Chapter 2 — Echoes of Infinity
The rooftop wind felt colder now.
Not because of the night.
Because I could feel something watching me.
Not Saitama. Not Genos. Something deeper.
Something beyond the system itself.
The city lights stretched endlessly beneath me while the system screen still hovered in the darkness of my vision like a wound carved into reality.
[Infinity Core Stabilization: 0.00000001%]
Tiny.
Pathetic.
And yet every instinct in my body feared it.
Saitama yawned beside me. "So… where do you live?"
The question hit harder than any monster.
I froze.
Home.
My room. My world. My phone still lying on my bed. My unfinished life.
Gone.
"...I don't know anymore," I answered quietly.
For a rare moment, Saitama didn't joke.
He simply stared at the city below.
"Huh."
Genos suddenly stepped forward. "Sensei, allowing an unidentified individual to wander freely may pose a threat."
I stiffened immediately.
There it was.
The suspicion.
The reality check.
Of course Genos wouldn't trust me. A random human appearing during a monster attack with impossible reflexes? In any normal story, I'd look suspicious as hell.
But Saitama only shrugged.
"He saved you, didn't he?"
"...Yes."
"Then he's probably fine."
Genos looked unconvinced, but he lowered his head slightly. "Understood."
I almost laughed from relief.
The strongest man alive had just cleared my entire existence with pure instinct.
Then the system suddenly flickered.
[NEW OBJECTIVE]
Integrate into this reality.
Failure Condition: Existence rejection.
Time Remaining: 29 Days.
My blood ran cold.
Existence… rejection?
"What happens if I fail?" I asked internally.
The system answered instantly.
[Your body will collapse under dimensional instability.]
I nearly stopped breathing.
So I wasn't truly part of this world.
Not yet.
That explained the strange feeling in my chest ever since arriving here—as if reality itself was pushing against me.
Like an immune system rejecting a foreign object.
Saitama suddenly looked at me again. "You hungry?"
The question was so absurdly normal that my brain lagged.
"...What?"
"I'm making hotpot tonight."
Genos immediately added, "Sensei's apartment has limited space. It may be inefficient to house another individual."
Saitama ignored him completely.
"You can stay for now if you want."
For several seconds, I couldn't answer.
Because this was real.
I was actually being invited to Saitama's apartment.
The apartment.
The tiny, broken place every One Punch Man fan knew by heart.
And somehow… instead of excitement, I felt fear.
Because the closer I got to these people—
the more I realized they weren't fictional anymore.
They could bleed. They could die.
And if canon changed because of me…
then everything I knew might become useless.
"I'll come," I said quietly.
Saitama nodded. "Cool."
Genos stared at me the entire walk through City Z.
The destroyed streets looked even worse from ground level. Buildings were cracked open like broken bones. Fires still burned in the distance. Emergency crews rushed between injured civilians.
This world wasn't funny from the inside.
In the anime, destruction always reset next episode.
Here—
people cried.
A little girl sat beside the ruins of a convenience store, shaking silently while rescue workers searched through debris.
And for one terrifying second—
the system reacted to my emotions.
[Emotional resonance detected.]
[Infinity Core responding.]
The air around me distorted slightly.
Tiny cracks appeared in space for less than a second.
Genos instantly turned toward me.
"...What was that?"
I panicked immediately. "Nothing."
But Genos's eyes narrowed.
He noticed.
Of course he noticed.
We finally arrived at the apartment building deep within the abandoned district of City Z. The place looked exactly like the anime version—old walls, flickering lights, cracked stairs.
Saitama opened the door casually.
"I'm home."
The room was painfully ordinary.
Cheap table. TV. Folded laundry. Discount coupons scattered everywhere.
And somehow that normality felt more unreal than monsters.
Because this was Saitama's life.
The man who could destroy planets lived like a broke college student.
"Make yourself comfortable," Saitama said while placing groceries on the table.
The moment I stepped inside—
the system violently glitched.
[WARNING WARNING WARNING]
[ABNORMAL ENERGY DETECTED]
[Source: Bald Entity]
[The Infinity Core is reacting.]
Pain exploded through my skull.
I collapsed to one knee instantly.
Images flooded my mind.
Stars collapsing.
Galaxies bending.
An endless white space filled with shattered universes.
And at the center of everything—
a silhouette.
Wearing a yellow suit.
My eyes widened in horror.
No…
That wasn't Saitama.
Or rather—
not the Saitama I knew.
This presence felt ancient.
Infinite.
Like reality itself had taken human form.
Then the silhouette looked directly at me.
And smiled.
The vision shattered.
I gasped violently back into reality, sweat dripping down my face.
Genos immediately aimed an incineration cannon at my head.
"Explain."
Saitama blinked. "Whoa. You okay?"
I couldn't speak.
Because the system whispered something that made my soul freeze.
[The Infinity Core has recognized its origin.]
And somewhere far beyond Earth—
something opened its eyes.