The rusted, scythe-like appendage of the Carnage Mantis came down in a brutal arc.
Ren did not think.
He threw himself sideways onto the unforgiving asphalt just as the monster’s blade cleaved through the crushed sedan.
The screech of tearing metal was deafening.
The car was split cleanly in two, right down the engine block, leaking oil and radiator fluid over the street.
Ren rolled roughly, scraping the skin off his elbows and knees.
He scrambled to his feet, his lungs burning as he sprinted blindly through the thick dust cloud kicked up by the destruction.
“Where are you going, little morsel?” the monster mocked, its voice echoing with a horrific, clicking resonance.
“The heroes are dead!
No one is coming to save you!”
The ground trembled behind Ren.
A Power Level of 46 did not just mean the creature hit hard; it meant it moved with a speed that defied its massive, lumbering frame.
Ren could hear the wind tearing around the creature’s jagged carapace as it closed the distance in seconds.
Ren pushed his legs as hard as they could go, but his body was hopelessly average.
His muscles screamed in protest.
He was not a martial artist.
He was not a track star.
He was just a guy who, until three days ago, worked a desk job.
A massive shadow fell over him, blotting out the midday sun.
Ren cast a desperate glance over his shoulder.
The Carnage Mantis loomed directly above him, raising both of its rusted blades to turn him into mincemeat.
Ren gritted his teeth, his tail instinctively curling tight against his stomach in a vain attempt to protect his vital organs.
So this was it.
Reincarnated with the greatest bloodline in anime history, only to die in the first week because the universe’s main character didn’t exist.
“Maximum Output!
Kendama Smash!”
A booming voice shattered the tension.
Before the mantis could bring its blades down, a massive, solid red wooden ball the size of a wrecking ball blurred through the air.
It struck the Carnage Mantis directly in the thorax with the force of a freight train.
The sickening crunch of shattering chitin echoed down the street.
The monster was thrown completely off its feet, shrieking in a mixture of pain and absolute shock as it crashed through a traffic light and skidded a dozen yards down the pavement.
Ren gasped for air, stumbling backward until his back hit a brick wall.
He looked up, his eyes widening at the figure standing atop a nearby streetlight, holding the string of the oversized kendama weapon.
The man wore a bright red and yellow jumpsuit.
Across his chest was a large, unsettlingly cheerful smiley face.
Smile Man.
A-Class Hero.
Ren immediately focused his vision on the grinning hero, desperate to quantify the strength of the man who had just swatted a Tiger-level threat like a bug.
The digital overlay flickered in his eyes.
The numbers spun rapidly, trying to calculate the sheer density of the hero’s physical prowess, before suddenly violently flashing red and glitching out.
[Smile Man]
[Power Level: ???]
Ren swallowed dryly.
His scanning ability had a hard limit.
He could only read up to ten times his current strength.
Since his Power Level was 5, anything over 50 registered as a complete unknown.
Smile Man, as an A-Class hero, possessed a Power Level somewhere between 800 and 4000.
To Ren’s eyes, the man might as well have been a god.
“Are you injured, citizen?” Smile Man called out, his voice strictly professional despite the absurd costume.
“I…
I’m fine!” Ren shouted back, clutching his bleeding elbow.
“Good.
Evacuate immediately.
I will handle this insect.”
The Carnage Mantis let out a deafening screech, righting itself on its bladed legs.
Green blood poured from the massive crater in its chest, but the pain only seemed to enrage it.
“You dare strike me, human?!
I will tear you limb from limb!”
The monster lunged, a blur of rusted blades and blinding speed.
To Ren, the monster’s movements were almost too fast to track.
But to Smile Man, it was completely trivial.
The hero didn’t even drop his signature grin.
He lazily sidestepped the first scythe, parried the second with the handle of his kendama, and then spun, launching the wooden ball directly into the creature’s face.
The impact was explosive.
The mantis’s head caved in entirely, the shockwave shattering the remaining windows on the street.
The massive insect collapsed in a heap of twitching limbs and completely stilled.
A Tiger-level threat, a creature that had brutally slaughtered two heroes and nearly ended Ren’s second life, was annihilated in two moves.
Ren watched the headless corpse bleed out on the asphalt.
He should have been terrified.
He should have been suffering from a panic attack, traumatized by how close he had come to a gruesome death.
But as he stared at Smile Man retracting his weapon, a bizarre sensation bloomed in Ren’s chest.
It was a hot, rhythmic pulsing, spreading from his heart out to his extremities.
The brown, furry tail wrapped around his waist twitched involuntarily.
It was excitement.
The Saiyan bloodline flowing through his veins did not feel fear at the sight of overwhelming power.
It felt an innate, primal urge to challenge it.
To fight.
To grow stronger.
To reach that level and surpass it.
Ren took a deep breath, forcing the manic urge down.
He clamped a hand over his chest.
“Calm down,” he whispered to himself.
“Don’t be stupid.
Instincts are great, but logic keeps you alive.
You are a five.
A weak, pathetic five.”
Smile Man gave the area a quick sweep, and upon confirming the monster was dead, he leaped away from the streetlight, bounding across the rooftops to report back to the Hero Association.
The street was utterly silent once more, save for the crackling of exposed power lines.
Ren did not stick around for the cleanup crews.
He turned and jogged away, keeping to the back alleys and side streets until he finally crossed the border deep into the Ghost Town of City Z.
His apartment was small, cramped, and devoid of running hot water, but the rent was practically free due to the high monster activity in the area.
He locked the heavy iron door behind him, slid the deadbolt into place, and slumped against the wall, sliding down to the floor.
He had survived.
Barely.
Saitama was truly not coming to save this world.
The Boros invasion, the Monster Association, the Awakened Garou—all of those apocalyptic events were going to happen, and the bald safety net was not going to be there to punch the problems away.
The S-Class heroes were strong, but Ren knew the lore.
Without Saitama, the S-Class would inevitably fail.
Humanity would be wiped out.
Ren pushed himself off the floor and walked over to the cracked mirror hanging above his tiny bathroom sink.
He stared at his reflection.
Dark hair, average build, exhausted eyes.
He focused on his own reflection.
[Ren]
[Power Level: 5]
The number mocked him.
But a Saiyan had infinite potential.
Their bodies adapted to stress, broke their limiters, and grew exponentially through combat and recovery.
But to trigger that biology, he needed a baseline.
He needed a body that wouldn’t snap his own tendons if he tried to throw a serious punch.
“No shortcuts,” Ren said to his reflection, his voice hardening with resolve.
“To start with, I need to gain a single point.
Just one point.
From five to six.”
He walked out into the center of his cramped living room and cleared away the small coffee table.
He dropped to the floor, placing his hands flat against the worn tatami mat.
One hundred push-ups.
One hundred sit-ups.
One hundred squats.
A ten-kilometer run.
It was the workout that had broken a man’s limiter and turned him into a god.
But Ren was not aiming to be a gag character.
He was aiming to trigger the evolutionary traits of a warrior race.
Ren grunted as he began his first push-up.
His arms were already shaking.
It was going to be a very, very long climb.