Rebirth Once More

A child lay collapsed in the bushes, looking for all the world like a corpse. Suddenly, he trembled, making the already silent and eerie forest even more unsettling.

"Am I... am I not dead?" The boy slowly opened his eyes. They were the plainest eyes imaginable—brown mixed with black, the simple eyes of an Asian person.

He slowly rose to his feet and looked over his surroundings.

"Bushes? I'm in some bushes? Could I have gone home again?" The boy could scarcely believe his eyes. Thinking back on the past month, he found it as terrifying as a nightmare.

A month ago, he had been a shut-in with a modestly well-off Household and a relatively comfortable life. Apart from his work as a programmer, he liked to immerse himself in the world of anime. He was a genuine shut-in. But a sudden change shattered his peaceful life.

That day, an inexplicable voice sounded in his mind.

"Young man, I can give you an opportunity to go to the world of anime. Are you willing?"

The voice startled the young man so badly that he mistyped a whole mess of code on his computer, nearly smashing the keyboard.

A colleague beside him asked with concern, "Old Zhou, what's wrong?"

"Uh, I'm fine. My brain just short-circuited for a second," Old Zhou answered.

"Your brain short-circuited?" His colleague scratched his head. He had wanted to ask more, but seeing Old Zhou act as if nothing was wrong, he could only set aside his doubts for now. He planned to ask in detail after work; slacking off during office hours could get their pay docked.

Meanwhile, Old Zhou pretended to type on his keyboard, though he was terrified inside. As an atheist, hearing an unknown voice suddenly speak in his mind... only someone who had experienced it could understand that feeling.

"You... are you the one talking in my head?"

"Young man, I can give you an opportunity to go to the world of anime. Are you willing?"

"Hey, I'm talking to you!"

"Young man, I can give you an opportunity to go to the world of anime. Are you willing?" The voice in his mind repeated itself again, as though that were the only sentence it knew.

"No, can't you understand human speech? Or do you not understand Chinese? Ohayo? Sawadika?" After the young man uttered that mangled foreign-language phrase, the voice in his mind suddenly fell silent, as though it had crashed.

"Hello? Why did it stop talking?" After waiting for a long time without hearing a reply, the puzzled young man patted his colleague on the shoulder. "Hey, Old Liu, did you hear any strange voice just now?"

"Huh? A voice? No. Did you hear something? Don't tell me you're so exhausted from work that you're hallucinating?"

"Hallucinating?" The young man froze. Could I really be hallucinating? He soon pushed the matter to the back of his mind.

After work, the young man returned home as usual, turned on his computer, and entered the anime world he loved. Then that voice sounded again.

"Young man, I can give you an opportunity to go to the world of anime. Are you willing?"

"I'm willing, my ass! Anyone who agreed would be an idiot! Do you think I've never read infinite-flow novels before?"

"Very well. As you wish."

"Huh? Hey, I said I wasn't willing—" With a gust of wind, the young man vanished from the room.

"Wh-where is this? Huh? Why does my voice sound like this?" After crying out in shock, the young man was startled again by how much younger his voice had become.

He found himself lying on a floor, surrounded by seats and several windows. What terrified him was that beyond those windows, he did not see familiar skyscrapers, but a star-filled expanse of space.

Then he heard voices outside the door.

"Lord Frieza, we have captured that little one. Shall we begin the experiment?" The voice was old and slow, like that of an elderly man with one foot in the grave.

Although the voice sounded human, its words made the young man tremble.

"Frieza? That interstellar pirate from the anime who killed without blinking? Could it be... I really transmigrated?" Looking at the undeniably real scenery beyond the windows, the young man sighed inwardly. "Damn it! Why did I have to shoot my mouth off and say the opposite? Well, this is great. Serves me right!" He wanted to slap himself a few times, but then remembered it would hurt and lowered his hand.

"Wait, little one? They can't mean me, can they?" The young man quickly calmed down and examined the room, searching for somewhere to hide. After all, the ancients had said that a gentleman did not stand beneath a crumbling wall. But reality was cruel—there was nowhere to hide.

"No, aren't you supposed to be some huge interstellar pirate? Why is this room so shabby?" As he racked his brains for a solution, a thin, eunuch-like voice came from outside the door.

"You must handle this matter properly! Although Vegeta and those monkeys have submitted to us for now, they are no pushovers. We must create talents of our own."

"Yes, Lord Frieza. I will do my utmost."

"Good. Remember, this matter must remain secret, especially from those monkeys."

"Yes."

Afterward, the young man heard several button presses. With no other choice, he dropped to the floor and pretended to still be unconscious.

Then he felt something like a hand wrap around his ankle, and he was lifted into the air by it!

"What? Still playing dead? If your constitution is this weak, congratulations—you probably won't survive this experiment."

The young man knew he had been seen through. He stopped keeping his eyes shut and opened them, staring directly at the octopus-like alien before him. Gathering his courage, he said, "What exactly are you going to do?"

"What are we going to do? Judging by the way you look, you woke up earlier. You heard it, didn't you?" It spoke while dragging Old Zhou, who was now a child, along.

"Y-you're going to create Saiyans?"

"Yes. We have no choice. The boss fears Super Saiyans far too much—so much that it has become pathological. So his subordinates came up with this method to put his mind at ease."

"Put his mind at ease? It seems even you think this experiment is just wishful thinking." Old Zhou did not know why, but perhaps with death so close, people feared nothing anymore. His voice no longer carried its earlier panic. Instead, it was incomparably calm.

"Heh, I didn't expect you to see through it."

"Hahahaha!" Old Zhou suddenly burst out laughing.

"What are you laughing at?" The octopus looked confused.

"I'm laughing because you won't even know why you died."

"Wh-what do you mean? How could I die? I'm one of Lord Frieza's favorites. In his kingdom, I could be said to be second only to one!" As if to deny Old Zhou's words, the octopus emphasized his status.

"Sigh, big octopus, you really like doing research, don't you?"

"Huh? That's right. It's my greatest hobby! Wait, what does that have to do with whether I'll die?" Though the octopus did not understand what the child meant, what harm was there in telling him if it might reveal why he would die?