A Dark Game with the Nymphs # 3
Seoul was a big city, to be sure, but finding the nymphs wasn't all that difficult.
That was because crowds of people were already gathered all around them.
When I searched social media, I found people who had posted photos of the area tagged with #Nymph to mark their discovery. I simply followed the trail they left behind.
“What's that? The nymph's doing something!”
“Some kind of card game, I heard.”
“Well, I'll be. Games these days sure have come a long way. The graphics look real as life.”
The Duel Stones tournament was being held across Seoul, and citizens all over the downtown area had become spectators of the duels unfolding in their midst. The nymphs, as always, had the public's full attention.
“It is the first turn…! The cost available for use is 1 cost…! This Oinoi summons the Level 1 card Dog-Squirrel and ends her turn…! Because a monster cannot attack on the turn it is summoned, that is the case…!”
Amid the murmuring crowd, Oinoi was locked in a duel with someone.
The Level 1 monster she'd summoned on her first turn, Dog-Squirrel, bounded onto the field.
━Woof woof…!
Ohsa Group's augmented reality scanners, installed at various points around the city, painted the Dog-Squirrel's form vividly onto the road itself.
The citizens were delighted by its appearance.
“Hey, that's an actual Dog-Squirrel!”
“That's a rare card, isn't it…!”
Dog-Squirrel was only a Level 1, 1-cost card, but it was a remarkably fine rare all the same. Its effect increased the attack power of every card with Squirrel in its name by 500 each turn.
In other words—
The longer Dog-Squirrel stayed alive on the field, the more powerful Oinoi's Squirrel Deck would become.
Playing it on the very first turn meant her odds of victory had risen dramatically.
And yet the man facing her looked completely at ease.
“A Squirrel Deck? KWAHAHA! You think a pack of tiny, adorable squirrels can beat me, Atlas, executive of the Tomb Raiders…?! Squirrels with 300 attack…?! KWAHAHAHAHA…!”
The man had a face painted like a clown's.
But he stood nearly two meters tall and weighed well over a hundred kilograms, easily. There was something surreal about the sight of a hulking, muscle-bound man turning a card smaller than his own palm this way and that, squinting at it from every angle.
An awakener, most likely. C-Rank, maybe?
Soon, someone in the crowd shouted.
“Atlas…?! Atlas the card hunter who runs the Giant Deck…?! That nymph's in danger! Atlas is a terrifying gamer…! He steals rare cards from the gamers he defeats…!”
“And his Giant Deck is strong too…!”
Apparently he was quite famous among Duel Stones players. Noticing that people were talking about him, the man who'd introduced himself as Atlas burst out laughing with a booming, PAHAHA—!
“I have trained, and trained again, for the great event of today…! I shall show you…! The might of these muscles, forged through bone-grinding discipline…! DRAW…!”
PAH—!
A palm as massive as a giant's hand swept a card off the top of his deck. His muscles were apparently the real deal, because the sheer force of the draw was thunderous.
“Good…! I've drawn a fine card…! KWAHAHA! The win is mine…!”
Atlas's first turn.
The cost available to him was 1 coin.
For the record, Duel Stones added 2 coins, then 3, then 4 with each passing turn.
What would Atlas do with his first turn?
“I end my turn…!”
Atlas ended his turn.
He did absolutely nothing.
The score stood at Atlas 5000 life points, Oinoi 5000 life points—a dead even match.
“Then it is now Oinoi's turn…!”
Now came Oinoi's second turn. With 2 cost available, she summoned two 1-cost Death Squirrels onto the field.
Death Squirrel was a Level 1 monster with a base attack of 300, but thanks to the effect of the ultra-rare Dog-Squirrel, its attack had risen by 500 to 800.
“Oinoi attacks with the Dog-Squirrel summoned last turn…! Nibbling madly…!”
━Woof woof…!
Dog-Squirrel's attack was 800 as well.
Atlas took 800 damage, leaving him with 4200 life points.
“UGYAAAAACK…!”
Atlas cried out in visible agony.
The Ohsa Group's Hyper PCs didn't even have sensory synchronization—so why was he wailing like that? Watching him, someone shouted out:
“That man must have trained his dueling muscles so hard that his empathy has grown enormously in compensation…! To think he can immerse himself in a card that deeply…! Truly staggering concentration…!”
Immersion through concentration.
I'd heard before that highly skilled awakeners sometimes showed symptoms like that. Just look at how your mouth waters when you stare at a lemon. Supposedly, through special training methods, highly refined awakeners could trigger physical reactions reflexively from merely gazing at something.
Sure enough, real scratches had appeared on Atlas's body, as if a genuine squirrel had mauled him.
Drip, drip—.
Blood trickled down from his forehead.
“This brat, wounding me…! Not bad…!”
While Atlas was chuckling KHEH-KHEH—, Oinoi, having spent her full cost and finished her attack, ended her turn.
It was Atlas's move now. He would draw one card and have 2 cost to spend on turn 2.
But before he drew, Atlas spoke.
“Hey, brat. I have a proposal for you. Starting now, let us begin the Dark Game! The winner shall claim a portion of the loser's soul and one rare card…!!!”
The Dark Game.
At those words, I remembered the secret society Lee Jina had told me about. She'd said there was an illegal organization of A-Rank threat level participating in this tournament—did that mean Tomb Raiders, the group this Atlas belonged to?
Shhk—.
Atlas drew a small ornament shaped like a pyramid from inside his coat.
It was ivory-colored, and I recognized at a glance that it was an item in the form of a Madogu—the magical artifacts found in dimensional rifts.
Somehow it radiated an ominous aura, and before I had a chance to warn anyone, Oinoi had already noticed it herself.
“Oinoi senses a nymph-phobic aura…! This Oinoi, as the Chief Nymph, cannot tolerate nymph-phobic objects being carried about…! Therefore, Oinoi accepts your demand…!”
Her bearing was utterly confident.
She clearly had not a shred of doubt that she could defeat Atlas, the wielder of the dreaded Giant Deck.
Then Atlas laughed, KWAHAH—!
“Excellent…! From this moment, this place becomes a stadium of darkness, bound by the contract of the Night Pyramid…! KWAHAHAHA…!”
With his laughter, thick black mist began billowing out of the pyramid.
The fog settled densely in every direction, and Keongkeongi, perched on my shoulder, bristled as though tense.
━Grrr…!
It was a tense situation by any measure. The bystanders, meanwhile, were marveling, “Wow, games these days even support 4D effects.”
Should I be evacuating these people?
“DRAW…!”
Just then, Atlas flexed his great muscles taut and drew a card. He bellowed, “I have drawn a most excellent card…!”—and once again ended his turn without doing a single thing.
What on earth was going on?
Why would he end two straight turns doing nothing at all?
What was he scheming?
“Oinoi, be careful! There's definitely something up his sleeve!”
I was on edge.
But Oinoi sailed into turn 3 without a care, and 3 whole cost was available to her.
“Oinoi will summon three 1-cost Dog-Eared Squirrels…! Dog-Eared Squirrel possesses the Ambush effect, meaning it can attack the very turn it is summoned…!”
Dog-Eared Squirrel's base attack was 300, but thanks to Dog-Squirrel having survived two turns on the field, its attack rose by 500 apiece to 1300.
That gave Oinoi's field one 1300-attack Dog-Squirrel, two Death Squirrels also at 1300, and three Dog-Eared Squirrels at 1300 each—for a total combined attack of 8400.
“All squirrels, beat the opponent up, that is the order…!”
━Woof woof…!
8400 points of squirrels hurled themselves at Atlas, executive of the secret society Tomb Raiders!
Atlas spat blood under their assault, exactly as if he were being beaten for real. His extraordinary immersion must have conjured phantom pain across his whole body.
“UGYAAAAAAAAACK…!!!!!!”
LP 0.
Atlas's life points hit zero.
Victory: Oinoi.
Oinoi leapt straight at the fallen Atlas.
“Nymph Secret Technique: Random Beating…!”
Do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do—.
“GUAAAAACK…!”
Atlas suffered terribly.
Clutching his face like a man whose very soul was crumbling, he finally flopped flat onto the ground.
Sssssss—.
It was just then that the mist blanketing the surroundings lifted. As the palm-sized pyramid that had drawn the fog back in hummed and glowed, I looked down at the hand Atlas had dropped onto the pavement.
What on earth had kept him doing nothing for two whole turns? What had he been scheming?
ATK/DEF 2000 / 2000
ATK/DEF 2000 / 2000
ATK/DEF 3000 / 2500
“Wait a second—now that I look at it, this guy was holding nothing but a fistful of high-cost cards! No wonder he just kept ending his turns doing nothing in the early game…!”
It was common knowledge that high-cost cards were powerful. But those cards could only be summoned late, after several turns had passed and the cost had grown to match. To play a Level 7 card, you needed at least 7 turns.
In other words, Atlas's Giant Deck was built entirely around the late game—and against Oinoi's early-game field-control Squirrel Deck, it was a catastrophically bad matchup.
Oinoi snatched the rare card Giant Squirrel from Atlas's deck, held it high, and shouted.
“This Oinoi has won…! It is certain that no other nymphs could ever have defeated a giant while holding a squirrel…! Oinoi shall now perform the nymph dance of joy…!”
Shhk—.
Hands planted on her hips, Oinoi spun herself around and around in a circle.
Just in case, I reported Atlas to the police.
“What? Giant—Atlas was defeated? Wasn't he a lock to at least make the main bracket? Who on earth did he lose to?”
Inside a darkened room, figures draped in black robes gathered around a table, muttering.
An unexpected defeat. It was the moment their plan had hit a snag.
Just as everyone fell silent, one woman let out a long, drawn-out sniff of disdain—Hmmmm——her beautiful voice sliding out from beneath her hood as if deliberately on display.
“Well, he simply got careless and lost. Atlas trusts those muscles too much and lets his guard down all the time. Now it's my turn. The Ankh of this generation, at your service.”
Jingle—.
Hanging from her neck on a cord was something that resembled a cross.
But anyone with a sharp eye would notice it wasn't a cross at all—it was an ankh, the religious symbol of ancient Egypt.
Shhk—.
The woman, Ankh, rose from her seat. She gazed at the broad stone slab the robed figures were using in place of a table.
It was a slab engraved with countless stars.
One of the Primordial Stone Tablets—the artifacts that had inspired the Duel Stones cards themselves.
Deep in the underground depths of the Valley of the Kings, unearthed from an ancient, forbidden pyramid no soul had ever laid eyes upon—a mythical-grade relic.
The greatest prize of the grave robbers, the Tomb Raiders!
At the sight of it, Ankh's body tingled as if struck by lightning.
“When the fighting spirit of warriors seethes and a worthy soul is offered in sacrifice, our god shall rise again, granting eternal life and boundless power—Serpent's Key, point the way to the sacrifice that is required.”
Ankh chanted the incantation.
Clatter—.
The key-laden pendant around her neck swung toward someone on a wall of closed-circuit monitors.
“This man… Ha Ildo. Hohoho… How entertaining. What kind of card will you become, I wonder?”
The woman extended her long, serpentine tongue and licked the face of the man on the monitor.
She looked like a hunter eyeing her prey.