Knocked unconscious again. Could an A-class hero really be that strong?
Garou replayed the fight in his mind. The last thing he remembered seeing was Handsomely Masked Sweet Mask's face gradually twisting out of shape. That was obviously a monster, wasn't it?!
He threw two quick punches into the air. He had been beaten badly, but he had definitely gotten quite a bit stronger too. Heroes were that kind of people: against humans, they always held back... though that guy really was a monster, right?
"Haha."
What an interesting guy. He seemed like he was heading that way, didn't he?
Garou walked toward the entrance to the Monster Association.
...
"What happened? What's wrong with the brat? Explain it clearly."
Tatsumaki, who had just flown over to eliminate a dangerous monster designated by the Hero Association, folded her arms and looked at Sitch, who was explaining the situation. He had been one of the people who pushed for her to adopt that brat in the first place.
"Handsomely Masked Sweet Mask said the brat had been lured away by a cat-type monster and told us to assemble a rescue team. He suspects the monsters disappearing these past few days means they're gathering together for some major operation, so he went ahead alone to scout. In his last contact, he said he'd already located their hideout."
"Handsomely Masked Sweet Mask?"
Tatsumaki's tone turned extremely ominous. The atmosphere around her turned ominous as well, and the whole building began to tremble slightly again under her influence.
"Why did that guy come harass us and then the brat gets kidnapped right afterward? If he's already found the address, hurry up and tell me. What are you waiting for?"
"It's an organization called the Monster Association. We only heard about them two days ago!" Sitch hurriedly explained.
Because of that warning that Earth was in danger, Sitch, who was more acutely aware of the looming crisis than anyone else in the Hero Association, had made a decision that might anger the heroes: offer criminals amnesty and recruit them to help fight the approaching disaster.
Even if they were criminals, at least everyone was still on humanity's side. That had been his thinking at the time. But he had been too naive. Those people were unwilling to submit to the Hero Association, and just as he'd said, the heroes themselves weren't pleased with his decision either.
In the end, that recruitment meeting was attacked by members of the Monster Association, who had suffered so many unexplained casualties that they came out to see what the humans were up to. That incident was also the first time Sitch and the assembled heroes learned of the Monster Association.
"Just as Handsomely Masked Sweet Mask hung up, the Monster Association openly challenged us here. They didn't beat around the bush at all: they demanded that you come. They're practically announcing that they have a trap prepared specifically for you."
Most of those killed by Love Train had been small fry. Their deaths not only failed to leave Psykos short-handed, but instead pushed her into declaring war outright.
Even knowing Tatsumaki's anger wasn't directed at them, Sitch still looked uneasily at the cracks in the table.
"The location is in City Z. We've already gathered as many S-class heroes as possible for the rescue operation..."
"I won't wait longer than three hours. Send me the location." Tatsumaki tore a hole in the wall, flicked the dust from her sleeve, and flew out. The dress she was wearing had been made by that brat's own hands.
Sitch stared thoughtfully at the hole.
This was more troublesome than he had expected. The woman who looked like a little girl didn't seem to have absorbed much of how serious the situation was. That child could now genuinely be used as her weak point. In a situation like this, how was she supposed to participate in the rescue operation?
If the Monster Association dared provoke them this openly, they had surely prepared far more than one or two Dragon-level combatants...
* * *
Just as Sitch suspected, the Monster Association had enough Dragon-level monsters that merely stating the number could cause panic. For example, three of them were currently running down a corridor on Psykos's orders.
"What the hell is Gyoro-Gyoro thinking? Catching one escaped brat takes this much force?!"
His whole body was pitch-black except for the white on his face, with a little tail-like tuft on his head. He looked more like a comic-relief grunt from a cartoon.
Executive: [Dragon-level] Black Sperm.
"It's just cowardice. When he went out, didn't he say something like, 'It would take at least three Dragon-level monsters to bring down Tatsumaki,' meow?"
The monster who had brought Yimi here, a huge cat walking upright on its hind legs.
Executive: [Dragon-level] Nyan.
"Meow~"
A cat far smaller than the previous two, with especially strange markings.
Executive (?): [Dragon-level (?)] Yimi.
"?"
The other two finally sensed something was wrong. They stopped and looked at the cat that had somehow started following beside their feet.
"Hey, when did Gyoro-Gyoro recruit this guy? I remember it went to challenge King before and then disappeared. It actually survived?"
Aside from Tatsumaki, whom Gyoro-Gyoro was particularly wary of, the hero the executives guarded against most was the terrifying King. This cat that had joined them at some unknown point must have some skill if it survived that.
Yimi didn't care what the two of them were praising. She hadn't gone straight after Psykos because she had a score to settle first.
She rose onto her hind legs. "You said, more catnip than I could eat. Where is it?"
Hearing that halting sentence split into three awkward chunks, plus what the words actually meant, Nyan's fur instantly stood on end.
His reactions were extremely fast. Before his brain even equated the kitten in front of him with the brat they were supposed to hunt down, he had already realized she was an enemy.
With the kind of twitchy reflex unique to cats, he swung a claw at Yimi without hesitation.
"Cat Punishment!"
Bad. Very bad!
Nyan raised his bleeding arm in horror. The forepaw he had just swung was lying near the corner of the wall, and he hadn't even seen whether Yimi had attacked with her mouth or her claws.
He might rank near the bottom among the executives, but Gyoro-Gyoro had said he was Dragon-level. That much was certain.
"Keycap." Yimi called out the name of one of the first Achievements she had unlocked.
"I'll leave this to you!"
With no concern whatsoever for preserving his dignity as an executive, Nyan instantly squeezed into a gap behind him only three centimeters wide. This was his special ability: as long as a gap was wider than three millimeters, he could flatten his body into a sheet and slip through it.
"What a useless bastard!"
Black Sperm cursed, then raised a hand that instantly swelled thicker and attacked Yimi. Even though he failed to avoid Yimi's swipe, he didn't suffer any real damage.
Slashing attacks had no effect on him, because Black Sperm could split and merge in virtually limitless numbers!
"Meow?"
When Yimi realized her claw hadn't hurt him, she opened her little mouth and prepared to bite.
But the next second, Revelation issued her a warning!
Revelation didn't tell her that eating this thing would be dangerous. It simply warned her not to bite down.
How strange.
Yimi closed her little mouth. She swiped a claw and unleashed Mana Burst, instantly erasing the Black Sperm cells that had split off into this group and melting the entire corridor along with them.
Afterward, Yimi turned her face back toward the place Nyan had escaped.
"Meow?"
Why could he fit through somewhere that small?
Yimi was a cat too.
The kitten measured the opening with her whiskers. There was no way her round body could fit, but hadn't that other cat been much bigger than her?
She used Miracle and squeezed in after him.
"This thing?!" Nyan looked back at Yimi in shock.
His sneaky little advantage was gone. Had Black Sperm been killed? No, that bastard had probably only sent a tiny fraction of his cells to brush Nyan off.
Damn it. Why did Gyoro-Gyoro make them offend this monster? This was all his fault!
Anger surging up, Nyan immediately changed direction as he slithered along, then leaped out.
He led Yimi straight to Gyoro-Gyoro's face.
"What a coward. And you call yourself an executive?"
A fat, one-eyed monster with four arms and several tiny claw-like appendages on its head sat calmly on a cushion, staring at the two cats that had barged in.
The larger one in front had brought the smaller one over and then turned around and fled. The smaller one froze stupidly the moment she saw it, her fur even standing on end.
Psykos, remotely controlling the puppet called Gyoro-Gyoro, curled her lips into a smile.
Had the brat finally sensed her overwhelming psychokinesis at close range? A little kid was still a little kid.
Gyoro-Gyoro looked at Yimi with interest. "An ability that lets you take this form... It's already hard to tell whether you're a monster or something else. And since you attack heroes, I suppose your upbringing isn't very—"
"Brando Diego!"
She knew it! How could there be so many Brando Diego clones that refused to die? So the real body had been hiding underground in this world all along, secretly controlling them!
"?"
What was with this psychokinesis?
Gyoro-Gyoro's eye bulged out, and its body was instantly crushed into a lump of meat.
This brat had perfectly inherited the absurd power of her mother, which already sounded ridiculous merely from Fubuki's description.
Psykos's face twisted in shock and confusion as she hurriedly forced apart the psychokinesis gripping her true body.
So she really had been discovered? What kind of monstrous genes did Tatsumaki possess?
Still, when it came to technique in using psychic powers, this brat was unquestionably a toddler just learning to walk!
"Overgrown Rover!"
Psykos hurriedly summoned another creature that genuinely obeyed her and ranked near the top among the executives in strength. At this point, she no longer cared about using the brat to torment Fubuki and Tatsumaki. A corpse could break their hearts just as effectively!
The massive pitch-black dog, large enough to fill the whole room by itself, burst through the wall. Merely moving around crushed a Demon-level monster stupid enough to remain nearby to death, while high-energy light gathered in its mouth as it charged.
In the nearly deserted zone of City Z, where public safety was worst, large sections of buildings began collapsing.
Saitama, whose home sat directly above the Monster Association: "?"