K -Lost Small World- - Volume 1 - Chapter 1.6

3D cards and cubes were swimming and intertwining each other in the middle of the screen, but soon they separated and organized themselves to something like a battle formation on Fushimi’s and the opponent’s side. Both had respectively five cards and five cubes.

“Ah, I’ve already seen that, too.”

Yata had recognized the card’s pattern (oh, pretty cool) and the cubes from when he had seen them the first time.

He had never owned the real thing, but it was a famous puzzle. It was a hexahedron where one side had 3x3 rows with multicolored tiles, one row at a time could be rotated horizontally or vertically and the tiles of the same color had to be collected on one side. When all colors on the six sides are arranged then it was complete, but even just completing one side was fairly difficult.

“For you to understand I’ll explain it in an easy way; arranging the cube’s colors and collecting offense and defense power makes the card’s parameter change, and equal cards will battle. The colors have attributes, for example for red "flames”, for green “lightning” and for white “recovery”. Arranging the five cubes makes it possible for combos to happen. Like, when all the five cubes’ red sides have been completed, a “flamex5” combo will happen. Also, because there’s the factor of the simulation’s strategy, divide your military power between your own camp and the ground you obtained, and secure your supply line, and so that a revolt won’t happen, the politics………"

“Ah, I don’t think I understand any of that anyway, so it’s okay.”

Halfway through the explanation Yata had given up. Yata also loved games, that is, really loved them. The games he was the best in were those were you had to use your body directly, like rhythm games and racing games, and he was also pretty good at fighting and simulation games. That was, if it was done intuitively but if it was necessary to remember the rules, use your head and make presumptions beforehand then Yata was hopeless in it. Whoosh! Pow! Somehow he thought that games that spurred the senses and reflexes were a real pleasure and because of that he felt unsuited for strategy simulations.

Fushimi glanced at Yata as if he was an idiot and skipped the simulation part of the explanation.

“When cards whose power has been exhausted are given some time, they’ll slowly be restored but if you use bought items you can restore them on the spot and the game can continue. It has also become possible to buy items that can strengthen your cards. That should be bothersome for them, but………that group, we’ll destroy them thoroughly. With my hundred thousand units.”

"Hundred thousand—-!?”

Right, the delinquents had run out of money and are probably be frantic.

“Uh? But don’t the third years have class right now?”

He had wondered about this earlier already, but Fushimi and the third years, why were they able to play games when their PDA were supposed to be locked during class.

“Of course normally you couldn’t do it. However when «jungle» is installed, a loophole is opened. The security of these PDAs is strong, but «jungle» slips through this security, invades the system and implants a spyware.”

“Ah……ahh, I see.”

Yata said seriously, but of course he didn’t understand a thing.

“Five minutes before”, said Fushimi with a glance on the digital clock that was showing at the edge of the display.

Yata noticed how time had passed by fast. Five minutes before the first hour ended. When break started people would come into the restroom.

“If we have five minutes, then it’ll take ten.”

Behind the glasses Fushimi squinted his eyes.

Through the screen the word “Fight!” traversed and the battle began. The instant after, Fushimi’s fingers began to run quickly over the from light made keyboard. In the middle of the screen the cubes spun and he compiled the tiles’ colors. The six sides of the first cube got assembled so quickly that if something had happened just now, Yata wouldn’t have been able to turn away his eyes. The cards got filled with a huge energy and attacked the opponent’s cards. The opponent’s cards’ power got scraped off heavily. The screen shook as if the card’s shriek was audible.

Ah…..that had been a trap.

An opponent who proposed a match against somebody who uses such a standard avatar wouldn’t imagine them being this strong. If it was a user who just started «jungle» they could step on them and defeat them easily.

When Yata thought that Fushimi’s cubes were spinning neatly, the colors on the six sides were completed immediately and compared to that the opponent’s cubes made little progress. One, soon two sides were completed and each were transformed into energy. On top of this astonishing thing it was not like Fushimi was controlling one cube at a time. How he did it Yata didn’t know, but on the screen were numerous cubes spinning at the same time. The before mentioned combos were exploding nonstop. The way Fushimi worked was skillful although it seemed like there was little time to think. The slender fingers that glided over the keyboard seemed to dance, just as if they were holding the cubes within the screen and played with them as he wished.

“Amazing”, muttered Yata without thinking and watched in fascination.

The opponent tried to somehow stand against the war like situation and quickly embezzled the bought items. He probably had spent time and money on them and on leveling them up, and losing them was a painful thing. Yata had also collected trading cards before so he could understand that feeling.

However, if the opponent was this impatient then the cubes wouldn’t get done. It showed quite clearly the panic of the competitor on the other side of the screen.

The corners of Fushimi’s mouth rose. On Fushimi’s default frowning, sulky face appeared a smile carrying a dark passion. This was the meaning behind “defeat them several times as much as they did”——-shredding the important cards leveled up in the PDA, making their purchase a waste.

The only way Yata had imagined regaining cash worth as much the stolen money was through retorting with violence. Fushimi’s way of thinking made him shiver a bit.

This guy’s………scary………but………amazing!

Before he knew Yata had focused not on the battle unfolding before his eyes, but rather on Fushimi’s face that was visible on the other side of the transparent display. The mosaic tiles’ patterns of the dancing cubes within the display warped and distorted the pale face. That face was of a perpetrator burning with fire and having a good time, like a guard of purgatory.