Z City, Abandoned Area.
"Hello, everyone."
"To get straight to the point, this year's mosquitoes are a new breed..."
As the broadcast played on the television, Morien lay on his side on the sofa, stretching out his hands and clasping them together before his chest.
"Binding Vow," he said softly. "I'll exchange rapid loss of body heat for a slight increase in Cursed Energy."
The Binding Vow took effect the next moment.
Morien closed his eyes and lay peacefully on the sofa.
"Ah, now I don't need to turn on the air conditioning."
"Much better..."
Before Morien could drift completely into peaceful sleep, a gleaming bald head poked out from beside a nearby table.
"Morien, you really have to teach me that. I seriously want to learn it."
Saitama sat in the Morien Family's living room, holding the TV remote in his hand.
"There's nothing I can do about that," Morien's voice echoed in Saitama's mind. "You don't have the talent."
"Ah... like how your voice is directly appearing in my head right now?" Saitama pointed at his bald head.
"Mm." Morien answered with a nasal hum.
"Ah... I'm jealous..." Saitama said enviously.
It was June now, and the sun was brutal.
The sunlight could not burn him at all, but the discomfort was real.
"If you're hot, just turn on the air conditioning," Morien said with his eyes closed. "Anyway, you don't have to pay the electricity bill here."
"That won't do." Saitama spoke as though it were only natural. "No matter the season, I never turn on the air conditioning."
It was training he had kept up for several years.
One hundred push-ups, one hundred sit-ups, one hundred squats, plus a ten-kilometer run every day, and no air conditioning regardless of the season.
"That works too." Morien had no intention of stopping Saitama from holding himself to his own standards.
This was Z City, the Abandoned Area where nearly everyone had fled because Monsters appeared so frequently.
Since every house was empty, they could live in whichever one they wanted without paying rent. The only thing they had to worry about was suddenly dropping dead one day, a trivial matter like that.
Yet even without people, Z City's water and electricity continued to be supplied.
Morien guessed there were two possibilities.
First, the technology in this world might simply be so advanced that water and electricity were not resources at all, no rarer than air. Cutting off supply to a single district might instead disrupt the system, requiring new routes to be built specifically for it, with the manpower and material costs far exceeding those of maintaining the status quo.
Second, it might be because of what lay underground.
The Monster Association's headquarters was in Z City, in the Abandoned Area, directly beneath this place.
So it was also possible that the Monster Association maintained the city's water and electricity through some means.
After all, they might need them too.
But Morien did not care what the exact reason was. He only needed to know that housing was free here, along with water and electricity.
Of course, since water and electricity were free, he could have simply turned on the air conditioning.
But he preferred having fresh air circulating through the place and disliked keeping all the doors and windows tightly shut.
A sealed environment reminded him of the Morien from the Honkai: Star Rail World, bringing back the memories he had brought with him.
Saitama looked at Morien and blinked.
This man had moved here two days ago. He seemed to be a foreigner who did not speak Japanese and could only communicate in simple ways.
Still, he was easy enough to get along with. Since they were neighbors, Saitama would occasionally drop by, and over time, they had become familiar with each other.
Though communication could sometimes be a bit difficult.
After all, Morien did not know any Japanese at all.
But Morien had suddenly changed that afternoon. He had shown the ability to speak directly into other people's minds, gone out and killed a Monster, tossed it to the police station for some money, bought prepared food and fruit, and even invited Saitama to eat with him.
The television continued playing.
"Large numbers of mosquitoes are currently converging on Z City. Livestock bitten by them have turned into dried corpses. If you encounter mosquitoes outdoors, please seek shelter immediately."
"Mosquitoes?" Morien opened his eyes again.
Ah, right. There really was a plotline like this.
Morien remembered.
He had also seen the news reports about Vaccine Man appearing two days ago.
Though he had not understood the language at the time, he recognized that Monster who looked remarkably like King Piccolo.
So today was Mosquito Girl's plotline.
Morien understood.
He really had been hearing mosquitoes lately.
He raised his hand and looked at one slightly lifted finger.
The skin on his finger suddenly separated into several small patches, each one peeling outward.
The moment those patches of skin left Morien, they turned into tiny purple butterflies.
But they could not become Fortune-Collecting Butterflies.
Is it because there's no Mother Bug here? Morien pondered.
No, that did not seem right.
If the insects' evolutionary paths within the swarm were gradually unlocked one point at a time, then every evolutionary branch should have a backup within the Royal Insect.
Morien now knew how to split off a Fortune-Collecting Butterfly, but it was difficult to actually do so.
"Huh? Morien, can you do magic too?" Saitama leaned closer and asked curiously.
"Mm... a little," Morien answered.
At that moment, Morien seemed to have guessed what was missing.
It was "miracles."
The Birth of a Fortune-Collecting Butterfly required the collection of miracles.
Morien looked at Saitama.
Wasn't there a super miracle right here?
Who could dare say that Saitama was not a collection of super miracles?
Just as Morien was about to experiment further—
Buzz, buzz, buzz.
"Then... did you make this with magic too?" Saitama pointed at a mosquito and asked.
"Oh, not this one." Morien glanced up at it, then lowered his head to continue studying.
Smack!
And so, Saitama began his challenge against the mosquito.
The lifelong enemy of One-Punch Man, the Celestial Thearch of Mosquitoes who ruled for all eternity.
This time, Saitama was the challenger.
His ears twitched. Morien looked toward the window he had left open, where another mosquito had flown in. It slowly approached him before finally landing on his hand.
"Oh?" Morien raised an eyebrow and did not stop it.
A mosquito wanted to drink a Royal Insect's blood?
How long had he been in Japan? How had he already run into a plotline of the inferior overthrowing the superior?
And its target was him.
That mosquito really wanted to get ahead.
Buzzing, the mosquito landed on the back of Morien's hand, inserted its proboscis, and began to drink his blood.
Morien watched quietly.
He was curious what would happen when a mosquito, controlled by Mosquito Girl in the original story to drink human blood, drank the blood of a Royal Insect.
The next moment, the mosquito suddenly raised its head and looked at Morien.
Morien immediately felt a mystical connection form between himself and the mosquito. He felt that he could easily control its life and death, control its actions.
Had it been contaminated by him?
Morien made a simple guess in his mind.
But a guess was only a guess. Morien had no intention of testing it directly for the time being.
He did nothing, merely watching as it continued to follow the command issued by its previous master, leave Morien, and fly out through the window.