Chapter 76

"Stagnation and Growth" (停滞と成長, Teitai to seichō, Tonari: 117) is the 76th chapter of the One-Punch Man manga series.

Summary
The chapter starts with Puri-Puri Prisoner fighting the spiked-monster Free Hugger and is covered in cuts. He seemed to be losing because he was fighting him with just his bare hands, so the crowd suggests that he use the iron ball chained to his leg to beat it. Unable to hear the crowd's suggestions, he has the idea to "accept all of the pain with deep, overflowing love." He then squeezes Free Hugger and wins the battle. Soon after, whilst bleeding profusely, he receives a call informing him that his cellmates have been kidnapped.

Saitama is seen running around looking for monsters to fight, but can't find any monsters that are alive. He then runs into a wounded Water Gun, who tells Saitama of the powerful monsters he faced and that they had all left about thirty minutes beforehand.

Saitama then contemplates about how he didn't even notice that such a huge event was happening. Because this happened, he begins to question why he should call himself a hero. He then corrects himself and realizes that he never cared about what people thought of him and that nothing else mattered as long as he was satisfied with himself. He then realizes that the whole "Hero-Hunter" situation that was going on had sparked his interest and caused him to join the tournament and he realized how he gained nothing from it.

Trivia

 * In the Volume Release, this chapter's title was swapped with the title of Chapter 77.