Under the blazing sun, on the training ground.
A figure ran along the empty track at a hundred-meter sprinting pace. Beneath his tank top and shorts was a powerfully built physique that gleamed dazzlingly in the sunlight. His honed muscles worked like steel springs, unleashing astonishing explosive force with every stride of his long legs.
If a high-speed camera had captured him, Josen would have looked like a freshly sharpened sword in that frozen instant-keen, fierce, and formidable.
One lap, two laps, three laps...
Countless trainees stood beside the track, watching the blurred figure clock increasingly absurd lap times as cold sweat dripped from their foreheads in unison.
That speed, that physique, that stamina, those muscles...
He was practically a monster!
Whoosh-
After casually jogging a few laps to warm up, Josen approached the trainee he had appointed as recordkeeper. "Did you record my time?"
The trainee looked dazed and nodded frantically when addressed. "Y-yes, I recorded it..."
"Then from now on, train to that standard. Once you're done, head to the Comprehensive Training Hall for combat training. Did everyone hear me?"
"Yes, sir!!" × N
A short while later, in the Comprehensive Training Hall.
A group of sweat-drenched weaklings staggered into the hall, supporting one another. They were about to collapse when they suddenly spotted that devilish figure on the training floor. Their faces went deathly pale, and they forced their exhausted, trembling bodies upright to stand in formation.
In the monitoring room, the chief instructor nodded in satisfaction. "Hmm, they're finally starting to look like elite police officers! Which class are they from?"
"Reporting, sir! Team 7!"
"Next! Kevin, number A0027, step forward!"
On the makeshift ring set up inside the gymnasium, Kevin from A City swallowed nervously, his Adam's apple bobbing.
His opponent was a devil in human skin, a physical powerhouse, the tiger of the police force-Josen, the demon instructor from Z City!
Thinking of all his opponent's nicknames left Kevin utterly despondent.
I can't handle this question! It's too hard!!
Only now that I'm actually facing him do I realize... this man's presence is terrifying!
Just standing there, he makes it hard to breathe. He's like a mountain that could topple onto me at any moment!
He's practically a monster!
If Josen had known how wildly his opponent's imagination was running, he would certainly have told him, yes, this was Conqueror's Haki!
The trainee facing him had gone a long time without daring to attack, and Josen understood.
After breaking through his species' limits, he had already started leaving humanity behind. For an ordinary person to sense that species-level suppression was itself a rare talent.
This Kevin was pretty good.
"Hah-!"
Just then, a sudden roar erupted in the ring.
"Watch out, Instructor!" Unable to endure the torment of their standoff and his own imagination any longer, Kevin finally snapped. His face flushed and his veins bulged, giving him an imposing air. "As a police officer, I can never back down in battle! Even if you're the Demon King, I'll challenge you!!"
"The Demon King..."
"He actually said it..."
"Kevin's going to die, isn't he?"
The trainees below murmured among themselves, sentencing their outrageously bold classmate to death.
Josen said, "...Demon King?"
Wait, is this instructor really that warm and approachable?
As he pondered that, a dark blur rushed toward him. He shifted aside to dodge Kevin's flying tackle, then raised his hand and clenched his fist...
Thud!
A dull impact that made everyone wince rang out. To the spectators' astonishment, Kevin delivered his stomach straight onto Josen's fist as though offering up a free kill. A moment later, his abdomen caved in and his eyes bulged. His body stopped dead as if someone had slammed on the brakes, then crumpled over like a cooked shrimp.
"Ooooh... the instructor really is too strong!"
"So fast! I couldn't even see how he struck!"
"I think I'm next... I'm dead, I'm dead, I'm dead! Help!"
As the crowd below descended into a noisy uproar, Josen's face darkened.
All this fuss. It's been so long-haven't they adjusted yet?
Still, it was understandable. People with normal thought processes probably had a hard time surviving in this dangerous world surrounded by monsters.
Perhaps these officers were already doing fairly well.
The sparring continued.
As Team 7's sole designated opponent, Josen still maintained an undefeated record.
Anyone bold enough to try to bring him down would certainly receive a punch with a little extra force behind it.
Hmm?
Don't ask. If you did, the answer was education through the loving iron fist.
Dusk approached.
A group of bored instructors got together and organized a combat tournament on the main field. Josen's Team 7 came out on top, even drawing the attention of the chief instructor and other senior officials.
Having spent so long at the training camp, Josen had learned that the chief instructor was the current Director of the Metropolitan Police Department-the man with the highest police rank present.
He was the one whose initiative had made this special police training program possible.
"You all performed very well today! Excellent spirit! Uh..."
Roar-
The chief instructor had barely begun his speech when an alarming roar came from the sky.
He instinctively stopped and turned toward the strange noise, his gaze instantly freezing.
A moment later, an expanding shadow appeared above everyone's heads. In the blink of an eye, it blotted out the sun!
Something was falling from the sky!
The scene briefly descended into utter chaos.
A faint warning from his Spider-Sense had alerted Josen before anyone else noticed anything wrong.
Even with the naked eye, he could tell that what was falling... seemed to be a section of an office building.
His far-superhuman senses also detected countless people inside the building crying and screaming for help.
There were still people inside.
As though he had picked up the habit from Saitama, Josen scratched his head, his expression turning serious. "Good grief. This is going to be troublesome."
Both the civilians inside the half-building and the officers scattered across the field needed rescuing. This wasn't a problem he could solve simply by tossing the building somewhere else.
Josen activated Spider-Time, took a deep breath, and decided to act.
An instant before impact, a streak of azure light flashed before everyone's eyes.
A membrane of psychic power expanded into a massive sphere that enveloped the entire building. At the same time, Josen's mind processed at incredible speed, simultaneously generating over a thousand smaller bubbles to surround every person present.
Hum-
Absolute Domain unfolded, instantly constructing a force field as intricate as a bird's nest to protect every officer on the field. Supported by the force field, the building began to slow, finally stopping twenty meters above the ground. Its immense kinetic energy was transferred into the earth, producing a shock wave that destroyed almost every building outside the field!
Fortunately, the training camp had been built in an uninhabited wilderness.
The impact had been stopped!
Chaotic air currents dispersed the dust thrown up by the impact. Whether in the air or on the ground, everyone enclosed within the psychic bubbles remained unharmed.
Silence settled over the scene. Every gaze focused on the man in the sky, his body shining with the same azure glow as the building.
"Is that... Instructor Josen?"
"It's Instructor Josen!"
"He's actually flying!"
"Idiot, he saved us!"
"Director, this is Instructor Josen, number Z0001. I'm going to set the building down outside the camp. Sorry for the trouble, but please organize a rescue operation."
Amid the clamor, Josen's voice reached the dumbstruck Director's ears, bringing light back to his dulled eyes.
Through the sand and gravel kicked up by the impact, the Director stared in shock at the building suspended in the sky and the figure floating beside it.
If not for this man, everyone in the special training camp-including himself and a sizable contingent of the Metropolitan Police Department Leadership-might have graduated from life together today.
The kind of graduation that came with death benefits paid directly to their families.
"Josen, thank goodness you were here. Thank goodness..." Regaining his composure, the Director declared firmly, "I'll order preparations for the rescue immediately!"
"But Josen, what about you?"
Josen gently lowered the building onto a nearby stretch of ground and replied, "A City has probably come under monster attack. I'm going to take a look."
"All right! Leave things here to us!"
Downtown A City.
Boom! Boom!
A metal tower crane dozens of meters tall walked along a busy street, leaving a shattered crater beneath its feet with every step.
Traffic throughout the district had ground to a halt, and panicked people were fleeing everywhere.
An enormous, grotesque human face had grown where the crane's arms intersected. It let out a grating laugh like metal scraping against metal. "Creeeak-hahaha... I'm the Crane Monster! I fused with a crane because I got sick of climbing up and down a tower crane for work every day! Human buildings are nothing before me! Destruction! I'll destroy everything! Creeeak-hahaha!"
Shrill alarms rang out across the skies of A City.
"Hero Association announcement! Hero Association announcement! A giant mechanical monster approximately thirty meters tall has appeared in A City, designated 'Crane Monster'! Preliminary disaster rating: Demon-level! Heroes nearby, please proceed to the scene immediately!"
"Repeating the announcement! In A City..."
Amid a sonic boom, Josen swiftly flew into the skies above A City. Within his field of view, the enormous Crane Monster swung its unevenly sized arms with abandon, shattering buildings on both sides and filling the air with dust.
That was how the half-building that had nearly destroyed the special training camp had been produced.
His powerful senses took in the apocalyptic scene. Agonized screams and wails rose from beneath the devastated ruins. Their owners had not been so fortunate; countless people had already been killed or injured the moment disaster struck.
Although he had witnessed similar scenes more than once since arriving in this world, Josen was still angry.
Crack-
Above A City, the previously calm sky churned with wind and clouds.
Thunderous power erupted. Josen's eyes turned silver-white, and vast quantities of lightning radiated from him. The clouds, white as cotton candy, visibly darkened as though changing their expressions. Flashes of lightning streaked through them, accompanied by muffled, drumlike rumbles.
A storm was brewing!
"Creeeak-hahaha... hic! Why did the weather suddenly change?" Noticing the abrupt darkness, the Crane Monster paused in its rampage and looked up in confusion. "Wait! I'm not a weak human anymore. What does rain matter? Creeeak-hahaha... huh?"
Crack-boom-
A twisting pillar of lightning tore through the still-darkening sky and crashed down. Only much later did faint, muffled thunder reach them from the distant heights!
Secret Art: Ten-Thousand Thunder Prison!
Dense pillars of lightning descended from the sky. The Crane Monster had time for only a glance before the dazzling electricity engulfed it, freezing it in place!
The Stormfront Marks within instantly stacked to their limit. A power akin to a fundamental law tore through the monster's thoughts, stunning it on the spot.
Boom, boom, boom, boom!
The lightning dissipated, leaving billowing smoke.
Two pieces of red-hot scrap lay on the scorched ground, which looked as though it had been shelled. They were the remains of the Crane Monster's metal body.
Yet the monster was still alive!
"Cree... it hurts! It hurts so much!"
"Damn it!! Who did that? Don't let me catch you, or I'll pound you into a construction site's foundations!!"
"You're so noisy-"
Josen was about to blast the bastard again when an impatient feminine shout suddenly came from the sky.
A tiny green dot floated beneath the lingering storm clouds, accompanied by immense psychic fluctuations utterly out of proportion to its size.
"That's..."
The little green dot gradually descended, revealing a petite girl with emerald curls wearing a black, slit-sided dress.
"So it's her!"
Recognizing that distinctive, alluring outfit, Josen understood. "The second-ranked S-Class hero, Tornado of Terror! Oh... right, the association doesn't have an S-Class Sequence yet."
"But judging by this display, Tatsumaki was already ridiculously strong at this point. No wonder she's the association's strongest fighter aside from Baldy!"
In a supermarket somewhere in Z City.
"Ah... choo!"
An unremarkable, ordinary black-haired man suddenly sneezed. He was currently agonizing over whether to buy chicken breast on a limited-time discount or veal in a limited-quantity sale.
It was Saitama.
At this point, Saitama had already donned his unfashionable yellow suit and rubber gloves like those worn by cleaners. It looked as though he had stopped by the supermarket in the middle of his hero activities.
The suit lent his facial features a somewhat resolute, handsome look, but after a longer glance, his whole appearance seemed to round out again. His indecision over ingredients made his gaze look especially listless.
At a glance, he was just a harmless ordinary person with a fondness for strange cosplay.
"Huh... is someone thinking about me, or have I caught a cold?" Saitama rubbed his nose in confusion, utterly unconcerned by the strange looks other shoppers cast his way. Propping up his chin, he muttered seriously to himself, "That's strange. It isn't even that cold, yet I've caught a cold. I've kept up my training every day, so what could be causing it?"
"In that case, I'll have hot pot with the beef on sale tonight to warm my stomach! Come to think of it, I haven't seen Josen in over two weeks. Should I call and invite him over?"
Just then, a sweet announcement rang out from the supermarket's ceiling speakers. "Dear customers, today's limited-quantity sale items have sold out. Our next limited-quantity sale will begin next Saturday. We look forward to welcoming you again!"
"Ahhh, all the limited-quantity sale items are gone!?" Saitama stared in astonishment at the announcement, then muttered to himself as though relieved, "Well, now I don't have to agonize over what to buy. I'll just have regular chicken breast hot pot tonight..."
Ding-dong!
Before he finished speaking, another announcement sounded. "The time is now five thirty p.m. Today's limited-time sale has ended. Staff, please close the sales aisles promptly. Customers who have already selected their items may proceed to the checkout to complete their purchases..."
"..."
Before you continue