Wanna Duel? I've Got the Pharaoh's Deck! [12]

“What happened? Yuuhi-kun, are you okay over there?”

Yuuhi had shouted so loudly that it startled Hoshino Mai, who was still focused on cooking in the kitchen.

“No! It’s nothing! Miss Hoshino, I just got spooked by a creepy image online!”

He immediately brushed it off with a half-hearted excuse.

“Really? I didn’t expect you to be afraid of ghosts.”

“Yeah… I’ve never liked horror movies.”

Seeing that Mai didn’t seem suspicious and had ducked back into the kitchen, Yuuhi let out a quiet breath of relief. But his gaze remained locked on the screen, eyes glued to the biography page of Kaiba Corporation’s founder.

The shock and disbelief in his expression had yet to fade.

If it had been the anime’s Seto Kaiba listed there, Yuuhi wouldn’t have reacted so strongly—he’d already mentally prepared himself for that.

But it wasn’t.

The man on this page… Yuuhi knew him. Not from the anime, but from real life.

“Kaiba… Raito…”

This founder looked exactly like his missing older brother.

...

“You mean Kaiba Raito, the founder of Kaiba Corporation?”

“Yes. Do you know him, Miss Hoshino?”

“Of course I do. He’s a required subject in every school’s history curriculum.”

It was a little past 8 p.m., and they were still in the living room.

The clutter on the coffee table had been cleared away, turning it into a makeshift dinner table. Two plates of side dishes sat alongside a pot of steaming rice porridge. Yuuhi and Mai sat across from each other, casually chatting over their meal.

Hearing Yuuhi mention such an unexpected name, Mai gave him a curious look, then bit her chopsticks in thought before answering, “In the history of modern Dueling, Kaiba Raito was without a doubt a pivotal figure. Without his contributions, we wouldn’t have the world we live in today.”

“I saw that online, too.”

What Mai described matched what Yuuhi had found on the web.

“Modern Dueling history” referred to the era starting around 120 years ago.

Back then, there were no Duel Disks, no Duel Alliance. The world was fractured—“Duelists” were more like “spirit users,” psychic individuals who fought using Duel Spirits through ritualized combat. These skirmishes, exacerbated by a few key events, escalated into a world-scale war.

A war that should have decimated over half the planet… was stopped by one man: Kaiba Raito.

He developed the first generation of Duel Disks and, through Kaiba Corporation, introduced a new power into the conflict. Forming alliances, leveraging diplomacy and technology, he helped deescalate the war before it could reach catastrophic levels. It was nothing short of miraculous.

After that, Kaiba Raito and a group of like-minded individuals established the first Duel Alliance. Over time, this organization became powerful enough to rival nations. And KaibaCorp, as his legacy and symbol, grew into a colossal force.

Even in these fragments of history, you could feel the weight of his legend.

But...

“That’s not what I want to know.”

Yuuhi looked at Mai, his eyes filled with urgency. It was a feeling she could sense even without words.

“Miss Hoshino… do you know anything about his past?”

He’d only had a few minutes to search, and the information online was vague at best—shallow, unclear, riddled with speculation. Rather than rely on dubious rumors, Yuuhi preferred to ask Mai directly.

“Kaiba Raito’s past? I don’t know much either.”

Unfortunately, her answer wasn’t what he was hoping for.

“He was already known as Kaiba Raito the moment he appeared publicly. Before that, there was nothing. No fame, no records. Not even a birthdate. His childhood, his school years—complete blanks. It’s like he just appeared out of thin air. A total mystery.”

“I see…”

Even so, what she’d said revealed something critical.

No childhood records, no early background—if he were a transmigrator, that would make perfect sense. Someone from another world wouldn’t have a past here.

The feeling in Yuuhi’s chest grew stronger.

Onii-san… Could this Kaiba Raito really be you?

“Come to think of it, he’s not the only legendary figure who just appeared out of nowhere.”

Seemingly in the mood to talk, Mai held up a finger and continued enthusiastically, “A hundred and twenty years ago it was Kaiba Raito. Five hundred years ago, there was a Duelist whose ace was ‘Light and Darkness Dragon.’ And a thousand years ago, a user of ‘Witchcrafter’ cards. Their decks were totally different, but all three stories follow the same pattern: they showed up out of nowhere, became the strongest in just a few years, and ended some major global crisis. Total savior energy.”

“…You’re making it sound like the path of the great Dao was erased or something.”

Yuuhi couldn’t help but snark at the myth-like pattern, though it did spark his curiosity. “So what were the names of those other two?”

“No idea. Their eras were even more chaotic than the first Kaiba president’s. Most of the historical records were lost to wars or accidents. All that’s left are vague legends, and the names have been distorted beyond recognition. If you want, I could probably dig up over ten different versions for you.”

“I’ll pass. Maybe later.”

Yuuhi was definitely intrigued—not just by this topic, but by many things in this Duel-centric world. Still, there was something more pressing to figure out first.

“So, okay, I get that no one knows about his past. But why is he listed as missing? Shouldn’t he be officially declared dead by now?”

On Xiaolan Encyclopedia, the biography didn’t even list a death date—just a blank line, with no Duel Era year or anything. That confused Yuuhi deeply.

This wasn’t ancient history—civilization was already quite advanced even a hundred years ago. How could a public figure like him vanish without even a recorded death?

“Because he did go missing.”

On this point, Mai answered without hesitation.

She took a few sips of porridge, swallowed slowly, and then said, “That’s what KaibaCorp and the Duel Alliance have always said. One day, the original president left a letter at home… and then vanished. No one knows where he went. KaibaCorp and the D.A. used every resource available to search the world and still came up empty. In the end, all they could do was label him as missing.”

—Missing, not deceased.

Normally, after this long, people would just assume he’d died. But this was the Duelverse, where anything was possible—even the Duel Alliance didn’t dare make assumptions.

“So there’s still a chance… he’s alive.”

Yuuhi whispered the words under his breath, overwhelmed by the flood of emotion.

Excitement, joy, anxiety—everything tangled together in his chest.

For a moment, his mind returned to the world he’d come from.

Becoming orphans together… losing everything to cruel adults… being thrown into a group home. His brother, the older one, had carried the burden for both of them, holding their lives together—until vanishing a year ago without a trace.

Yuuhi had spent an entire year searching. He’d nearly given up.

And yet here, now, in this world… he’d stumbled upon a miracle.

If I want real answers… I’ll have to go to KaibaCorp directly.

Yuuhi understood that Mai had already told him everything she could. The rest—wasn’t something an outsider could access.

“Then you’d need to meet someone high up. A core member of the Kaiba family, at least—like the current KaibaCorp president. Yuuhi-kun, do you think you’d be able to meet someone like that?”

“Uh… yeah, that’s the problem…”

Yuuhi hadn’t really tried to hide his thoughts, and Mai’s perfectly reasonable question hit him square in the face.

The president of KaibaCorp—a billion-dollar figure who probably made more in a minute than Yuuhi had seen in his entire life. What would someone like that want with a nobody like him?

As he faltered, unsure what to say, Mai suddenly brightened and leaned toward him.

“In that case, I’ve got a great idea! Yuuhi-kun, are you currently enrolled in any school?”

“No.”

“Perfect!”

The moment he answered, Mai’s eyes sparkled with excitement. She leaned in close, just inches from him, and shared the idea she’d just come up with—

“Yuuhi-kun, why don’t you enter the Stardust Cup with us?”

---

This is a fan translation of 打牌吗？ 我王样卡组！by 夏日戏言 All rights to the original work belong to the creator. Please support them by exploring their original work or sharing it with others if you can. Thank you for reading and supporting my efforts to bring this story to a wider audience!