"You don't have a single monster on your field right now, and you don't even have a single card left in your hand. You still planning to keep going?" Yusaku looked over at Tanaka and said calmly.
Staring at the completely empty field in front of him, Tanaka clenched his teeth, his eyes full of unwillingness and disbelief.
As much as he didn't want to admit it, this was already a dead board.
In this situation, even if the King of Games himself came over, there'd be nothing he could do.
It was his own turn, he'd burned through all his resources to build a field, and before his turn even ended, his board had been completely wiped. Not only that, his opponent had even built a field in his turn while doing it.
Tanaka took a deep breath and admitted defeat. "You win."
The moment Tanaka's surrender echoed out, the crowd around them instantly burst into an uproar.
"Th-that's it? It's over already?"
"Are you dumb or what? He doesn't have a single monster on the field, not even one card in hand, and next turn it's the other guy's turn again. What's he gonna do if he doesn't surrender?"
"Holy crap, judging by his clothes he's an apprentice from Takeuchi Dojo, right? How did he beat a Rank 2 student from Red Sun Dojo!? Is this for real?"
"Aren't your priorities kinda messed up? Who cares if he's an apprentice or not? The point is this is the first turn, and it was the opponent's turn and the duel already ended. There's no way he's not some smurf from Upper City coming down here to stomp noobs!"
"No way. I've watched tournaments in Upper City before! I've never seen anyone this insane. I think he's probably one of those corporate-raised prodigies from the Central District conglomerates!"
At the edge of the arena.
Yusaku stared blankly for a good while before finally opening his mouth.
"Bro, he was using a Branded deck, right?"
"Uh... I think so..." Joyful Flame replied, not sounding very sure.
"Yeah?" Yusaku scratched his head. "Then why doesn't it look anything like the Branded decks I've seen before? This is the first time I've seen Branded make a board on the opponent's turn, on turn one at that!"
Seeing the situation on the field, the other contestants from the three dojos all frowned slightly.
Wait a second, this is different from the intel.
Weren't they saying he used a Dark Magician deck?
What the hell is this deck that can build a board on the opponent's turn?
The representatives from the smaller dojos all had the same thought in their minds after watching this duel.
Where did Red Sun Dojo and Lion King Dojo get the courage to try and knock out Takeuchi Dojo first when that monster of a guy is in their ranks?
In previous challenge tournaments, Takeuchi Dojo had always been the bottom feeder.
This time, it looked like the pecking order was about to change.
…
"You uploaded the video of Yusaku's duel just now to the forum?"
Hearing the constant ding-dong, ding-dong from the forum notifications, Joyful Flame couldn't help but ask.
"Huh?"
At that, Yusaku froze for a moment.
"Nope. Why would I upload it? He's an NPC with a hidden shop! The fewer people who know about him the better. Why would I expose him to everyone? Someone uploaded the duel video just now?"
"It went up not long ago, but even though it's only been up for a bit, it's already spread everywhere. The whole forum is going crazy talking about it right now! If it wasn't you, then my guess is it was that guy on the other side who uploaded it!"
Hearing that, Yusaku hurriedly looked over at the other side, and sure enough, he spotted a player in a white lab coat grinning at them with a big goofy toothy smile.
"?? This idiot's got something wrong with his brain. He finds good stuff and doesn't know how to hide it? Now that so many people know, how are we supposed to stay ahead of everyone else later?!"
"Probably too late to hide anything now." Joyful Flame shook his head. "The forum's already gone nuts with it!"
"?? This moron!"
After cursing, Yusaku opened up the forum, went into the main board, and tapped the thread titled—
[Shock! A Legendary King of Games Appears in the Satellite District!]
The instant he clicked in, a flood of comments began pouring down the screen nonstop.
He didn't even bother reading them at first and tapped directly on the video under the title.
After a three-second countdown, the video began to play.
Under the darkened sky, two duelists stood facing each other across a swirling vortex of energy.
On the left, a blond boy raised his arm high as the whirling wind whipped at his clothes and shouted with all his might—
"Judgment Dragon!"
The moment his voice fell, a gigantic, winged body that blotted out the light unfurled behind him, colossal wings spreading wide. A dragon with raptor-sharp eyes flew out from behind his back, raising its head to let out a roar in answer toward the other side.
But the instant it appeared, it was fused away by Fallen of Albaz summoned by the black-haired boy on the right. In the blink of an eye, dragon after dragon flew from behind the black-haired boy and fused together.
In the end, they formed a sky-covering Khaos Starsource Dragon, and an Iceblade Dragon whose freezing breath condensed between its fangs into a blinding beam of light—Mirrorjade the Iceblade Dragon.
As the black-haired boy raised his hand and swung it down, the twin dragons opened their jaws wide and let out earth-shaking roars. Two blue-white beams of light erupted like glacial torrents, blasting forward and instantly swallowing up the three monsters on the other side of the field.
With a thunderous boom, the center of the explosion erupted like a volcanic blast, and a prismatic storm of triangular shards and particles burst outward from the impact point. The arena floor shattered and cracked under the shockwave, spiderweb fissures spreading everywhere.
The swirling fragments of the destroyed monsters drifted like stardust through the air, reflecting the sharp eyes of the black-haired boy, narrowed against the howling wind, and the blond boy on the other side dropping to his knees in hopeless despair.
Once the video ended, comments popped up one after another below, appearing faster and faster as time went on.
BattleFeelsGood: "666, this video's gotta be computer generated. I was in this closed beta too, there's no way anyone from the Satellite District has duel skills this cracked!"
Terminal Dragon Cancer: "Forget the Satellite District, even in Upper City you wouldn't find someone this good. This is obviously CGI!"
Yusaku: "Conviction achieved. OP is an idiot!"
TendouGaveMeDiabetes: "Whether it's CG or not doesn't matter. Anyone got lewd pics of Tendou? Send 'em to me!"
SchemingFrog: "It's real. OP is my roommate. This is footage he recorded on the 27th floor of the Satellite District!"
Joyful Flame: "You're an idiot too. The Satellite District only has 33 floors total, and the 27th floor is one of the bottom layers. How could someone this busted show up there?!"
…
Yusaku himself had no idea that he was already blowing up on the in-game duel forum. Right now, he was just waiting for the three guys opposite him to decide who was going to come up and duel.
After the duel ended, he hadn't left. Since everyone had conveniently gathered here, there was no way he was going to waste that chance.
If they all scattered, he'd have to go hunt them down one by one, and that would just cause a ton of unnecessary hassle. So the moment the duel finished, he stared straight at the contestants in Red Sun Dojo uniforms and issued his challenge.
Originally, he'd been planning to duel whoever he happened to bump into first. But since Lion King Dojo and Red Sun Dojo had teamed up and wanted to knock Takeuchi Dojo out early…
In that case, he'd just start by wiping out the people from Red Sun Dojo right here.
"Are all of you from Red Sun Dojo this slow?" Yusaku asked lazily. "So who's actually coming up to challenge me? Or do you plan to come at me together?"
Hearing that, the three of them held a quick discussion, and finally decided who would take the duel.
After swapping a few cards among their decks, a stout boy with a square face and a spiky starfish-shaped hairstyle stepped forward.
"We accept your challenge. Same rules as before: if we win, we get to choose a card from your deck. If we lose, you have to give back the card Tanaka lost to you."
"Accept my challenge?"
Yusaku glanced at the Judgment Dragon in his hand that he'd won last game and then looked back at the three of them.
"You need to get one thing straight. You're the challengers here. Come on then. If you win, I'll give the card back."
Hearing that, the boy opposite didn't waste any more words. He backed up until he was at a proper distance, then unfolded his Duel Disk.
The crowd that had started to drift away after the previous duel saw that another match was about to start and immediately flocked back in.
Yusaku and Joyful Flame stopped flaming people on the forum and quickly closed it, squeezing their way into the crowd.
"Duel!" "Duel!"
[Yusaku, LP: 8000]
[Kazama Suzuki, LP: 8000]
(End of Chapter)
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