Surviving Among the Entities

Night had fallen, so I returned to the lodging with Professor Roland.
Lying on the bed in the private room, I looked up at the ceiling and reminisced about the scenes I had witnessed during the day.

[“Wow! Grandpa! You were so cool!”]
[“Heheh, if little missy works hard too, you can become a cool Duelist when you grow up.”]

The village children who looked at Professor Roland with sparkling eyes.

[“Ugh, I lost… Old man, no, sir, I apologize.”]
[“Hmm, I also got too heated in a way unbecoming of my age.”]

The gang members who accepted defeat and obediently bowed their heads.

[“Draw! Draw! Draw!”]
[“Stronger! Read the heart of the cards! Mind and heart as one! You are the cards, and the cards are you!”]

The students earnestly drawing cards on the school grounds, and the teacher guiding them.

“The entire world is cards.”

It wasn’t that strange.
Since the “center of the world” made the card game the center of the world, this was only natural.

“But I didn’t expect it to be this serious.”

An anime I had watched in my childhood came to mind.

An anime where astronomical amounts of money and cutting-edge science were invested just to create a single mini-car.
An anime where tops had spirits sealed within, moving according to people’s words, and the shockwaves from battles destroyed the arena.
An anime where the protagonist, a top-class chef, fought against the dark chefs of the culinary world who tried to conquer the world through cooking.
An anime where people died from dodgeball, causing typhoons and bloody battles.

“And an anime where card games decided everything.”

That concept was likely Yu-Gi-Oh!.
A work that started serialization in 1996 as an occult-style story where the protagonist experienced mysteries through various games, but the card game featured within became a huge hit, leading to a change in direction to become a card game story.

“It became so famous that the term ‘Duelist,’ originally used only within that manga to refer to players of the card game, became a word used to refer to players of any TCG card battle game?”

However, this world is not Yu-Gi-Oh!.
The concept depicted on the stone tablet is presumed to be not a specific work, but the concept itself.

‘With the emergence of Yu-Gi-Oh!, the card battle that had previously been popular only among some people in America spread worldwide, so the concept of “card battle” must have been embedded.’

Therefore, this world revolves around card battles.
To learn more, I checked global news, internet articles, and more through Sarang-a.

[Kim Jong-un threatens South Korea with the “Nuclear Missile Barrage of the People’s Army” card.]
[US President Trump challenges Canadian PM to a duel, winner to annex the loser’s country.]
[Europe suffers from indiscriminate duel challenges from refugees.]

International politics are settled through card battles.

[Doctors recommend light card battles once a day for health.]
[Seoul National University increases difficulty of card battle entrance exam, changing from duels against existing assistant professors to duels against professors.]
[Parents obsessed with elite Duel kindergartens, creating decks for 4-year-olds – is this really right?]

Various affairs of the world are also settled through card battles.

[African rebel leader has 1,756 consecutive wins in card battles, government forces at a disadvantage.]
[New drones dominate the battlefield. Remote card battles through drones, allowing deployment of powerful Duelists regardless of distance.]
[The might of US aircraft carriers, capable of transporting tens of thousands of Duelists at once, quickly and swiftly deploying them to the battlefield via fighter jets.]

Even war is settled through card battles.

[“Ugh, I lost.”]
[“Uhahaha! Who’s next for a duel?”]
[“That bastard! He’s already on a 27-win streak! Insane!”]
[“As expected of the elite Dev Gru unit renowned as the top of US special forces.”]
[“Aaagh! Stop! Don’t V-slash my cards!”]
[“That bastard! He’s canoeing his opponent’s cards!”]

Combat is also settled through card battles.
Truly, everything was decided through card battles.

“Just accept defeat if you lose?”
[“What are you saying, Mr. Seung-hoon? According to the solemn laws of card battles, the loser must obediently surrender, is that not the rule?”]
“……Sarang-a, if you were to engage in combat, would you settle it through a duel?”
[“Yes, I would.”]

Even entities could not escape this law.

“Hmm.”
[“Why is that?”]
“Then what’s the point of guns, missiles, tanks?”
[“They are imitation weapons modeled after the weapons used by the spirits of cards. So far, no fool has used them in actual combat.”]

I had anticipated it, but even history has been altered.

“What if they were used?”
[“I cannot provide an answer, as it is unimaginable.”]

Card battles are, in the end, card battles.
What would happen if one used actual violence instead of a game to subjugate the opponent?

The moment I had that thought, a chill ran down my entire body.
It felt as if the entire world was hostile toward me, a intense sense of wrongness and a dull pain pricking my skin.

‘It seems acts that deviate from the established rules are not permitted.’

I could well imagine what would happen if I violated them.

I further observed the world.
While violent acts were not completely absent, most were accidental occurrences, and even those were extremely rare.
Most deaths were accidents, and I could not find any instances of murder.

‘Let me summarize gradually.’

I took out “My Notebook in My Head” from the Void Pocket and summarized the information I had gathered.

[1. Göbekli Tepe is an entity called the “center of the world.”]
[2. The effect of the “center of the world” is to store concepts born into the world as stone tablets, and installing them into the altar causes the world’s entire system to concentrate around that concept, allowing phenomena that defy the laws of physics.]
[3. Currently, the world operates through “card battles.”]
[4. The victory or defeat in a card battle is absolute, and the loser is made to surrender wholeheartedly.]
[5. War is also conducted through card battles. Soldiers defeat other soldiers through card battles, and defeated soldiers become prisoners.]
[6. Weapons such as guns, tanks, missiles, and nuclear bombs were first introduced through cards, and weapons existing in reality are mere replicas of weapons that exist on cards.]
[7. The above weapons are not actually used. That is common sense.]
[8. Corporate mergers and acquisitions, university entrance exams, and more are all conducted through card battles. It is said that continuously engaging in card battles generates “Duel Energy,” improving physical and mental health. Judging from the existence of papers on this, it seems to be actually possible.]
[9. Even entities cannot escape this law.]

After completing the summary, I wrote down my remaining questions.

[1. If so, who creates the cards? If everything is decided by card battles, doesn’t that mean the company manufacturing the cards rules the world?]
[2. To return the world to its original state, removing the stone tablets should be enough. However, I could not remove the stone tablets even with my strength. Is it impossible to remove them for a set period? Or are there special conditions required?]
[3. In card battles, specific metas and overpowered cards often dominate the game. In the original reality, balance was adjusted through the release of new cards and banning of existing cards. How is the balance maintained in this place?]

The first question was answered the next morning at breakfast time.

“What kind of nonsense is that? Creating cards? Through a mechanical process? That’s the most preposterous thing I’ve ever heard.”
[“Mr. Seung-hoon, please get a mental health examination.”]
“Is there no company that manufactures cards?”
“Hahaha, cards are not something made by others.”

Professor Roland placed his hand on his chest.
With a faint glow, a deck of cards materialized.

“One makes them themselves.”

“In the beginning, there was light, and there were cards. From that moment, all things in the world came to hold cards within.”

The summary was simple.

“Cards are nurtured and created through one’s life. And ultimately, they can be manifested through mental power.”

Cards are not made by others.
One makes them oneself.

“Then there wouldn’t be a single identical card, would there?”
“No, if there are overlapping aspects from a human perspective, such as culture, gender, values, personality, hobbies, and interests, the same cards can be created.”
[“According to academic research, cards like the ones Professor Roland just described are called ‘common cards,’ while one’s unique cards are called ‘special cards.'”]

There were no companies manufacturing cards to dominate the world.

“Generally, decks are composed of 50% common cards and 50% special cards.”
[“Among the special cards, there are also extremely powerful and overpowered cards. However, such cards are created through one’s life, abilities, talents, efforts, and mental power, so they are rare to encounter.”]
“The ‘Old Man’s Full Power’ I possess is one such special card, I presume.”

The strength of one’s deck was directly tied to one’s personal strength.
Overpowered cards were not balance breakers, but a reflection of that person’s strength, so they were not problematic.

‘The third question has also been resolved. There are no balance issues or metas. The overpowered nature of cards is simply the strength of the Duelist and one’s personal strength.’

Then what about me?
I placed my hand on my chest and focused my mind.

‘There’s something there.’

The trajectory of my life.
The theories of my mind.
The values I have built up.
The experiences I have accumulated in my life, forming a pile of cards called a deck.

“It seems that is your deck, Resolver.”

I examined the cards.

“Hmm.”
“Why is that?”
“No, it’s just……”

After confirming all 30 cards that made up the deck, I reabsorbed them into my body.

“All the cards were special cards.”

Although I had formed a deck, there were no duels.
Instead, to continue what I couldn’t do yesterday, I headed to the location of Göbekli Tepe with Professor Roland.

“You’re saying this place seems suspicious?”
“I did say that. But not anymore.”

However, there was nothing there.
It was a desolate wasteland, as if such ruins had never existed there from the beginning.

‘It seems I need to revise my previous assumptions.’

It wasn’t that the ancients discovered the center of the world underground at Göbekli Tepe and activated it, thereby establishing the first civilization.
The ancients activated the center of the world, which existed in some form, and as civilization was born, the center of the world changed to a form befitting that world.

‘Then I just need to find something that did not originally exist in the world.’

Of course, there were many such things.
Like the card academies existing apart from university entrance exams.
The duel health training centers.
The deck-making education centers to create more diverse and unique personal decks.

“Professor, what is the most famous card-related location?”

However, just as Göbekli Tepe appeared to be the birthplace of an anachronistically advanced civilization for its time, I presumed this world’s center would be similar and stand out more than anywhere else.

“It should be a unique place that no one can refute the existence of.”
“If that’s the case, then there is only one place that comes to mind.”

Professor Roland spoke.

“A place where the history of cards is enshrined, containing records of countless cards, and a tower where it is said that if you reach the top, you can obtain a card that grants any wish.”

As if responding to the professor’s words, Sarang-a displayed a screen.
On the screen was an enormous tower that seemed to pierce the sky.

“A tower that countless Duelists have climbed in pursuit of the legend, but no one has ever reached the top floor.”

A tower that seemed to look down haughtily upon the world.

“The Tower of Babel. A place that everyone recognizes and cannot help but recognize.”

Here, then.

“Let’s go to the Tower of Babel.”