn't be cured by a normal Hospital. Valon chose to simply pretend he didn't know.
As he spoke, Valon glanced in the rearview mirror and saw a seemingly regretful expression on Ryo Marufuji's face. While watching the road ahead, he casually said, "Also, although there isn't much time for you to fangirl, I did manage to get some souvenirs from those few people..."
Ryo Marufuji didn't hear much of what Valon said next. After he picked up a piece of cardboard that Valon had placed in front of the tour guide seat, he could only see the cardboard.
The cardboard itself wasn't made of any special material; it was just a normal piece of stiff cardboard. From the incomplete color print on the other side of the cardboard, it looked like someone had casually torn it off some packaging and cut it into the square shape of the cardboard in his hand. What attracted Ryo Marufuji's complete attention was the text written on the cardboard with a marker pen.
"Great duel (^ω^) Looking forward to your future — Pegasus J. Crawford"
"Should have said — Hayato Kobayashi"
"Keep it up, young man — Mutou Yuugi"
"Heh heh, my sister is much more obedient — Katsuya Jounouchi"
Noticing Ryo Marufuji's expression, Valon said somewhat proudly, "Although we were rivals before, it can barely be considered connections. I saw you at the Buffet Restaurant earlier, and it looked like you wanted to ask Hayato Kobayashi and the others for their signature but didn't succeed. Now I've helped you fulfill a dream, no need to be too grateful to me."
"No, I mean, why is the signature on this kind of cardboard? The words before the signature also seem a bit meaningless." Holding the signed cardboard, the always overly serious Ryo Marufuji grumbled like a child for once, but the corner of his mouth unconsciously curved upwards, revealing a smile.
"But, thank you very much, Mr. Valon."
Valon also smiled slightly upon hearing this, but then Ryo Marufuji said, "However, I still won't help you conceal the matter about the kickback."
"No, why are you still focusing on those unimportant matters? After taking my benefit, you should forget about this. Don't you know this is an unspoken rule of the adult world?"
"Sorry, I can't do it. I'm just a twelve-year-old child."
On the bus carrying the Cyber Style Tour Group, Valon and Ryo Marufuji's conversation was unknown to Hayato and the others. After checking out of their Hotel Room, they were also about to embark on their journey to the next destination.
As before, Hayato was still sitting in the driver's seat, acting as the driver, and asked Marik in the passenger seat to open the map and start planning the route. After visiting the Royal City Ruins from three thousand years ago, they now planned to head to their next destination.
But as soon as he opened the electronic map, Marik was stunned and said to Hayato, "Brother-in-law, is your map broken?"
"It shouldn't be. I swiped this from Kaiba. How could it break so easily?" Hayato turned his head upon hearing this and looked at the tablet in Marik's hand. The transparent tablet didn't display the surrounding map information as it normally would. Instead, several flashing mosaic-like glitches appeared.
"It's really broken? I remember it was fine last night." Hayato couldn't help but glance at Marik. "Weren't you in charge of the map yesterday? What did you do with it?"
Marik thought back to last night. Because he learned from Hayato that he had secretly called his Older Sister, and he himself hadn't remembered this for a long time, knowing that he would definitely be in for it when he went back, Marik chose to overeat in his low mood, eating two packs of instant noodles in one go. At the time, he seemed to have used this electronic map to press down on the instant noodle bowl.
"No, I didn't do anything," Marik said affirmatively.
Just as Hayato was looking at Marik with a "Do you think I'd believe that?" gaze, the glitches on the electronic map actually moved and combined together, forming a person's avatar. It was Keipei?
"Ah, found you, is that Brother Hayato?" On the tablet, Keipei made movements of looking left and right, seemingly observing his surroundings through the scanning camera equipped on the electronic map. He quickly found Hayato next to Marik, who was holding the map, and waved at him, saying with a smile.
Hayato also greeted him, "Long time no see, Naruto (Nickname)."
"Who's Naruto (Nickname)! I'm Keipei, Keipei, Keipei!" Keipei's face instantly turned sour. He excitedly corrected Hayato, repeating his name three times, before saying helplessly, "This electronic map suddenly went missing before. As expected, it was in your hand, Brother Hayato. Fortunately, I installed a backdoor program on it so I could locate it anytime."
"That's naughty, Keipei. How can you do something like that at your age? Hacking into other people's equipment is wrong," Hayato said righteously, looking at Keipei on the electronic map.
Keipei glanced at Hayato and retorted, "Brother Hayato, you're not qualified to say something like that, are you? No, speaking of which, wasn't this map originally mine?"
"Anyway, let's not talk about that. Brother Hayato, I have something important to find you for."
Seeing Keipei's somewhat serious expression, Hayato also became serious and said, "Could it be that Kaiba is locked up in some Virtual World again?"
"No way, Brother Hayato, why would you think of that way?" Keipei tilted his head and said strangely.
"Look, during The Big Five incident, Kaiba was locked up once. During Battle City, he was locked up by Noah once. Plus, he was involved with the Tablet of Lost Memories not long ago. Counting it up, hasn't he been locked up in the Virtual World a total of three times?" Hayato counted on his fingers. "Especially that time with The Big Five, Keipei, you said the same thing when you came to us to rescue him."
"Although it is indeed something related to Brother, it's not like that," Keipei shook his head and denied. "I don't quite understand what 'Memory World' is, but a few days ago, Brother suddenly had some change, as if he suddenly grew up."
"He used to often look down on other Duel Monsters cards and only acknowledge the power of **Blue-Eyes White Dragon**. But suddenly, he told me that the **Thunder Dragon** Deck I had just collected was also quite good. It was as surprising as chocolate suddenly disappearing from the refrigerator."
Although it sounded a bit strange for Kaiba's younger brother, Keipei, to say that Kaiba had grown up, sometimes the older Kaiba was indeed less composed than the younger Keipei. For example, Kaiba would often act impulsively on a whim, while Keipei could basically maintain composure and think.
The best example is Duel Monsters. As soon as dueling is mentioned, Kaiba immediately gets the urge to duel, but Keipei doesn't have such a strong urge, and it's even less possible for him to squander money just to duel.
"A few days ago was probably after returning from the Memory World. Also, if you're talking about the chocolate you put in the Laboratory refrigerator, I think I ate it," Hayato said cheekily, earning a roll of the eyes from Keipei.
"Don't interrupt me when I'm talking about the key point!" Returning to the main topic, Keipei talked about his experience over the past two days. "Before, after Brother failed to achieve the expected result in an experiment, he suddenly decided to go to Egypt, saying he wanted to come and find you, Brother Hayato, and Yugi and the others. He didn't tell me what he was going to do. You also know he's always been like this, always acting on impulse, I've gotten somewhat used to it."
"But after coming to Egypt with me in that jet plane whose design I still cannot approve of, he suddenly disappeared on the Street!"
"Suddenly disappeared? Inspiration suddenly came to Me!" Pegasus, hearing this, suddenly became excited. "Is there more, Mokuba Boy? Kaiba-boy's matters have given Me quite a bit of card design inspiration Uh—!"
Pegasus, who had leaned forward to the front row, had his mouth covered by Hayato and was pushed back, telling Joey Wheeler and Tristan to keep an eye on this guy who acts recklessly when he gets inspiration. He said to Keipei on the electronic map, "Suddenly disappearing and all that, Keipei, you must have tried to contact Kaiba but couldn't, right?"
Seeing Keipei nod, Hayato continued, "I understand. Then your goal in hacking into this electronic map must be to ask us for help, right? Send the map over, and we'll set off to find you right away."
"Okay, I've already sent the data over, Brother Hayato. I'll wait for you at the place where Brother disappeared." Seeing that Hayato understood the purpose of his contact without needing detailed explanation, Keipei quickly pressed something on the other end. Keipei's avatar on the electronic map disappeared and it returned to normal, displaying the map of the area around Hayato's party. At the same time, the destination had been automatically entered, and a red line guided them from their current location to a certain spot.
Seeing that Keipei's call seemed to be over, Hayato also smiled and said, looking back, "There's absolutely no need to worry about Kaiba's safety, but what if we can catch him looking embarrassed? Everyone, are you ready?"
"We must leave immediately and go mock Kaiba at the first instant!"
Marik grumbled, "Why are you so active in this kind of situation, Brother-in-law?"
Please give recommendation tickets~
(End of Chapter)
The commotion caused by Sho Marufuji among the Cyber Style apprentices finally ended with Sho Marufuji himself and his older brother, Ryo Marufuji, falling unconscious. As for the apprentices he had incited, although they initially demanded a refund and flinched slightly upon witnessing two people fall unconscious from a duel, they quickly gave up that idea.
"Refund? Absolutely no problem, but the registration fee was paid at the American system Dojo, and the refund is in the Himalayan Mountains. You'll have to find the exact location yourselves."
That's what Valon said, claiming that the reason was that the refund location didn't move with the Cyber Style Dojo when it relocated to the American system, as it was in the Himalayan Mountains before the move. The credibility of this was quite low.
However, the actual reason was that Valon was clarifying the slander Sho Marufuji had made earlier. In this regard, he was quite diligent, although it stemmed from the thought that "if the Cyber Style's fame goes bad and I can't recruit apprentices, won't I be unemployed again?" But the result was that he did let those apprentices know that although Sho Marufuji was Ryo Marufuji's younger brother, there wasn't much credibility to his words.
On this point, even if Valon hadn't said anything, the apprentices who watched the duel had somewhat realized it. After all, they could see a bit from how Sho Marufuji looked like a completely different person during the duel and the expression he had when he knocked his brother unconscious.
After the commotion was dispelled, Valon also took the apprentices and the still unconscious Marufuji brothers onto the tour bus. While it couldn't be denied that the initial intention was to raise funds, Master Samejima of the Cyber Style agreed to Valon's "slacking trip" plan because the training trip would definitely have an effect. By experiencing the passage of time, it could increase the apprentices' skill level.
Therefore, Valon was taking the apprentices to continue to the next training location with a long history. Since he wasn't going the same direction as Hayato and the others, he bid them farewell. Under the watchful gaze of Hayato and the others in front of the Hotel, he drove the bus away into the distance. Although the funds arranged by Samejima actually included a portion for hiring a driver, Valon seemed to have taken a kickback from this portion and was driving it himself to earn the driver's pay.
About an hour after the bus drove off, Ryo Marufuji, who had been unconscious in the tour guide seat, finally woke up. He held his head with one hand, seemingly not fully recovered from the influence of the Dark Game.
"Oh, you're awake, Kid," Valon, in the driver's seat, glanced at Ryo Marufuji's movement and said casually, but he felt a sense of relief in his heart.
He, who had always only been able to destroy but never protect, was actually quite worried about Ryo Marufuji's state. Even though Hayato, Marik, and Pegasus had all unanimously stated that Ryo Marufuji was truly not injured, he had been unable to feel at ease. The direction the bus was heading was actually towards the Hospital.
But now, it looks like Hayato Kobayashi and the others were indeed not wrong. He flicked the turn signal lever and signaled a turn. Valon changed lanes, not going straight towards the Hospital but turning onto the direction leading to the Highway.
"Have we already left the hotel, Mr. Valon?"
"Yeah, after all, today's journey isn't short. Besides, Hayato Kobayashi said that you and your younger brother are fine and don't need to go to the Hospital. I'm heading onto the Highway now."
Although from what Hayato and the others said, Sho Marufuji, who was also unconscious, was different from Ryo Marufuji and had suffered some damage from the Dark Game, people are different. While Valon cared about Ryo Marufuji, he didn't care what happened to Sho Marufuji. That Kid's behavior before made Valon look down on him even now.
Anyway, Hayato also said that whether they were sent to the Hospital or not would only influence how long it would take them to wake up. The damage from a Dark Game couldn't be cured by a normal Hospital. Valon chose to simply pretend he didn't know.
As he spoke, Valon glanced in the rearview mirror and saw a seemingly regretful expression on Ryo Marufuji's face. While watching the road ahead, he casually said, "Also, although there isn't much time for you to fangirl, I did manage to get some souvenirs from those few people..."
Ryo Marufuji didn't hear much of what Valon said next. After he picked up a piece of cardboard that Valon had placed in front of the tour guide seat, he could only see the cardboard.
The cardboard itself wasn't made of any special material; it was just a normal piece of stiff cardboard. From the incomplete color print on the other side of the cardboard, it looked like someone had casually torn it off some packaging and cut it into the square shape of the cardboard in his hand. What attracted Ryo Marufuji's complete attention was the text written on the cardboard with a marker pen.
"Great duel (^ω^) Looking forward to your future — Pegasus J. Crawford"
"Should have said — Hayato Kobayashi"
"Keep it up, young man — Mutou Yuugi"
"Heh heh, my sister is much more obedient — Katsuya Jounouchi"
Noticing Ryo Marufuji's expression, Valon said somewhat proudly, "Although we were rivals before, it can barely be considered connections. I saw you at the Buffet Restaurant earlier, and it looked like you wanted to ask Hayato Kobayashi and the others for their signature but didn't succeed. Now I've helped you fulfill a dream, no need to be too grateful to me."
"No, I mean, why is the signature on this kind of cardboard? The words before the signature also seem a bit meaningless." Holding the signed cardboard, the always overly serious Ryo Marufuji grumbled like a child for once, but the corner of his mouth unconsciously curved upwards, revealing a smile.
"But, thank you very much, Mr. Valon."
Valon also smiled slightly upon hearing this, but then Ryo Marufuji said, "However, I still won't help you conceal the matter about the kickback."
"No, why are you still focusing on those unimportant matters? After taking my benefit, you should forget about this. Don't you know this is an unspoken rule of the adult world?"
"Sorry, I can't do it. I'm just a twelve-year-old child."
On the bus carrying the Cyber Style Tour Group, Valon and Ryo Marufuji's conversation was unknown to Hayato and the others. After checking out of their Hotel Room, they were also about to embark on their journey to the next destination.
As before, Hayato was still sitting in the driver's seat, acting as the driver, and asked Marik in the passenger seat to open the map and start planning the route. After visiting the Royal City Ruins from three thousand years ago, they now planned to head to their next destination.
But as soon as he opened the electronic map, Marik was stunned and said to Hayato, "Brother-in-law, is your map broken?"
"It shouldn't be. I swiped this from Kaiba. How could it break so easily?" Hayato turned his head upon hearing this and looked at the tablet in Marik's hand. The transparent tablet didn't display the surrounding map information as it normally would. Instead, several flashing mosaic-like glitches appeared.
"It's really broken? I remember it was fine last night." Hayato couldn't help but glance at Marik. "Weren't you in charge of the map yesterday? What did you do with it?"
Marik thought back to last night. Because he learned from Hayato that he had secretly called his Older Sister, and he himself hadn't remembered this for a long time, knowing that he would definitely be in for it when he went back, Marik chose to overeat in his low mood, eating two packs of instant noodles in one go. At the time, he seemed to have used this electronic map to press down on the instant noodle bowl.
"No, I didn't do anything," Marik said affirmatively.
Just as Hayato was looking at Marik with a "Do you think I'd believe that?" gaze, the glitches on the electronic map actually moved and combined together, forming a person's avatar. It was Keipei?
"Ah, found you, is that Brother Hayato?" On the tablet, Keipei made movements of looking left and right, seemingly observing his surroundings through the scanning camera equipped on the electronic map. He quickly found Hayato next to Marik, who was holding the map, and waved at him, saying with a smile.
Hayato also greeted him, "Long time no see, Naruto (Nickname)."
"Who's Naruto (Nickname)! I'm Keipei, Keipei, Keipei!" Keipei's face instantly turned sour. He excitedly corrected Hayato, repeating his name three times, before saying helplessly, "This electronic map suddenly went missing before. As expected, it was in your hand, Brother Hayato. Fortunately, I installed a backdoor program on it so I could locate it anytime."
"That's naughty, Keipei. How can you do something like that at your age? Hacking into other people's equipment is wrong," Hayato said righteously, looking at Keipei on the electronic map.
Keipei glanced at Hayato and retorted, "Brother Hayato, you're not qualified to say something like that, are you? No, speaking of which, wasn't this map originally mine?"
"Anyway, let's not talk about that. Brother Hayato, I have something important to find you for."
Seeing Keipei's somewhat serious expression, Hayato also became serious and said, "Could it be that Kaiba is locked up in some Virtual World again?"
"No way, Brother Hayato, why would you think of that way?" Keipei tilted his head and said strangely.
"Look, during The Big Five incident, Kaiba was locked up once. During Battle City, he was locked up by Noah once. Plus, he was involved with the Tablet of Lost Memories not long ago. Counting it up, hasn't he been locked up in the Virtual World a total of three times?" Hayato counted on his fingers. "Especially that time with The Big Five, Keipei, you said the same thing when you came to us to rescue him."
"Although it is indeed something related to Brother, it's not like that," Keipei shook his head and denied. "I don't quite understand what 'Memory World' is, but a few days ago, Brother suddenly had some change, as if he suddenly grew up."
"He used to often look down on other Duel Monsters cards and only acknowledge the power of **Blue-Eyes White Dragon**. But suddenly, he told me that the **Thunder Dragon** Deck I had just collected was also quite good. It was as surprising as chocolate suddenly disappearing from the refrigerator."
Although it sounded a bit strange for Kaiba's younger brother, Keipei, to say that Kaiba had grown up, sometimes the older Kaiba was indeed less composed than the younger Keipei. For example, Kaiba would often act impulsively on a whim, while Keipei could basically maintain composure and think.
The best example is Duel Monsters. As soon as dueling is mentioned, Kaiba immediately gets the urge to duel, but Keipei doesn't have such a strong urge, and it's even less possible for him to squander money just to duel.
"A few days ago was probably after returning from the Memory World. Also, if you're talking about the chocolate you put in the Laboratory refrigerator, I think I ate it," Hayato said cheekily, earning a roll of the eyes from Keipei.
"Don't interrupt me when I'm talking about the key point!" Returning to the main topic, Keipei talked about his experience over the past two days. "Before, after Brother failed to achieve the expected result in an experiment, he suddenly decided to go to Egypt, saying he wanted to come and find you, Brother Hayato, and Yugi and the others. He didn't tell me what he was going to do. You also know he's always been like this, always acting on impulse, I've gotten somewhat used to it."
"But after coming to Egypt with me in that jet plane whose design I still cannot approve of, he suddenly disappeared on the Street!"
"Suddenly disappeared? Inspiration suddenly came to Me!" Pegasus, hearing this, suddenly became excited. "Is there more, Mokuba Boy? Kaiba-boy's matters have given Me quite a bit of card design inspiration Uh—!"
Pegasus, who had leaned forward to the front row, had his mouth covered by Hayato and was pushed back, telling Joey Wheeler and Tristan to keep an eye on this guy who acts recklessly when he gets inspiration. He said to Keipei on the electronic map, "Suddenly disappearing and all that, Keipei, you must have tried to contact Kaiba but couldn't, right?"
Seeing Keipei nod, Hayato continued, "I understand. Then your goal in hacking into this electronic map must be to ask us for help, right? Send the map over, and we'll set off to find you right away."
"Okay, I've already sent the data over, Brother Hayato. I'll wait for you at the place where Brother disappeared." Seeing that Hayato understood the purpose of his contact without needing detailed explanation, Keipei quickly pressed something on the other end. Keipei's avatar on the electronic map disappeared and it returned to normal, displaying the map of the area around Hayato's party. At the same time, the destination had been automatically entered, and a red line guided them from their current location to a certain spot.
Seeing that Keipei's call seemed to be over, Hayato also smiled and said, looking back, "There's absolutely no need to worry about Kaiba's safety, but what if we can catch him looking embarrassed? Everyone, are you ready?"
"We must leave immediately and go mock Kaiba at the first instant!"
Marik grumbled, "Why are you so active in this kind of situation, Brother-in-law?"
Please give recommendation tickets~
(End of Chapter)
