To say I was surprised would be saying nothing at all. Because when I opened my eyes on one fine summer morning, what greeted me was not my familiar ceiling or wall — not even the equally familiar armchair and desk that stood beside my bed.
No, it was far worse than that. Before my eyes stood the bewildered faces of two men. One was younger — fairly large, with a peculiar-looking face, glasses, and a cleft chin. The other was much older, with grey hair, a bushy mustache, a wrinkled face, and a kind gaze... for some reason, he seemed vaguely familiar to me...
"Finally awake, you little brat?" — the bespectacled brute leaned in closer and jabbed his index finger right in front of my face. "Be grateful that Master Bang didn't order me to throw you out. The nerve of it — coming here, to the Water Stream Rock Smashing Fist Dojo, and saying..."
At that moment, something literally clicked in my head. The names and titles that strange man had just spoken resonated in my memory, and then easily overlaid themselves onto the scene before my eyes. In an instant, I understood why the old man standing behind Mr. Cleft Chin had seemed so familiar to me from the start. But I had no time to process just how utterly insane it was to see anime and manga characters in real life — because with a new, far louder click, or rather a small explosion, images from a life I had never lived began flooding into my head.
It was the story of a boy named Garou, who was born and raised in a strange world — one without the countries and continents I was familiar with, just one great landmass filled with a modest number of cities: twenty-six in total, named with letters from "A" to "Z." Of course, this world was also mostly inhabited by humans, but alongside them, many other kinds of mystical creatures also dwelled upon this Earth.
Terrifyingly dangerous and often bloodthirsty beings. All of their kind were called simply — Monsters.
And these monsters were fought. By the police, the army, a unified government, and of course by Heroes — exceptional individuals possessing diverse and often absurd abilities. Telekinesis, magic, super speed, immense strength or durability, and sometimes intellect far beyond what was accessible to ordinary mortals.
The war between heroes and monsters — and on a grander scale, between monsters and all of humanity — had been going on for long years and even centuries, growing especially fierce in the last few decades. So far, it was humanity that had been winning. Their civilization lived and developed, while the monsters, for the most part, merely tried to interfere. And yet, the constant threat of annihilation hung inevitably over each of the twenty-six cities, in one of which Garou had lived — the Garou whose body, as I now understood, I had come to occupy, and whose memories were gradually becoming my own.
The boy's life hadn't been particularly cheerful. First, he was an orphan and grew up in a special foster home. Second, he was constantly subjected to attacks and bullying at the school he attended. And finally, third — his internal logic and budding worldview were understood by neither his peers nor older people... ultimately, if one were to recall the canon of the anime and manga One Punch Man — which was where I remembered old man Bang and Garou himself from — all of this led to quite tragic consequences and the emergence of a monster capable of wiping out all of humanity in one go.
However, right now I was only at the very beginning of that wonderful story. Because, if Garou's memories were to be believed, his last recollections described the following events: fed up with endless bullying at school, he decided to get stronger and came to the dojo of one of the most powerful heroes — who also happened to be the very teacher of his own martial art. Silver Fang Bang.
However, unable to endure the climb up the incredibly long and steep staircase that led not only to the dojo's doors, but all the way to the summit of a massive mountain, Garou had run out of strength — and having barely stepped through the threshold and asked whether old man Bang was really strong, he collapsed from exhaustion. Apparently, in that very moment, he either died, or a light from Venus simply reflected off the upper layers of the atmosphere and caused a swamp gas explosion... in short, for some mysterious reason, it was I who came to occupy this body — an ordinary college student who preferred watching anime over attending classes.
And having received all of the still rather young Garou's memories, I promptly passed out. Apparently, such a sudden overload was simply too much for my consciousness to handle...
Coming to again on one of the soft training mats some time later, and realizing that none of this had been a dream, I closed my eyes and — while I had the chance — launched into a mental storm.
Alright. Setting aside any attempts to understand what exactly had happened — attempts doomed to fail from the start — I accepted the given as a given. I was now young Garou, in what appeared to be a fairly canonical story from the One Punch Man anime and manga... though, when I tried to estimate the timeline and account for my body's youth, there was no One Punch Man in this world yet. There was only Saitama — an ordinary, unremarkable guy, a store clerk or something like that. He wouldn't become an invincible baldy for another five or six years, at least if my calculations were correct.
What did that mean for me personally? Seemingly nothing. If my new body possessed all of Garou's canonical parameters, then the wild potential built into me alone was more than enough to make anyone take notice. After all, being the strongest opponent ever shown against the Bald Cape was nothing to scoff at.
Though, I had to admit that this was the result not only of innate potential, but also of Garou's own stubborn character — so there was no room for complacency. Power rarely manifests on its own, even in this wonderful world. Speaking of power — here it was needed, needed, and needed again. Because while the monster situation during this particular time period was more or less stable, in the future, when a certain entity known as "God" began to take the stage, even the strongest heroes would have to work incredibly hard just to stay alive. In short, what I was getting at was this: sitting on the sidelines and skipping all the major plot events was frankly a terrible option. There were no guarantees that even an all-powerful One Punch Man would be able to deal with all the world's problems in a way that left it intact and, at least relatively, unscathed. Which meant — I had to get stronger.
In this regard, as I had already noted, I was quite fortunate. The potential for growth was enormous, and on top of that, I was already at the starting point — Bang's dojo — where I could master the extremely powerful and useful technique of Water Stream Rock Smashing Fist under safe conditions, and later, various other forms of martial arts as well.
If my training progressed at even the same pace as in canon — especially given that I was unlikely to abandon it halfway through, unlike my canonical counterpart — then by the time the main events began, I would be capable not only of holding my own against the vast majority of threats to my existence, but of walking away alive from clashes with those who could only be defeated by Saitama, or the top two of the hero rankings — Blast and Tatsumaki... speaking of the latter. Since an extremely eventful and danger-filled life awaited me, something I was gradually steeling myself for, I probably shouldn't forget about my own pleasures either.
The One Punch Man universe was famous not only for the strength of its heroes, but also for the beauty of most of its heroines. The esper sisters alone were worth something... though, there was a catch — getting close to them would be far from simple. At the very minimum, one would need to match their impossibly high standards of strength. As the saying goes, "if you want to contend, you'd better measure up," or something like that... and isn't that a fine reason to build up that warrior's might? And among the monsters, too, there were a couple of rather interesting ladies — Mosquito Girl, or Whip... or was that already going too far? Worth thinking about...
I hadn't even had time to smile at my own thoughts when the door to the room I was in suddenly opened. A head I had already seen poked out from behind the door frame — followed by half the body of Bang.
"Oh, you're finally awake. You sure can sleep." — he smiled and jerked his head back over his shoulder. "Get up, kid, you should eat something — can't have you passing out from exhaustion... or have you already changed your mind about training under me?"
And that was how, in such a simple and unassuming way, I became one of the many students of the Water Stream Rock Smashing Fist Dojo. And from the very next day, I began training in the martial art that perfectly combined offensive potential with a truly unrivaled defensive technique.
And though at first the classes were no different from those I had once taken in a karate club long ago, how exactly this world differed from the one I had lived in before — that I grasped quite quickly.
Any individual possessing even a shred of potential reached heights with remarkable speed that ordinary people could never attain by any means. This was evident in everything, but the most obvious was physical capability.
Simply watching the older students of Bang's dojo smash concrete walls with their bare fists — and remembering that in canon they were nothing more than useless extras — only fueled my motivation to train harder than I ever had in my life. And the first result came very quickly.
Of course, it didn't take a day — not even two — but at a certain point I clearly realized that I had begun to grow stronger. No, I didn't suddenly become the strongest among all the dojo's students in the blink of an eye — though even Bang himself had almost immediately noted my astonishingly rapid growth.
And yet, my young body was changing, visibly so to the naked eye: endurance, durability, strength, speed, perception — all of these parameters progressed at a pace that was incredible by any ordinary human standard. It was captivating, engaging, alluring — and it allowed me to focus for a very long time on self-improvement and nothing else.
Frankly, before long I had forgotten all the anxiety and grief tied to the fact that I had somehow been cast out of my native world, out of my life there, and forced to start everything from scratch.
No — now, in a certain sense, I was grateful for what had happened. Even though the world of One Punch Man was many times more dangerous than my own, I had the opportunity to reshape it to my liking, and now I knew that almost for certain.
So — not a single glance back, not even a cautious one. To reach the summit, I needed to move only forward and never stop for even a moment.