Chapter 174

"Since you already used a trap yourself to lower my monster's attack power, protecting your Amazoness Paladin from being destroyed by Bloom Diva the Melodious Choir's attack, well, that actually saves me some trouble."

Before Tania could even get out whatever smug remark she'd been building toward, she saw Rowan nodding along with a distinctly satisfied smile on his face.

"Nani?" That expression alone was enough to send a flicker of alarm across Tania's face.

A thought struck her.

Could it be that her Amazoness Paladin surviving unscathed had actually been exactly what Rowan wanted all along?!

"Does Rowan have something else planned?" Syrus asked, watching from the sidelines, unable to hide his curiosity.

The rest of the group's interest was piqued as well, all eyes drifting toward Rowan's side of the field.

Even though Rowan's Amazoness Swords Woman, with its own thoroughly nasty effect, had yet to attack this turn, Tania's face-down Amazoness Paladin sat there with a mere 300 DEF.

By all logic, there shouldn't be any way for him to pull off his little freeloading trick this time.

"Since I already said I'd teach you how to really use the true power, ahem, freeloading, of the Amazon tribe, of course I've got a plan."

Rowan waved a hand and gave the command outright.

"Amazoness Swords Woman, attack Amazoness Paladin! Sword of the Freeloader!"

"Hraaah!!"

The tall, muscular, violet-haired Amazon swordswoman on his field let out a low battle cry and raised her curved blade, charging at the crouched figure of the blonde Amazon warrior draped in tattered white cloth.

"Sword of the... freeloader?!" Tania's face went dark the instant she heard it.

She very nearly charged across the field to settle this with her fists right then and there.

This guy actually had the nerve to slap made-up move names on her own tribe's monsters!

[Ding. Tania's Emotion Points +800!]

Still, even so, the worst that attack could do was destroy her Amazoness Paladin, that was it.

Tania kept her eyes locked on Rowan's every move, thinking it through.

Which meant her last set card, the Continuous Trap Amazoness Willpower, would still have a use next turn.

She could Special Summon a monster from her Graveyard and use it to take down his Amazoness Swords Woman.

"This is the moment. Trap Card, open! Unified Front!"

Just as Tania was working through that plan, she suddenly saw the smile on Rowan's face grow even brighter and sunnier than before.

He waved a hand toward the last set card on his own field.

A fiery red Trap Card, its artwork showing two monsters standing together against a towering enemy, flipped up at once.

"That's... Unified Front?!" Jaden, Chazz, and Professor Crowler all wore matching looks of confusion at the sight of it.

Wasn't that the Trap Card Duel Academy students loved to use whenever their monster got attacked, suddenly boosting its attack and defense to catch the opponent completely off guard?

Even Syrus and Chumley, dueling washouts that they were, along with Alexis, who barely dueled at all, and her two close friends Jasmine and Mindy, all wore the exact same look of dawning recognition.

And then all of them, at once, arrived at the same strange, dawning suspicion.

If Rowan was activating this now, could he possibly be planning to use it to boost the DEF of Tania's Amazoness Paladin instead?!

And very quickly, that suspicion turned into reality right in front of them.

"This card's effect: discard one monster from my hand, then target one face-up monster on the field. Until the end of the turn, that monster's ATK and DEF become identical to the values of the monster I discarded!"

Rowan's smile spread across his face like a gentle spring breeze as he revealed the card from his hand, one that made Tania, his opponent across the field, along with Alexis and Chazz watching from the sidelines, all go wide-eyed at once.

"The monster I'm choosing to discard from my hand is, of course, this one. Malefic Truth Dragon!"

[Malefic Truth Dragon] [Level: 12] [Attribute: DARK] [ATK: 5000] [DEF: 5000]

"Five thousand defense?!" Chazz, Jaden, and Professor Crowler all nearly popped their eyes clean out of their sockets.

And across the field, Tania's expression froze solid, gone almost numb with shock.

She stared at Rowan with a face like thunder, one single, unspoken curse burning a hole through her, desperate to get out.

She really wanted to say it to his face.

You call ME the one who's cursed?!

There's no freeloading to be had here, and you still had to go and call it that anyway!

"RAAAH!!"

As Rowan sent Malefic Truth Dragon from his hand to the Graveyard, the Trap Card Unified Front on his field burst open, and a hulking, sandy-gold phantom silhouette of the dragon shot out from within.

It streaked across the field in an instant, settling over the crouched, defensively postured figure of the blonde Amazon warrior in tattered white.

The Amazoness Paladin's defense power ticked steadily upward, climbing all the way to match it at 5000.

"KA-CHNK!!"

The next instant, the tall, muscular, violet-haired Amazon swordswoman, following Rowan's command, had barely closed the distance and swung her curved blade down.

Only to have it caught, effortlessly, by the Amazoness Paladin's own sword.

Worse, the sheer power behind that massively boosted defense snapped the curved blade of the Amazoness Swords Woman clean in half with a sharp crack.

The broken, still-gleaming half of the blade spun off, tumbling up into the air.

"Amazoness Swords Woman's special effect: my opponent takes all battle damage from her fights instead. That four-thousand-point difference in damage? Go ahead and take it for me, would you." Rowan raised two fingers, smiling as he made a little flying gesture with his hand.

As his words fell, that broken half-blade spinning through the air suddenly moved as if guided by some unseen hand, spiraling with pinpoint precision straight toward Tania, standing at the back of the field on the other side.