Chapter 133: The Mushroom-Head Professor Won’t Stop Adding Salt to the Wound

"She actually gave up that easily..."

The corner of Rowan's mouth twitched, more than a little tempted to complain, as he watched Camula, now fully sealed inside the dark card in his hand.

It stung a bit, honestly. He hadn't even finished farming all the Emotion Points he wanted out of her.

Such a perfectly fat sheep, and she'd gone and run off before he could finish shearing her properly.

Rowan felt genuinely sorry about it.

"Rowan, this castle is about to collapse, we need to get out of here as fast as we can!"

Just then, seeing the castle shaking violently as it began to crumble, Alexis called up urgently to Rowan on the second-floor platform.

"Dueling this Camula really does get you worse treatment than dueling Alexis's own brother."

Seeing the situation, Rowan couldn't help but grumble a little himself.

At least Atticus, for all his faults, hadn't just abandoned him and run, and had still made sure he got sent out of the Shadow Duel's ritual space safely.

This one, though, seemed set on making a run for it entirely on her own.

With that, before Herald of Perfection on the field before him could fully vanish, Rowan quickly signaled to the rainbow-winged, four-armed, two-legged, spherical angel monster to carry him down off the platform.

Along with Alexis and the others, they flew swiftly out of the sinister castle before it disappeared, crossing over the lake's surface, over the steadily fading red carpet, and landing safely back on the shore.

"Bzzzz!"

Almost at the same instant, Herald of Perfection's figure, along with the massive sinister castle in the fog over the lake and the red carpet stretched across the water, all faded away entirely, dissolving into nothing.

At the same time, the dolls that Professor Crowler, Jaden, and Kaiser Zane Truesdale had become, now that Camula had been thoroughly defeated, reverted in an instant amid a swirl of dark violet power, restoring all three of them back to their original selves.

By then, the sky outside had long since shifted from the daylight it had been when they first entered, to full night.

"It really does feel like waking up from some kind of nightmare, doesn't it. Nothing about it feels quite real."

Alexis said with a sigh, looking out over the lake where the thick fog and the vampire castle had both vanished completely.

"That wasn't any dream. It was something that genuinely happened, start to finish."

Rowan said, holding up the dark card in his hand to show her, before tucking it back into his pocket for the time being, planning to figure out what to do with the card sealing Camula away once they were back.

"I really do owe you for this one, Rowan. Thank you for defeating that vampire, Camula, and getting us all out of there."

Kaiser Zane Truesdale said solemnly, still looking rather weak after being restored from his doll form.

Jaden and Professor Crowler were both in more or less the same state.

Although all three of them had been freed from their sealed doll forms, they'd taken some serious injuries earlier during their Shadow Duels with Camula, struck by her vampire monsters, and they still bore the effects of it now, leaving them looking noticeably weak.

At the moment, they were being held up and supported by Atticus and Chumley, both now conscious again, along with Bastion and Chazz standing nearby.

"Yeah, this one was all thanks to Rowan's new deck taking down Camula!"

Jaden nodded in agreement with Kaiser Zane Truesdale, pumping his fist and grinning as he thanked Rowan, before immediately wincing and sucking in a sharp breath as the movement pulled at his own injuries.

Once he'd recovered, he added, "Still, losing to someone who only won by cheating like that is honestly pretty frustrating!"

"That's right, exactly that!" the golden mushroom-head professor nodded along vigorously in agreement.

That vampire Camula had only won purely through cheating tactics.

Otherwise, there was no way he, Crowler, would ever have lost to her.

"Hey now, Professor Crowler, getting beaten by someone who cheated doesn't really seem like it applies to you, does it?"

Chazz said, unable to resist, from where he was helping support Crowler on one side.

The remark landed square in the mushroom-head professor's chest like a dagger.

"You're the only one of us who actually got beaten fair and square, without any cheating involved, Professor Crowler."

Bastion added from the other side, twisting the knife a little further.

"..." Professor Crowler's face turned the color of pork liver, wanting desperately to argue back, but with absolutely nothing to say in his own defense.

Camula genuinely hadn't used all that many cheating tactics against him specifically.

If anything, the closest thing to it might have been sending that vampire bat out to spy on his deck beforehand, and even that could barely count as cheating, since gathering intel on an opponent wasn't exactly against the rules either way.

"No need to thank me or anything. Given the state you three are in, though, we should probably get you to the infirmary as soon as possible. We might still catch Nurse Fontaine before she heads off for the night."

Rowan waved off Zane and Jaden's thanks, conveniently steering the conversation away from Professor Crowler, who by then had nothing left to say.

Looking at how weak all three of them looked, he genuinely worried they might not be able to hold out much longer.

"Jasmine, Mindy, and I will help get in touch with Nurse Fontaine." Alexis said at once, seeing the situation.

Nurse Fontaine happened to be the supervising teacher of the Obelisk Blue girls' dormitory, living in the same building as they did, so tracking her down wouldn't be difficult at all.

"Well, if there's nothing else you all need from me, I'll head back and get some rest."

With the situation resolved, Rowan gave the group a casual wave before heading off, his little round Kuriboh buddy materializing beside him, along with his three Ojama Spirits, as he made his way back to his own luxurious little room in the Slifer Red dorm.

For once, the duel had wrapped up right around normal bedtime, rather than dragging on all night the way things usually seemed to and eating into his sleep.

Naturally, Rowan intended to make the most of it and get some proper rest.

Once he got back to his room, he took a quick bath before heading up to his second-floor bedroom for the night.

Counting it up properly, this was really only the second night he'd actually gotten to sleep in his own luxurious little room.

Even the bedding he'd set up in the tatami guest room next door, prepared for Alexis two days ago, was still sitting there completely untouched.

That was thanks to Atticus Rhodes showing up that very night to challenge him to a Shadow Duel.

Alexis hadn't even gotten the chance to go to sleep that evening before the whole chain of events had kicked off.

Because of it, Rowan had ended up spending the following day recovering in the infirmary instead.