Chapter 88: What's So Bad About Being Alive?
"So that's Boros's spaceship, huh? At first glance… it really is absurdly massive. Though the shape is a little weird."
Ryū stood on the rooftop of Hero Association HQ, gazing out at the sky ahead.
Hovering in the low-altitude zone was an enormous vessel, its hull a deep purple, drifting silently through the air. It couldn't have been more than a few hundred meters off the ground—a thousand meters at the absolute most.
There was no denying it: this spaceship was staggeringly huge.
It could probably hold several hundred thousand people at minimum. Maybe even over a million.
* * *
Ordinary humans, that is.
Oversized Mysterious Beings and whatnot would probably take up a bit more room.
"Yukari's vanished off to who-knows-where. Whitebeard already charged down there—probably looking to find a few aliens to… spar with? Test his skills?"
Ryū looked down toward ground level and spotted a fair number of figures already pouring out of HQ, rushing into the ruins beyond.
And yes—ruins was the right word. Outside of Hero Association HQ itself, everything was rubble.
The entirety of City A had been obliterated in an instant. Of every structure on the surface, the Hero Association's headquarters was the only building that had gotten off relatively lightly.
A single strike, and an entire city was gone. That kind of devastating firepower—
Even by Dimensional Chat Group standards, that would place you solidly in the upper echelon.
And this was just the damage caused by the ship alone.
The real hot-blooded youth—"Brave Warrior Boros" himself—hadn't even made his move yet.
* * *
Just as Ryū was lost in thought, a familiar voice called out from behind him:
"Huh… Admin-dono, you didn't go out there? I thought you'd gone with Old Man Whitebeard."
Ryū turned around to find Kaguya Shinomiya, Josuke Higashikata, and the others.
They'd all made their way up to the rooftop one after another, now standing atop Hero Association HQ.
These group members were either mid-tier in terms of combat strength, or somewhere in the lower-middle range.
Or, to be blunt, just plain bottom-tier.
A fight on this level wasn't something their power class could participate in.
So they hadn't gone.
Going out there would just be asking to die.
They'd only drag everyone else down.
Before Ryū could even respond, Kaguya suddenly seemed to have an epiphany. She put on an expression that said "of course, it all makes sense now" and declared:
"Admin-dono must be staying behind because he's worried about us! He's here to protect us, isn't he?"
Ryū: "…"
Was he really going to admit that it was just because the walk looked long and he was too lazy to go?
Besides, this was the One-Punch Man world. The Bald Overlord was holding down the fort.
From the moment Boros arrived on Earth to the moment Boros kicked the bucket—
The entire affair would definitely be over in under an hour. After all, this was the Bald Overlord, the Caped Crusader of Chrome Dome—an existence who, all on his own, had single-handedly raised the power ceiling of an entire world.
And as for Boros's subordinates, there was really only one high-ranking officer who'd come down to the surface.
Whitebeard had probably already zeroed in on that officer. As for the rest? Not even foot soldiers to worry about.
Because every last one of them had been obliterated by the Bald Overlord, single-handedly.
So even if Ryū went out there… he'd basically just be watching the show up close.
He'd rather watch from up here on the rooftop, where the view was actually decent.
As for Kaguya and the others "filling in the blanks" with their own assumptions—he had no idea how to explain himself. Might as well just keep quiet and let them keep running with it.
* * *
So the only ones who'd actually entered the fray were Yukari and Whitebeard.
The question was where on earth this Gap Youkai had run off to.
Given her personality, there was basically zero chance she'd gone to fight.
Could she be planning to use her gap abilities to…
Dismantle their ship?!
That possibility wasn't exactly zero.
Every time Yukari crossed over to a new world, she couldn't resist buying enormous quantities of local specialties.
Ryū was starting to suspect she had some kind of hoarding compulsion.
Was she trying to add a spaceship to her collection this time?!
The ship was that massive—could her gaps even fit something that big?
Or would she disassemble it piece by piece and stuff it in bit by bit?
That possibility also wasn't exactly zero.
* * *
Shifting his consciousness into the Dimensional Chat Group, Ryū discovered that Yukari—who'd vanished without a word earlier—had popped up in the group chat.
The Eternally Seventeen-Year-Old Maiden: [Image] [Image] This one has entered the interior of the spaceship. It's not just big in here—it's absurdly big!
The Eternally Seventeen-Year-Old Maiden: Just dismantled a few high-tech instruments that looked rather entertaining. Currently being pursued by the aliens inside…
The Eternally Seventeen-Year-Old Maiden: Apparently this one dismantled something called a 'Propulsion Torque Core'? This one has no idea what that means.
The Eternally Seventeen-Year-Old Maiden: Also, why do the aliens speak Japanese? That's absurdly immersion-breaking!
RawrSoFierce: …You actually went in there and started taking it apart?
Kaguya-sama: The terrifying Yukari-nee-sama, live-dismantling a spaceship.
Green Grasslands Wolf King: Too bad the Great Wolf King didn't bring any weapons! Otherwise I'd want to storm in and grab some parts too—they'd be incredibly useful for my inventions.
Crazy Diamond: Hssss… Everyone just casually wants to tear apart an alien spaceship. This is what it means to be a real big shot, I guess!
The Little Wandering Planet: This is what it means to be a real big shot, I guess!
We, Ying Zheng: This is what it means to be a real big shot, I guess!
Edward Newgate: This is what it means to be a real big shot, I guess!
Wait… hold on. Did something weird just sneak into that copy-paste chain?
Ryū stared at Whitebeard's message, the corner of his mouth twitching.
RawrSoFierce: @Edward Newgate, aren't you supposed to be fighting right now?
Edward Newgate: Fighting and chatting at the same time—standard operating procedure!
Edward Newgate: Gotta say, this guy's pretty strong. That regeneration ability is seriously impressive—this old man reduced him to mincemeat, and the bastard just reassembled himself instantly.
Edward Newgate: These S-Class heroes are so annoying. Can't they just let me have my one-on-one?
Kaguya-sama: Multitasking mid-combat… I kneel before this legend!
Edward Newgate: Gurararara! Multitasking is standard operating procedure in the chat group.
The Eternally Seventeen-Year-Old Maiden: Too true. This one is simultaneously eliminating the alien soldiers chasing her, dismantling the ship, hauling away anything that looks useful, and chatting in the Dimensional Chat Group.
Kaguya-sama: Yukari-nee-sama… that's triple-tasking at this point!
Crazy Diamond: @Edward Newgate Old Man Whitebeard, can you turn on the camera? You can't just fight a boss without letting us spectate!
The Little Wandering Planet: Requesting big shot camera feed +1!
Edward Newgate: Camera? Gurararara, sure thing. It's on!
Once Whitebeard shared his camera feed, Ryū tapped in to watch.
With his eyesight, he could technically see Whitebeard's fight from up here on the rooftop.
But the distance was a bit too far for a clear view.
Since Whitebeard had turned on the camera—
Not watching would be a waste.
* * *
"Gurararara! Camera's on—you should all be able to see the feed and hear me now, right?" Whitebeard said aloud, keeping his eyes on the enemy before him. "This guy really is a pain. That regeneration is right up there with Marco's."
Melzargard—that was this enemy's name. He possessed a terrifying regenerative ability, and his raw strength wasn't bad either. Though "not bad" was all it amounted to.
For Whitebeard, the alien was somewhat troublesome, but hardly what you'd call a formidable opponent.
Beneath his crescent-moon mustache, a hearty grin spread across his face.
"Gurararara! Smash you to bits and you can just instantly reform and regenerate? Now that's an interesting trick. I can even blow your head clean off and it doesn't matter?"
Melzargard: "…What the hell are you?"
As one of Boros's three top generals, Melzargard was unquestionably powerful.
And yet today, he was getting absolutely dismantled—because he'd discovered that his strength simply could not overcome this "Earth creature" standing before him.
Every one of his attacks was blocked effortlessly.
Meanwhile, a single punch from the other side—
Was enough to reduce him to a fine paste.
Power like that—
It was genuinely horrifying.
"Gurararara! What am I?" Whitebeard boomed. "This old man is Whitebeard! One of the Four Emperors of the New World! What's the matter—you looking to become one of my sons?"
"…You bastard!!!"
Veins bulged on Melzargard's forehead as he launched himself forward in a diving charge, accelerating to a blinding speed.
"Gurararara! Your speed—too slow! This old man saw that coming!"
The grin on Whitebeard's face didn't waver in the slightest. White light coiled around his right palm.
In one swift motion, he seized Melzargard's arm in his grip.
Melzargard's expression shifted.
Because he could feel a force—
Tearing his body apart from the inside.
BOOM!
With a heavy, concussive blast, Melzargard's entire body detonated outward—pulverized into droplet-sized shreds of flesh by the power of the Tremor-Tremor Fruit.
* * *
"This… this friend of Tatsumaki's is that strong?!"
Nearby, Bang swallowed hard.
The alien that had seemed so impossibly difficult to deal with was, in the hands of the crescent-moon-mustache man, nothing more than a reusable punching bag.
One punch to shatter the "sandbag." Wait for it to reassemble. Shatter it again.
And this was the same alien whose attacks had effortlessly torn off one of Atomic Samurai's disciples' arms with a single blow.
Yet those same attacks, when they landed on Whitebeard—completely useless.
That layer of black substance coating Whitebeard's body was blocking everything.
Whatever it was… Bang had no idea.
He'd never seen anything like it.
Metal Bat, fellow S-Class hero, rested his bat on his shoulder, his expression grave:
"Good thing that guy's not an enemy," he said. "Otherwise, even if all of us jumped him together… it'd be damn hard to take him down. He's insanely strong. And that pressure he gives off… it's above mine."
* * *
Ryū pulled his consciousness out of the Dimensional Chat Group. Whitebeard's situation was crystal clear.
The alien was very obviously getting toyed with—strung up and beaten like a human-shaped punching bag.
And the battlefield itself was a spectacle of constant devastation: ground caving in, earth splitting apart, terrain collapsing.
The sheer scale of it dwarfed anything the S-Class heroes could produce. More spectacular, more terrifying by orders of magnitude.
It was enough to make anyone wonder whether Whitebeard's strength, placed among the S-Class—
Could rival even Tatsumaki herself.
As for the Rank 1 hero, Blast… nobody knew how strong he was.
So Tatsumaki was the only available benchmark.
* * *
At that same moment, a series of violent explosions erupted from the spaceship hovering overhead.
The entire vessel could be seen shuddering violently.
"That's… Saitama and Boros have started fighting?!"
Listening to those detonations and mentally reviewing the plot, Ryū offered a few seconds of silent mourning for Boros. This hot-blooded youth had been on-screen for—
Less than an hour. Not even a full hour since his debut.
And he was probably about to collect his lunch box already…
Poor brave warrior!
What's so bad about being alive?!
☆☆☆
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