The grand army's return to Midgar was a spectacle that would be sung about for generations. It was a true hero's welcome. The entire capital seemed to turn out, lining the streets, cheering themselves hoarse as the victorious soldiers, led by a proud Princess Iris and the kingdom's other commanders, marched through the gates. The defeat of the Cult of Diablos was a victory for all, a cathartic release after years of shadowy fear and the recent, terrifying crisis.
Saitama, as the undisputed linchpin of that victory, was once again placed in the lead chariot. He still had the itchy laurel wreath perched on his head and was trying his best to look heroic and not bored, a feat which was proving to be his most difficult challenge yet. He waved awkwardly at the cheering crowds, who threw so many flowers that his chariot began to resemble a moving garden.
"They really like you," Lyraelle commented, gliding serenely beside the chariot, her feet barely seeming to touch the ground.
"Yeah," Saitama mumbled, picking a rose petal out of his ear. "It's nice, I guess. But it's super loud. And I think I'm allergic to some of these flowers. My nose is getting kinda itchy."
The triumph, however, was tinged with a new, unspoken reality. The world was both safer, and infinitely more dangerous, than it had been before. King Olric, while outwardly celebrating the victory, was inwardly grappling with the implications of Shadow's cryptic, but chillingly plausible, prophecy. 'Things will come now. Drawn by the echoes of your power.'
The 'Saitama Management Initiative' was hastily and discreetly upgraded to the 'Global Anomaly and Extranormal Threat Response Initiative,' with Saitama as its unknowing, and completely unofficial, centerpiece. Archmagus Theron and his Oriana counterparts began a massive, collaborative project to create arcane sensors capable of detecting energies from beyond their world. The allied armies did not demobilize; instead, they began to train with a new, desperate intensity, preparing for threats they couldn't even imagine. They were, in essence, trying to build a fire department in a world where a god of spontaneous combustion had just moved in next door.
Saitama, of course, was oblivious to all of this. His main concern upon returning to the palace was not the impending threat of interdimensional invaders, but the colossal mountain of paperwork that now awaited him. As the new "Royal Protector" and lord of a newly granted fiefdom (a pleasant, mostly empty stretch of countryside he had already nicknamed "Boringville"), he was now expected to… govern.
Sir Kaelan, who had been promoted yet again to "Grand Chamberlain of Tempest Affairs" (a title he wore with the pained expression of a man permanently braced for impact), sat with him in his suite, surrounded by stacks of official-looking scrolls.
"So," Kaelan said, his voice trembling slightly, "this first document, Mister Protector, is a petition from the farmers of your new fiefdom concerning… uh… turnip subsidies."
Saitama just stared at the scroll, which was covered in dense, legalistic script. "Turnips? Subsidies?" He looked at Kaelan, his expression one of pure, unadulterated horror. "Do I have to… read all this?"
"It is… customary for a lord to be aware of the needs of his people, sir," Kaelan explained nervously.
Saitama picked up a scroll regarding "zoning regulations for sheep pastures." He looked at it for a full ten seconds, then let his head fall onto the table with a loud, despairing thud. "This," he declared, his voice muffled by the polished wood, "is the true face of evil. Paperwork."
He was saved from the tyranny of agricultural bureaucracy by the timely arrival of Princesses Iris and Alexia.
"Saitama," Iris began, looking at the piles of scrolls and Saitama's despondent posture with an amused, sympathetic smile. "Father and the council understand that… administrative duties… may not be your primary strength."
"They're boring," Saitama mumbled from the table. "Super boring."
"Indeed," Alexia interjected, a familiar, cunning glint in her eyes. "Which is why we have a proposition for you. A new role. One with… significantly less reading."
Saitama lifted his head, a flicker of interest in his eyes.
"The kingdom needs more than just a symbol," Iris explained. "It needs teachers. It needs strength. We are establishing a new, elite order of knights and mages, a 'Royal Vanguard,' dedicated to confronting the… new threats… that may arise." She looked at him, her expression serious. "We want you to be its head. Its… 'Grandmaster'."
"Grandmaster?" Saitama repeated. "Does that mean I have to go to more boring meetings?"
"Not at all," Alexia said quickly, jumping in before Iris could answer honestly. "It mostly means you get your own, private training ground. A really big one. Where you can… demonstrate your techniques. To the kingdom's most promising young warriors." She smiled, a perfect, predatory grin. "Essentially, you get a giant playground, and a bunch of people to… punch. For training purposes, of course."
Saitama's eyes lit up. A giant playground? People to punch? "So, like, a full-time, state-funded sparring partner program?"
"Precisely," Alexia purred.
"I'm in!" Saitama declared, instantly forgetting all about turnip subsidies and sheep pastures.
And so, the Saitama situation was resolved once more. His fiefdom was placed under the capable administrative care of a very relieved Sir Kaelan. And Saitama was given his new "job": Grandmaster of the Royal Vanguard, a position that mostly involved him showing up at a newly constructed, heavily warded training ground once a week and effortlessly defeating the kingdom's strongest fighters, who saw it as the ultimate, if deeply humbling, training experience.
The 'Saitama-sensei' sessions, as they became known, were legendary.
"Okay, so for this technique," Saitama would explain to a group of awestruck knights, "you just have to punch, like… really hard. But not too hard, or you might accidentally break the person. And the ground. And maybe the castle over there."
He would demonstrate by tapping a massive, ten-ton training boulder, which would then silently disintegrate into a cloud of fine dust. The knights would just stare, their minds struggling to comprehend. His "lessons" were useless from a technical standpoint, but the sheer spectacle of his power served as the ultimate inspiration, and the ultimate deterrent to arrogance. Morale, and property damage, within the knightly orders skyrocketed.
Life settled into a new, stranger, but somehow stable, equilibrium. Iris and Lyraelle continued their research into the Tome of Aethel, preparing for the day the "True Enemy" might return. Alexia used her position to subtly guide the kingdom's intelligence networks, becoming a true, unseen power in the court. Saitama enjoyed his new role, which provided him with a steady stream of "opponents" who, while not challenging, were at least enthusiastic.
But in the vast, quiet spaces between worlds, something had taken notice. The echo of the Serious Punch that had erased a mountain peak, and the silent, conceptual shattering of The Silence, had not gone unanswered. They had been signals, as Shadow had predicted. A dinner bell, rung for the hungriest things in the cosmos.
Far beyond the known stars, on a throne of black glass adrift in a sea of cosmic dust, a being of immense, indifferent power opened its multitude of eyes. It had felt the tremor in reality, the sudden, violent death of a fellow conceptual predator. It tasted the lingering energy on the cosmic winds. An anomaly. A power that did not conform to the ancient rules.
A new, interesting morsel in a dull, predictable universe.
** ** a thought, colder than the void, echoed across the silent cosmos. **
In the shadow of a forgotten moon, another entity stirred, its form a shifting mass of geometric impossibilities. It, too, had felt the resonance. A new player had entered the game. The board, which it had watched for eons, was suddenly… interesting.
The quiet before the storm was over. The triumphant return was just an interlude. The true, final battle had not been fought at the Crown of the Heavens. It had merely been announced. And the enemies who were now turning their gaze towards Saitama's new home were not misguided cultists or arrogant sorcerers. They were older, stronger, and infinitely, terrifyingly, hungrier. The real game, the One Punch Man versus the universe itself, was about to begin.