Piccolo's Private Lesson

The night wind of West City could not reach the underground laboratory of Capsule Corporation.

With two dark circles under her eyes, Bulma slammed a cup of iced espresso onto the workbench. Watching the man in front of her admire himself in the full-length mirror, she could not help rolling her eyes hard.

Under the bright lights, Son Goku was straightening a roomy, heavy black robe embroidered with dark crimson cloud patterns, giving off an indescribably sinister air.

"Goku," Bulma gritted out, "I spent two whole days using the lab's best nanofibers and shielding coating just to make you this creepy getup? What kind of garbage manga have you been reading lately?"

Son Goku did not answer. He picked up the orange spiral mask with a single eyehole from the workbench and pressed it over his face.

It fit perfectly.

The instant he put on the mask, the easygoing young man who usually wore a friendly smile vanished. In his place stood something like a monster completely devoid of any living presence.

The built-in throat mic in the mask filtered his voice into a deep, raspy tone. "Thanks for the hard work, Bulma! If I'm going to be that guy's life mentor, I've got to go all in on the ceremony. Your craftsmanship is really good."

Son Goku raised two fingers to his forehead and offered no further explanation. "I'm off. Time to teach our future gold-medal babysitter a lesson he'll never forget."

"Quit playing mysterious and remember to come back early for dinner!" Bulma waved him off, showing remarkable tolerance for her man's bizarre sense of humor.

"Save me some extra grilled meat!"

With a soft bang, the rush of air sent several blueprints on the table fluttering up, and Son Goku vanished from the spot.

The northwestern wasteland. Gale-force winds swept sand and dirt across the cracked rocks like blades.

Piccolo panted heavily, supporting himself with one hand against a split boulder, his entire body caked in mud. Just moments ago, like a crazed beast, he had unleashed a round of overloaded energy blasts at the surrounding area, forcibly blasting dozens of thick stone pillars into powder.

"Not enough... Still far from enough!"

Veins bulged on Piccolo's dark green face as an unwilling growl squeezed from his throat. That unfathomable monster, Son Goku, was like a mountain pressing down on his head. Hidden in this deserted place, he squeezed every drop of strength from himself like a lone wolf. His power was growing rapidly, and the sensation of becoming stronger intoxicated him.

Suddenly, every hair on his body stood on end.

There had been no sign of any approaching presence, yet an unfamiliar, teasing voice abruptly sounded right behind his head without warning.

"Well, well. In the middle of the night, what's a big green bug doing digging in the mud?"

"Who?!"

Piccolo's scalp went numb. He whirled around, power erupting from his body, and lashed out with a whip kick wreathed in purple energy that tore through the air.

Whoosh—!

He had hit something! But Piccolo's eye twitched sharply.

There was no sensation of striking a solid body. The figure in the black robe with red clouds rippled and dissolved like water—it was an afterimage!

"Die!" Piccolo thrust both hands forward, unleashing over a dozen violent energy blasts toward the front as if they cost nothing.

BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!

The blaze swallowed the entire area ahead, shearing away a huge section of the wasteland's frozen soil.

"Did I get him?!" Piccolo had only just curled his lips into a cold smile when someone gave his shoulder two light taps.

"No need to be so hot-tempered, Demon King. You almost burned a hole in Afei's new clothes."

The voice was right behind him! Piccolo spun around in horror and found the strange man in the orange spiral mask hovering in midair, his hands still tucked in his pockets as he solemnly dusted off his sleeves.

"Whoever you are, die right now!!" Piccolo completely snapped.

He lunged at him in a frenzy—straight punches, sweeping kicks, knifehands, energy blasts... Piccolo threw out every killing move he had learned in his life, and the fierce gusts from his fists ground the surrounding rubble to dust.

But the next five minutes became a nightmare Piccolo would never be able to erase from his life.

No matter how desperately he attacked, the masked man calling himself Afei never even took his hands out of his pockets. A slight tilt of the head, a turn of the body, or half a step back was all it took to evade every attack with perfect precision. It was absolute domination born of supreme speed and flawless awareness of energy.

"Missed, missed. A little more to the left."

"Not bad strength, but what use is it if you can't hit anyone?"

"Those eyes are pretty scary. Got anything besides glaring?"

Piccolo stopped. He panted hard, his eyes bloodshot. The son of the Demon King had been reduced to a child being toyed with, unable to touch even the hem of his opponent's robe despite giving everything he had. This casual contempt hurt worse than having his bones broken outright.

"What exactly do you want?" Piccolo glared at him, the pride in his bones crushed into fragments.

Seeing Piccolo on the verge of collapse, Son Goku felt the timing was about right.

"I'm bored of playing. My turn."

His voice suddenly turned cold. Before the words had even faded, Son Goku vanished from where he stood and appeared in front of Piccolo like a ghost. Without wasting a word, he drove a clean, direct front kick into Piccolo's abdomen.

BANG!

The kick did not contain much force, but its timing and precision were viciously exact, dispersing the energy Piccolo had just gathered within his body. Piccolo felt all the strength drain from him as he flew backward like a cannonball.

He plowed a long, deep trench through the ground, smashing through five rocky mounds in succession before slamming viciously into the mud.

Son Goku walked forward and drifted lightly down at the edge of the muddy crater. Looking at Piccolo struggling painfully at the bottom, hatred filling his eyes, he unexpectedly put away his teasing manner.

"You see Son Goku as the enemy of your life. Your head is filled with nothing but revenge, with thoughts of how to rule the world." Son Goku's calm voice carried through the night wind of the wasteland.

Piccolo struggled to prop himself halfway up, staring fixedly at the orange mask. "How... do you know...?"

"Hatred really is useful. It can force you to squeeze out your potential. But if all you know is how to train in isolation like a mad dog, fixating on these petty grudges on Earth, sooner or later you'll cripple yourself." Son Goku raised a hand and pointed at the deep night sky overhead.

"Look up at the sky, Piccolo! Outside this planet, monsters stronger than Son Goku are everywhere. With your current power level, if you ever ran into a real powerhouse in the universe, you wouldn't even qualify to be their opponent."

Piccolo froze. The fury in his eyes had been forcibly smashed into a trace of bewilderment by those words. The universe? Monsters stronger than Son Goku?

"Put away that narrow-minded killing intent that exists only for revenge, and use your brain to figure out how to become stronger."

Before Piccolo could recover, Son Goku raised his hand and delivered a crisp chop to the back of his neck.

Thud.

Piccolo's vision went dark, and he passed out completely.

Son Goku pulled off his mask and let out a long breath.

He looked around, casually picked up a flat stone from the ground, and used two fingers like a blade to carve the words "useless trash" into it before tossing it beside Piccolo's head.

"Hurry up and grind levels, gold-medal babysitter!"

Son Goku muttered inwardly. Pressing two fingers to his forehead, his figure turned into an afterimage and vanished into the windswept wasteland.