The Spaceship is Too Crowded? Android 18: Then Let's Pack Up the Extras

The third day of warp travel.

When Chen Mo woke from the folding seat, his back was already so sore it had gone numb.

The space inside the ship was even smaller than he had expected.

Bulma had said that, in theory, it could squeeze in two people. There were three now.

The pilot's seat, the co-pilot's seat, and a folding chair in the back. The aisle was only wide enough for someone to sidle through.

The bathroom was even worse.

The entire ship had only one foldable washroom compartment. Less than one square meter. Once the curtain was drawn, its soundproofing was practically nonexistent.

When Chen Mo went inside, Android 18 was sitting two meters outside the curtain.

With her legs crossed. Staring at the curtain.

"Could you stop staring?" Chen Mo said through the curtain.

"I can't see anything," Android 18's voice came from outside. "What are you so nervous about?"

"I can hear you laughing."

"The corners of my mouth naturally turn up."

Chen Mo shut up.

By the time he came out of the washroom compartment, Android 18 had already turned to look at the starry sky beyond the porthole.

Outside, the starlight had stretched into long white lines under warp.

There were no points of reference. No sunrise or sunset.

The concept of time had become very vague aboard this ship.

Trunks sat in the pilot's seat. His purple hair was slightly messy.

He had been keeping watch through the night for three days straight.

Not because someone needed to monitor navigation. Once the warp engine started, the ship was basically on autopilot.

He stayed awake because Android 18 was there.

He did not dare sleep.

Mr. Gohan had died by her hand. All those people had died at the hands of her and Android 17.

He sat in the pilot's seat with his eyes open, back straight, ready to transform at any moment.

Three days. He had not closed his eyes once.

Chen Mo handed him a pack of emergency rations.

Trunks took it. His fingers trembled slightly as he tore open the package.

Even with a Saiyan hybrid's constitution, seventy-two hours without sleep would push him to his limit.

Android 18 rose from the co-pilot's seat. She stretched lazily.

It was a casual movement, but in such a cramped space, her elbow nearly brushed Chen Mo's face.

"Too crowded," Android 18 said.

Chen Mo did not respond.

Android 18 walked to the rear. She bent down and rummaged through the storage compartment beneath the floor, pulling something out.

A cylindrical, translucent pod. About two meters long and seventy centimeters wide.

A hibernation pod.

Bulma had installed a backup medical hibernation pod in the ship. It was meant to keep injured people alive in emergencies.

Its cryogenic circulation system could put someone into deep sleep while maintaining their basic vital signs.

Android 18 set the pod upright and glanced at Trunks.

"Get in."

Trunks's hand froze in midair.

"You haven't slept for three days," Android 18 said evenly. "Keep this up and you'll be useless. If you're useless, you won't be able to fight once we reach that whatever planet. If you can't fight, you're useless. Useless things take up space."

Trunks raised his head and looked at Chen Mo.

Chen Mo was silent for two seconds.

"She's right," Chen Mo said. "You need sleep. She can't do anything to you in the hibernation pod. In cryogenic mode, the life-support system operates independently. It can't be opened from the outside midway through."

He said it for Trunks to hear. But he was also saying it for Android 18.

Android 18 raised an eyebrow but did not argue.

Trunks stood up. He had grown a little taller since leaving Earth.

He walked up to the hibernation pod and looked back at Chen Mo.

"After I get in, you'll be alone..."

"I'm fine," Chen Mo said.

Trunks opened his mouth, but in the end, he said nothing more.

He lay down inside the hibernation pod. The lid closed, and cryogenic gas was injected through nozzles on both sides.

A thin layer of frost formed over the semi-transparent pod walls.

Within thirty seconds, Trunks's breathing slowed from a normal rate to four breaths per minute. His eyes closed, and his purple hair lay against his forehead.

Android 18 took a Hoi-Poi Capsule from her pocket.

She pressed the button on top.

Click.

The two-meter-tall hibernation pod shrank into a thumb-sized capsule and landed in her palm.

She slipped the capsule into the pocket of her denim shorts and patted it.

"All right." Android 18 turned around. "Now it's not cramped."

Chen Mo looked at her pocket.

Trunks was in there. A Super Saiyan, packed into a capsule and stuffed into Android 18's skirt pocket.

For a moment, the whole thing felt absurd to him.

He and Android 18.

Alone.

Inside a sealed spaceship ten meters long.

For thirty-one days.

A line of text popped up in the system.

[Current emotional state of emotion collection target: Satisfaction (extremely high), possessiveness (extremely strong), pleasure (continuing to rise).]

Android 18 returned to the co-pilot's seat.

She propped her legs on the console, ankles crossed. A strip of thigh showed above the edge of her black thigh-high socks.

She turned her head to look at Chen Mo.

"Sit."

Chen Mo sat down in the pilot's seat.

The distance between the two seats was about forty centimeters. In a normal aircraft, that was just right.

But this wasn't normal. Because the person sitting beside him could poke straight through him with one finger.

"You're nervous," Android 18 said.

"No."

"Your heartbeat sped up. I can hear it."

Chen Mo didn't deny it again, because there was no point.

Android 18's hearing was hundreds of times more sensitive than the human limit.

To her ears, his heartbeat probably sounded like a drumbeat.

"Let me ask you something." Android 18 pulled her legs off the console and turned to face Chen Mo.

"Go ahead."

"Those Dragon Balls. You said they can grant any wish."

"Within Shenron's capabilities."

"How broad are those capabilities?"

"Porunga's range is very broad. Reviving the dead, transporting people across planets, altering bodily structures. Basically, it can do anything except kill someone stronger than its creator."

Android 18 fell silent for three seconds.

"What about turning back into a human?"

Chen Mo's hand paused.

"You want to become human again?"

Android 18 didn't answer. She turned back toward the porthole. The white streaks of starlight reflected in her pupils, blending with that icy blue layer.

"I didn't say I wanted to," she said. "I asked if it could be done."

"In theory, yes." Chen Mo chose his words carefully. "Dr. Gero modified you based on a human body. If Porunga's power is precise enough, it could reverse the process. But your Eternal Furnace is the source of all your current strength. Turning back into a human would mean—"

"It would mean becoming useless."

"It would mean becoming an ordinary person."

Android 18 gave a short laugh.

"Same thing."

She stopped asking.

Chen Mo did not press the matter. Android 18's train of thought jumped around a lot. One second she had been asking about the scope of wishes the Dragon Balls could grant, and the next, she had cut the topic short.

The fifth day of warp travel.

Android 18 began to feel bored.

Androids did not need sleep. The Eternal Furnace provided limitless energy, and her brain never experienced fatigue.

That meant that during the eight hours Chen Mo slept each day while traveling at warp, Android 18 remained completely awake.

Awake alone.

On a spaceship with nothing but starlight and the hum of its engines.

When Chen Mo woke up on the morning of the fifth day, he found Android 18 crouching beside his folding chair.

She was very close. So close that her face was the first thing he saw when he opened his eyes.

"You talked in your sleep," Android 18 said.

"...What?"

"You said two things after falling asleep. I couldn't make out the first one. The second was a name." Android 18 tilted her head. "Lin Ke. Who's that?"

It took Chen Mo's brain two seconds to switch out of sleep mode.

Lin Ke. The woman in the shelter who had given him food.

"A survivor," Chen Mo said. "I met her at the shelter before. She gave me a few crackers."

"A woman?"

"Yeah."

Android 18 stood up, her expression unchanged.

But when she walked over to the porthole, her fingers tapped the frame three times.

The system displayed a message.

[Emotion collected from target: Jealousy (High).]

[Emotion Points +820.]

Chen Mo made a mental note. From now on, he should bite his tongue before sleeping to stay conscious.

Talking in his sleep around Android 18 could really get him killed.

"Listen carefully." Android 18 did not turn around. "From now on, you're not allowed to think about other women."

"I can't control what I dream about."

"Then don't sleep."

"I'm human. Humans die if they don't sleep."

Android 18 turned to look at him.

"Then choose," she said. "Get killed by me for calling another woman's name in your sleep, or die from exhaustion because you don't sleep."

Chen Mo took a deep breath.

"I'll do my best not to dream."

"That's more like it."

The eighth day of warp travel.

Android 18 opened the spaceship's side emergency hatch.

Chen Mo was eating a ration substitute. The instant the hatch opened, the cabin's pressure alarms began blaring wildly.

Red warning lights flashed. The engines automatically switched from warp to sublight cruise.

Android 18 stood at the hatch. Once warp was disengaged, normal space lay outside.

Black. Boundless. A few stars glimmered faintly in the distance.

"What are you doing?!" Chen Mo grabbed the seat belt securing him to his chair.

Air was leaking out of the ship. His eardrums buzzed as the pressure rapidly dropped.

Android 18 glanced back at him.

"Going out for some fresh air."

"Space is a vacuum! There's no air out there!"

"I don't need to breathe." With that, Android 18 floated straight out through the hatch.

She hovered outside the spaceship. Her short golden hair fanned out in the zero-gravity environment.

Black thigh-high socks, a denim skirt, and a white T-shirt. She floated through space dressed as though she were out shopping on Earth.

The Eternal Furnace's energy field formed an invisible shield around her body, blocking the vacuum, radiation, and extreme temperatures.

An android could survive in space. She needed neither oxygen nor a spacesuit.

Chen Mo frantically hit the emergency seal button. The backup hatch popped out from the inside, sealing the breach. The pressure began to rise again.

He panted for thirty seconds.

Then he looked toward the porthole.

Android 18 was outside.

She drifted to a spot roughly two hundred meters in front of the spacecraft.

There was a small gray rocky planet there, perhaps only a few dozen kilometers in diameter.

No atmosphere. No signs of life. A dead planet.

Android 18 raised her right hand.

She extended her index finger. A pale pink point of light gathered at its tip.

The light shot out too fast for the naked eye to follow.

The rocky planet exploded from within in less than a second.

Fragments scattered in every direction. Soundlessly. There was no air in space to carry sound waves.

Chen Mo saw only light—blindingly bright light—followed by an expanding sphere of rubble and dust.

Android 18 turned around and looked at the spacecraft's porthole from two hundred meters away.

She smiled.

Chen Mo could not make out the shape of her mouth, but he knew she was smiling.

The system displayed a message.

[Current emotional state of the emotion collection target: Pleasure (extremely high), release (high), possessiveness (ongoing).]

[Emotion Points +1450.]

Ten minutes later, Android 18 floated back through the emergency hatch. Chen Mo had put on a spacesuit in advance and lowered the cabin pressure to its minimum before letting her in.

The hatch closed. The pressure returned to normal.

Android 18's hair was a little messy from the zero gravity. She smoothed it down with her fingers.

"Not bad," she said.

"That was a planet."

"A dead planet. There was nothing on it." Android 18 sat in the co-pilot's seat. "It's not like I blew up one with people on it."

Chen Mo realized he could not find anything to refute.

She really had blown up a dead planet. No life. No civilization. Just rocks.

"Could you tell me in advance before going out next time?" Chen Mo took off his spacesuit. "When you opened the hatch, I nearly got sucked out."

"You just need to wear a spacesuit."

"I didn't have time to put one on!"

"Then wear it all the time from now on."

Chen Mo shut up.

On the twelfth day of warp travel.

Android 18 suggested that she and Chen Mo have a fight.

"A fight?" Chen Mo repeated.

"Yes." Android 18 stood in the corridor and rolled her neck. "I'm bored. Fight me."

"This is a spacecraft. If we fight, it'll fall apart."

"Then we'll fight outside. You can wear a spacesuit."

Chen Mo looked at her.

"My combat power is fifty thousand. Yours is at least three hundred and fifty million. What exactly is there to fight about?"

"Don't you have that fist thing?" Android 18 held out her hand and drew a circle in the air with her index finger. "The red one. King Kai Fist. Use it at full power."

"Even Twentyfold King Kai Fist only puts me at a million. To you, that's like a tickle."

"I like being tickled."

Chen Mo had nothing to say.

Five minutes later.

Chen Mo floated outside the spacecraft in a spacesuit.

Android 18 was ten meters across from him, both hands in her pockets. Her short golden hair drifted lightly in the zero-gravity environment.

All around them was the starry sky—boundless darkness, with only a few distant stars providing faint illumination.

The spacecraft hovered behind them, in sublight cruising mode.

"Come on," Android 18 said.

Her voice traveled directly into the spacesuit's receiver through vibrations in the Eternal Furnace's energy field.

Chen Mo activated the Twentyfold King Kai Fist.

A red aura burst across the outer layer of his spacesuit.

The spacesuit was made from elastic alloy fibers specially developed by Bulma, capable of withstanding intense energy impacts.

Yet red light still leaked from its seams, like a burning red flare in the darkness of space.

Chen Mo charged forward.

The first punch. A straight punch to the front. Full power.

Android 18 tilted her head aside.

The wind from his fist grazed past her ear, lifting several strands of her blonde hair.

"Slow," she said.

Chen Mo spun around and swept out with his right leg.

Android 18 raised her left hand, caught his ankle in her palm, and gripped it.

"Your strength is decent," she said. "But you're too rigid. Your ki distribution is uneven. Your right leg has thirty percent more energy poured into it than your left."

She released him.

Chen Mo retreated two meters and adjusted the distribution of his ki.

Then he charged again.

This time, he used the combo rhythm Master Roshi had taught him.

A feint with his left fist, a horizontal slash with his right elbow, followed by a knee strike. A three-hit combo.

Android 18 blocked the first two attacks, but she did not block the third knee strike.

Chen Mo's knee slammed into her abdomen.

It felt like he had struck a wall.

Android 18 lowered her head and glanced at the spot he had hit.

"Mm," she said. "I can feel it a little."

Then she moved.

She was not fast. At least, not fast by her standards. She had probably used only one percent of her speed.

But for Chen Mo, it was already at the limit of his reaction time.

Her right hand struck Chen Mo's chest.

Chen Mo was sent flying backward thirty meters. The spacesuit's cushioning layer absorbed most of the impact, but the ki in his chest was still scattered by the blow.

He tumbled several times in zero gravity before steadying himself.

Android 18 had already appeared behind him.

"Don't stop," she said.

Chen Mo turned and threw a punch. Android 18 did not dodge. His fist landed solidly on her left shoulder.

Android 18's body shifted back half a step.

Her eyes lit up.

"Again."

Chen Mo threw punch after punch, alternating left and right. Every strike carried the full output of the Twentyfold King Kai Fist.

Though there was no sound from the force of his punches in the vacuum, the energy shockwaves formed visible rings of light between them.

Android 18 took them. Every single one. She neither dodged nor evaded, crossing her arms before her chest and letting Chen Mo's fists strike her arms, shoulders, and abdomen one after another.

Every punch forced her back half a step.

But after each half-step, she stopped. Then she waited for the next punch.

She was enjoying this.

The system messages flooded in.

[Current emotional state of emotion collection target: Excitement (extremely high), Pleasure (extremely high), Battle Desire (rapidly rising).]

[Emotion Value +2100.]

[Emotion Value +1800.]

[Emotion Value +2400.]

After Android 18 took a full thirty punches from Chen Mo, she suddenly reached out and grabbed his fist.

Her five fingers wrapped completely around his fist and clenched tight.

"Enough," she said.

She pulled Chen Mo in front of her, so close that his spacesuit visor nearly touched the tip of her nose.

"You've gotten stronger," Android 18 said. "A lot stronger than when you were on Earth."

"I trained for a year in the Hyperbolic Time Chamber."

"Not just that." Android 18 tilted her head. "That red thing on you. Its limit has increased. I can feel it."

Chen Mo's heart skipped a beat.

She could sense the change in the King Kai Fist's limit?

"Don't be nervous." Android 18 released his fist. "I don't care how you got stronger. I only care about one thing."

"What?"

"No matter how strong you get, it won't matter." Android 18's voice was very soft. "You can't run away."

She turned and floated back toward the spaceship.

Chen Mo remained floating in place. Five shallow dents marked the spot on his spacesuit where she had grabbed him. The shape of fingers.

The system displayed its final line.

[Current total emotion value has exceeded the threshold.]

[King Kai Fist multiplier limit unlocked: twenty-twofold.]

One million one hundred thousand.

Ten percent higher than the one million he had on Earth.

It didn't sound like much of an improvement. But Chen Mo knew that the gap between twentyfold and twenty-twofold wasn't just a matter of numbers. With every additional multiplier, the strain on the body increased exponentially.

An ordinary person would die on the spot from using the Twentyfold King Kai Fist. He could endure it only because the system had removed the burden on his body.

But Android 18 was right.

One million one hundred thousand. To her—

It was still just a tickle.

On the fifteenth day of warp travel.

Android 18 went out again.

This time, she flew farther away. Chen Mo tracked her electromagnetic signal through the Scouter and discovered that she had drifted to the edge of a small star system eight hundred kilometers from the spaceship.

Three rocky planets orbited a red dwarf there.

Ten minutes later, three flashes of light came from the direction of the red dwarf.

Three planets.

Android 18 had blown up all three.

When she returned, some rock dust clung to her hair.

Grayish white, like snow had fallen.

"There was something on those three." Android 18 brushed the dust from her hair with her hand. "Some bugs. Moving ones. I don't know if they counted as life."

Chen Mo's heart sank.

"There was life, and you still blew them up?"

"Just bugs." Android 18 sat down. "You humans don't react this strongly when you step on ants on Earth."

Chen Mo opened his mouth.

"That's different."

"How is it different?" Android 18 looked at him. "Tell me. How is it different?"

Chen Mo couldn't answer.

Because from Android 18's perspective, humans stepping on ants and her destroying bugs on a planet really weren't that different.

Different levels of power meant different moral standards.

That was the underlying logic of the Dragon Ball World. He was just a transmigrator; he couldn't change it.

"Don't destroy planets with intelligent life," Chen Mo finally said. "That's the bottom line."

Android 18 looked at him for three seconds.

"Fine," she said. "I'll listen to you."

Chen Mo let out a breath of relief.

"But you have to fight me," Android 18 added. "Every day. At least an hour."

"...Deal."

The system displayed new text.

[Emotion collection target has gained new emotion categories: compromise (weak), dependence (low).]

Dependence.

Chen Mo stared at those two words for a long time.

An android with a power level of over 350 million. A being capable of casually destroying planets in the universe.

She had developed feelings of dependence toward a human with a power level of fifty thousand.

Was that reasonable?

No.

But Android 18's emotional logic had never been reasonable.

When Dr. Gero turned her into an android, he had retained her human emotional modules.

The Eternal Furnace gave her infinite power, but not the ability to process emotions.

She did not know how to get along with people. So she chose the most primitive method.

Possession.

Control.

No running away.

The system displayed another line.

[Emotion collection estimate: At the current collection rate, before arriving at New Planet Namek, the King Kai Fist multiplier limit is expected to reach twenty-five to twenty-eight times.]

Chen Mo leaned back in his seat, watching the starlight outside the porthole stretch into lines.

Twenty-eight times King Kai Fist. Base power level: fifty thousand. Total combat power: 1.4 million.

Compared to Android 18's 350 million.

He was still short by a factor of two hundred and fifty.

He still had a long way to go.

He closed his eyes. Amid the engine's hum and Android 18's quiet gaze, Chen Mo forced himself into a light sleep.

Thirty-one days.

Him and a yandere android.

A sealed space of one hundred and ten cubic meters.

Either they reached Planet Namek and obtained the Dragon Balls, or they died halfway there.

There was no third option.

Android 18's voice sounded just as he was about to fall asleep.

"Chen Mo."

"Yeah."

"You said those Dragon Balls... can really grant any wish?"

"Yeah."

Five seconds of silence.

"Then can I make a wish..." Android 18's voice was very, very soft. "To make someone... only like me?"

Chen Mo's eyes snapped open.

A red warning appeared in the corner of his vision.

[Emotion collection target has developed a new high-risk emotion: Obsession (Extremely High).]

[Warning: This emotion category may cause the target's behavior to become unpredictable.]

Chen Mo did not answer.

Android 18 did not wait for an answer either.

She drew her legs onto the seat, hugged her knees, and turned to look at the boundless sea of stars beyond the porthole.

The starlight stretched into long lines, reflected in her ice-blue eyes.

That expression.

Chen Mo could not describe it.

She did not look like a killer. She did not look like an android. She did not look like a doomsday weapon that had destroyed a city.

She looked more like an eighteen-year-old girl.

On a long journey.

Thinking about something she did not understand herself.