The Turtle School's Appetite

Night fell, and a dim yellow light flickered on inside Kame House.

The round table, never large to begin with, now felt like a volcano about to erupt.

It was piled high with a mountain of food.

There was a steamed king crab the size of a washbasin, a whole wild boar leg roasted golden and dripping with oil, a pyramid of white rice, and a large pot of bubbling fresh fish soup.

This was Master Roshi's "luxury dinner," specially caught from the sea to welcome his disciples home.

"I'm digging in!"

With that declaration, the cozy dinner atmosphere shattered, replaced by the smoke of a battlefield.

Yamcha had been stewing all afternoon with no outlet for his frustration, and now he channeled all that bitterness into his appetite.

He grabbed a giant crab, didn't even bother to peel the shell, and shoved it into his mouth, crunching it down with a sound that set teeth on edge.

"If I can't beat you, I'll eat you broke!" Yamcha mumbled indistinctly as he chewed.

His chopsticks blurred into afterimages as he frantically shoveled rice into his bowl.

Krillin watched Yamcha's ravenous display but didn't rush to eat.

A blue light flashed in his eyes as [Genius Intellect] activated again.

[Target: Roasted boar leg. Calories: 45,000. Optimal entry point: hind leg tendon joint. Eating strategy: bone removal in 0.3 seconds, chewing efficiency increased by 200%.]

He was no longer just a Martial Artist—he was a precision energy-conversion machine.

The side effect of the Saitama template was... hunger.

That gnawing sensation, as if every cell was screaming for energy, was impossible to resist.

"Too slow."

Krillin struck.

His chopsticks traced a graceful arc through the air, perfectly hydrodynamic, slipping through Yamcha's defensive chopstick net like a scalpel into the roasted leg.

A flick of the wrist.

Thwack.

A large chunk of the tenderest meat, with its crispy skin, came clean off the bone and landed in Krillin's bowl.

"You—!"

Yamcha started to snap, but found his chopsticks clutching nothing but a bare bone.

"Eat more bones for calcium. Your bone density's a bit low," Krillin said with a grin, popping the meat into his mouth. He chewed twice and swallowed, a blissful look on his face. "Mm, perfect doneness. Teacher's cooking is still the best."

"Bastard! That was mine!" Yamcha roared, abandoning all table manners as he lunged for the steamed fish.

"This is a world where the strong eat the weak," Krillin said, casually blocking Yamcha's attack with one hand.

Meanwhile, his chopsticks shot out like lightning, each strike snatching the choicest pieces.

Their chopsticks clashed above the plates with sharp clink-clink sounds, like weapons colliding.

Grains of rice flew everywhere, and a fish bone even hit the Sea Turtle in the face as he watched TV, making him retreat into his shell.

Master Roshi sat at the head of the table, a cup of sake in hand.

Watching his two disciples fight over food like starving ghosts, his eyelids twitched wildly.

"Slow down... no one's fighting you for it..." the old man's voice trembled.

Before he finished speaking, the bowl of rice—enough to feed ten grown men—was already scraped clean.

"Another bowl!"

"Me too! And more meat!"

They both raised their empty bowls in unison.

Master Roshi looked at the spotless bowls, not a single grain left, then at the empty rice cooker. A bead of cold sweat dripped down his forehead.

This meal was supposed to be his two-day food supply.

But in less than ten minutes, only a pile of fish bones, crab shells, and pig bones remained on the table.

Especially Krillin—was that kid's stomach connected to another dimension?

He'd always been a big eater, but never to the point of practically swallowing the plates.

"Uh... it's gone."

Master Roshi cleared his throat, trying to maintain his composure.

"Gone?"

Yamcha was stunned.

"I'm only half full! How am I supposed to train like this?"

"Same here."

Krillin rubbed his belly, his stomach feeling like a bottomless pit.

The moment that bit of food entered, it was broken down by his powerful digestive system into pure energy, instantly absorbed by his starving cells.

"Master, do you have any more stashed away? Even a compressed biscuit would do."

Master Roshi said nothing.

Silently, he pulled a shriveled frog-shaped wallet from his chest, looking like dried tangerine peel.

With trembling hands, he opened the wallet and turned it upside down, shaking it.

"Clink."

Only a few pitiful coins fell onto the table, letting out a crisp, desolate sound.

Besides that, there was a crumpled supermarket coupon, reading "Expired—Void."

The air suddenly went still.

The sound of the waves felt especially mournful in that moment, as if mourning Master Roshi's wallet.

"Ahem."

Master Roshi quickly put his wallet away, putting on a stern face as he looked at his two disciples, trying to mask his poverty with authority.

"As martial artists, you must learn to endure hunger! This is also part of training! How can you be thinking about eating all the time?"