Chapter 115: Chapter 114: Duel of Monsters

Do Dragons need beds to sleep?

Theoretically, no. The tradition among the Dragon Race has always been to find a flat piece of ground and sleep on it. A pile of hay would be considered a luxury mattress.

With their thick hides, they could sleep anywhere.

But Zog was a Dragon with a taste for the finer things in life. While it was fun for a Dragon to just stare at his hoard of money, that couldn’t be his *only* source of enjoyment, could it?

So, Zog had made a nest out of Chimera fur.

It was shaped like a Kabigon, which was very cute. When he slept, he would just plop down on its round, plump belly.

Soft and comfortable. A regular Prince and the Pea... but for a Dragon!

The most common sleeping position for the Dragon Race was to curl up in a ball, tail tucked in, which provided a great sense of security.

’What’s wrong with an old Dragon liking cute furniture?’

Furin seemed to agree.

Which is why she had snatched the Kabigon nest, claiming it as payment for her hard work on a trip to the Northern Domain.

His Pipi-Dragon nest was still being sewn. This one used Feathered Snake Fur and would take a few more days.

So, Zog had to wake up on an Ordinary soft cushion this afternoon.

Happiness -1.

Zog let out a huge yawn.

Even though he was awake, the coefficient of gravity on his bed seemed to be several times higher than anywhere else.

It held him down, making him not want to get up at all.

’Speaking of which, if people in this world can synthesize all kinds of Magical Creatures, does that mean Pocket Monsters could be synthesized too?’

Lost in a beautiful daydream about a world where Pocket Monsters were real, Zog wriggled around until the afternoon. It wasn’t until the urge to pee hit him that he reluctantly got out of bed.

The boss gets to wake up whenever he wants.

As for the employees, the most expensive piece of equipment in the Factory besides the production line was the steam-powered mechanical time clock.

Zog had named the machine "Ding-Ding" because a bell would make a DING DING sound whenever a timecard was inserted.

Every morning after arriving at the Factory, they had to grab a timecard and punch in. When they got off work, they had to punch out too.

This meant you could always see workers cutting it close, sprinting to punch in at the very last second before they were late.

If they fumbled and failed to insert the card on the first try, their wages would be docked. It was tense and exciting.

Sometimes, when Zog woke up early, he loved to squat by Ding-Ding and watch the people who were cutting it close.

Whenever someone was late, he would pretend to check his watch—even though he already knew the time—and, under the employee’s hopeful gaze, announce that their wages would be docked.

Then he’d watch them look regretful and annoyed.

It brought him the same kind of joy a dean of discipline felt catching late students back in the day.

After a quick wash-up, Zog went to his small desk.

As the boss, he decided to lead by example. For instance, he would work seriously for a whole three hours today.

He dipped his pen in ink and opened the booklet on his desk. It was the plot outline, card game rules, and card design examples for *Yu-Gi-Oh!*.

Now, when Zog wanted to launch a manga, he no longer had to draw the storyboards himself. He just needed to provide a rough outline, and a large group of cartoonists would compete for the job of filling in the rest.

Cartoonist was now a respectable profession. After Zog launched his manga magazine, several imitators had popped up.

Income can change people’s perception of a profession.

Although traditional Painters who could become true artists still held a higher status.

But the vast majority of mid-to-low-tier Painters couldn’t command nearly as much respect as a cartoonist with an ongoing series.

Unlike the manga he’d released before, *Yu-Gi-Oh!* had a complete original work to draw from. However, that didn’t mean he could just copy it wholesale. Quite a few adjustments were needed.

The background and world-building parts were familiar territory. The main task was to sort out a clear set of rules.

*Yu-Gi-Oh!*’s name means "King of Games," and its initial concept was truly about being the king of all sorts of games, not just a card game specialist.

That’s why the beginning of the manga had many different kinds of small games and battles of wits.

Playing cards was just one of those games, called "Duel Monsters."

It was like how *Dragon Ball* didn’t start as a hot-blooded fighting series, but as an adventure-comedy.

Both series gradually adjusted their focus during serialization based on reader feedback.

Therefore, in the early days of *Yu-Gi-Oh!*, no one thought the card game would become a global phenomenon, so the rule design was a bit sloppy.

The various "heart of the cards" moments, drawing the perfect card by believing in friendship, could all be chalked up to plot design.

But the ridiculous rule-bending, on-the-spot card creation, and the "whoever can make up a better excuse gets to interpret the rules" moments had to be modified to be more reasonable.

For example, in the early part of the original work where Yugi defeated Seto by assembling the five pieces of the Dark Great Mage, there was no rule allowing monsters to attack a player’s life points directly. Life points could only be depleted by destroying Monster Cards.

In other words, as long as you turtled up and didn’t summon any monsters, you would eventually assemble the five pieces of the Dark Great Mage.

’In a true Shadow Game, the rules are always on the protagonist’s side. How could you possibly fight that?’

He reasonably suspected that the reason Takahashi Kazuki had the Dark Great Mage cards thrown into the sea later in the story was that he’d also realized the thing was an instant-win condition.

The Otherworld *Yu-Gi-Oh!* that Zog was about to launch needed to serve the dual purpose of promoting the cards and teaching the rules.

Naturally, the rules had to be more complete from the start.

Compared to traditional card games, *Yu-Gi-Oh!* wasn’t necessarily difficult, but it was definitely one with rather complex rules, and they only grew more complex over time.

Learning through the story would be a smoother way to get hooked.

And this rabbit hole was a bottomless pit far deeper than the one for Yo-Yos.

As for the card design examples, Zog planned to provide a few decks as templates. Future expansions and updates would be left to local designers.

Black Mage, Blue-Eyes White Dragon, True Red-Eyed Black Dragon, Level Monsters, Gears, Insects, and the Toon deck—renamed the "Manga" deck because the word "cartoon" didn’t exist here.

These were probably the most memorable early-era decks to use as examples.

He’d leave the rest to local designers. That way, they could create decks that appealed to the aesthetics of various different races.

Zog thought for a moment, then added Handscroll Destruction to the list. 𝓯𝙧𝙚𝒆𝙬𝙚𝒃𝙣𝙤𝒗𝓮𝓵.𝙘𝙤𝙢

He couldn’t help it. He’d always had a soft spot for these kinds of toxic decks.

It was a mercy of the Red Dragon that he wasn’t creating the Divine Stele right now.

’Maybe even when I was human, I was an Evil Dragon at heart.’

Defeating an opponent: Happiness +1. Defeating an opponent while also tilting them: Happiness +100!

Dueling can bring smiles to people’s faces!

Back in the day, he’d been too embarrassed to use them because it would easily turn a fun card game session with friends into a passionate brawl.

But it didn’t matter now. No one dared to brawl with him.

Another important issue was balance.

Balancing *Yu-Gi-Oh!* has always been a major problem. In almost every era, there would be one or two decks with outstanding power levels.

And then there was the "infamous" Tearlaments.

Fundamentally, this was because *Yu-Gi-Oh!* lacks the concept of a "cost" for playing cards.

This meant it lacked a dimension for limiting a card’s power.

But this was also one of its unique thrills. When you drew a key card, you could execute your entire deck’s combo, and then, after shouting "My turn!", you could take out your opponent in one go.

It became a feature that distinguished it from other card games.

Zog didn’t plan to adjust it. ’I don’t have the ability, you know?’

’If I really had the skill to design a better card game than *Yu-Gi-Oh!*, I wouldn’t have ended up working at a mobile game company.’

The only thing he could do was to not design the cards that were permanently stuck at the bottom of the Forbidden and Limited List in the first place.

He also planned to set up a more thorough internal testing process, striving to have any cards that needed to be limited already restricted upon release.

After sorting out the rules and decks, Zog began to organize the plot outline and main character profiles.

This part was much easier.

Zog easily lost track of time when he worked. By the time he finished writing the plot, it was late at night again.

He opened the work chat group to check for messages.

He found a report from the Illusionist team.

"The migration of the social Magic models to the Deer Spirit Divine Remains is complete. They are ready for use."