Road to Hero

The story rewinds to a young Saitama who still has his hair and fights crime in a plain tracksuit. He keeps clearing out villains in a run-down stretch of Z-City while struggling to make rent. He meets a shop owner being strong-armed by a local gang into handing over the deed to his store, the last business still standing after the others were driven out. The gang's boss, it turns out, has been buying up every shop in the district on a whim, purely to tear them down. Saitama encourages the old man not to give in and follows his directions to the gang's headquarters, which happens to be his own apartment complex.

Going door to door, Saitama meets a string of criminals working under the boss and shows little interest until each mentions the bounty on his own head, at which point he flattens them one by one. Only the boss remains, and when Saitama lectures him about not overreaching, the man snaps and transforms into the Fish of Darkness. After a short scuffle, Saitama learns of the reward on the boss too and turns him over, expecting the bounty to cover his rent. His landlady, however, proves to be corrupt, admitting those tenants were her income, and she tosses him out with his belongings boxed up on the street.

Saitama returns to the shop owner to explain everything. The old man reveals he had already decided to retire, but not before finishing one last creation for Saitama: the now-iconic hero suit. In the present day, having heard the whole tale, Genos suggests Saitama upgrade to something better, prompting Saitama to ask whether he was even listening when he called the suit a keepsake.

A flashback shows Saitama in his tracksuit era defending a shop owner from a gang, beating the criminals only after learning of their bounties, and defeating the boss, who becomes the Fish of Darkness. His corrupt landlady evicts him, and the shop owner gifts him the yellow hero suit as a parting gesture. In the present, Saitama explains why he refuses to replace it.

This is the only One-Punch Man episode that never received an English dub. It was packaged with the tenth volume of the manga on DVD, which is why it is also called an OAD. It stands as the earliest OVA in the anime lineup, preceding the entry titled A Shadow That Snuck Up Too Close.