An encounter with Watchdog Man

"...The monster was destroyed?!"

"So strong! That was practically effortless!"

"She crushed that monster without even breaking a sweat! That's our strongest Class B psychic, Hellish Blizzard!"

"Lady Fubuki is the best!"

The newest members of the Fubuki Group cheered and showered her with praise. Surrounded by them, Fubuki showed little joy. Instead, she withdrew her psychic power with a puzzled look.

Did something purple just flash past?

It broke through such a troublesome monster in a single hit. What the hell was that thing?!

Q City.

Tap, tap, tap...

A white figure darted between the high-rises, climbing and leaping along walls and pipes on all fours. His movements were extraordinarily agile, as though he could ignore gravity and tread anywhere as easily as level ground.

Leaping off the roof of an apartment building, the white figure hurried toward the rising smoke, arriving just in time to see an invisible force blow apart the rampaging monster's upper body. He halted just as he was about to attack and exchanged a glance with the tall young man in ordinary casual clothes standing before the monster.

"Oh, aren't you Saitama's alt... wait, no, you're Watchdog Man!" Josen greeted him warmly, then explained, "I happened to be near the monster, so I went ahead and dealt with it."

Watchdog Man, who shared Saitama's distinctively powerful art style, was still wearing his ever-present white dog mascot suit. Seeing that the monster had already been destroyed, he shifted from his crouched, ready-to-pounce stance into a harmless doggy sit, stretched his head forward a little, and sniffed in Josen's direction.

Then, as though he had confirmed something, he nodded expressionlessly in acknowledgment.

"..."

Watchdog Man clearly wasn't the sociable type. Even with Josen, a fellow Hero Association member, he communicated only through gestures. Then he sprang onto a nearby low-rise building and vanished among the densely packed city buildings in a few bounds.

His astonishing jumping ability was on full display, and his movements were just as practiced. Even Peter Parker would have called him a pro.

This was Josen's first face-to-face encounter with Watchdog Man. The guardian of Q City, jokingly dubbed Saitama's alt by netizens in Josen's previous life, currently stood at Class C, rank 301 in the Hero Rankings. His position fluctuated on the weekly rankings, but never by much, always hovering near the bottom of Class C.

That was also the situation for most genuinely powerful heroes. Before the Class S system was officially introduced, they generally carried out their hero work quietly. Even after defeating powerful monsters far beyond the capabilities of ordinary heroes, they wouldn't loudly advertise it like those obsessed with fame and fortune.

After all, from their perspective, these were merely trivial matters they had taken care of in passing.

Watching Watchdog Man leave, Josen noticed that his every movement was indistinguishable from a real dog's. He was practically an oversized Samoyed that had eaten the Human-Human Fruit.

"He really is..." Unable to hold back a long-standing quip, Josen sighed from the heart. "He really is a hardcore cosplay enthusiast!"

C City.

A wanted criminal with a long history of vicious crimes was holding a huge bundle of high explosives, using hostages to face off against the police. The next instant, the explosives in his hands vanished, his limbs broke, and he lay on the ground howling in pain.

The officers hiding behind their patrol cars couldn't help exchanging bewildered looks.

"Did anyone see who did that?"

"I got no clue!"

E City.

A one-eyed giant as tall as a three-story apartment building was wreaking havoc downtown, wielding a large tree as a weapon.

Amid the blaring alarms, his enormous, bulletproof eye suddenly burst. A hole large enough for an adult to fit through exploded out of the back of his head as though blasted open, sending a mosaic of blood and brains spraying everywhere.

The "weapon" slipped from the monster's hand, and his body crashed to the ground, instantly caving in a stretch of road.

Y City.

Thanks to mobility ordinary heroes lacked, Josen hopped back and forth between human cities. In just half a day, he accumulated the ten card draws needed to activate his fourth ability.

The only downside was that long-distance Instant Transmission consumed quite a lot of power. Even with his current reserves of psychic power, he had used up nearly twenty percent.

Twenty percent of Josen's current psychic power was no small amount. Releasing it all at once could easily wipe Z City off the map.

Fortunately, both his mana pool and mana regeneration had reached the ranks of top-tier psychics like Tatsumaki. After returning home and resting briefly, he had recovered most of what he had spent.

Meanwhile, Hero Association intelligence staff in quite a few cities were going out of their minds.

No sooner had a monster been identified than it was defeated. Yet when the cleanup teams arrived, they couldn't even determine which hero had taken action. All they found was a mangled corpse, leaving them with nothing to do but arrange for its recovery. They couldn't put together the accompanying media releases and promotional posts for social media to save their lives.

Seriously, what kind of hero didn't even want the fan popularity that affected their ranking?

At the very least, surely they needed their attendance records, combat achievements, and corresponding hero activity allowances?

At that moment, the heads of publicity departments everywhere burst into tears in unison-

This job was impossible!

Meanwhile, Josen, back in Z City, had none of those worries.

He took off his headset, and F-kid materialized, reaching out to take the walkie-talkie. Azure psychic flames spread over it as his Stand Ability activated. In the blink of an eye, he turned it into a card and added it to the deck in one seamless motion.

"Come on, let's try out the new ability."

Josen invited F-kid to sit with him on the balcony loungers.

"I need to specify the card pool and type? Then let's do this!" After a moment's thought, Josen slapped his thigh. "Select Devil Fruit as the card pool, set the type to Ability Card, and draw!"

F-kid, who had also reclined beside Josen, turned his head toward him.

Then he shook his head.

"No."

Josen: "..."

"Huh? What's wrong? That's clearly what the ability description said!"

F-kid: "..."

Thanks to their mental link, Josen was a born genius with level-ten proficiency in F-language. He quickly found the answer in F-kid's eyes.

In fact, it worked on the same principle as the direct feedback F-kid had provided back when he was still a set of cards.

[Available card pools are defined by world, such as the One-Punch world or the Marvel Universe, where Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse takes place.]

[Card types must be specified accurately. For example, a Devil Fruit is actually an Item Card. Only the Devil Fruit ability possessed by someone who has eaten a Devil Fruit qualifies as an Ability Card.]

"..."

F-kid's explanation was impeccable in both rigor and professionalism, yet Josen couldn't shake the feeling that the little punk was mocking him.

But he had no proof, which was incredibly annoying.

(ー`´ー)

Unwilling to concede, Josen immediately raised his hand and posed what he considered a rather tricky question.

"Then tell me, what type of card is a Zanpakuto?"