The hunger was no longer just a dull ache; it was a physical agony that clawed at the insides of his stomach.
Ren sat cross-legged on his tatami mat, chewing on a piece of stale bread that tasted like cardboard.
It was the last piece of food in his apartment.
His intensified training regimen, combined with his alien metabolism, was burning through calories faster than he could conceivably replace them.
He needed money, and he needed it today.
Since he lived in the Abandoned Zone of City Z, traditional employment was completely out of the question.
Delivery drivers refused to enter the district.
Utility workers only came with an armed escort of B-Class heroes.
The only people who ventured into the Ghost Town were either suicidal, insane, or looking for something left behind.
Ren stood up, grabbed an empty canvas duffel bag, and slung it over his shoulder.
He also picked up a heavy, rusted steel crowbar he had found in the alleyway behind his building.
When the mass evacuations of City Z occurred years ago, people left in a panic.
They left behind jewelry, electronics, and most importantly, non-perishable food.
Scavenging was highly illegal, strictly prohibited by the authorities to discourage looters from becoming monster chow.
But the law meant absolutely nothing when you were starving to death.
Ren stepped out of his apartment and locked the heavy iron door.
The streets were bathed in the overcast gray light of the afternoon.
The silence of the Ghost Town was unnatural.
The wind howled through the empty husks of shattered high-rises, and vines choked the rusted shells of abandoned cars.
Ren moved with careful, calculated steps.
His Power Level was 6.
He was marginally stronger, faster, and possessed more endurance than an average human, but he was far from superhuman.
He stuck to the shadows, using his crowbar to pry open the back doors of abandoned convenience stores and small grocery shops.
Most of them had already been picked clean by other desperate scavengers years ago, or smashed completely by roaming monsters.
But after three hours of tense, nerve-wracking searching, his luck finally turned.
Deep inside the basement storage room of a collapsed pharmacy, hidden beneath a pile of fallen drywall, Ren found the holy grail.
Canned food.
Dozens of them.
High-calorie survival rations, canned meat, beans, and peaches in heavy syrup.
They were dusty and past their printed expiration dates, but canned goods in this world were designed to last through nuclear fallout.
“Jackpot,” Ren whispered, his mouth watering at the sheer sight of them.
He didn’t waste a single second.
He dropped to his knees and began shoving the heavy cans into his duffel bag as fast as he could.
Ten cans.
Twenty.
Thirty.
The bag grew incredibly heavy, but Ren’s newly conditioned muscles handled the weight with only a mild strain.
This haul would keep him fed for at least another two weeks of intense training.
He zipped the bag shut and stood up, dusting off his jeans.
Then, he heard it.
A wet, scraping sound came from the stairwell leading up to the street level.
It sounded like thick leather being dragged across concrete, accompanied by a low, guttural clicking.
Ren froze.
The blood drained from his face, and his breath caught in his throat.
He slowly reached down and wrapped his hands tightly around the cold steel of his crowbar.
A shadow poured down the stairwell.
It was a creature roughly the size of a large wolf, but its biology was deeply wrong.
It looked like a cross between a hairless hound and a massive reptile, its skin an unhealthy, sickly green.
Thick, viscous saliva dripped from its oversized, jagged jaws, burning small, hissing holes into the linoleum floor.
A Wolf-level threat.
The absolute lowest classification in the Hero Association’s registry, defined as a being or group that might pose a threat to an average group of humans.
Ren swallowed hard, his eyes locked onto the beast.
The digital overlay flickered to life.
[Acid Hound]
[Power Level: 14]
Fourteen.
It was more than double his current strength.
The beast’s yellow, slit-like eyes locked onto Ren.
It didn’t see a threat.
It saw lunch.
“Nice dog,” Ren whispered, his heart hammering against his ribs in a frantic rhythm.
He slowly took a step backward, raising the heavy crowbar.
“I don’t have any meat for you.
Just peaches.”
The creature let out a horrifying shriek and lunged.
It was incredibly fast.
A normal human would have been pinned to the floor and had their throat ripped out before they could even blink.
But Ren was no longer entirely normal.
The grueling weeks of pushing his body to the absolute brink allowed his eyes to track the blur of motion.
Ren threw himself to the right.
The beast’s jaws snapped shut on empty air, its heavy body crashing into the metal shelving behind where Ren had just been standing.
The shelves buckled with a loud screech.
“Die!” Ren roared, swinging the crowbar with every ounce of strength he possessed.
The heavy steel struck the creature squarely in the ribs.
The impact vibrated up Ren’s arms, jarring his shoulders, but it was like hitting a brick wall covered in thick rubber.
The creature didn’t even flinch.
It whipped its head around and swiped a massive, clawed paw.
Ren tried to pull back, but he wasn’t fast enough.
The claws tore through his thick denim jacket and sliced deeply into his left forearm.
Pain erupted like white-hot fire.
Ren cried out, stumbling backward and crashing into a concrete pillar.
Blood instantly soaked the sleeve of his jacket.
The Acid Hound snarled, turning its full attention to its wounded prey.
It crouched low, the muscles in its hind legs bunching up for a lethal pounce.
Ren’s mind raced.
He couldn’t outrun it.
He couldn’t overpower it.
A Power Level of 14 meant the creature’s muscle density and durability completely outclassed a Power Level of 6.
If it pinned him, he was dead.
As the creature lunged a second time, aiming directly for his throat, instinct completely overrode Ren’s panic.
His furry, brown tail, tightly bound beneath his jacket, instinctively flexed with incredible force.
It pressed against the concrete pillar behind him, acting as a high-tension spring.
Ren pushed off the pillar with his legs and his tail simultaneously.
The explosive burst of forward momentum caught the beast entirely off guard.
Instead of retreating, Ren launched himself directly under the creature’s leaping arc.
As he slid across the dusty linoleum beneath the monster, Ren thrust the crowbar upward with both hands, aiming not for the thick, rubbery skin, but for the soft, unarmored flesh beneath its jaw.
The steel rod sank deep.
The monster shrieked in absolute agony, a horrific, gurgling sound as the crowbar pierced through the roof of its mouth and into its brain.
The momentum of its own leap carried it forward, ripping the crowbar from Ren’s grip.
The beast crashed heavily onto the floor, its limbs thrashing violently for a few agonizing seconds before it finally went completely limp.
Ren lay flat on his back, gasping for air.
His entire body was shaking, drenched in a cold sweat.
He clutched his bleeding left arm, his teeth gritted in pain.
He stared at the dead monster just a few feet away.
The metallic stench of its blood filled the cramped basement.
He had done it.
He had killed a monster.
He had survived a direct encounter with a being more than twice as strong as him.
But as the initial shock began to wear off, another sensation entirely took its place.
The deep gash on his arm throbbed, and his muscles ached from the extreme exertion, but beneath the pain, a hot, terrifying euphoria coursed through his veins.
His heart pounded not with fear, but with an intoxicating adrenaline.
The Saiyan biology inside him was not traumatized by the near-death experience.
It was exhilarated.
It was analyzing the trauma, taking notes on the stress his muscles had endured, and preparing to rebuild the torn fibers denser and stronger.
Ren slowly pushed himself off the floor, his breathing ragged but steady.
He walked over to the dead hound and yanked his crowbar free, wiping the dark blood off on the monster’s hide.
He slung the heavy bag of canned food over his uninjured shoulder, ignoring the stinging pain in his left arm.
The Zenkai boost.
The biological cheat code of the warrior race.
Surviving a hard-fought battle, pushing his body past its limits and taking damage, was the key to unlocking his potential.
“A fourteen,” Ren muttered to himself, a grim, determined smile touching the corners of his lips as he walked up the stairs and back into the desolate streets.
“Not bad for a nobody.”
The climb was slow, the risks were monumental, but the path forward was finally clear.
He was going to have to fight his way to the top, one miserable, bloody battle at a time.