NOVEL WEB (9.1) – Extra Chapter 1 – POV’s
Sitting in an office chair not too far from NWDA plaza in a mobile office was Mark Brown. He had been an employ at the NWDA for more or less 20 years now and was getting disillusioned with the company.
“Just another recruiting drive… URRRRG,” He groaned, looking at his monitor viewing the duels of Tent 23. He had been there for only half an hour, but he knew he would be there for 6 hours more. He had been assigned this job just as he’d been getting off the island after he’d spent most of the supposed “break” overtime at his job and had been dreading it ever since.
“Just today, then I can get a break.” He muttered to himself.
On his tryout tent, a previously hopeful duelist had just broken out in tears. The duelist had lost to the bot after only three turns, disqualifying him.
“Yes, yes, cry more. Like I care.” He said to himself, it was only the fifth duel today and two of them had resulted in the same outcome.
Of course, this wasn’t just because the students were bad duelists, some yes, but they put his booth in a tent with a bot set to blue rank or 1000-1200 Elo. This was one of the many steps taken to disqualify the biggest amount of 600-800 Elo duelists possible. After all, the academy didn’t have space for all of them. Of course, out of all the tents on the plaza that had a higher difficulty, his was set the highest.
So with this, when a nervous purple haired girl entered, he didn’t have high expectations.
Boy, was he wrong. The girl played the duel like she didn’t care for restrictions and limitations. She did what she wanted to where he wanted to just stop the duel for suspected cheating, but he knew that wasn’t possible, the systems in place to prevent that were the most advanced they could afford, the bots had been programed, checked and transported just last night, they were also using the city duel monitoring system in additions to theirs. This couldn’t be cheating. No, this was skill. Skill he was woefully underqualified to examine.
There was also another problem. She had just performed three out of the five extra deck summoning techniques. She also had tuners in her deck, which made him suspect another method.
Naturals were not rare. 1 in 100 people were born as a natural in one technique, but unfortunately the chances went down with the number of naturally known techniques. For natural Duo-Summoners, it was 1 in 5000; natural Tri-Summoners 1 in 100000; natural Quad-Summoners 1 in 10 million; and for the illustrious natural Penta-Summoners, the odds were unknown as only 5 examples existed in the last 100 years and none of them could make it to a point where they could defend themselves before they perished.
“This is supervisor of tent number 2 - 3,” He reports in a hurried voice. “I have a confirmed natural Tri-Summoner suspected natural Quad-Summoner.”
He was met with silence. “I REPEAT, CONFIRMED TRI POSSIBLE QUAD.” He yelled into the headset.
Instead of an answer from the other side, the door to his monitoring station flew open. He turned his head to find Director Light himself.
“D-Director!” He stampers.
“Easy there.” The Director calmly said.
[Light Haswell POV]
Director Light Haswell was walking through the sea of students on the NWDA plaza. Of course, he wasn’t in plain view. He’d been wearing a Holo-Disguise masquerading as a student to inspect the reactions of the hopeful duelists, much annoyance of his security staff.
His pre-recorded speech echoed through the plaza. He could see hope and frightened duelists alike. He was satisfied. Then, as the subject of the speech turned to the more advanced duelists, he noticed most of the red ones looking away to find somewhere to sit.
He didn’t enjoy having to do that part of the speech every year.
‘Sure, they might have more Elo now, but we can only meaningfully measure the skill of a duelist after the academy.’ Was his opinion after decades of experience.
Still, it was a necessary evil. If they weren’t addressed differently, they might think the academy will not treat them any better than your basic 600 Elo duelist. Then all another dueling academy had to do to steal them away was offer them just that.
It was almost time for Director Light to return to the HQ. The tryouts for the 600-800 Elo duelists were in full swing. All that remained in the plaza were nervous duelists looking over their decks. So he made his way to the hidden observation posts to grab a ride to the HQ.
As he walked by them, he heard a faint scream.
“I REPEAT, CONFIRMED TRI POSSIBLE QUAD.”
This made him perk up immediately. A natural Tri-Summoner among the red tier was something that demanded his attention. So he rushed to the door and opened it with his key-card at a hastened pace.
“D-Director” stuttered the stunned supervisor, not expecting the Director himself to show up.
He told him to calm down. Then asked, “What is this that I heard about a possible natural Quad-Summoner?”
“S-Sir, I have confirmed this duelist’s ability to perform: Pendulum, Link and Fusion Summoning. Also, she possesses tuner monsters in her deck, making me suspect she also might be able to perform Synchro.”
This made the director think for a minute, before asking the supervisor to get out of the chair so he could monitor the duel himself. He did just that. The director was now looking over the duel, and wow, the supervisor undersold this chicks ability. In only the first turn, she was able to perform: one Pendulum Summon, one Fusion Summon, and a whooping four Link Summons.
Seeing this, the Director opened the developer console for the bot to change up the cards it had in its hand, but instead, he was stunned when he noticed the bot’s difficulty setting.
“Why is this bot’s level set so high?” The Director asked the Supervisor.
“Err, well, Sir, 25 of the 50 tents during red tier tryouts are usually set above red tier, this tent just so happens to be the highest level of the 25…” He whispered.
He sighed. This was one of the unfortunate consequences of being a big academy where a lot of students want to enter. They needed to make sure they would have space and with each student - if nothing too irregular happened - staying for 5 years, space was a concern.
So he left the bot’s hand as it was. It would cheat as it pleased at this setting, anyway.
The bot had concluded its turn and was unable to do any damage to the challengers’ field, much to the surprise of Director Light and Supervisor Brown (Who by this point, had gone to grab a chair and sat next to the Director).
But that surprise was quickly superseded by the challenger saying these words:
“I use my two Level 7 “Astrograph Sorcerers” to build the overlay network!”
The Director Gasped and the supervisor flat out fell back on his chair.
They now looked at each other, realizing that instead of a possible natural Quad-Summoner, they might have a natural Penta-Summoner on their hands. A natural Penta-Summoner that, judging by this duel, also seems to have a skill higher than blue rank. Much higher, in fact, the bot didn’t survive the challengers’ next turn.
So, with much anticipation, the supervisor turned on the mic and asked the duelist if they could perform a Synchro Summon. And shocking them both, she did just that.
The Director knew what they had, and after using the bot’s printer to send give a note to the duelist, ran out of the booth and got in the closest company car he could find.
He immediately put the car on auto-drive with the destination set to NWDA HQ and used the car’s console to make a call.
“WED Security, how can we help today, Director Light?” asks a voice from the other side of the phone.
“Hello, I have a VIP I need you to bring from NWDA Plaza to the NWDA HQ as fast as possible.”
“Understood. What does this person look like?”
“Short, Long Purple Hair, Lilac Eyes. I don’t know her name, but you can’t miss her. I also gave her a code for the agent to identify himself on a card printed on a playing card base.”
“Understood. What was this code? For the agent to know, of course.”
“Tri 5.” Some typing sounds could be heard on the other side.
"Confirmed. Agent Phoenix is on his way.”
“Thank you, bye.” And Light hanged up.
He then made another call to his assistant.
“Director Light? Were to have you been? I’ve been waiting for you in the HQ for almost an hour! What trouble did you get yourself in this time?”
“Sorry Nikki, but I’ve I got caught up in something. Hear this, we’ve found a natural Penta-Summoner! She’s getting picked up by WED at this moment.”
“Very well, I assume you want me to greet her at the HQ?”
“Yes. I’m also making my way to there as we speak. Bring her to my office when she gets there.”
“Understood. Anything else?”
“Yes, can you find her name and do some research on her? She was one of the last duelists to leave tent 23 at NWDA plaza. Short, long purple hair, lilac eyes…”
“Got it. Her name is Yuumi Matsunaga.” Interrupted the assistant.
“Thanks, I’ll also do some research then. See you at the HQ.”
“See you.” And the call ended.
Light Haswell used this time to perform a little research on Yuumi Matsunaga. She was in the NWDA database as she had signed up, so he could quickly verify that it was her. During this time, a message that the agent had picked her up came through, and that relieved the director immensely.
So focused on his research, he found out Yuumi was an orphan. This was a massive red flag.
“What if she is a spy?” mutters the director.
…
“No, it can’t be.” The director knew that everyone that could perform every extra-deck method was a well know academy director (like him), or a very popular duelist, and he hadn’t ever head of a "Yuumi" or "Matsunaga".
‘Plus, she didn’t even try to conceal her abilities… No, this is not a spy.’ He reasoned.
The car ride to the HQ only took 10 minutes at top highway speed. He parked in his personal lot, on his floor. Nikki - his assistant - was waiting for him.
“Light, we have a problem,” she revealed.
“What is it?”
“Well, the WED just called. They report their agent is being followed.”
“Shit.” He looked down, thinking.
“Nevermind that, what did you learn about our VIP?”
“Well, she is an orphan, and other than that, there’s very little information. I doubt she is a spy. Nobody would be so stupid as to send someone this flashy.”
“Yea, I came to the same conclusion.”
…
…
After an awkward silence, Nikki asked. “So, what do we do now?”
“Tch, nothing. We just have to hope Agent Phoenix can fend them off. I’m going to my office.”
The Director walked away, and his assistant followed.
30 minutes later, he received a message informing him that the agent had entered a duel, surprisingly his VIP joined in too.
Of course, the director didn’t like this, but after verifying the situation, he agreed it was the right thing to do. His assistant, on the other hand, did not share this opinion. When she found out, she angrily informed director Light.
“We contract them and then they make their client protect themselves!? Outrageous!”
But as the duel proceeded, he could only stare with his mouth wide open.
“Holy shit, those poor bastards.” Was his reaction at the last attack pulled by Yuumi.
After the duel it didn’t take long for him to be informed of her arrival at the HQ.
This brought us to right now. The Director had just succeeded in recruiting Yuumi for the academy. This exchange had completely squashed his suspicions of a spy. He had severely undersold how rare she was, and his offer was practically a scam. Hell, he would have happily accepted paying five times what he offered and at least three times as much monthly DC. But from her reaction, he could tell she did not know this and just accepted it, thinking it was an absurd amount of money.
He was practically shining right now, spinning on his office chair, much to the amusement of his assistant.