episode_0001

A thick, dense forest.

‘……What on earth is this situation?’

I was standing, holding a card.

The card I held in my hand wasn’t something like a credit card or a transportation card.

A card with the monster’s name and picture, its effects and description, and stats like attack power written on it.

What’s commonly called a TCG game card, or colloquially, a ‘ddakji’.

Naturally, it’s not something you’d generally be holding in a forest. The most natural place to be holding this would be on a desk during school break or at a TCG store’s table.

The reason I was holding a card in a place like this was simple.

Because the ‘thing’ standing in front of me was holding a card.

“Kikikikikick……. Kukeke.”

It had the height of a child, but it wasn’t a child.

A being I had never seen ‘in reality’ but had seen a lot of ‘here and there’.

It was a goblin.

……I was ‘dueling’ with a goblin holding a card.

“A d-duel? Are you going to protect me……?”

With my back to the girl with fluffy, voluminous brown hair, who was on the verge of being violated after losing the duel to that goblin.

*

I’m not particularly lucky.

I pride myself on being quite lucky when dueling, but other than that, I’m generally unlucky.

Today was the same.

On my way to participate in a tournament at my usual TCG store for the weekend, unfortunately, a kid ran out in front of a truck right before my eyes.

Since I saw something like that, I had no choice but to pull the kid back – and just like that, I collided with the truck instead of the kid, scattering the cards of the deck I had adjusted all night and flying away.

That’s how I died, thinking it was fortunate that the cards that scattered didn’t get dirty with blood thanks to the triple protectors.

“Huh?”

When I, who had died, opened my eyes again, it was a forest.

My clothes were exactly as they were right before I died. I wasn’t covered in blood. There was no pain.

‘Afterlife? Or……. Isekai reincarnation?’

Thinking that, I put my hand in my pocket and realized a shocking truth.

“My deck is gone.”

It was a high-rarity deck meticulously built for practical use, full of versatile cards. I even replaced all the protectors with expensive and pretty ones yesterday.

“Haaah.”

More precious than my life…… well, maybe not, but losing the deck I cared about so much made me sigh. Wasn’t losing just my life enough? This is too much. By the way, my phone and wallet were also gone.

‘What do I do now?’

Since I couldn’t just stay put like this, I walked forward without a plan.

‘Is this really another world?’

The trees and grass forming the dense forest were very unfamiliar, at least in a form I had never seen in Korea.

How far did I walk like that?

“Eugh. No……. I don’t want to…….”

From beyond the bushes, I found a girl with fluffy, voluminous brown hair, trembling and whimpering.

In front of the girl, who was sitting slumped over in clothes decorated with flowing frills and wearing a black cloak, stood a goblin holding a massive axe, raising it high as if to bring it down any moment.

“Stop it!!”

I shouted and jumped in. And – the axe went through me.

“Kyaak?!”

“Uwaaaah!! ……Huh?”

Even though I jumped in to block, I screamed in fear, but my body was fine.

The axe passed through my body as if it were a hologram, and soon disappeared, turning into particles of light.

And beyond that,

“Kukeke……. Pathetic. My victory.”

There was the goblin holding a card.

“A go-goblin……?”

“Yeah. What are you?”

The goblin admitted it was a goblin and asked back while putting the card it was holding into its dirty brown underwear.

“I’m just passing through for now, but hey, don’t do anything bad to that girl!”

“Why? I won the duel.”

The goblin frowned and replied to my completely uncool shout.

Come to think of it, this goblin was holding a card.

‘Wait a minute. Could what I just saw have been……?’

“Then you too.”

The goblin put its hand inside its tattered leather underwear,

“I’ll finish you off with a duel. Kekekeck……!!”

Chack chack chack chack.

It took out a ‘deck’ and began to shuffle.

The edges were tattered and peeled, and it was thin, looking like maybe 20 cards, but it was definitely a deck. I knew it instinctively.

“A d-duel? Are you going to protect me……?”

I turned around and the girl with fluffy brown hair asked while still slumped on the ground.

“I’d like to……”

I looked at the goblin shuffling the deck and searched my pockets again.

My deck still wasn’t in my pocket.

“My deck is gone.”

“Huh?!”

“Could you lend me one?”

The girl was surprised and looked back and forth between me and my hand.

“It’s the deck I j-just lost with……. Here!!”

And as if she had made up her mind, she took out her deck and offered it to me.

‘Huh?’

The girl’s deck was extremely thick. It looked like at least 60 cards. Ominous.

“……Let me check it.”

Chararararararak!!

‘Wh- what?!’

The moment I tried to check the cards in the deck, the deck spontaneously and magnificently spread out before my eyes in a 6*10 arrangement. I calmed my startled heart and calmly checked the cards.

The cards spread out looked somehow very familiar, and the writing on them was something I’d never seen before, but for some reason, I could read it all.

‘Is it because I’ve used English and Japanese version cards? Even though it’s neither English nor Japanese.’

While calmly examining the deck, I realized one important fact.

This deck is completely scattered. There are no cards that seem to link with each other at all.

It’s a bit harsh to say, but it looks exactly like something gathered randomly from the card trash bin at a store. And there are 60 of them.

‘……This is a bit much.’

Compared to that, the goblin’s deck is 20 cards.

A deck isn’t strong just because it’s thick. Usually, the thinner it is, the stronger it is. There’s a reason why everyone matches the minimum deck size.

“Kyaaaaak!! How long are you going to make me wait!! The duel begins!!”

“Wait a minute……. Uwaat?!”

Did I touch something wrong? The deck became one and shuffled itself – then transformed into a small hole in the air.

‘H- has it started?!’

I knew instinctively that it was a hole for drawing cards.

I took a deep breath, put my hand in and pulled it out, and 5 cards came with it. My heart started pounding.

“……Hey. Could you explain the rules a bit? I don’t really know them.”

I looked at the cards I drew, my hand, and asked the girl.

“Eh. You don’t know the rules?! Th- then why……”

“It’s okay. I’m confident I can understand. Please explain it simply.”

“Ah, okay……. Uh, first off, life points are 6000……”

The girl, though confused, haltingly explained the rules of the duel I was about to have.

First, monsters have levels 1, 2, and 3 respectively.

Level 1 is a normal summon.

Level 2 is summoned by sacrificing one card summoned to the field.

Level 3 can be summoned by sacrificing two cards summoned to the field.

‘This is……. quite familiar.’

Besides that, other rules like only being able to summon once per turn, excluding ‘special summons’, sounded very familiar when I heard them.

“……What’s the name of this duel? Is this the basic duel in this world?”

“Th- that’s not it. The duel happening now is…… [Legacy]. It’s a primitive duel that monsters do.”

“Okay. Got it.”

I took a deep breath and looked at my hand again.

They are all level 2 or 3 monsters. Like this, I can’t do anything.

“……Is there no mulligan?”

“Huh?”

“Never mind. It’s fine if you don’t know. This deck, what’s the level ratio of monsters?”

“Ratio……?”

My neck tingled slightly with an ominous premonition.

“……I’ll rephrase the question. How many level 1 monsters are there?”

“Well, that is……. Level 1 is the weakest, so there are about 10 cards.”

Not only is it 60 cards thick, but there are only 10 low-level monsters.

It was a deck that deserved to be humiliated by a goblin.

“B- but there are equally strong level 2 and 3 monsters……”

“Kyaaaaak!! Summon!!”

As if it couldn’t wait any longer, the goblin raised a card high and slammed it onto the ground.

“Kieeeeeek!!”

“Kyaaaaaaak!!”

The summoned monster and the girl screamed simultaneously, surprising me so much I almost dropped my cards.

The monster the goblin summoned was the same goblin I had just seen, the one holding a massive axe much taller than itself.

LV.1 [Berserker Goblin] – Attack 2500 Defense 0

Attack Power 2500.

In this duel where life points are 6000, this is a considerably high stat, leading to defeat if three attacks are allowed.

“It, it appeared again……!! I, I was defeated by that monster!! How can a level 1 monster have 2500 attack power, and that on the first turn again……!!”

‘Of course, it would draw it and more.’

The goblin’s deck is 20 cards. If the rule is drawing 5 cards on the first turn, it would be strange not to draw it.

“Still, the first player can’t attack, right?”

“Ah, yes. Th- that’s right. ……Do you know the rules?”

“A little.”

I thought this just before, but this duel strongly resembles [Dual Fantasia], one of the major TCGs. As the name [Legacy] suggests, the rules seem a bit outdated, though.

“How many copies of the same card can you put in?”

I asked, thinking I needed to know how many more of those would appear.

“Up to 3, 3 copies.”

“……Just in case, how many copies of the same card are in this deck?”

And feeling ominous, I asked again.

“They’re all different cards.”

“……”

60-card Highlander.

The girl’s deck was less of a deck and more like a bundle of paper.

“Kikikikikick……. Turn end.”

My turn came. I looked at the hole where the deck was.

There are 5 cards in my hand.

If I can’t draw one of the 10 level 1 cards out of the remaining 55, I’ll have to end my turn without doing anything.

The probability of drawing one is less than 20%. It wouldn’t be strange not to draw one, and usually, you wouldn’t.

“……What happens if I lose the duel?”

“W- won’t I be violated……?”

“……”

Faced with the risk of being violated by a goblin with an 80% probability as soon as I died and came to this world, I steeled my resolve and reached for the hole.

“Draw!”