Saitama had absolutely no idea that the Blizzard Group already saw him as a thorn in their side.
Ever since he found out Alice was a wildly popular hero, he had been ego-searching his own name every now and then.
He wasn't obsessively refreshing the pages, but he was genuinely a little curious to see just how popular he had become.
Saitama knew his looks weren't exactly the type to easily win people over like Alice's did, but surely there were plenty of people out there who admired pure, powerhouse talent, right?
Yet over the past few days, his searches had turned up absolutely nothing. Not a single shred of information about him existed online.
Finally, when Genos showed up at his apartment the next day, Saitama couldn't hold his question in any longer.
"Given the sheer strength of the monsters I've beaten, I should be a household name by now, right?! But forget about being famous, I can't even find a single whisper about myself!"
Genos didn't doubt Saitama's strength for a second. Even though he had only seen his master strike a single blow, Alice had used what looked like her full output just to blast a corridor wide enough for a person through the laboratory.
Meanwhile, Saitama had casually punched a gaping hole three stories high.
That alone was proof enough of how ridiculously absurd Saitama's destructive power was.
But come to think of it, Genos realized he really hadn't ever heard of his master's name before either.
Suddenly, a lightbulb went off in his head as he realized something.
"Master... by any chance, do you not have a hero license?"
"...Huh?"
What on earth was that?
--+--
Inside the Hero Association headquarters.
"Why would you go to such a dangerous place without prior authorization?!"
Alice had been summoned to the building, thoroughly confused by the sudden invitation.
However, she was quickly escorted into a conference room, only to be met with a barrage of harsh questioning the moment she walked in.
"The House of Evolution is a dangerous organization we've been monitoring closely. We only just discovered their main hideout, and it houses numerous Demon-level threats!"
"How dare you recklessly barge into a place that dangerous?!"
Three or four middle-aged men in business suits glared at her with deep disapproval, clearly furious over Alice's unauthorized solo operation.
Yet... Alice was entirely baffled by their accusations.
"They tried to hurt Alice's friend, so Alice went and took care of them." A look of pure, unquestioning justice washed over the girl's face. "Besides, as a hero, it is only right for Alice to vanquish evil!"
Vanquish evil? Right or wrong? What nonsense.
"We are saying you cannot put yourself at risk like that!" one of the men roared. "If anything were to happen to you, the capital we invested would—!"
"That's enough!" Yamada interrupted from the side, cutting the man off mid-sentence.
As the person who had personally scouted and recruited Alice into the Hero Association, Yamada understood her personality quite well.
Pure, righteous—whether this was a pre-programmed disposition or a personality shaped by her emerging consciousness, it didn't matter.
What mattered was that Alice undeniably viewed 'heroes' and 'champions' through a heavily idealized lens and held herself to incredibly high standards.
To a member of the purist faction like Yamada, this was an exceptionally admirable trait.
The purist faction usually turned a blind eye to the corporate faction's methods. They knew perfectly well that most heroes joined the Association for incredibly practical reasons. In other words... money.
And the corporate faction was the heavy financial backing that allowed the Hero Association to provide such vast sums of money. At this point, the Association could no longer be completely severed from corporate interest.
But... that didn't mean the purist faction was entirely spineless. They didn't care about the heroes who were only in it for the paycheck.
But for a hero like Alice, who purely looked up to the ideal of being a 'hero,' Yamada wasn't about to let the corporate suits push her around right in front of him.
The suit frowned and shot Yamada a glare, but ultimately swallowed the rest of his words.
Even so, he was in a foul mood.
After all, Alice was their next big cash cow. Their promotional campaigns for her had only just started bearing fruit, and they were finally ready to rake in the profits.
Who could have guessed this brainless robot would almost get herself killed?
Fortunately, her strength was a bit more reliable than they had anticipated, since she actually managed to tear the House of Evolution apart. If she had died out there without a sound...
Dammit! Do you have any idea how much money we would have lost?!
In truth, they had already raked in plenty of fan donations through Alice. But in their eyes, the long-term value Alice could generate was already money in their own pockets.
If they failed to secure it, they considered it a personal loss.
"My apologies. The Hero Association actually called you here today to ask you about something."
Yamada didn't bother wasting any more time on the corporate executives; they had already vented enough anyway.
Bringing the conversation back on track, he pulled out a photograph. It showed an eight-story building with three figures standing down below.
Alice's silhouette was unmistakable—anyone could recognize her. The other two were a bald man in a yellow suit with a white cape, and a blonde, fully mechanized cyborg.
Or possibly a robot.
"Our scouts spotted you and immediately rushed back outside to report to headquarters. By the time they returned to the site, they captured this image,"
Yamada then produced another photo, this one showing the ruins of the House of Evolution after Genos had incinerated it.
"Did you do this?"
"It was Genos! A companion Alice met recently!" The girl naturally refused to take credit for her companion's hard work.
"Genos..." Yamada pointed to the blonde cyborg in the photo. "Is it this one?"
Alice nodded.
"I see. Then the monsters inside...?"
"Alice and Genos took care of them together!"
After a few more questions, Yamada had a decent grasp of the situation. "Do you mind if I ask... who is this bald man? What role did he play in this incident?"
What role?
"Hmm... a victim? Alice and Genos only went there because Uncle Saitama was attacked by the House of Evolution." Alice thought about it for a moment before offering her answer.
"Very well, that concludes our meeting. I'm sorry for summoning you so suddenly, but this pertains to your rank promotion, so we had to verify the details with you directly."
Though Alice wasn't as difficult to deal with as the other S-Class heroes, Yamada still gave the interrogation a dignified excuse.
The corporate executives badly wanted to warn her against taking such reckless risks in the future.
However, they didn't want to openly sour relations with the purist faction in an official setting like this—after all, the purists were technically the Chairman's people.
Alice didn't pay much attention to the lecture she had received at the start. To her, that kind of talk went in one ear and out the other. Seeing that they were done with her, she left the conference room.
And that was when she ran into someone rather unexpected.
"Sweet Mask?"
--+--
T/N: If you want advance chapters, you can find it at [email protected]/AspenTL