"Hey! You there—stop! This is a restricted, dangerous zone!"
A Wakandan warrior sprinted up, barking at the bald man.
Close to thirty armored rhinos ringed the field, far more than the fifty-odd Dora could handle. But Wakanda cherished every citizen—no matter how ordinary—so they could not ignore a bystander.
"Oh? Where is this?"
The bald slacker stood in the grass, scratching his cheek, gazing around with mild confusion.
One by one, the one-story-tall armored rhinos exhaled furnace-hot breath and bellowed like locomotives. Each pillar-thick leg slammed the ground hard enough to make the earth quiver.
Their clash with the Dora had riled them into a frenzy. Eyes blood-red, drool stringing from gaping jaws—these were no gentle herbivores.
With a furious roar, one rhino fixed its wrath on the bald man the Dora were trying to evacuate.
Rrrr-rrrrrr—
Its hooves thundered; black scales flashed with a metallic sheen.
"Look out! Move!"
The warrior who'd come to warn him cried out. She tried to close the distance, but it was too far—she'd never make it—and even she couldn't eat a charge like that head-on.
The bald man on the grass seemed stunned, rooted where he stood, watching the rhino rush him.
It was Saitama. After leaving Knowhere, the Bifrost had dropped him at random on Earth. Unluckily—or not—he'd landed in Wakanda.
"Damn it."
Okoye clenched her jaw as she watched. She couldn't stop it; she could only witness the rhino gore the man where he stood. The death of even one civilian pinched her heart—and besides… a fellow bald head…
A fellow bald head had to look out for a fellow bald head.
"ROAAAR—"
The rhino drove its steel-hard horn down at Saitama's head in a vicious overhand smash.
It was a favorite technique of armored rhinos. Forget a human—set a ten-ton heavy tank there and it would flip it like a toy; it could even punch through steel plating.
THUD—
The deafening thump came with no accompanying scream.
Instead, they heard the rhino groan in pain.
They looked—and saw the massive beast pinned, its horn clamped in Saitama's hand. No matter how its four legs scrabbled, it couldn't stand.
It knelt.
Saitama's face was blank. His arm didn't even tremble—calm as the world's most precise instrument.
A chorus of sharp inhales rippled through the Dora.
To press a charging armored rhino into the dirt one-handed—such power would be impossible even in a Black Panther suit woven with vibranium.
Monstrous.
"Who is he? What tribe?" someone breathed.
Okoye's eyes narrowed, fixed on Saitama. Something about him seemed familiar, but she couldn't place it. Wakanda kept to itself; they rarely engaged the outside world—rarely learned about it—so stories about Saitama had scarcely reached them.
"No record. He's…not Wakandan. An outsider," a warrior said.
Despite their traditional garb, the warriors were anything but primitive—she'd queried her bracelet for a rapid ID.
Wakandan technology outstripped the world's by a thousand years.
"An outsider?" Okoye frowned. "Move. We'll assist him."
"But, General, the rhinos—they're in a full stampede!"
As if to prove it, the herd's rage spiked. Where moments ago some rhinos had been tangling with the Dora, now every crimson eye fixed on Saitama after their companion's pained bellow.
Each beast looked eager to tear him apart.
"Oh? You've got a lot of friends," Saitama murmured. "All headed this way?"
The pinned rhino roared—and Saitama casually lifted.
Crk-crk-crk-crk—metal-scraping crackles sang.
Fissures spidered down the horn. Then the towering armored rhino—ten stories of mass in spirit if not in height—rose into the air in Saitama's grip.
Like a torch, the poor beast shrieked, legs flailing, but his hold was absolute.
"Go on."
A flick of the wrist—and the rhino became trash tossed aside.
Rrrr-rrrrrr—CRASH—
A hurtling shadow, a keening rush of air, then an impact that gouged a trench nearly a hundred meters long before the beast finally skidded to a stop.
The stampede froze.
The hurled rhino lay senseless in a bloody heap, the earth ploughed behind it like a farmer's furrow.
Around them, the other rhinos' murderous light guttered out, replaced by something simpler: fear.
They locked their legs mid-charge; those pillar-thick limbs trembled like reeds.
The warrior who had shouted at Saitama went white as paper.
Even in the rear, Okoye and the others fell silent in unison, every gaze drawn to Saitama like a spotlight.
"Is he a monster? He threw an armored rhino that far!"
"Good gods—terrifying!"
"How could a human be that strong? Is his body made of iron?"
"Iron? Make it vibranium and I'd still have doubts."
The Dora chattered despite themselves, faces lit with shock and a battle-born joy.
Wakanda was unlike any other nation: a people of thousand-year-future tech married to ancient rites—strong-faith traditionalists who also revered strength itself. Even kings settled challenges in ritual combat. A country of sci-fi splendor and blood-warm instinct.
Okoye's eyes complicated, she held a breath—then thrust her spear high.
"All units—forward! Aid that warrior! Save him!"
(End of Chapter)
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