The rain in City Z was rarely just water.
It often carried the thick, metallic tang of industrial smog and the distinct, putrid scent of the abandoned sewage lines.
It washed over the ruined asphalt, gathering in deep puddles that reflected the flickering light of a dying streetlamp.
Ren stood in the center of an overgrown intersection, the torrential downpour soaking his clothes to the bone.
He didn’t move to find shelter.
He stood completely still, his eyes closed, listening to the heavy patter of the rain against the ruined cars surrounding him.
A month had passed since he killed the Corpse-Crawler in the subway.
Thirty days of absolute, grueling hell.
The routine was unchanging: wake up, perform his punishing calisthenics until his muscles threatened to tear, eat massive quantities of scavenged, near-expired food, and then walk into the dark to hunt.
He had killed a mutated stray dog with a Power Level of 10.
He had crushed a colony of giant, parasitic ticks that hovered around Power Levels of 8 to 11.
He had fought, he had bled, and he had dragged himself back to his apartment with broken fingers and fractured ribs more times than he could count.
And his body had rewarded him.
The Zenkai boosts were continuous, stitching his broken fibers back together with increasing density.
But as Ren stood in the freezing rain, gripping his blood-stained crowbar, he recognized a terrifying shift occurring within his own mind.
When he first arrived in this world, the mere roar of a monster was enough to send him into a panic attack.
He fought because he was cornered, because he had to survive.
Now?
He was standing in the open, in the middle of a torrential downpour, intentionally making himself a target.
The paralyzing fear had completely vanished.
In its place was a hot, rhythmic pulsing deep in his chest.
It was a drumbeat.
A primal, instinctual craving for violence.
His Saiyan biology was no longer just adapting his muscles; it was rewiring his brain.
It made the adrenaline taste like sugar.
It made the prospect of a life-or-death struggle feel like the only time he was truly awake.
A sharp scrape of claws against concrete echoed from the alleyway to his left.
Ren opened his eyes.
A wide, manic grin spread across his face, entirely unbidden.
“Finally,” he whispered into the rain.
Three silhouettes detached themselves from the shadows of the alley.
They were humanoids, or at least they used to be.
They slouched on elongated, double-jointed legs, their skin a pallid, translucent gray that revealed the dark, pulsing veins underneath.
Their arms hung down past their knees, ending in rusted, scalpel-like claws.
Ren focused his vision, calculating the pack.
[Sewer-Ghouls]
[Power Level: 15]
[Power Level: 14]
[Power Level: 16]
Ren’s grin widened.
Three Wolf-level threats.
A combined combat value that would easily tear a dozen armed police officers to shreds.
Before the monsters could even hiss a threat, Ren initiated the violence.
He kicked off the wet asphalt, leaving a spiderweb of cracks in the pavement beneath his sneakers.
His speed had evolved drastically.
He closed the twenty-yard distance in a blinding splash of rainwater.
The Ghoul on the left barely had time to raise its claws before Ren’s crowbar swung in a brutal, horizontal arc.
The heavy steel connected with the creature’s ribs with the sound of a baseball bat hitting a watermelon.
The monster was launched through the air, crashing through the glass storefront of an abandoned electronics shop.
The other two shrieked in unison, lunging at him from opposite sides.
Ren didn’t retreat.
He ducked beneath the sweeping claws of the Ghoul on the right, feeling the rush of wind as the razor-sharp appendages clipped the wet hair on the top of his head.
He dropped his crowbar entirely, planting his hands on the slippery pavement, and spun.
His furry tail uncoiled from his waist, whipping out to perfectly balance his center of gravity as he delivered a devastating sweep kick.
His shin collided with the Ghoul’s double-jointed knees.
The bone snapped with a loud, satisfying crack.
As the monster shrieked and tumbled to the ground, Ren fluidly pushed himself back up.
But he had miscalculated his blind spot.
The third Ghoul, the strongest of the pack at a Power Level of 16, slammed into his back.
The force drove Ren face-first into the flooded street.
Deep, burning agony flared across his shoulder blades as the monster’s claws tore through his jacket and sliced into his flesh.
Ren scrambled, splashing in the puddle, as the creature pinned him down, its jaws opening wide to rip his throat out.
Pain.
It was sharp, brutal, and hot.
But Ren didn’t scream.
He laughed.
It was a raspy, unhinged sound that bubbled up from his chest, cutting through the sound of the rain.
The monster hesitated, its primitive brain failing to comprehend why its prey was amused by its own impending death.
“Too slow!” Ren roared.
He forcefully bucked his hips, using his tail to press against the pavement for an explosive burst of leverage.
The sudden upward force threw the Ghoul entirely off balance.
Ren rolled onto his back, bringing both his legs up.
He planted his sneakers squarely into the creature’s sunken chest and fired his legs out like a compressed spring.
The Ghoul was rocketed up into the air, gasping for breath.
Ren scrambled to his feet, grabbed his dropped crowbar, and planted his feet firmly.
As the monster plummeted back down, Ren thrust the makeshift steel spear upward, catching the falling creature directly through the center of its torso.
The momentum drove the crowbar deep, out the other side of the monster’s back.
The Ghoul let out one final, gurgling squeal before hanging limp on the steel rod.
Ren threw the heavy corpse aside, ignoring the blood running down his own back.
He turned toward the Ghoul with the broken legs, which was desperately trying to drag itself away through the puddles.
Ren walked over, his breathing heavy but steady, and brought the heel of his shoe down on the back of the creature’s neck.
A sharp snap ended its misery.
The intersection fell quiet, save for the pouring rain.
Ren stood amidst the corpses of the three monsters.
He reached around to his back, his fingers coming away slick with his own blood.
The gashes were deep, but not life-threatening.
The familiar, hollow ache of extreme hunger was already gnawing at his stomach.
The Zenkai was queuing up.
He tilted his head back, letting the freezing rain wash the blood and sweat from his face.
His heart was pounding with a euphoric rhythm.
He had taken down three Wolf-level threats simultaneously, using pure physical prowess and combat instinct.
The duct-tape armor was gone; he hadn’t bothered to wear it for the past two weeks.
It slowed him down, and more importantly, it prevented the severe injuries he actually needed to grow stronger.
“I’m losing my mind,” Ren muttered, though the smile never left his face.
“I’m actually enjoying this.”
He knew it was dangerous.
The Saiyan thirst for battle was legendary for making its users arrogant.
It was the same biological flaw that led Vegeta to let Cell achieve his perfect form, and Goku to give a senzu bean to the enemy.
He had to temper this feral instinct with the cold, hard logic of the One Punch Man universe.
If he let his bloodlust dictate his actions, he would inevitably challenge a Demon or Dragon-level threat and be wiped from existence.
Ren picked up his crowbar and began the long walk back to his apartment block.
When he finally locked himself inside, he went straight to the bathroom.
He treated his wounds with rubbing alcohol, enduring the blinding sting without a single flinch.
He then moved to his living room, tore into his dwindling supply of canned goods, and consumed nearly eight thousand calories of meat, beans, and fruit syrup.
He passed out on his futon, his body radiating heat like a furnace as the alien cells went to work.
When Ren woke up the next afternoon, the agonizing stiffness in his back was gone.
He reached over his shoulder; the deep lacerations were now nothing but thick, raised scars.
He felt a tremendous surge of power coursing through his limbs.
The energy was so dense it almost made his skin itch.
He walked over to the open space in his living room, dropping to the floor to begin his push-ups.
He hit one hundred without breaking a sweat.
He hit two hundred.
Then three hundred.
He stopped at five hundred, realizing that standard bodyweight exercises were completely useless now.
His baseline density had far surpassed what gravity alone could challenge.
Ren stood up, took a deep breath, and focused his vision on the mirror.
[Ren]
[Power Level: 24]
Ren let out a long, slow exhale.
Twenty-four.
He clenched his fists, feeling the terrifying, raw torque in his forearms.
He was no longer a civilian.
He was no longer a victim waiting for a hero who didn’t exist.
A Power Level of 24 placed him firmly above the entry requirements for the Hero Association.
He was strong enough to trade blows with the lower-ranked members of the C-Class.
He had officially bridged the gap between normal humanity and the superhuman realm.
The Ghost Town had served its purpose.
He had wrung every single point of growth he could out of the local Wolf-level stragglers.
To grow any further, to face the Tiger and Demon threats that were looming in the future timeline, he needed access to the Association’s resources, their monster tracking data, and their paycheck.
Ren walked to his closet and pulled out a clean, gray hoodie and a pair of dark combat trousers he had scavenged.
He wrapped his tail securely around his waist, ensuring it was completely hidden beneath the thick fabric of the hoodie.
“Time to leave the tutorial zone,” Ren said, his eyes burning with an intense, quiet confidence.
He grabbed a small backpack, stuffed his few remaining possessions inside, and walked out of his apartment for the final time.
The Hero Exam was held on the first of every month at the National Testing Center in City A.
He had a train to catch.