NOVEL WEB Chapter 89: The Data and the Dawn of a New Fear
The return to the Royal Palace was significantly less triumphant than Saitama felt it should have been. He had just had the most satisfying "fight" in ages, a glorious, stress-relieving festival of endless punching, and yet everyone seemed… stressed. Sir Kaelan met him at a discreet side gate, his face the color of old parchment, and immediately began babbling about "containment breaches," "civic infrastructure damages," and "the Chancellor having a rather severe conniption."
Saitama just patted him on the shoulder (a gesture that made Kaelan's teeth rattle). "Don't worry about it, Kaelan. I cleaned up the monster. The streets are safe! And I worked up a huge appetite! Is there any of that stew left?"
The ensuing debriefing in the Small Council Chamber was a tense affair. King Olric, who had been awoken by the city-wide seismic tremors and reports of "spontaneous architectural deconstruction" in the Merchant's District, looked as if he had aged another decade.
"Let me be clear, Saitama," the King said, his voice a low, strained monotone that betrayed the monumental effort he was exerting to not simply scream. "You left the palace, against my express wishes, on a… 'covert patrol'…" He shot a withering glare at his daughter, Alexia, who just examined her fingernails with an air of perfect innocence. "…and proceeded to, and I am quoting from Knight-Commander Kristoph's initial report, 'engage in a city-leveling battle with a self-replicating abomination, resulting in the total annihilation of the threat and the partial annihilation of three city blocks'."
Saitama shrugged. "It wasn't that bad. Most of the buildings are still standing. Kinda. And the monster started it." He frowned. "And the really weird part? There wasn't a single hot dog stand left when I was done. It's like the monster specifically targeted the good food stalls. Super evil."
Chancellor Evrard made a small, strangled sound and had to be fanned by an aide.
"The… 'abomination'… as you call it," Archmagus Theron interjected, his voice filled with a scholar's grim fascination, "was a masterpiece of forbidden bio-alchemy. Its regenerative capabilities were, theoretically, infinite. How… how did you defeat it? Our sensors registered thousands of high-energy impacts, followed by… a complete cessation of biological and arcane signatures. It was as if you… punched it out of existence, piece by piece."
"Pretty much," Saitama confirmed. "It was like trying to clean up a really stubborn spill. You just have to keep wiping until it's all gone." He beamed. "It was super fun, though! We should get another one! Maybe a blue one next time?"
King Olric put his head in his hands. The 'Saitama Management Initiative' had officially devolved from 'keep him happy' to 'survive his happiness.'
The meeting concluded with the King formally "grounding" Saitama. He was forbidden from leaving the palace grounds without a full royal escort and a signed writ from the King himself. Saitama took the news with a sigh, mostly disappointed that his nightly crime-fighting career had been cut short before he could find any decent street food. His punishment was, effectively, a return to the gilded cage, albeit with a renewed and terrified commitment from the Royal Kitchens to keep him supplied with anything and everything his heart desired. The cost of rebuilding half the Merchant's District was quietly added to the ever-growing "Tempest" line item in the Royal Treasury.
While the Midgar Kingdom was dealing with the political and architectural fallout of Saitama's "fun," two other factions were analyzing the night's events with a far greater, and more chilling, degree of focus.
In the hidden control room of a different, undisclosed subterranean facility, the operative commander with the metallic voice stood before his benefactor. The benefactor remained, as always, a silhouette behind a polarized screen, their voice a synthesized, emotionless hum. The commander placed the recovered bio-mechanical fragment on a sterile analysis tray.
"The asset, Epsilon-9, was a complete failure, Benefactor," the commander reported, his voice flat. "It served only to amuse the Tempest."
**
On the screen, complex data streams scrolled past – energy readings, kinetic force dispersal patterns, biometric feedback from the operatives' sensors. "We have it," the commander said, a hint of awe in his voice. "A confirmed energy signature for his 'Normal Punch.' The force is… astronomical. But measurable. And the second data set… the 'Consecutive Normal Punches'… the speed, the frequency, the utter precision… it's not random flailing. It is a controlled, focused application of overwhelming force."
**
"We can analyze it?" the commander asked.
**
The commander stood a little straighter. A vulnerability. It was a word no one had dared associate with the Tempest before. "And what of the alchemist, Vistis? The creator of the asset?"
**
"It will be done, Benefactor," the commander said, bowing. He turned and left, a new, cold purpose in his stride. They had their data. They had their path. The dawn of a new, more focused fear was beginning – the fear born not of unknowing, but of clinical, scientific, weaponized understanding.
In yet another shadow, the atmosphere was one of quiet triumph.
The young man known as Sid, in his guise as Shadow, stood before the assembled leaders of Shadow Garden – Alpha, Gamma, Delta, Epsilon, Zeta, and Nu. Before them, on an analysis table, lay the other piece of circuitry, the one his own agents had silently recovered from the battlefield.
"The data from this fragment confirms it," Gamma reported, her glasses perched on her nose, her expression one of intense academic excitement. "His power is not magical, not demonic, not divine in any recognizable sense. It is… purely physical. But it operates at a level that fundamentally alters localized physics. He does not break the rules; he simply imposes his own, more absolute, rules upon them."
Delta, who had recovered from her "neutralization" and was now more obsessed with Saitama than ever, wagged her tail excitedly. "So he's just really, really strong, Lord Shadow! Can I fight him again?! Please?! This time I'll bite his legs! He can't punch me if I bite his legs!"
Alpha shot Delta a quelling glare. "The point, Delta, is that we now have a baseline understanding of his abilities. He is a physical force. Therefore, he is bound by physical limitations, however extreme they may be."
"Is he?" Shadow asked softly, his voice drawing all attention. He picked up the fragment, turning it over in his gloved fingers. He knew Alpha was wrong. He had seen the Mindscape incident. This was not just a physical being. But letting them believe that… it served his purposes.
He looked at his loyal Shadows. They saw him as their all-knowing, all-powerful leader, the master of shadows who had saved them, who guided them. And he had cultivated that image, that belief, with meticulous care. But now, in the face of Saitama, he felt a flicker of something he hadn't felt in a long time: a genuine challenge to his narrative, to his very identity as the "Eminence in Shadow."
How could he be the ultimate hidden power when a being of ultimate overt power was wandering around, accidentally solving all the problems he was trying to solve dramatically? It was… inconvenient.
But then, a new, brilliant, wonderfully chuunibyou thought occurred to him. He smiled beneath his hood.
"You are all correct," he declared, his voice taking on its familiar, resonant coolness. "He is a being of immense physical might. A storm that scours the land. But a storm, for all its power, is mindless. It has no purpose, no design. It simply… is."
He held up the fragment. "The Cult, the Benefactor, the kingdoms… they all see him as a weapon to be aimed, or a threat to be neutralized. They seek to understand the storm so they can control it, or build a shelter from it. They are thinking like mortals."
He looked at his devoted followers, their eyes wide with adoration. "But we… we are different. We do not seek to control the storm." His smile widened. "We will learn to dance in it. We will use the chaos he creates, the blinding light of his power, as the ultimate cover for our own designs. While everyone is watching the hurricane, no one will notice the quiet work of the shadows in its wake."
He had found his new narrative. Saitama wasn't a rival. He wasn't a problem to be solved. He was a tool. An unwitting, gloriously destructive stage prop for the true protagonist of the story: himself.
"Alpha," he commanded. "The data from this fragment is invaluable. But do not focus on how to defeat him. Focus on how to predict him. Understand his simple motivations – his boredom, his appetite. Learn to anticipate where the lightning will strike next. And ensure that when it does, Shadow Garden is there, waiting in the wings, to achieve our true objectives in the ensuing confusion."
"Yes, Lord Shadow!" Alpha and the others replied in perfect, devoted unison.
Shadow turned away, a feeling of deep satisfaction washing over him. The board was set. The players were moving. And he had just perfectly integrated the most powerful, most unpredictable piece into his own grand, shadowy design. The dawn of a new fear had arrived for his enemies. For him, it was the dawn of a new, even more exciting, performance. The show was only just getting started.