Chapter 177

The next morning, inside the infirmary.

Since Duel Academy had no classes scheduled that morning, Rowan had gone out earlier with Alexis, stopping by Ms. Dorothy's little snack stand on campus to pick up a Golden Eggwich and a glass-noodle bun for breakfast.

Then the two of them made their way over to the infirmary.

Just as they'd agreed with Alexis the night before, it was time for a little "rehabilitation duel" to help jog some of Atticus's memory back.

"I've heard the general gist of it. This idea of yours might actually work, Rowan."

Nurse Fontaine, with her characteristically voluminous hair, mulled it over briefly and nodded her approval.

Then she turned to Atticus, who was already awake, and asked him directly.

"You're willing to give it a try too, aren't you, Atticus?"

"Big brother."

Alexis turned to her brother as well, her expression serious, silently willing him to agree.

"Understood. If it's for the sake of getting some memories back, I've got no objections." Atticus nodded at once.

He turned to Rowan. "I'll be counting on you, then. You're the one who beat the darkness and saved me, aren't you, kid."

He genuinely had no memory of anything else that had happened. But Rowan was the one exception.

The moment Atticus laid eyes on him, he felt something stir faintly, deep down in his soul, a strange sense of familiarity.

It was almost as if his own body were trying to warn him: whatever you do, never duel this man.

But if anything, that only made Atticus more certain that dueling Rowan really might help bring some of his memory back.

Even if it was only the smallest fragment.

What he had absolutely no idea of was that what lay ahead of him was, in fact, hell itself.

"Since this is meant to be a rehabilitation duel with you, sir, how about I start things off light with this new deck of mine as an appetizer?"

Seeing Atticus nod, Rowan broke into a wide grin and pulled out the other cut-rate ghoulish deck he'd picked up the day before, along with everything else, during his duel with Tania. His Quick-Draw Deck.

He'd decided he might as well use his future brother-in-law as a test subject for this deck's demoralizing potential first.

Might as well see how much extra Emotion Points he could squeeze out of it while he was at it.

Rowan, for the record, had no problem burning a little extra time running through every single deck in his collection one by one.

"Well, if what you actually need for the memory stimulus is just the general feeling of dueling you, I guess it shouldn't matter which deck you use."

Alexis's expression twisted slightly, clearly unsure how to even begin critiquing that logic.

High EQ: The feeling of dueling you.

Low EQ: A blood-pressure-spiking, soul-crushing experience.

"Well then, let's head out to the field and get started."

With confirmation in hand, Rowan smiled with satisfaction.

He, Atticus, and Alexis made their way over to the empty training field next to the infirmary.

Even Bastion, only recently conscious himself and still leaning on a cane, insisted on hobbling along to come watch once he heard what was happening.

And a moment later, Kaiser Zane Truesdale, who'd come to check on his close friend, along with Jaden and Chazz, who'd come to visit Bastion, all wandered over to the edge of the field to watch as well.

Rowan couldn't help but let out a helpless sigh at the sight of the growing crowd.

He genuinely wanted to know how, in the span of about one single second, his audience had ballooned from just Alexis and Nurse Fontaine all the way up to eight people.

It seemed there was no keeping the secret of his Quick-Draw Deck under wraps any longer.

"I heard Rowan's breaking out a new deck. I am seriously looking forward to seeing what it is!" Jaden, off to the side, was completely oblivious to any of that, pumping his fist with excitement.

"Mm-hm!"

Bastion, Chazz, and Syrus all nodded along just as eagerly.

The whole group was giving off an oddly specific vibe.

A vibe that could best be summarized as: there is no way we're letting ourselves be the only ones tormented by this man.

Having personally suffered through Rowan's ghoulish decks before, watching someone else get demoralized by him now felt, to them, like biting into an ice cold watermelon on a scorching summer day.

Refreshing beyond words.

This left Nurse Fontaine, Zane, and Chumley, off to the other side, more than a little baffled by the whole display.

Only Alexis, having also been on the receiving end of a certain someone's ghoulish deck before, though in a rather different context, seemed to vaguely understand the vibe, and could only press a hand to her forehead in silent exasperation.

"Come on then, Rowan!" Atticus said, stepping forward on his own.

"Of course. Duel!"

"Duel!"

As Rowan and Atticus called it out together, both their Duel Disks lit up with a red glow and unfolded.

Both drew their starting hand of five cards, and 4000 LP lit up on each side simultaneously.

"I'll take the first move. Draw!"

After a glance at his hand, Rowan wasted no time claiming the first turn, drawing straight from the top of his deck.

He'd already decided: he was going to give Atticus the wonderful experience of losing in just three cards flat.

"Spell Card, activated from my hand: Graceful Charity! Draw three cards from the top of my deck, then discard two!"

Rowan pulled a card from his hand and slapped it straight onto his Duel Disk.

A familiar Spell Card, its artwork showing the figure of an angel, shimmered into existence on the field before him.

Then, as he drew three cards from the top of his deck, it shattered into particles of light and vanished.

"The two cards I'm discarding to the Graveyard are these two copies of Ceruli, Guru of Dark World!"

"Ceruli, Guru of Dark World? Another monster we've never seen before." Zane and Chazz, watching from the sidelines, both looked caught off guard.

When they'd first seen Rowan play Graceful Charity, they'd assumed he was running something along the lines of that Dark Magician OTK deck from before, or one of those disruption-heavy decks.