Just as He-El, Yamcha, Goku, Krillin, and Master Roshi entered the Tournament Arena, Bulma waited anxiously outside, intending to discuss with Puar and Rabbit Can-Can how to sneak a look at the preliminary matches inside.
West City.
Inside the He-El Food Energy Research Institute.
"Ha ha ha ha... I finally found it, found it!!!" Emperor Pilaf's crazed laughter rang through the institute.
Emperor Pilaf held up an old journal, his eyes brimming with hope as he laughed wildly without stopping.
Hearing Emperor Pilaf's abnormal laughter, Ashu and Mai stiffened. Mai cried out in alarm, "Oh no, Emperor Pilaf must have been tortured by He-El until he started hallucinating. He's about to go insane."
Other than that one time when He-El hung Emperor Pilaf beneath a fan, turned it on, and had Ashu and Mai take turns whipping him, He-El had not tortured Emperor Pilaf any further.
At most, he treated Emperor Pilaf like an ordinary laborer—a janitor, a sewer worker, a domestic worker, and so on—keeping Emperor Pilaf, Ashu, and Mai so exhausted that they had no time to think too much.
They were all physically grueling jobs.
After all, Emperor Pilaf was somewhat clever. Exhausting him until he could not think was the best method.
Yet it was precisely this kind of hard labor that made Emperor Pilaf, who considered himself smarter than most other Earthlings, feel deeply humiliated.
Emperor Pilaf had always believed that he was at least a warlord, commanding his own faction and answering to the calls of thousands. How could he be summoned and dismissed at will by He-El and He-El's subordinates every day in He-El's home? It was simply an insult to Emperor Pilaf—an insult to his pride.
Ashu and Mai knew Emperor Pilaf's temperament very well and believed that he would inevitably break