The 'Logistics and Storage' wing of the secret laboratory was less a series of sinister chambers and more a vast, sterile warehouse filled with towering metal shelves, automated cargo lifters, and neatly stacked crates. The flashing red emergency lights cast long, dancing shadows, and the insistent wail of the klaxon seemed even louder in the cavernous space.
**
"A minute and a half? Okay, cutting it a little close," Saitama muttered, jogging down a wide aisle, still effortlessly carrying the silver-haired woman. "Should be enough time for some quick shopping, though."
The woman in his arms, who had been silently observing the chaos with a mixture of dawning horror and profound confusion, finally spoke again, her melodic voice laced with urgency. "You do not understand. The detonation of this facility's core… it is not a conventional explosion. It is designed to fold space-time, to erase this location from reality itself. There is no 'running' from it. We must…" she trailed off, realizing she had no solution.
"Erase space-time, huh? Sounds fancy," Saitama replied, not slowing down. "But it can't erase my need for a good, hearty snack!" He turned a corner, his eyes scanning the neatly labeled shelves. "Let's see… 'Experimental Arcane Capacitors'... 'Cryo-Preserved Tissue Samples'... 'High-Yield Alchemical Reagents'... man, this place has a terrible selection. Where's the food aisle?"
He finally spotted it, at the far end of the warehouse: a section labeled 'Personnel Rations & Consumables.' His eyes lit up. "Bingo!"
He broke into a full sprint, the woman in his arms letting out a small, involuntary yelp at the sudden, breathtaking acceleration. He skidded to a halt in front of the correct aisle, the wind from his passage sending stacks of ration boxes tumbling.
The shelves were lined with neatly packed, vacuum-sealed military-style rations, nutrient pastes, water purification tablets, and, to Saitama's profound, soul-deep delight, several large crates stamped with the familiar, beloved logo of the Oriana Kingdom. The stenciled words read: "EMERGENCY RATION, INSTANT NOODLE, LIGHTNING BROTH, SPICY SHRIMP."
**
"Jackpot!" Saitama cheered, a genuine, triumphant sound. He gently but quickly set the silver-haired woman down on her feet. "Okay, Angel Lady, stand here for a sec. I gotta grab some stuff."
The woman stumbled slightly, her legs still unsteady, her mind reeling. She watched as the cloaked figure who had just rescued her from an eons-long imprisonment immediately began stuffing his makeshift cape-bindle with as many instant noodle packets as it could possibly hold, his movements a blur of focused, frantic energy.
"This is madness," she whispered, her luminous silver eyes wide. "We are moments from annihilation, and you are… shopping."
"Hey, it's not shopping if it's free," Saitama corrected her without looking up from his task. "It's… emergency heroic requisitioning. And this is a serious emergency. I was almost out." He shoved another dozen packets into the bulging cape.
**
The very air in the warehouse began to hum, to vibrate with immense, contained energy. The metal floorplates trembled. The pale lights flickered violently. The facility's power core, deep below them, was reaching critical mass.
The silver-haired woman looked towards the entrance of the warehouse, then back at Saitama, who was now trying to see if he could fit a large tin of what looked like "Concentrated Nutrient Paste (Beige Flavor)" into his already overstuffed bundle. A strange sense of resignation, mixed with utter disbelief, settled over her. She had woken to a world she did not understand, rescued by a being who defied all logic. Perhaps, she thought, this was simply how the universe ended now – not with a bang, but with a hero trying to grab one last snack before the void came for him.
"Alright, that's probably enough," Saitama finally declared, tying off his massively overstuffed noodle-bindle. "Couldn't fit the beige paste, but you can't win 'em all." He hefted the heavy bundle onto his shoulder, then looked at the woman. "Okay! Ready to go?"
"Go where?!" she cried, her voice rising in pitch for the first time. "The exit is leagues away! We have seconds!"
**
Saitama looked towards the ceiling, then around the warehouse. "Yeah, going out the way I came in seems like a hassle." He looked at the woman. "Okay, Angel Lady, new plan. Hold on tight. And maybe close your eyes. This might get a bit… loud."
He shifted his grip on his noodle-bindle, then wrapped his free arm securely around the silver-haired woman's waist, pulling her close. She let out a startled gasp, her hands instinctively coming up to brace against his chest. She could feel the solid, unyielding strength beneath the plain grey tunic, a power that felt as constant and as undeniable as a law of nature.
**<7… 6… 5…> **
"Hold on to what?!" she managed to ask.
"Me, mostly," Saitama replied. He looked up, directly at the thick, reinforced metal ceiling of the warehouse, several hundred feet above them, buried under tons of rock and earth. He crouched slightly, bending his knees. The floor beneath his boots groaned, threatening to buckle.
**<4… 3… 2…> **
"Okay," Saitama said, mostly to himself. "Gotta time this just right. Don't wanna get caught in the space-timey erasey thing. And definitely don't wanna drop the noodles."
**<1…> **
King Olric, Archmagus Theron, and the entire Royal Council were gathered in the palace's primary scrying chamber, watching a large, magically projected image of the Gray Monk's Monastery. The image was stable, quiet. The sun was setting, casting long shadows from the crumbling ruins. For all intents and purposes, it looked peaceful. They had received no word, no signal. The waiting was agony.
"Anything?" the King asked, his voice tight.
"Nothing, Your Majesty," Elara reported from her position beside the scrying orb, her face pale with concentration. "No significant energy readings since the initial… entry. It is… quiet. Too quiet."
And then it happened.
**<0. FACILITY DETONATION INITIATED. FAREWELL.> **
The final word from the lab's automated system was not heard by anyone on the surface. But its effect was seen.
The image in the scrying orb did not show an explosion of fire and rock. Instead, the ground upon which the Gray Monk's Monastery stood simply… vanished. One moment, it was there – a rugged hill crowned with ancient ruins. The next, there was just a perfectly smooth, glassy, concave crater, as if a giant, invisible ice-cream scoop had descended from the heavens and removed the entire hilltop from reality. The air around the crater shimmered and distorted violently for a second, space-time itself screaming in protest, before snapping back into place, leaving behind an eerie, perfect void where a landmark had stood for centuries.
A collective gasp went through the scrying chamber. The King stumbled back a step, his face ashen. Lord Valerius swore under his breath. The Magi stared, their faces masks of horror.
"It's… gone," Archmagus Theron whispered, his voice trembling. "The entire location… erased from physical space." He looked at the King, his ancient eyes filled with a grim finality. "And the Tempest… Saitama… he was inside."
A heavy, somber silence fell over the room. They had sent him to his doom. Their gambit, their desperate, reckless plan, had resulted in the apparent death of the most powerful being their world had ever known, erased from existence in a blast of incomprehensible techno-arcane power. The relief that should have come with the removal of such an unpredictable threat was entirely absent, replaced by a profound, hollow sense of guilt and a terrifying uncertainty about what came next.
"So… that's it then," King Olric said, his voice barely a whisper. "He's… gone."
But just as he said it, a young, eagle-eyed mage staring at the scrying orb let out a sharp cry. "Your Majesty! Look! In the sky!"
All eyes snapped back to the magical image. High above the newly formed glassy crater, a tiny speck was descending, growing rapidly larger. It wasn't falling; it was dropping with controlled purpose. It resolved into a familiar, unbelievable shape: a cloaked figure, holding a large, lumpy bundle over one shoulder, and carrying a woman with silver hair and twilight-colored wings.
Saitama landed softly in the exact center of the new crater, the glassy surface not even cracking under his feet. He gently set the silver-haired woman down, who looked around at the perfectly smooth, glassy depression, then up at the sky where they had just been, her expression one of utter, profound shock.
Saitama, however, was checking his noodle-bindle. "Phew! Made it! And I think all the noodles are okay!" He looked at the woman. "See? Told you we'd make it. That was a close one, though. Zero seconds on the clock. It's like a zero-second sale! Everything must go!" He chuckled at his own joke.
In the Royal Palace scrying chamber, no one was laughing. They were staring, utterly speechless, at the impossible image before them. He had survived. He had escaped a reality-erasing explosion by… what? Jumping? He had jumped out of a subterranean facility, through hundreds of feet of solid rock and earth, carrying another person and a large bag of noodles, moments before the location ceased to exist, and had landed safely without a scratch.
King Olric slowly, deliberately, sank into his throne. He picked up his wine goblet, found it empty, and stared at it with profound despair.
The King's Gambit had not ended with the destruction of the Cult's base. It had ended with the Tempest treating a reality-erasing bomb as a minor inconvenience on his snack run. The problem hadn't been solved. It had just been proven, beyond any shadow of a doubt, to be infinitely, terrifyingly, absurdly, unsolvable. The silence in the scrying room was no longer somber. It was the silence of minds that had collectively, completely, given up.