Chapter 158:

Bastion's face went flat, a vein practically visible on his forehead.

If Rowan just took that hand off his chin, the one propping up his obviously drifting attention, he might actually believe this nonsense about paying attention in class.

Still, Bastion swallowed the complaint and got straight to business.

"Rowan, have you noticed? It's weird. A lot of people are skipping class today."

That snapped Rowan back to the present. He glanced around and realized the lecture hall really did look thinner than usual, noticeably empty in places.

And nearly all the missing students were from Obelisk Blue and Ra Yellow.

Meanwhile their own side, all five of them from Slifer Red, Chazz included, had actually shown up.

Even if every single one of them was currently asleep, not one actually listening to the lecture.

As Rowan looked around, Alexis, not far off, had clearly caught the same commotion, and gave him a grave little nod, apparently landing on the same thought he had.

"Sounds like it's very possibly what that thief gang mentioned before. A new Seven Stars Shadow Duelist might already be on this island."

Rowan nodded slowly, working through it.

He was already piecing together what story beat this had to be.

Probably the "muscle lady" among the Seven Stars, the one running an Amazoness Deck, had already shown up somewhere on the island and started snatching people.

"Seven Stars Shadow Duelist...?"

The instant those words hit the air, Jaden and Chazz, both of whom had been sound asleep moments ago, shot upright out of their seats as if on reflex, eyes snapping open, heads whipping side to side as they muttered, "Where? Where is it?!"

At the front of the hall, Nurse Fontaine, mid-lecture, stared blankly at the two boys who'd apparently woken up from the exact same nightmare at the exact same moment.

"Jaden, Chazz. Do either of you have a question?!"

Her expression darkened fast.

Having half the class skip out was one thing. But now she had two students blatantly asleep in front of her, apparently sharing a synchronized nightmare and disrupting the whole class in the process.

Substitute teacher or not, that kind of disrespect was more than enough to set anyone off.

"Uh... !!!"

Jaden and Chazz both realized, almost simultaneously, that something had gone very wrong.

Their faces flushed with embarrassment.

"You two. Each of you will write me a thorough self-reflection, plus a ten-thousand-word essay on Duel Monsters theory, and hand it in."

At the sound of that punishment, both boys' faces went slack with pure despair as they sank back into their seats.

Rowan very nearly lost it laughing.

He liked to think of himself as professionally trained not to laugh easily.

Unless, of course, it was genuinely unavoidable.

Watching the two of them, Rowan privately concluded that with chemistry that flawless, they really ought to debut as a comedy duo in the professional dueling circuit.

Give the old Paradox Brothers a run for their money as reigning champions of Most Ridiculous Duo.

Click.

Right then, the classroom door swung open.

A female teaching assistant in a Ra Yellow uniform hurried in, looking visibly anxious, a backpack clutched in her hands.

She leaned in and whispered something urgently to Nurse Fontaine, explaining the situation.

"This backpack was found near the forest on the south side of Duel Academy, but there was no sign of the student it belongs to anywhere nearby..."

While the Ra Yellow assistant was still relaying the details, Rowan had already sent the round Kuriboh flying over to eavesdrop, and picked up every word without any trouble.

He relayed the information out loud for the rest of them, more or less as a courtesy.

"That backpack apparently belongs to a Ra Yellow student named Kawada. Same dorm as me."

Bastion, glancing over toward the front of the room at the bag now in the teacher's hands, recognized it immediately.

"So does that mean everyone who skipped class today is currently missing, somewhere in that forest on the south side of the island?"

At some point, Alexis, along with her two friends Jasmine and Mindy, had quietly slipped over and taken the empty seats near Rowan while Nurse Fontaine was occupied with the assistant.

Now she voiced the analysis, her expression grave.

"Then let's head over there and see what's going on," Rowan said flatly.

With students actually going missing, and this many people skipping class on top of it, there was no realistic way Nurse Fontaine, big hair and all, was going to keep the lesson going.

She'd be heading straight to report it to the bald and imposing Chancellor Sheppard instead.

Which conveniently left the rest of them with nothing but free time to go take a look for themselves.

And sure enough, that was exactly what happened.

The moment Nurse Fontaine finished processing the news, she cut the lecture short and rushed off to the Chancellor's office.

Seeing their opening, Rowan and the others headed straight for the forest on the south side of the academy to check things out for themselves.

"I've been at Duel Academy a whole year now, and I don't think I've ever actually come out this way before. Man, I'm already sleepy just looking at it," Jasmine said, glancing around with wide-eyed curiosity as she walked alongside Alexis, Mindy right beside her.

"So in a forest this huge, where's this Seven Stars Shadow Duelist even supposed to be hiding?"

Jaden, the walking embodiment of both academic disaster and directional disaster combined into one perfect specimen, was already completely checked out, both hands clutching his own head, thoroughly lost.

"Hey, little buddy. Sensing any bad vibes around here?" Rowan asked, surveying the endless stretch of forest ahead with a faint pang of exasperation, glancing at the round Kuriboh floating beside him.

"Kuri kuri!"

The round Kuriboh immediately bobbed its round, tan, ball-shaped head up and down, drifting out ahead of the group and pointing insistently in one direction with its stubby little arms.