"Hey, Rimuru, come out and eat. Stop lying in your room playing games. Hurry up, or the Sukiyaki will get cold and won't taste good."
The voice of an adult man echoed through all the rooms. Looking at the man who had just finished shouting, the first thing that caught the eye was an extremely conspicuous bald head. Looking down, he wore a pale yellow hoodie and beach shorts. He wasn't wearing any heat-resistant gloves, holding a steaming clay pot filled with beef and vegetables with his bare hands.
After the man finished shouting, he placed the clay pot on the table and sat kneeling on a cushion, waiting for Rimuru to come out of the room.
"Coming, coming!" A young boy's voice drifted from the room. Then, a Little Loli about 1.3 meters tall, with waist-length silver-blue hair, wearing a pure white hoodie and short shorts that revealed most of her thighs, ran out on bare feet. She sat cross-legged on a triple-layered thick cushion directly opposite the man, barely reaching eye level with him.
Rimuru held chopsticks, her amber eyes staring intently at the steaming clay pot. Tears of emotion practically flowed from the corners of her mouth. "Saitama, you really are the best at cooking. It smells so good!!"
"Of course. If I let you..." make it, all these ingredients would be wasted. Before Saitama could finish his sentence, his eyes widened. This was because Rimuru, showing no sportsmanship, didn't even wait for him to finish before reaching out her chopsticks to snatch the meat from the pot.
Seeing this, Saitama immediately snatched up his own chopsticks and began competing with Rimuru for the meat in the clay pot. He didn't even have time to say the mandatory 'Itadakimasu' before eating. Even so, Saitama only managed to grab one mouthful—about two or three slices of meat.
Just as he stuffed the meat into his mouth, it was so hot he had to take it out. However, at that moment, Rimuru, who possessed heat immunity, had already finished all the other meat in the pot. She cupped her slightly chubby baby face with her small hands, looking completely blissful.
"Dammit!! Rimuru, you brat, you snatched the meat again!! You clearly said you wouldn't!! I'm never believing another word you say!!"
Saitama gripped his chopsticks so hard they were deformed. His tone was extremely displeased, and a very obvious '#' vein appeared on his bald head. Clearly, Saitama was very angry right now.
However, Rimuru acted as if she hadn't heard a thing.
"Ah, Saitama, it seems we've been living together for over three years now, right?" Rimuru's eyes darted around as she suddenly spoke, looking as if she had thought of some mischievous idea.
"Yeah, it has been a long time." Saitama had just put the snatched meat, which had cooled down a bit, into his mouth when he heard Rimuru say that.
After swallowing the meat, he spoke with nostalgia and fell into reminiscence. He didn't notice at all that Rimuru was rapidly eating the vegetables in the pot. After finishing all the vegetables, she also fell into memory.
Three years ago, Saitama still had a full head of hair. That was the first time he encountered a monster, and also the first time he met Rimuru.
He remembered it very clearly. The monster that time was a crab that had mutated because it ate too much crab. That was also another time he had failed to find a job. Long-term failure had made Saitama lose the will to live; his whole body exuded an aura of decadence.
Yet he didn't dare commit suicide, so he figured he'd let the Crab Monster finish him off. But because Saitama's eyes lacked any will to survive, the Crab Monster actually let him go.
Later, he encountered the Crab Monster again in a park where he met a kid with a chin like a butt. Eventually, Saitama learned from him that the butt-chinned kid had drawn nipples on the Crab Monster's body.
"This kid is really courting death!!" Saitama was extremely shocked. He wanted the kid to run quickly, but as soon as he spoke, the Crab Monster had already arrived.
After that, the Crab Monster beat Saitama to a pulp. Using all his strength, Saitama used his tie to pull out the crab's eyes, causing crab roe to spill everywhere. As he lay on the ground gasping for air, his face full of the smile of someone who had just won a race against the Grim Reaper and survived, he met Rimuru—more accurately, Rimuru in Slime ball form.
Saitama was in a state of cerebral excitement. Seeing that Slime ball, he thought it was an accomplice of the Crab Monster, a Jelly Monster. He had already wrapped his tie around his hand like a bandage, preparing to kill this Jelly Monster too.
Just as he was about to move, he saw the Jelly Monster perform a transformation on the spot, instantly becoming a beautiful and cute Little Loli. His eyes widened in extreme shock.
"Don't attack, I'm a good person, not a monster." The Little Loli transformed from the Jelly Monster spoke, even giving a French military salute. Saitama's brain was working at full speed; he never expected a Jelly Monster could turn into a cute Little Loli.
The Little Loli herself had a look of helplessness. Seriously, she was just feasting over in the Naruto world, so how did she suddenly arrive in the One-Punch Man world? But it was fine, she had eaten everything she wanted to eat, hehe~
And by the look of it, it seemed to be three years before Teacher Saitama became an Old Baldy. Honestly, when Teacher Saitama still had hair, he was actually quite good-looking, a handsome guy.
Yes, the Little Loli before him was a transmigrator, and one who had already transmigrated through one world. Before transmigrating, he was a perfectly normal male college student.
Although he had good looks, because he was too lazy to groom himself, he didn't have any female friends. However, he did gain three 'big sons' (roommates), which was his greatest harvest since starting college.
As for why he transmigrated, that day happened to be an offline anime convention. He cosplayed as his favorite 'Cute King,' Rimuru Tempest, and had a great time. On his way back to the dorm in the afternoon, a static sound suddenly rang in his mind. After the static ended, a cold, mechanical female voice followed: "Crackle... beep... System No. 001 has successfully bound to the host."
It was precisely because of these words that he dazed for a moment and paused his step. Because of that pause, a flowerpot happened to fall from upstairs, and he was instantly at death's door.
System No. 001 saw this and thought, 'This won't do. I spent so much effort finding a host, I can't let you die like this.'
First, it sensed the last image in the host's mind and learned the name, personality, and other details of the character in that image from the already fragmented brain.
Then, using its few remaining bits of energy, it transformed its bound host into that appearance, granted some simple abilities of that character, and hurriedly opened a space-time portal to let him—no, she should be called Rimuru now.
It let Rimuru transmigrate to the world called Naruto. In that world, System No. 001 absorbed some energy from the world, realized it was the wrong world, and then dropped Rimuru into the correct world.
However, because of this, System No. 001 fell into a deep slumber. Of course, these matters are for later and won't be mentioned for now.
Not long after Rimuru transmigrated to the Naruto world, she had just eaten three enemies—Momoshiki Ōtsutsuki, Urashiki, and Kinshiki—and also fulfilled Kaguya Ōtsutsuki's wish by eating her as well.
Just as she was about to enjoy a beautiful life, she suddenly came here, and upon landing, she saw Saitama who still had hair. Hehe, looks like there's more fun to be had.
At the same time, not only did Saitama's reminiscence end, but Rimuru's also came to an end.
"Hahaha, that really gave me a scare back then, Ri..." Saitama spoke to Rimuru in a joking tone and reached out his chopsticks, wanting to eat the vegetables in the clay pot. Since he couldn't get the meat, eating some vegetables would be fine, right?
But when he looked closely, forget vegetables, there wasn't even a scrap of green left. In the clay pot, besides broth, there was only broth.
Saitama immediately blew his top, though he had no hair to blow.
A deep red '#' appeared on Saitama's bald head again, and he shouted at Rimuru at the top of his lungs. "Rimuru!! You little brat!! It's one thing not to give me meat!! How can you even snatch the vegetables from me!!!"
It was only because they were currently the only two people in the entire building; otherwise, neighbors would have surely come knocking to complain about the noise.
"Ehe~" Rimuru made the sound of a certain slacker and acted cute toward Saitama, trying to act cute to get away with it. At the same time, she didn't dally, turning around to run, but her movements were nowhere near as fast as the enraged Saitama.
Saitama reached out and grabbed Rimuru by the hood of her hoodie.
"Get out and buy back everything you ate!! The Sukiyaki I worked so hard to make... except for those two pieces of meat I snatched, everything else went into your mouth!! You left me a whole pot of broth, didn't you!!!"
"Oh..." Food is meant to be eaten; it's the same whether I eat it or you eat it. Rimuru barely got two words out before Saitama pushed her out the door and slammed it shut.
"Dammit, it was just some vegetables, is that really necessary?" Rimuru sighed, but there was no choice. If she didn't buy back what she ate, that Old Baldy Saitama probably wouldn't let her back in. She'd just have to make a trip to City A.
Having pushed Rimuru out, Saitama sighed helplessly. What else could he do? He could only pretend to be angry. Saitama's anger was just a flash in the pan. After all, he ate Rimuru's food, lived in Rimuru's place, and even all the furniture and renovations in the room were paid for by Rimuru.
Rimuru had even knocked down all the walls on the entire floor. The current room was a massive open-plan apartment.
Saitama poured out the broth in the pot and washed it, waiting for Rimuru to bring back the vegetables and meat.
With nothing to do, Saitama lay on the expensive sofa Rimuru had bought, clicking the remote. He was watching the 42-inch ultra-thin TV hanging on the wall, looking for something to watch, when the screen suddenly switched to a breaking news broadcast.
City A, which was supposed to be following its daily routine, suddenly suffered an explosion. Subsequently, a pitch-black mushroom cloud appeared before everyone, and the closer one was to the mushroom cloud, the thicker the dust and smoke.
Many pedestrians were already running outward, trying to escape the mushroom cloud. The television was also reporting on the event.
Inside a building, all the staff members in black suits began to get busy.
A man who looked like a leader shouted, "Are there no heroes in that area?!!"
"Lightning Max and Smile Man are heading there now." A short-haired woman heard her colleague's inquiry and immediately glanced at the floating screen in front of her before providing an answer.
Everyone in the entire room proceeded in an orderly fashion.
"Another monster has appeared. Even though Rimuru won't be in danger, I should go take a look." Saitama turned off the TV, jumped off the sofa, changed into his yellow jumpsuit, fastened his white cape, grabbed his keys, and headed out.