**Chapter 14: The Blind Association**
"King, welcome!"
Upon receiving news of King's arrival, Sitch immediately went to the door to greet him.
"Hello, Chief Sitch."
king looked at the round-faced, large-nosed Sitch before him. He recalled that this fellow was one of the higher-ups in the Hero Association, in charge of the Operations Department and responsible for eliminating and defending against disasters, including monsters and natural calamities.
"King, let's get straight to the point!" Sitch walked side-by-side with king towards the meeting room. "Here's the situation: given your immense popularity among the public and your lack of the vices seen in other heroes, I proposed to the Board of Directors that we build you up as our association's model hero. The Hero Association's upper management engaged in a heated two-hour discussion, during which..."
"Give it to me in thirty words or less."
king interrupted Sitch's "speech" with a headache. It was the same last time with the donation; he just wanted to donate, but Sitch had managed to pull out a mountain of excuses and nonsense, annoying him to no end.
Sitch paused, then said concisely, "We hope you can become a model hero. We'd like to invite you to film public service announcements and participate in hero promotional events."
king thought for a moment, then nodded. "I have no problem with that." In the Hero Association, many professional heroes had participated in the association's promotional projects. For example, A-Class Rank 2 hero Iaian was often brought onto television to perform his ultimate move, the Iaian Slash.
He was willing to cooperate with the Hero Association's publicity. Firstly, to justify the nearly 100,000 yuan remuneration, and secondly, he was just too bored at home with nothing to do. He might as well find something to occupy his time.
"Very good. We'll arrange your promotional schedule as soon as possible. Don't worry, we'll keep the promotion time as short as possible so we won't take up too much of your time," Sitch said with a satisfied smile.
king: "..." *Damn it, the main reason I'm doing these promotions is to kill time, and you're trying to shorten the schedule as much as possible? Are you kidding me?*
"King!?"
While the two were talking, a muscular man walked towards them from the corridor intersection. He had a long face and his entire body was a mass of bulging muscles. He wore a gray tank top and was effortlessly lifting and lowering a 500kg dumbbell in each of his powerful hands. 500kg would be impossibly heavy for an ordinary person, yet the burly man before them lifted the dumbbells up and down with ease, as if they were two lollipops.
"Tanktop Master!?"
king's eyes widened. He could recognize all the S-Class heroes in the Hero Association. The person before him was the S-Class Rank 13 hero, Tanktop Master, who had become powerful by training his muscles.
Speaking of which, Tanktop Master was a bit like Saitama; he also became strong through relentless training. More importantly, Saitama could obliterate almost any monster with a single punch, and Tanktop Master was also a one-hit-victory type. So far, all his battle records against monsters were one-hit wins.
Of course, Tanktop Master only won in one hit, which was a far cry from Saitama's one-punch obliterations. That's why his hero name was less impressive than King's. Still, he was equally imposing, and the title "Master" was enough to show the Association's recognition of him.
Furthermore, like Tatsumaki, he was a permanent resident at the Hero Association Headquarters. An entire floor at the headquarters was specifically reserved for him as a training base, which showed how much the association valued him.
At the same time, Tanktop Master had a group of underlings, such as Tanktop Vegetarian and Tanktop Tiger, who formed one of the few hero groups within the association—the Tanktop Army.
From every angle, it was clear that Tanktop Master held a significant position in the association and had a certain amount of influence.
Tanktop Master stared at king, his aura rapidly rising. He said in a deep voice, "King, let's have a man's battle!"
"What?" king was taken aback, not understanding the meaning of Tanktop Master's sudden words and wanting to clarify.
Tanktop Master said seriously, "Arm wrestle!"
"Huh?"
king was speechless. *I just wanted to ask what you meant, not what contest you wanted to have! Besides, a 'man's battle' is arm wrestling? That's just childish, isn't it?*
Sitch stepped in to mediate. "Tanktop Master, King just arrived from M-City and is exhausted. Besides, the association has other important matters to discuss with him, so it isn't convenient for him to compete with you."
"Impossible." Tanktop Master's eyes widened. "I've trained for over thirty years and have long since mastered the way of essence, qi, and spirit. I can judge a person's state with a single glance. Judging by King's expression and posture, he is absolutely at his peak, without a single trace of fatigue."
"..."
king pursed his lips. *I just got a freebie, used a four-star Monster Card, and was rewarded by the system with a full recovery. Of course you can't see any fatigue on me.*
"Ahem." Sitch coughed lightly, then leaned into Tanktop Master's ear and whispered, "On his way here, King just took care of a Demon-level monster that had the potential to become Dragon-level..."
"Huh?"
Tanktop Master was shocked. *Defeating a Demon-level monster without it affecting his condition at all? What kind of monster is this guy?* If it were him, although he was confident in eliminating a Demon-level monster, he definitely couldn't do it as easily as King. Moreover, the monster King had eliminated was one with the potential to reach Dragon-level. If he had been the one to fight it, he probably would have sustained some injuries before winning.
At this thought, his heart trembled, and his hand shook involuntarily. The dumbbell he was holding fell unsteadily, crashing onto his foot with a loud thud. He frowned but ignored the dumbbell. It made sense; for someone like him who became strong by training his muscles, his muscular fortitude was already extraordinary. An injury of this degree was not even worth mentioning.
He stared at king with a grave expression. "King, you are very strong, but I will not admit defeat. Sooner or later, I will defeat you. You two may go!"
"Alright then."
king smiled helplessly. Sitch had spoken to Tanktop Master in a very low voice, so he hadn't heard. Otherwise, he would have been shocked that the association had credited him with defeating Vaccine Man.
Sitch led king to the meeting room. After their figures disappeared, Tanktop Master glanced left and right. Seeing no one around, his grave expression immediately turned into a grimace. He bent over, moved the dumbbell aside, and clutched his foot, crying out in pain, "Ow, ow, ow! It hurts! It hurts! It hurts!"
...
"Hmm? My hero ranking has risen to S-Class Rank 14?"
Inside the meeting room, besides Sitch, there were also Coulson, who was in charge of hero information management, and Maria, who managed monster information. After king sat down, Sitch immediately announced that his hero ranking would be raised from the lowest S-Class rank (16th) to S-Class Rank 14, a jump of two places.
Sitch smiled. "That's right. After deliberations within the association, we've noted that you've been extremely active in eliminating monsters recently, King. At the same time, you've been actively and proactively performing good deeds. You have accumulated enough hero activity points to be promoted to S-Class Rank 14."
He looked at King, filled with emotion. In just half a month, he had eliminated four or five Wolf- and Tiger-level monsters, and even a Demon-level monster with the potential to become Dragon-level. Most importantly, while fighting monsters, he had also actively donated to charity and done good deeds. King was truly a model hero!
"Eliminating monsters? Good deeds?"
king looked completely bewildered. *You've got it wrong, haven't you? I haven't done any of that. I have indeed encountered many monsters recently, but the ox-headed monster was killed by Saitama, the soda family of three was killed by their beast of a father, the cola monster, and as for the Vaccine Man father and son, one was blown to bits by Saitama's punch while the other was crushed to death by a rock Tatsumaki threw. Of all the monsters I've encountered, I haven't killed a single one. I'm a good person; I generally don't take lives.*
*If you insist on saying I eliminated a monster, I suppose there was that one time I went on a rampage and you mistook it for me fighting a monster. But there was no monster then; it was my one-man show from start to finish.*
*And what the hell is this about good deeds? Have I done any good deeds recently? I only remember inexplicably destroying a street and then donating 1.3 million yuan out of guilt as compensation. Does that count as a good deed?*
*Could it be that the Hero Association is also known as the Blind Association?*
That nickname for the association had to be close to the truth. Just think about it: Saitama had been active as a hero for three years, killing countless monsters, yet the Hero Association had completely failed to discover someone like him.
So, why had Saitama's feats of killing numerous monsters over three years gone unnoticed? Take King, for example. He became an S-Class hero entirely due to a few coincidental appearances next to the bodies of powerful dead monsters. Bystanders mistook him for the one who had obliterated those Demon-level and above monsters with a single punch, which led to him receiving an invitation to become an S-Class hero from the Hero Association.
Of course, of the many monsters Saitama had killed, King could only take credit for a small fraction. After all, even if King's luck stat was maxed out, he couldn't possibly monopolize all the good fortune in the world. If that were the case, he would have long since become S-Class Rank 1 or 2, not lingering in the lower ranks.
So the question was, where did the credit for the rest of the monsters Saitama killed go?
It wasn't possible for the credit to simply vanish into thin air. He recalled from the *One-Punch Man* story that there was an interesting situation: the combat power of some high-ranking heroes in actual battle clearly didn't match their rank, giving the impression that they were frauds.
That was it. Saitama's achievements over three years had been divided among many other heroes. In a *One-Punch Man* OVA, after Saitama defeated a monster, he just dusted himself off and left without dealing with the body, and no citizens were around to witness it. Later, two C-Class heroes, Cross-Key and Funeral Suspenders, falsely claimed the credit. When they reported their "achievement," they even embellished the story of how they had defeated the monster, successfully taking credit for the kill.
From the examples of King, Cross-Key, and Funeral Suspenders, it was clear that the reason Saitama remained unknown despite killing countless monsters over three years was that his achievements were credited to others. This was why he remained obscure after three years of hero work, while King, who had lucked into credit a few times, became a household name and a famous S-Class hero, even earning an imposing name like "King."
It had to be said, there was a lot of sordid business within the Hero Association. Among those so-called "enforcers of justice"—the heroes—there were many parasites. Of course, King was one of them (haha).
The reason King wasn't despised was that he had never actively tried to steal Saitama's credit. It was purely the misunderstandings of bystanders that led to him being mistaken for the strongest man on Earth. After becoming an S-Class hero, he was unable to escape the whirlpool of the Hero Association. Every time he attended a hero gathering, he was terrified and on edge, deathly afraid that the association would push him out to deal with a monster they couldn't handle.
A jumble of thoughts flowed through king's mind. He looked at the other high-ranking officials at the conference table, raised his hand, and said, "Let me make something clear. All the monster kills you've credited to me weren't my doing. I'm a good person; I generally don't take lives."
Sitch and all the other high-ranking association officials stared blankly at king. Coulson, who was in charge of managing hero information, picked up a pen and added another line to King's evaluation form: "Humble and low-key. Does not like to show off!"
"..."
(end of chapter)