Chapter 16
Alexis, Syrus, and Jaden all burst out laughing.
"I don't have a pen!"
Chazz forced the words out through clenched teeth, his brow twitching violently.
He had never once considered losing, let alone prepared for the paperwork that came after.
Who carries a pen to a duel?
"I brought one for you."
The words landed before Chazz could even finish his sentence.
Chazz went blank.
The bystanders went equally still.
They watched Rowan reach into his pocket with a pleasant smile and produce a pen, thoughtfully prepared in advance.
The expressions around the arena went through several phases simultaneously.
Alexis and the others were struck speechless.
He had prepared the IOU. He had prepared the pen. Every contingency, accounted for before the duel had even started.
Syrus was particularly stunned, because that was his pen. Rowan had borrowed it earlier in the evening, and Syrus had spent the whole walk over wondering what on earth Rowan needed a pen for at ten o'clock at night.
Now he knew.
"You absolute menace! Fine! I'll transfer the twenty million through the Academy communicator right now! No pen required!"
Chazz's composure was completely and irreparably gone. He tore the IOU into pieces on the spot, then yanked out his communicator, located Rowan's signal, and transferred the funds with several furious taps.
A simple transaction. Somehow it left him winded.
"Truly worthy of the Chazz family name," Rowan said, checking his communicator with genuine satisfaction as the balance updated.
"Very well-funded."
He glanced at Chazz, who was glaring back at him while breathing hard, and tilted his head with a look of mild concern.
"Chazz, your stamina is really something. All you did was tap a communicator a few times and you're already out of breath. That's not great."
"You insufferable--!"
Chazz wanted nothing more than to fight him with his bare hands.
He was not out of breath from tapping a screen.
He was out of breath from the sustained psychological damage of the last fifteen minutes.
Alexis pressed a hand over her mouth and laughed quietly.
She looked at Rowan for a moment, genuinely entertained.
This person was going to be the end of someone.
She had sensed it the moment she saw him at the exam. The instinct had been correct.
Jaden and Syrus scratched their cheeks in unison, at a loss for words.
Then Jaden's face changed.
Something lit up behind his eyes, and he stepped forward.
"Chazz! Duel me next!"
"What, do you want twenty million too?!" Chazz snapped, whipping around.
Rowan glanced at Jaden with mild surprise.
Since when did the hot-blooded idiot care about money?
"No. I just want to duel the top Obelisk Blue student and see how strong you actually are."
Jaden raised his left wrist with a grin. "You didn't use a single card against Rowan. I couldn't see anything about your deck or your style."
That landed.
Being reminded that he had just been one-turn-killed without playing a card was not something Chazz needed to hear a second time.
His expression darkened considerably.
Then he straightened up, raised his own Duel Disk, and decided to direct every ounce of his frustration somewhere productive.
"Fine. You want to be my punching bag, I'll give you the honor! Slifer Red scrub, Jaden Yuki!"
He pointed across the field and added, turning toward Rowan, "As for you, we're not done. Next time, don't expect the same luck to carry you."
"If the stakes are another twenty million, I'm genuinely looking forward to it," Rowan said, pocketing his communicator without any particular concern.
He stepped down from the platform and settled in to watch.
"I am so ready for this!"
Jaden declared from the field, practically vibrating.
"Don't think for a second you can pull the same tricks as that lucky fool!"
Chazz shot back.
"Duel!"
"You're not at all worried about a rematch?"
Alexis moved to stand beside Rowan, her voice carrying a note of genuine curiosity.
As one of the top Obelisk Blue students in the entire Academy, she had spent the last several minutes quietly analyzing what she had just watched.
The Dark Magician OTK deck had a clear shape now, and with that shape came visible weaknesses.
It ran almost no monsters. Nearly everything was draw Spells built around the Libraries.
That made it entirely dependent on opening or drawing into Royal Magical Library early.
Against someone who went first and knew what to expect, the options were straightforward.
Destroy the Library before it could accumulate counters. Use a Trap to banish any Exodia piece from hand.
Either approach would dismantle the whole engine before it could run.
In short, the deck had a very high win rate against opponents who had never seen it before.
Chazz had now seen it. And despite his anger, he had still chosen to stay and duel Jaden, which suggested he had already begun thinking about how to dismantle Rowan's strategy next time.
Alexis was curious. Rowan was standing here looking completely unbothered.
Was that confidence backed by something real?
Or was it simply that he did not know enough to be worried?