Chapter 250: You Are Surrounded By Me
"Hayato!" Someone called out his name not far behind Hayato. Turning his head, Hayato found that he actually knew this person.
A pure green windbreaker was layered with a white and brown vest. His messy, shaggy hair was covered by a red hat, with only a single strand dyed a different color hanging down onto his forehead.
"Ryuzaki, did you come to participate in the Duel City tournament too?"
"What do you mean, 'this guy'!" Ryuzaki said, dissatisfied, his eyes full of fighting spirit as he looked at Hayato. "I was originally planning to get revenge on that guy Joey Wheeler, but I didn't expect to run into you first. What good luck."
"Good luck? Are you sure you didn't say the wrong thing, Ryuzaki?" Hayato said with a smile. "If you face me right at the start of Duel City, that should be your misfortune, shouldn't it? After all, the outcome is completely obvious."
Ryuzaki said somewhat angrily, "Don't look down on people, you guy! If that guy Joey Wheeler hadn't won my Red-Eyes Black Dragon, I wouldn't have missed the Top 8 matches."
"And that Mai Valentine, you guys are all targets I need to defeat! With my evolved, brand new Dinosaur Deck!"
"Did I hear someone calling my name?"
Speak of the devil, just as Ryuzaki finished speaking, Mai Valentine ran out from who knows which corner, placing her elbow directly on top of Ryuzaki's head, who was only a little over 1.6 meters tall. "Don't think you can get ahead. You're not the only one with their eyes on Hayato, Ryuzaki-chan~"
Hayato noticed that because of Ryuzaki's loud shout just now, a considerable portion of the duelists on the street had focused their attention on him, their eyes like jackals spotting prey.
"Because they saw one of the 'King of Games' appear before them, are they impatient to challenge Hayato-kun..." Ishizu Ishtar muttered to herself, then suddenly raised the duel disk in her hand, took a step forward, and blocked Hayato. "Hayato-kun, I'll hold these people off for you. Go find a suitable battle location!"
Although that guy Kaiba kept saying "you can duel anytime, anywhere," as long as you weren't an "instinctual" or "reckless" duelist like Joey Wheeler or a certain Jellyfish Head in the future, if you thought about it carefully, you'd realize what Kaiba said was complete nonsense.
An example is the current situation. Assuming Hayato just stayed put and started dueling with this group of unevenly skilled guys, he could easily handle the first, second, or even third one. But as long as a battle occurs, there will inevitably be attack and defense, and the duel disk's virtual projection system will simulate impact damage accordingly.
Even if it's only 500 points at a time, as the number of times increases, the accumulated damage is not a small amount. The body's burden will become heavier and heavier due to consecutive battles. Will these guys, who fantasize about reaching the top by defeating Hayato, a King of Games, stop because Hayato is feeling a bit uncomfortable?
No, they will only intensify their attack because they see Hayato's decline.
Besides stamina, a more important point is that consecutive battles will quickly expose the cards used in the deck. The more battles there are, the easier information will leak out. Unless it's a unique battle method like Hayato's, where he frequently changes his deck composition, even Kaiba or Yugi Mutou would still be targeted.
Like Kaiba, because his deck mostly contains Dragon-Type monsters, anyone could think of putting a Dragon Capture Jar in their deck. However, because of this, Kaiba also very rarely put a monster like Trap Master in his deck, which, although its attack and DEF are weak, can counter trap cards.
"The King of Games wants to run away?"
"Quick, stop him!"
"Who can wait for the next stage of the tournament!"
The crowd was agitated. Just as Ishizu Ishtar finished speaking, the excited duelists surrounded Hayato and Ishizu Ishtar, as well as Ryuzaki, who had broken free from Mai Valentine's hold, and Mai Valentine herself. They were surrounded three layers deep, leaving only a small open space in the very center of the crowd.
"That's a shame, Ishizu Ishtar. It looks like even if you cover my retreat, I can't run away. I guess I have to duel these guys today."
Watching Hayato speak while raising his hand to shield himself behind her, Ishizu Ishtar looked apologetic and said in a slightly lowered voice, "I'm sorry, Hayato-kun. I should have spoken more quietly just now. I caused you to duel in such an unfavorable environment."
"It's okay, it's okay. Besides, didn't you tell me to find a suitable place to duel?" Looking at the duelists who had surrounded him, Hayato's eyes lit up as if he saw a large pile of moving Duel Points right before him. "I think this is a quite suitable place."
The number of duelists gathered on the commercial street was at least several hundred. Although not everyone participated in surrounding him, a considerable portion who could clearly see their own strength didn't stay here to waste time; instead, they went ahead to scout for suitable duel locations to find prey.
However, the number of duelists surrounding the four people was still close to a hundred. If you were to search for information about this group in the KaibaCorp database, you would easily find that most of these people were guys with Duel Level "LV5" or "LV6".
To describe them in Kaiba's words, it would probably be "a bunch of fourth-rate fodder duelists gathered together." However, if he really called them that to their faces, Hayato felt there was a high probability he would get beaten up.
"You bunch of fodder duelists, mere fourth-rate guys who can't even be considered third-rate, do you think gathering together like this will allow you to defeat me, 'Dinosaur' Ryuzaki, the former runner-up of the Japan National Duel Monsters Selection Tournament!"
Ah, an idiot said it out loud.
Completely oblivious to the fierce glares from the people around him, Ryuzaki had an expression of arrogance: "If you know what's good for you, hurry up and get out of the way. This great one is going to duel that guy Hayato— Uwaaaaaah!!!"
He was grabbed by the collar by a burly man, lifted up, and thrown backward out of the surrounding crowd.
"Where did this kid come from? The first person to battle the King of Games should clearly be this great one!"
"Huh? Who do you think you are, you guy? It should clearly be Lord Keith!"
"Wrong, I'm the first one!"
Looking at the rowdy guys in front of him, Hayato sighed helplessly. He was about to take out his deck from his waist and insert it into the duel disk's card slot to activate it. Just then, the voices of two boys came from the noisy crowd—
"Ouch, that hurts!"
"What's going on? Let go of me quickly!"
They saw two young boys who had squeezed to the front of the crowd fall stiffly onto the ground like stones, lying motionless. Across from the two of them, a young man wearing a light pink suit walked out of the crowd with his eyes closed, saying in a somewhat mystical tone:
"To dare to block the way of 'Psychic' Espa Roba, I shall punish you slightly with this lowest-level superpower!"