Chapter 84: The S-Class Heroes Assembled
The Hero Association's headquarters was enormous. Even with Bang and Tatsumaki leading the way, the group spent a solid seven or eight minutes navigating a maze of corridors before reaching their destination.
Bang stopped at the front. "We're here."
Before them stood a massive metal door—thick, imposing, and unmistakably high-tech. The whole thing radiated sci-fi energy.
Bang aligned his face with a small scanning device mounted on the wall. A cold, mechanical voice rang out:
"Ping… Identity confirmed. S-Class Hero, Rank 3: Silver Fang—Bang."
The metal door slid open.
Beyond it lay a conference room spanning easily a thousand square meters. Despite its cavernous size, the room contained a single large table, around which sat the assembled heroes of the Hero Association.
Almost all of them were S-Class.
With one notable B-Class exception.
* * *
The heroes, on the verge of starting their meeting, turned toward the opening door. Every one of them paused.
Silver Fang and Terrible Tornado arriving? Expected. The crowd trailing behind them? Not expected.
There was a seemingly ordinary young man—albeit an unusually handsome one—in Ryū. A woman in exotic, foreign-looking garments with an ever-present smile: Yukari. A slightly nervous girl following close behind: Kaguya. A towering man with a boldly curving crescent mustache and an air of unshakable authority: Whitebeard. A delinquent-looking teenager sporting an Elvis-style pompadour: Josuke. Someone in deeply antiquated robes: Ying Zheng. A small ball rolling along the floor. And—
A wolf. Walking upright. On two legs.
What? A bipedal wolf?!
Predictably, just as with Bang's initial reaction, every pair of eyes in the room locked onto Wolffy.
The others all had human appearances. Wolffy was the outlier. The Little Wandering Planet, meanwhile, went completely unnoticed—to everyone present, it looked like an ordinary ball-shaped toy.
* * *
Atomic Samurai—one of the S-Class heroes—narrowed his eyes. One hand drifted inconspicuously toward the hilt of his sword.
"Is that… a monster? Has a monster infiltrated the Hero Association?"
The instant he radiated killing intent, Tatsumaki fixed him with a withering glare.
Her voice was flat and cold:
"Do you think anything that walked in alongside me and Bang is a monster?"
Atomic Samurai's expression stiffened. He thought it over.
She had a point. Anything that entered with Tatsumaki and Bang in tow—even if it looked unusual—was almost certainly not a hostile monster. At worst, it was a harmless one.
Because the alternative—that S-Class Rank 2 and Rank 3 had knowingly escorted a monster into the Hero Association—would imply they'd betrayed the organization. Betrayed humanity. And that was simply impossible.
Still, the initial reaction from the room was understandable. Every S-Class hero present had instinctively registered Wolffy as a potential monster threat. A flicker of hostility was only natural.
* * *
"Um… little Tatsumaki, aside from your… wolf friend, are the others also your friends?"
The question came from Superalloy Darkshine, his tone mildly curious.
Tatsumaki nodded:
"My friends are absolutely trustworthy. Letting them sit in shouldn't be a problem, right? After all, there's already a bald B-Class hero at this table."
Her gaze drifted to the far end of the conference table—to the figure seated in the very last chair.
Recalling what Admin-dono had told her about the story's plot, her eyelid twitched involuntarily.
If it weren't for the fact that she knew she couldn't beat this bald man, she'd have loved to hurl him out of the meeting room.
Because Admin-dono had said that she—or possibly her sister—was likely the female lead of this story.
And this bald man called "Saitama" happened to be the male lead.
That was… somewhat difficult to stomach.
Of course, she could still maintain her composure. Barely.
* * *
Standing near the back, Ryū's eyes swept the room with a peculiar intensity. Gazing at this very familiar lineup of S-Class heroes, he murmured internally:
No way. Please tell me this isn't what I think it is. Did we seriously land right in THAT time period?
He remembered the original plot well. The first-ever full assembly of S-Class heroes—plus the One-Punch Man protagonist himself sitting at the end of the table—
This was the Boros arc.
This is supposed to be a vacation! A sightseeing trip!
And we've walked straight into THIS?!
Just our luck…
Just like Tatsumaki, Ryū's gaze ultimately settled on the figure seated at the very back of the table: Saitama. That unmistakable hero suit. That distinctive expression belonging to someone of absolute, unquestionable strength. That bald head.
Zero doubt. This was Saitama.
The protagonist of One-Punch Man. The one and only.
The man who had single-handedly raised the entire world's power ceiling by several orders of magnitude.
The man who had broken his limiter. One punch from him could shatter the Earth.
So in theory… he could destroy the Little Wandering Planet with a single punch?
After studying Saitama for several seconds, Ryū looked away.
Because staring yielded nothing useful. No amount of scrutiny was going to reveal the secret to breaking one's limiter.
* * *
"Speaking of which… it looks like we're nearly out of seats. Only two empty ones. That's not going to be enough. This one would rather not stand for the duration…"
Yukari's voice broke the tense silence. Several heads turned—including those of the S-Class heroes.
"Ara ara~ Fortunately, this one's Gap ability doubles as storage. This one keeps all manner of odds and ends in there—souvenirs from the One Piece world, specialty goods, you name it."
As her words trailed off, Yukari snapped her fingers.
An eerie spatial rift tore open in midair. Crimson eyes peered out from within.
The chat group members were unfazed—they all knew what Yukari's power looked like.
The Hero Association attendees, however, froze to a person.
What kind of bizarre ability is THAT?!
Why does it feel so… unsettling?
☆☆☆
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