Chapter 149: Chapter 148: Ben’s Creative Concept
"Look, dragons just flew by in the sky!"
A young boy exclaimed, pointing at two massive silhouettes streaking across the thick clouds in the night sky.
"If dragons showed up, you think it’d be this quiet? What are they, tourists?" Ben said without looking up.
"No, I’m telling the truth!" the kid repeated anxiously. "They’re about to disappear!"
He tried desperately to prove he wasn’t lying.
"I summon Red Gear, activate its effect to add Yellow Gear to my hand, and end my turn."
When he was done, Ben glanced up at the sky. There was no sign of any dragons. The clouds hid the stars, and even the moonlight was faint.
He remembered back in school, when he was taught that the moon doesn’t emit its own light. He’d been vexed for a long time. Why, when the moon and sun looked to be about the same size, did only the sun get to shine?
It wasn’t fair!
He had even stubbornly debated with his teacher about it for ages.
After the debate, he came to understand two things. First, the moon really doesn’t produce its own light.
Second, the less a person knows, the more confident they are in their own judgment.
How else could you explain why so many people still firmly believed the world was flat? They’d even formed a guild dedicated to opposing the "heretical" theory that the world was round.
What was even more incredible was that the guild had a number of wealthy sponsors. Ben couldn’t fathom what sort of people ended up with all the money.
Perhaps they’d only believe it when someone finally traveled beyond the sky and took a picture of the world.
’I wonder if you could find the Magic Goddess beyond the sky.’
He stared for a good while longer, but sure enough, there was nothing to see.
"You weren’t trying to distract me so you could secretly swap your cards, were you?" Ben asked with a hint of suspicion.
Since they couldn’t afford Dueling Discs, Ben and the friends he’d made in the Northern Domain would just find a flat patch of ground or a table to play cards on.
For them, a toy like the Dueling Disc was too much of a luxury.
They even had to piece together their decks by buying other people’s duplicates for dirt cheap.
And not having Dueling Discs made cheating a whole lot easier.
There was a kid before who had hidden cards up his sleeve and won several bottles of Coke from them.
At first, they’d thought he had a real bond with his deck, that he could draw any card he wanted.
"As if!" The boy who claimed he’d seen dragons craned his neck and said indignantly, "I don’t need to cheat to beat you!"
He immediately pushed the thought of two dragons flying through the clouds to the back of his mind. Even if he wasn’t mistaken, even if the dragons were real, someone capable would be there to handle it.
Right now, he was going to use his carefully crafted deck to prove his skill!
「Five minutes later.」
He lost.
Ben attacked directly with the monster on his field, wiping out his opponent’s last 1000 life points.
"I was careless! That was a fluke! Again!"
"That’s enough. I have to go help my uncle close his stall. There are four of you now, perfect for two games."
Ben stood, brushing the dust and snowflakes from his clothes before heading toward his uncle’s toy stall.
They had all met in Winter City selling Yu-Gi-Oh! card packs, and the game was their favorite pastime.
However, there was one small problem: there were exactly five of them.
Although Ben would be returning to Twin Tower City in a few days, for the time being, their Yu-Gi-Oh! sessions were a bit awkward.
Someone always had to sit out and watch.
The process of introducing a new member to their little group had not gone smoothly.
Their one and only attempt brought them a little punk who cheated at cards and won several sodas from them.
The worst part was, when they caught him cheating and tried to get their drinks back, they ended up accidentally breaking the bottles.
Not only did they lose the drinks, but they also lost the deposit money for the glass bottles. It was infuriating.
After that, the little group temporarily gave up on finding a sixth friend.
But Ben had come up with a different way to solve the problem: if they couldn’t find another person, why not design a card game that five people could play?
Or even a game with different modes for different numbers of players—one with more flexible rules.
He had been thinking about it for the past few days.
Maybe it was the love for game design passed down through the Ackley name, but Ben now found designing a toy or a game—and seeing players enjoy it—far more interesting than just playing.
For example, using rock-paper-scissors as a base, he had designed a more complex, turn-based clapping game that included different attacks, corresponding defenses, and even gathering Magic Power before striking.
The only drawback was that it was also a one-on-one game.
Even so, his friends loved it.
It gave him an unparalleled sense of accomplishment.
It was a feeling that couldn’t be matched by scoring a few extra points on a test, climbing a few spots in the class rankings, or getting a bit of praise from his teachers and parents.
Besides, the academic path was probably a dead end for him. He was always ranked near the bottom of his class.
It wasn’t that he was addicted to his hobbies; he just genuinely struggled to keep up in class.
He had only gotten into this class in the first place by performing way beyond his usual level, on top of his father going around pulling strings and paying people off.
’But what was the point?’
They taught in school that a person should find their own interests and talents.
And Ben was sure that getting into a research institute was neither his talent nor his interest.
It was just that his father was always trying to force him to live the life the older generation had planned out.
He always felt his father was using him to make up for the regrets of his own youth.
’His father never went to school, so *he* had to study hard.’
’What if he was actually a genius at making toys?’
His father had never once considered his feelings.
Ben still remembered the slap from over a year ago. Father and son had not yet reconciled; at home, they avoided each other outside of mealtimes.
Even the kids who studied hard and spent a few years at a research institute to pad their resumes couldn’t all stay there. They’d still have to come out and find jobs, and landing a position at the Zog Group was considered the pinnacle of success.
If he got good enough at making toys, he could get into the Zog Group too, skipping years of wasted effort.
His uncle was a perfect example, wasn’t he? He’d made his name designing a spinning top and had gone on to open several branches of Zog’s Toy Store.
"Uncle!" Ben called out, waving as he reached the toy stall.
"Oh! Look who’s back! It’s the best little designer from Twin Tower City," Karaman Ackley said in an exaggerated tone.
He seemed to possess a boundless, childlike enthusiasm for life.
"You can’t make good toys otherwise," he would always say whenever someone asked how he stayed so positive.
"I’m not a little designer anymore," Ben replied, deliberately lowering his voice.
His voice was changing later than his friends’, and it hadn’t broken yet. Though no one but him seemed to care, he always made a point of speaking in a lower tone.
Otherwise, when he played with his friends, it felt like four boys hanging out with a little girl.
Kids just past ten are the ones most eager to act like adults, but a decade or so later, they all invariably want to be kids again.
"Alright, alright, my apologies, *great* designer. Have you had any new design ideas?"
"I want to make a card game that five people can play! Everyone controls a character, like in a fighting game, and they fight each other with cards," Ben answered excitedly.
"I’ve already figured out how to design several characters, like how auto chess uses Legendary Heroes. I can do that, too! It’ll be super fun!"
In his mind, the gameplay was essentially a variation of rock-paper-scissors, except everyone held multiple "moves" in their hand, and the goal was to play one your opponent couldn’t counter.
"That’s really impressive," Karaman said, "but do you remember what I taught you? Before you get into the details, you need a solid concept for the overall gameplay."
"A five-player game... if it’s just a free-for-all, will that be fun? What if you split into factions? Or one-versus-many? Which format is best suited for cards? You have to think it through."
Ben froze.
’Right. Would a five-person free-for-all even work?’
After a moment of silence, he said, "I’ll figure it out." With that, he ducked into the house.
"Weren’t you here to help me close up the stall?" Uncle Karaman teased.
