"You’d better apologize to your grandfather later. For coming to my house and camped out here for an hour, rambling on and on with that worried look on your face!"
Even with this body right in front of him, he still had time to chat?
With that thought in mind, Orochi looked down at the two figures from the air.
Awakened by the power of God, [{Cosmic Destroyer}] Orochi was strong.
It wasn’t something that could be described with mere words.
He had easily surpassed the limits of an ultimate lifeform and completely overwhelmed the monster hunter, who seemed to have broken free of the usual framework of strength as well.
Even now, he was growing stronger in real time, as if that power had no limit at all.
That was why Orochi could see Saitama as nothing more than the arrogant insolence of a weak mortal who didn’t know his place.
And yet.
Orochi was not stupid enough to be so intoxicated by power that he could no longer tell strong from weak.
When he analyzed the situation with his own sharp mind, he could be certain of one thing.
The place they were in now, transformed by the battle into a vast cavern, was deep in the mantle somewhere.
Tens of kilometers below the surface.
The pressure and heat here were not something a mere ordinary life-form could endure.
And yet that human was simply standing there as if nothing were wrong.
That alone put him beyond ordinary life.
Even his basic physical durability surpassed almost every human and monster.
That was the first reason for Orochi’s judgment.
And the second was this.
"He’s not falling behind between our energies..."
The monster hunter, now on the verge of death, and Orochi.
Even though the winner had already been decided, an immense density of energy still swirled between them.
Of course, any ordinary being with weak energy would be ground to pieces just by standing there.
But that human showed no reaction at all amid that dense concentration of power.
The fact that he could still chat so casually in this situation suggested he was being affected very little, if at all.
And that wasn’t all.
It was clear to the eye.
It was felt through every inch of skin.
Orochi could sense a tremendous energy that did not fall behind the two beings who had risen to the rank of absolute strongest on this planet.
From a single mortal who looked utterly insignificant.
[{Saitama... interesting... That power is not something that can be confined to the category of some mere hero....}]
It was absolute power.
A power that, if he wished, could make it so no being on Earth could ever defy him.
Without question, no monster could possibly keep its shape before that power.
Come to think of it, the rumors about the monster in Z City did not seem to have been about him after all.
They had all been about this man....
[{How amusing... amusing indeed...! Heh, heh heh...! Kahahahahahaha-}]
"Hey."
[{...........?}]
Perhaps because he had become absorbed in the fantasy of being further exalted, Orochi’s words were turning increasingly feverish.
Then, abruptly cutting him off with a single word.
As if he had never imagined his speech would be snipped cleanly like a ribbon cut by a sharp pair of scissors, Orochi was left momentarily speechless.
He naturally had no way of anticipating what result that would produce in the next instant.
Saitama said,
"Mumble, mumble, mumble... shut up! I’m not interested in whatever fun you’re having over there, and..."
His patience was not especially good when it came to listening to an opponent drone on and on as if they would never stop.
More than that... this was a pretty irritating situation.
Maybe that was why.
What came next was swift.
Saitama’s words, openly provoking Orochi.
To Orochi, the end of them felt like a mist of water drifting ominously on the wind.
The image of the man in his sight was the same.
Like smoke with color and shape.
And yet, as if he had scattered without even swinging an arm.
So fast that even his afterimage was faint, the figure vanished in what felt like an instant.
The next moment.
Orochi could not help but burn the thing that appeared directly before his eyes into his retina.
It was a peach-colored head, oddly glinting.
"I’m about to turn that guy into a rag. First, grit your teeth."
[{...............What?}]
Below that was a single approaching fist in a red glove.
It clenched tightly.
And simply advanced straight ahead without the slightest deviation.
Yes.
A "normal" punch, carrying nothing but pure physical force.
The moment he took that one force into his eyes.
Orochi could see his own arm moving on its own like an independent entity, separate from conscious command.
He had no way of knowing that this had been the instinctive judgment of a millisecond.
Only a flash made entirely of impact burst forth.
And collided.
Tukwaaaaaaang!!!!
[{Guh...?}]
An arm lifted in a fraction of an instant too short to perceive.
A massive explosion echoed out, hard to believe was the result of a hastily thrown guard colliding with a single fist.
...Yes.
He had endured it. That punch.
He had endured the strike that had turned almost every monster so far into chunks of meat and pools of blood.
And yet Saitama’s face showed no surprise.
He simply looked at his opponent with a hardened expression.
He had already expected it.
That lizard monster, who had seemed to become... far stronger than before, to a degree that could not even be compared.
And that monster that had apparently overwhelmed it.
It seemed too indulgent to think a single punch would be enough to drop him as usual.
Meanwhile, Orochi was driven backward by the impact, grinding the surroundings apart as he retreated.
Still, the arm that had blocked this blow... hurt quite a bit.
But aside from turning a little red, it was fine.
And that didn’t even count as an injury.
Driving his tentacles deep into the ground, he neutralized the force pushing him back.
[{...You really aren’t an ordinary one, that’s certain.}]
What he had confirmed in this moment was simple.
The opponent was strong.
But not just strong.
Strong enough to land a meaningful blow on him.
That was all.
And with that, Orochi’s mouth split into a wide grin.
[{Kuhuhuhuhu....}]
The exhilaration of battle he had felt once before.
What Orochi felt in the battle that followed was a kind of triumph, and the pleasure that came from it.
To overwhelm a strong opponent as powerful as himself and crush him beneath one’s feet.
And then.
Kill him.
Ah, how delightful this was, and he had never realized it until now.
Then what kind of sense of accomplishment would bloom when the moment came to destroy this world?
Having obtained the power he had longed and longed for.
Now remade as absolute despair itself, he no longer felt the need to even consider the possibility of losing to anything.
At once, Orochi gathered up the tentacles he had thrust into the ground.
And then.
In a moment of time so brief it was hardly even right to call it the next instant, there was a hard fist right in front of Saitama’s face.
The moment he registered the fist that had reached him point-blank.
[{Then... take this! Kahahahahaha!!!}]
Tukwaaaaaaang!!!
A yellow-clad hero figure was blown back through the thunderous roar.
But he blocked it.
He recognized the straight punch that had come for his face, faster than sound by several dimensions, and defended against it without difficulty.
His costume burst apart where it had been blocked, but his body suffered no damage at all.
However, to put it another way.
It had been dangerous enough that he could not simply let it hit his face.
Even for Saitama now.
Realizing that himself, Saitama’s face hardened a little.
Strong.
Without question, the strongest opponent he had faced so far.
This was not the kind of level that could be handled with a mere cotton-soft punch.
While he was making that judgment.
...Just as he was about to crash into the cavern wall after being sent flying, the purple figure surged at Saitama again.
Orochi’s fist, trailing a sinister dark-red current, shot in instantly.
And Saitama, with a somewhat changed expression and no intention of taking it head-on, kicked off the wall faster than light and charged through the air.
[Water Stream Rock Smashing Fist]
-Psychic Crushing Fist
[Serious Series]
-Serious Punch
Realizing it was a mistake.
It was already too late.
Saitama knew how strong his own power was.
And yet.
That brief misjudgment.
Was about to cause the clash of two powers capable of destroying the Earth.
...This won’t do.
He tried to stop his fist, but it had already gone forward.
The two fists were on the verge of colliding, on the verge of unleashing destruction that would annihilate everything.
Only then did Saitama look at the other man’s expression again.
Orochi was smiling.
He would blow this planet away without much effort at all.
And then he would fight the enraged opponent that resulted from it with full power, crush him, and trample him.
That, cruelly enough, had been the plan.
At the end of the moment when he was thinking that seeing the face of the hero who had shattered everything with his own hands would be quite a sight—
—there was a flash accompanied by a deafening roar.
...My body is almost at death’s door now, but I somehow managed to follow the movements of the two of them.
I could tell without question that I was nowhere near the level of even a fragment of them.
Still, I was just about ready to believe Saitama would win without trouble.
...If only the two sides hadn’t suddenly tried to collide with overwhelming force.
"........"
No.
Wait.
Dangerous.
My senses, utterly wrecked as they were, were finally warning me in their own separate ways.
My instincts were screaming, and my whole body was trying to pull away from it.
The two fists were aimed at each other.
But the power between them was beyond anything I could even begin to measure.
If this continued.
The Earth would be destroyed.
Just the two punches that had passed between them had already expanded the size of the underground cavern, which had been huge to begin with, by dozens of times.
And the problem was that those had only been ordinary punches.
If those strikes collided here.
The next result was obvious as day.
Boom.
No life on Earth would survive.
Everything would evaporate in an instant.
Literally everything.
Not just the monsters above.
Even innocent civilians....
...No.
Saitama doesn’t seem to have thought this far.
I have to do something.
I know that if I get caught between them, not even a single shred of flesh will remain.
In the first place, I can’t stop that.
One side alone would be impossible. But there were two of them.
...No way.
...Yeah. No way.
...This is really the end.
Impossible to evade.
Impossible to defend.
Impossible to resist.
There I am, as weak as ever.
The smell of closing despair was familiar somehow—
...........
......
...
There is a strange scene I once saw.
Children laughing and running around in a playground.
Maybe because their smiles looked so lovely?
I stood there and watched them.
Their happy smiles seemed to bring warmth even to the person looking on.
As if they kept breathing life into something cold.
So.
I thought I wanted to protect those smiles.
A world where everyone was happy.
A world where the weak weren’t bullied or made to suffer, and the strong helped one another without exception.
I think I dreamed of such a wonderful world.
So I held that absurd dream close, warm in my arms.
And I think I wanted to watch over it.
...........
......
...
...Is there really no way?
Stopping the collision of those two monsters is clearly impossible.
Anyone on this Earth who got caught between them would become less than dust.
Then what about sending those overwhelming powers far away from here... is that impossible?
...
......
...........No.
There is one way.
[Name: Terrifyingly Ferocious Lizard Monster]
[Alias: Monster Hunter]
[Disaster Level: Dragon]
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
[Warp LV7]
Up until now, the way [Warp] had been used was simple.
Freely moving my own position somewhere else.
But the farther the distance or the more often it was used, the more brutally it ate through MP.
That was the only simple form it had been used in so far.
Still.
Every so often, I had let my mind drift and thought about it.
If [Warp] was a skill that teleported objects to any desired location.
Then could I transfer something other than myself, the caster?
...Of course, it had only been a wild thought.
Realistically speaking, wouldn’t it be stranger if it worked exactly as imagined?
I had brushed it off as a joke.
But now is not the time to care whether it works as imagined or not.
I have to make it happen somehow.
Focusing—I rise.
I drag my completely wrecked body upward somehow.
I don’t need to stay standing for long.
One instant, not even as long as 0.000001 seconds, is enough.
Stepping onto the sticky pool of blood.
I stretch out my empty hand.
[Allocatable Points: 9504]
I dump every last remaining allocatable point into MP.
[MP: 9504/100000]
Focus.
Focus.
Bring all the power together.
Not the slightest error can be allowed.
I imagine those overwhelming powers being packed into a giant bag.
The bag in my imagination tears apart.
Again.
Focusing, I make the bag again.
And once more it is ripped to shreds and scattered.
Not enough.
But.
Again.
One more time.
And again.
How many times was I torn apart in a world that never even reached the span of an instant?
In the darkness where every scrap of cloth was shredded so completely it left no shape behind.
[Warp LV8]
A single strand of something comes into view.
A thread of gold, so thin and fragile it looks like it could snap at any moment.
Found it.
I concentrate all my mind on that single strand.
Carefully observing and analyzing the structure of the thread, so fragile it seems ready to break at once.
Before it snaps completely, I use it as a base and begin copying it wildly, layering over it.
Threads are added to threads, little by little.
Gathered.
Mixed.
Twisted together without restraint.
The threads of possibility soon become a broad cloth, and before long, the shape begins to take form.
If I can just cover it—
Beeeeeeeeeeep...
"-..."
...Damn it.
[MP: 0/100000]
The limit. This is the limit.
The power won’t gather.
I had finally finished shaping the form.
All that remained was to complete the finish.
Just a little more.
[MP: 0/100000]
More.
[MP: 0/100000]
Just a little more, even if it’s only a little.
[HP: 4/100000]
[ST: 5/100000]
[AP: 9/100000]
[SP: 10/100000]
Just a little.
More.
Even if I have to pour out everything I have.
[Meteoric Burst]
[4->0]
[5->0]
[9->0]
[10->0]
[MP: 28/100000]
[28->0]
...Not enough.
Everything.
Gather it all.
Everything I have.
Literally everything.
There was something I had wanted to protect.
But it had sunk into a vanished abyss and gone dim.
It no longer seemed like I could reach it even if I stretched out my hand.
Maybe I had come too far already.
Looking down at my hand, I can see thick yellow blood streaming down it.
Maybe I had already given up on being myself.
I think that to myself.
I had sworn I would never become a monster—
—and maybe that still holds true even now.
Then.
I have no regrets about the choice I’m making now.
'I have no regrets about the choice I’m making now.'
[Meteoric Burst]
[Warp]
Arrange.
[Hope]
The blood-filled world before my eyes begins to crack.
I can’t feel anything in my arms or legs.
Looking down, they are grotesquely cracked apart, breaking away through the light leaking from between the fractures.
...Yeah.
Right.
This is enough.
[Skill (0/0): (None)]
I collapse through the light.
And with my powerless body fallen once, I look up.
Crack.
As if it were a lie, nothing remains where the two overwhelming powers were about to collide.
I sent them very far away.
Crack.
Somewhere farther than the moon, farther than Mars—somewhere on a planet in the solar system.
Crack.
I believe in Saitama.
He’ll win beautifully.
Crack.
And he’ll come back by some method I can’t even imagine.
I have no doubt of that.
Crack-crack-crack...
So.
Yeah.
This is enough.
The end of a sinner who committed an unforgivable crime is fine as an ending no one knows and no one remembers.
So.
Was I really a monster?
I can’t say for certain.
At least.
In this final moment, I hope I was not a monster.
I hope the monster was not a monster.
Crash.
It’s not over yet.
Get up.
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