My Mind Exploded After Confirming My Isekai: Who the Hell Picks Dragon Ball as a Dungeon? Hell Difficulty Start

This felt way too damn real.

So real he couldn't possibly fob himself off with the word "dream."

That fist he'd just clenched—the crisp rasp of his knuckles rubbing together, the solid feedback from his palm, and that surging power exploding from deep within the muscles of his arm, as if it would burst through skin and flesh.

There was absolutely no way this was fake.

In the dreams he'd had before, forget clenching a fist—even lifting his legs to walk felt like stepping through rotten mud, his whole body filled with that maddening sense of not being able to exert any strength.

It was like throwing a punch through a thick quilt.

But just now?

His movements had been clean and sharp, without the slightest obstruction.

That sense of control, that explosive force—it felt exactly the same as when he was lifting iron and sweating in the real world.

He tilted his head slightly, disbelief written all over his face.

What the hell was going on?

Was the quality of today's dream seriously this high?

Absurdly high.

Could a person really have a dream this realistic?

This was practically like stuffing his soul into an ultra-high-precision virtual reality pod.

No. He had to try again.

He took a deep breath and began moving his body bit by bit.

From his fingertips to his ankles, from his neck to his lower back, he tried to mobilize every muscle.

His biceps contracted, his deltoids exerted force, and in the end, he even did a set of squats in the cramped room.

Every exertion, every breath, the clarity of the feedback struck his mind like a heavy hammer.

There was no difference from the real world at all.

Something was wrong.

Very wrong.

His heart lurched, and something called "panic" started bubbling up.

He used almost every method he could think of, trying to break free from this "dream."

Pinching his face?

Useless.

Slapping himself?

His cheeks burned with pain, but he was still here.

He even steeled himself, forcefully bending his own fingers back and ramming the back of his head into that hard metal wall.

Bang!

Crack!

Agony shot through him all at once. His finger felt as if it was about to snap, and the back of his head buzzed violently.

But the scene before his eyes did not change in the slightest. If anything, the pain made his consciousness even clearer.

Only when that heart-piercing, searing pain mixed with the numbness of his rapidly swelling cheeks did he stop his self-harm.

This pain was too damn real.

So real it drove him to despair.

He raised his head blankly and stared at the dim, rough metal ceiling, his eyes empty.

He couldn't wake up...

Was this really not a dream?

Reason screamed desperately in his mind, This is a dream, but every cell in his body was roaring, This is real!

Those self-torturing attempts hadn't woken him up. Instead, they had become the hardest evidence, smashing the last of his fluke hopes to pieces.

Cold sweat instantly soaked the back of his combat uniform.

"Gulp."

He swallowed, his throat painfully dry.

"This is just absurd beyond belief..."

Was this really reality?

No—even taking ten thousand steps back, even if something supernatural really existed, could this happen in reality?

He sprang up from that cold iron-framed bed and stumbled over to the full-length mirror.

The person in the mirror had swollen red cheeks, eyes bulging like bronze bells, and a dazed expression as if he had seen a ghost.

That was clearly him.

But that body was no longer the sub-healthy build he knew so well.

In its place was a Saiyan covered in scars, his muscles bulging like stone.

That wild, spiky hedgehog hair on his head only existed in the Dragon Ball anime.

"Stop fucking laughing!" he growled, slamming a fist into the mirror.

Cracks shot across the entire mirror with a sharp hiss.

"What the hell is going on?"

He had opened his eyes and changed skins, and of all things, into a Saiyan?

Who wrote this script?

Step out here. I promise I won't beat you to death.

Was he supposed to admit that the hot-blooded anime world that had accompanied him through childhood was actually a real universe?

That was a thousand times more ridiculous than telling him the Earth was flat.

Was this some kind of prank show?

Hidden cameras?

He immediately started tearing through the room like a madman.

Corners, gaps, vents—he searched every place something could be hidden.

And the result?

Not a damn thing.

Forget miniature cameras—he couldn't even find a screw that looked unnaturally loose.

"Figures..." He leaned against the wall and let out a bitter laugh.

"No matter how insane makeup technology gets, it can't turn my body into this demon muscleman look overnight, right? If that kind of tech really existed, who would still suffer in a gym?"

At this point, no matter how unwilling he was to accept it, he had to face it.

This was reality.

A reality he couldn't understand, couldn't escape, and couldn't even roast properly.

He pressed his fingers to his temples, where his pulse was throbbing hard, swollen with pain.

There was too much information. His brain nearly crashed.

The violent collision between reason and reality made his stomach churn, and he wanted to throw up.

His legs went weak, and he slid down the wall before dropping heavily beside the bed.

"Fuck... this is insane... this is completely fucking insane..."

Was this kind of otherworldly start supposed to be good or bad?

For an ordinary person, being reborn once—even as a beggar—would probably have them grinning from ear to ear.

After all, it was a second life.

But him?

He opened his eyes and became a Saiyan. A Saiyan from Dragon Ball, no less.

This move was basically starting the game on hell difficulty.

"Ha... haha..."

He let out a dry laugh, both hands gripping his messy black hair tightly.

Even if other worlds existed, even if reincarnation existed, even if this whole thing could make the entire world's jaw drop...

Why did it have to be the Dragon Ball world?

The setting was definitely high-tier, but its death rate was also the highest in the universe.

Who did this?

Come out and take your beating.

Any transmigrator with even a little common sense wouldn't choose this dungeon, okay?

A surge of anger shot straight to the top of his head, and he couldn't help cursing out loud.

"Fuck! It really fucking happened! It really fucking..."

Calm down.

He had to calm down.

He forced himself to suppress that nauseating churning sensation, his mind a total mess.

What about his original body?

Had his soul transmigrated?

Was that body over there dead, or just asleep?

Or had his soul split apart?

No, that wasn't right. This body clearly wasn't an infant's.

This amount of muscle, these scars—it was obviously an adult Saiyan.

Could he have been a Saiyan all along?

Then what did his previous memories count as?

A dream?

Countless questions swept past like a barrage of comments, nearly burning out his CPU.

"Please... someone give me an answer..."

He furrowed his brows in pain and shook his head hard, trying to fling all those messy thoughts away.

The urgent priority wasn't getting tangled up in these philosophical questions.

It was figuring out what he should do next.

He drew in a deep breath, then slowly let it out.

"Hoo—haa—"

Air carrying Planet Vegeta's unique metallic, faintly sweet tang poured into his lungs.

He forced himself to calm down, analyzing the situation before him as if he were analyzing a chessboard.

First, there were two ironclad facts.

One, he had turned into a Saiyan.

Two, Planet Vegeta was still hanging perfectly fine in the sky. It hadn't exploded.

So where could he dig up the remaining information?

His gaze swept across the crude dormitory again, finally settling on the outfit he wore in the mirror.

Battle armor.

Right.

Saiyan battle armor had undergone version updates.

According to the Dragon Ball encyclopedia in his head, early Saiyans wore equipment that looked like primitive animal hides.

Only after being absorbed into Frieza's army had they switched to this more advanced, mass-produced battle armor with an emblem.

He lowered his head and looked at the one he was wearing.

Blue and black color scheme, shoulder guards, a belt, and tightened designs at the wrists and ankles.

This was clearly the new military uniform from after they had submitted to Frieza.

In other words...

The Saiyans were already working for Frieza now?

They were helping that purple-skinned onion head invade other planets?

Had even the legendary Namek already entered Frieza's sights?

A chill crawled up his spine and shot straight to the top of his head.

If the time point corresponding to this outfit was correct, then that meant there was only a very, very short time left before Planet Vegeta vanished from the universe.

Frieza's ship might already be on its way.

That demon who could blow up an entire planet with a flick of his finger could descend at any moment.

"This means..."

He muttered to himself, and the Saiyan in the mirror opened his mouth along with him, revealing a mouthful of stark white teeth.

"This means..."