Chapter 107: The Fun of Fishing
The fishing uncle who loved playing with haikus was driven away.
Saitama walked in the direction the uncle had pointed.
There were no roars or shouts; as he approached the riverbank, low, excited mutterings continuously drifted over.
"Hee-ha-ha! You like playing with me? Then all of you come up! You won't eat bait, you won't eat worms, you won't eat corn kernels... then eat cold hooks! Up, up, everyone come up! I won't even let the fry go, hee-ha-ha..." A person wearing a sun hat had one foot stepped into the river water. A solitary fishing rod lay discarded on the ground nearby, and fishhooks extended from the person's fingers.
Ten fingers, ten fishhooks.
He cast them out incessantly, and when he raised his hands to retract them, they were covered in struggling river fish.
They weren't necessarily hooked in the mouth; they embedded into gills or pierced through scales as the hooks brutally sought and snagged anything they could.
On the ground behind the Monster, a pile of flopping fish was heaped up.
"Eh, can fishing really be that fun?" Saitama asked with a blank expression and a hint of curiosity in his tone.
"Of course it is!" the Fishing Monster replied subconsciously.
Soon, the Monster realized something was wrong.
"Who the hell are you?!"
"You're asking me?" Saitama's art style became slightly more serious, and a glimmer of light shone in his dead-fish eyes. "I'm a Hero for fun."
"I was just running and patrolling when I ran into a talkative uncle, so I came over."
"A Hero..."
The Monster looked down at his own bizarre hands.
Then, his face, which had become slightly distorted after Monsterization, turned solemn and oppressive.
"If you want to kill me, please wait a bit—wait until I've fished every single fish out of this river!"
"It shouldn't have to go that far."
"I don't know much about fishing, but there was a sign posted back where I came from that said fishing is prohibited here. Even though you're using hooks, this quantity already counts as harvesting, right?"
"You'll definitely have to pay a fine."
The Fishing Monster's expression immediately became strange and confused. "What are you talking about? I've turned into a Monster!"
"Is that so?" Saitama maintained a calm expression. "You're just fishing, aren't you?"
The Fishing Monster fell silent.
He sized Saitama up for a long while before finally turning back and casting his hooks into the river again.
He continued to control the hooks, snagging the fish in the river and lifting them out one by one.
"Have you ever fished?" the Monster suddenly asked.
"No. Is there any fun in fishing?" Saitama asked back as he picked up the fishing rod that had been thrown on the ground.
"There's fun when the rod sinks, and even more fun when you catch a big one," the Monster said with a hint of excitement in his tone.
"A big one, huh." A look of realization appeared on Saitama's face. "True, that would save on food expenses."
Saitama didn't earn a small salary now, but he didn't have many places to spend it.
He still followed his old habits, attending supermarket special sale days, and at most occasionally buying some good ingredients to treat Aokiji to a meal.
Naturally, the first thing he thought of was that catching a big fish would save money.
"I'm not fishing just to eat!" the Monster said seriously. "This is a serious duel with the fish!"
"Figuring out what species of fish are distributed where, pondering and selecting the bait they'll be interested in, waiting patiently, depleting their stamina through repeated tugging, and finally deciding the winner!"
After hearing this, Saitama only said silently:
"I see. It feels a bit like fighting."
He then tried swinging the fishing rod he had picked up, casting the hook—which still had a bit of bait clinging to it—into the river.
The faint ripples created by the hook hitting the water were swallowed by the commotion caused by the Monster snagging large fish.
"...You won't catch any fish with that."
"It's fine," Saitama said indifferently. "I'll just wait a bit. If it doesn't work, I'll go back to the previous step and re-select the bait."
The Monster stared blankly at Saitama's calm profile.
He didn't even cast out the hooks in his hands again.
Controlling hooks to forcibly snag fish...
Does what I'm doing even count as fishing anymore... The Monster remained silent for a long time.
"Oh, I caught something, I caught something... What? It's just water weeds," Saitama said disappointedly.
"Pfft, ha-ha-ha..." The Monster suddenly burst into laughter, laughing so hard he doubled over. "I'm often like that too!"
"Alright, I'm done fishing. You can take me away..."
Before the Monster could finish his sentence.
A bone-chilling cold surged from above.
"Ice Ball—"
The Monster was instantly frozen within a spherical layer of ice!
Aokiji landed, and seeing the riverbank piled with fish, he couldn't help but say:
"Saitama, when did you pick up a hobby for fishing?"
"...Aokiji, let that guy go. He was just fishing."
Hmm?
Aokiji didn't know what had happened, but he knew what kind of person Saitama was.
Looking at the Monster inside the ice, whose expression was frozen in a state of somewhat relieved realization, he could roughly guess what was going on.
But... "Regardless of how you see him, Saitama, in a societal sense, he is already a mutated Monster."
"Even if I let him go, it won't change anything. The only difference is whether he's handled by Heroes or the police."
Saitama rubbed his hair, which was showing patches of baldness, also feeling a bit troubled.
He still didn't think this fishing guy belonged in the ranks of Monsters.
But this was just his personal view, and he couldn't think of any good solution.
"Saitama," Aokiji called his name again.
"It's a bit cheesy to say this, but I have to ask: do you trust me?"
"Of course," Saitama replied naturally. "In this lifetime, besides my own home, your place is the only other house I've lived in."
Although the reason was strange, it was very much in Saitama's style.
Aokiji patted the ice ball.
"Then leave it to me with peace of mind."
He didn't say anything else.
He didn't explain the reason, the method, or the basis.
Yet Saitama's response was very blunt:
"Okay."
——————
——————
The ice ball containing the frozen Fishing Monster was taken away by Psykos.
Saitama didn't ask much; he just stuck the fishing rod into the ice ball.
"Don't worry, as long as he hasn't been influenced by Monsterization into a beast that only knows destruction, he'll continue to live well," Aokiji said.
Aokiji didn't plan to let the Monster Association run exactly as it did in the original work.
Once there were enough members later on...
He would select some Monsters who could mimic humans and maintain clear thinking to establish companies across various industries, secretly expanding the influence of the Monster Association.
This would also provide him with better support.
Monsters who couldn't mimic humans could also engage in work that could be completed within the Monster Association base.
"Can he still fish then?"
"Depends on the situation. Maybe."
Saitama didn't think much about it at all.
Since he chose to trust Aokiji and let him handle it, Saitama wouldn't have any doubts.
The thought that subconsciously popped into his head was at most that Aokiji had set up some kind of prison or shelter for Monsters.
As for Aokiji establishing an organization primarily composed of Monsters that rivaled the Hero Association, that was completely outside the scope of Saitama's imagination.
Saitama had already thrown all the fish on the bank back into the river.
Just as he was preparing to continue his running exercise and patrol...
Two phone notification sounds rang out simultaneously.
Clicking in to look, it was a message from the Hero Association. Both Aokiji and Saitama had received it.
"A meeting at the Association Headquarters in City A tomorrow?"