…

Yamcha was waiting for the notification and contemplated killing the humanoid rabbit in front of him. He would have to kill someone eventually, and starting with animal-looking people was the best he could ask for. Would he feel any guilt for killing someone? Probably not. 

[Quest Completed: The Good Guy]

 

[+3000 Exp]

 

[Hero's Bracelet (Rare) has been deposited in your inventory]

 

[Level Up!]

Those were the words he had been waiting for, and he smiled when he saw them. Still, since he confirmed his words, Yamcha was going to kill Carrot, the rabbit guy. His ability was too dangerous and annoying to have as an enemy. 

[Hero's Bracelet (Rare)]

[A bracelet with wooden beads looks normal, but many past heroes have worn it.

It can evolve the more good deeds the owner does. (1/100 Good Deeds)

When fighting for justice: 

+5 Strength 

+5 Agility]

The Hero's Bracelet, it was quite a good item. Especially for someone like Yamcha that didn't plan to go around doing bad things.

 

Sure, he might do something not morally right now and then, but that was only so they could all have a better future. Also, it was for his benefit sometimes, but the good always outweighs the bad… most of the time.

 

Yamcha looked at the humanoid rabbit and wondered about one good deed he could do right now. 

 

He then looked at his ‘hand’. “Puar, you can transform back to normal now.”

 

As soon as he said that, Yamcha’s skin curled and peeled off, scaring the onlookers, before in a puff of smoke it was transformed into the talking cat-blob. Knowing of the rabbit’s ability, Yamcha had conducted one last test on the mafia boss; if he had tried and transformed him, he would have turned Puar into a carrot. 

 

After doing that, the magical rabbit’s fate would have been sealed. Yamcha would have killed him and the rest of the gang members. 

 

“It feels weird having a second layer of skin,” Yamcha muttered under his breath. Today was sure full of surprises, he had been about quite sure that the rabbit would have attempted to turn into a carrot.

 

Yamcha then turned toward Carrot and smirked, almost inviting the magical rabbit to give it another try. He wondered if sleeping would turn him back to normal if he was turned into a carrot. 

 

Would he be able to shoot beams as a carrot? There were quite a lot of questions in Yamcha’s mind, if he wasn’t in such a rush, he would have let himself turn into a carrot just to test these things out. After all, when Buu turned Gogeta into a vandy they were still able to do things. Was the carrot-turning ability similar to Buu’s?

 

Carrot backed off a bit as Yamcha kept staring at him, and noticed that he had had a smirk on his face the whole time when looking at him. “Sorry about that, it seems like I let my emotions get the better of me there.”

The humanoid rabbit appeared even more nervous and took another step back. “Fuck, this guy is a psycho.”

‘I heard that, little rabbit.’ Yamcha was very curious about the rabbit and its magical abilities. In the original show these things weren’t explained in detail, so he had a hard time keeping his excitement in check. How could he? There was a MAGICAL rabbit so close! Did it even have the same organs as a human? Could it survive on grass?

***

 

Goku was feeling kind of squeamish as he wandered throughout the mushroom forest. He went to one of the mushrooms and took a bite. “Blegh! Tastes like a tree!” He looked around. “I wonder where Yamcha and Bulma have gone, are they lost?... Where am I?”

 

Looking around, he couldn’t see any sign of the town he had been in. Walking around the mushroom forest, Goky touched the four-star dragon ball hiding under his shirt and yawned, feeling a little sleepy. 

 

He walked around a little more and felt his stomach rumbling in hunger when he noticed an old person with a bag three times its size lying on the ground. He approaches her and touches her face. Then he lightly kicks between her legs. “Yep, it’s an old girl.”

 

“Hey!” The old woman suddenly sprung up and hit him over the head. “How can you do that to a lady?! That's sexual harassment, you brat!”

 

Goku rubbed the top of his head where she had hit him and smiled at the old woman. “I am glad that you’re okay, old lady.”

 

She looked at him and sighed under her breath. "You're one naive kid."

 

"Naive? Is that some kind of food?" Asked Goku curiously. 

 

“This brat heard that?” she muttered. "This is easier than I thought." 

 

Goku wondered what that was supposed to mean. But he was too hungry to think right now.

 

She then sighed and got up, dusting herself off. "Okay, brat. Will you help me with this bag, and I will give you as much food as you want."

 

Goku's eyes brightened at that. "Really! Wow! You're so kind, old lady."

 

The old woman scrunched her face. "Ugh, stop doing that, brat. It's making me feel guilty."

 

Guilty? About what? Did she do something bad?

 

Following his grandpa's advice, Goku helped the old woman carry her bags to her house, which was a big house, something he hadn't seen before on his mountain. He had seen something like it on top of the strange fire mountain that the old turtle guy had blown up.

"I can see it in your face, kid. You might not know, but this is what's called a castle," the old woman explained. 

 

Goku didn't care too much about cattle or whatnot. However, he could go for a big slab of meat right now. 

 

"Anyway, here is the food I promised you, kid," the old woman took out a big rack from the backpack Goku had been carrying. The sack was filled with many muffins. Goku picks one and biting into it, filling his mouth with some delicious blueberry jam. 

"Oh! This tastes good!" Goku exclaimed as he ate the muffins as if they were breadcrumbs.

 

"C -Careful kid, don't eat too much as the poison might overdose. You might die if that happens."

 

"Poison?" Goku looked at her skeptically. Why’s she talking about poison? This old lady sure was starting to say some suspicious things.

 

"Ugh! I mean muffins. If you eat too many of them, you might become sleepy." Explained the old woman. 

 

Food that makes you sleepy? Goku hadn't heard of that before. But the world was a weird place.

 

As he kept eating, he started feeling sleepy, and the last words he heard were from the old woman. "What a monster, just a bite should have put him to sleep. But he ate fifteen muffins. Now we just need…."

 

The old lady trailed off as Goku couldn't hear what she was saying anymore as darkness surrounded him.

***

[Good Deeds (8/100)]

Having spared the lives of the Rabbit Gang, Yamcha had done good deeds. 

 

Okay, maybe calling them good deeds was a little bit of a stretch since the only reason Yamcha spared the people was to try and get that bracelet of his to grow stronger. 

 

Though he had discovered another reason why he was glad he spared them. "C'mon, wash the van with water and use soap. Also, wash the tires too."

 

The many goons of the Rabbit Gang were washing his van. Something that was quite troublesome to do since it was so big. Also, some of the mooks could cook, clean, drive cars, and all that other stuff. Yamcha never knew before how convenient it was to have slav- *cough* underlings. 

"Boss, is this work to your satisfaction?" Asked Carrot, rubbing his hands together nervously. 

Yamcha looked at the van, and yes, it was very satisfactory. "No, it's not shiny enough."

These were gangsters that had terrorized the people of this town for quite a while, and one of them even busted open the head of a mother in front of her daughter. The last thing Yamcha was going to be to these scumbags was mercy. They were smart enough to understand what walking on a thin rope looked like.

 “O -of course, Boss, we will fix everything,” said Carrot as he turned around and ordered his subordinates to work faster.

Yamcha smiled at them, trying to look as malicious as possible before turning around and toward Bulma. By which his smile turned nice and gentle, can’t have his meal ticket be scared of him. Okay, calling her that by now was a bit of a stretch as they had grown to become friends. “So, how does it feel like being amongst dangerous people?”

 

“Weird,” Bulma looked at Yamcha suspiciously.

 

He nodded approvingly, and she had lost some of that wonder which came from just him having a handsome face. 

 

“Why are you doing this? Shouldn’t we just call the police and have the mafia members go to prison?” She didn’t seem convinced and sought a more convenient way of handling things.

 

“It isn’t that simple,” Yamcha knew how that situation would go, with the cops being turned into carrots and the humanoid rabbit escaping. That rabbit might also seek out revenge, so there was no way he would let someone like that go. 

 

Yamcha had two choices: have the rabbit work under him or kill the magic-using rabbit. 

 

In his eyes, people like Carrot were an untapped resource. It had the power to turn anything into a carrot, which was very useful. Also, if the police got involved, and somehow were able to solve the situation without being turned into carrots, the small town would still be open and have a power vacuum for another gang to take it over. 

 

“Don’t worry. I will deal with this,” Yamcha reassured the worried Bulma. She seemed quite disturbed by the turn of events, and he understood where she was coming from. To most people, the police are like the unbeatable force that always wins. 

 

Like in those crime documentaries, the police always win, but even in his last world, where there weren’t super-powered individuals, that is far from the truth. Policemen are humans and have their fears too. They probably wouldn’t want to die for their almost minimum wage. 

 

Yamcha called over the gang members, with Carrot numbered thirteen people. He made sure they all went behind some buildings, quite far, where Bulma, Puar, or Oolong wouldn’t be able to hear what they would talk about. 

 

The gang members came in many different shapes and sizes. Some were tall, short, thin, fat, and even a girl was amongst them. Yamcha pointed at two of the lowest leveled people and said. “Okay, you two are staying behind in the town and helping them out.”

 

“What?!” The two low-leveled people exclaimed in shock. Amongst them was the girl.

 

“Listen, let me be honest here. I wanna kill you all and be done with this whole side quest,” Yamcha shrugged indifferently. “I have better things to do and worry about here.”

 

He looked each of them in the eye and held the gaze of the two people he was planning to leave behind a little too long. “But I am not a killer; honestly, I never killed someone. The thought of the blood and organs spilling out makes me want to throw up.”

Yamcha noticed the relief on the mooks' faces when he said that, but their boss, Carrot, seemed unconvinced. “But, if I have to kill someone, despite my wants or needs, I will have to. Especially since I am a rookie at this, I will need to make an example of first offenders. That way, it can keep others in the line.”

 

No one said anything, and only the sound of the breeze could be heard as the wind hit their pale faces. Yamcha wondered why they were looking so scared there? He just told them he was inexperienced in this and what would happen if they did something wrong. So he continued and explained a little in more detail. “Can you imagine how gross it would be to rip out your nails? I might need to buy one of those machines that need to do it for you. I don’t think I have the guts to do it with pincers. A machine like that can’t be found normally and is probably super expensive even in the shadier parts of the market.”

 

Yamcha had put a lot of thought into this, so for fifteen minutes, he described in extreme segments how hard it would be to find the equipments he would need to make an example out of the offenders. He concentrated on how expensive and how hard the endeavor would be. “Though at least, on the positive side, if I buy the equipment, I would have it there and wouldn’t have to waste money on it again. So it’s like an investment in the discipline.”

The faces of the people grew paler and paler until they looked like ghosts. Finally, Carrot spoke up. “Don’t worry, boss. You won’t need to buy them. I can promise you that.”

 

This made Yamcha breathe a sigh of relief, and he put a hand on the rabbit’s shoulder. “Thanks. I am glad we could come to an understanding. I hope I don’t have to return here to reprimand the two people.”

 

He felt the humanoid rabbit’s body tense under his touch and then trembled. 

 

‘I am sure he is shaking in excitement at the thought of our adventure together.’

…

They had stopped in the town's outskirts and prepared to set off after Goku. On the other hand, Bulma had taken a small lab out of a capsule and studied the effects of Carrot’s powers. His ability to turn living beings into carrots.

“How is this possible? Even the calorie value in it has been increased. He is creating something out of nothing. This isn’t just simple science, something that can’t be explained. Something can’t come out of nothing!” Bulma said out loud as if speaking to herself. 

Yamcha heard her and agreed with the young scientist, but he had an easier explanation than her; It’s magic. You just have to accept it. Shenron could create planets, an unimaginable number of resources held within the planet. 

 

He didn’t know the whole process, but Yamcha wouldn’t be surprised if Shenron could create another set of Dragon Balls. 

 

Though he knew that there were limits within the wishing ability, too, Shenron wasn’t able to revive someone who had been dead for longer than a year or someone that had died out of old age or sickness. 

 

‘Still, I am a little worried about Goku.’ He thought while taking out his Dragon Radar and seeing that Goku’s dragon ball was close to another. Almost as if he had been kidnapped or something.

 

He hadn’t said anything to Bulma, as he didn’t want her to panic. But things have moved very differently from canon. Where had things changed in such a direction? No, it wasn’t just one thing, but many combined. 

 

Unlike in the original canon timeline, where Yamcha was only stalking Goku and Bulma. Maybe the Saiyan felt his friend was safe even if he went out for one of his little excursions? Or maybe he was just dazed from sleeping? Or… one of the thousands of other reasons out there. 

…

 

Hours later, they set off as night settled in the sky, Yamcha looked up and saw that it was a full moon. He smirked. There was a reason why he didn’t rush toward Goku and try to save him. Imagine escaping their kidnappers and Goku turning into his giant form. He wasn’t sure of beating the young Saiyan normally, not to mention when he was in his Oozaru form. 

 

One of Carrot’s underlings was riding as Bulma, and the others were sleeping. On the other hand, Yamcha sat shotgun and talked casually with the man. “So, how did you end up joining a gang?”

 

Yamcha rubbed the sleeping Puar’s head while asking. 

 

In the manga, these guys were just background characters at best. But here, each had a backstory, and people don’t usually commit crimes just for fun. He was genuinely interested in learning the backstory of such a background character. 

 

The only thing that stood out about the man next to Yamcha was the beak-like nose. Even then, the nose wasn’t big enough to be noticed.

“Honestly, my story is quite boring. I was born in a village. Everyone was poor, and we didn’t even have the chance to move away. Since I was going to die in the village anyways. I took my chances with Boss, and he accepted me in the gang, although my only skill is that I know how to use a hoe to carve the ground.” Answered the man with a melancholic look on his face. 

 

“Mine is just as boring too,” said another.  

As they were talking, a roar rang out in the distance with a crashing sound. 

 

“W -What was that?” Asked the mook, scratching his beak-like nose nervously. 

 

“That’s where we are going,” Yamcha smirked. Though he was calm outwardly, his heart beat like an engine. What was he supposed to do now? Every plan he had related to him knowing the situation to an expert degree. 

 

Oh well, in life, one can’t know everything, and the unknown can be quite scary sometimes. 

*******

A/N: Sorry about the delay, I tried posting for four days, but I kept getting ‘Synchronization Error’ whenever I opened my google docs and couldn’t edit them. Of course, using my amazing coding skills, I fixed it. (By that, I mean that the situation fixed itself as the docs suddenly opened after I logged out and back in my account.)

 

P.S: In the previous chapter we saw things from Carrot’s perspective. He had a gut feeling something was wrong when Yamcha was so casual. Now we saw things from Yamcha’s perspective and why he was so casual. In the original show Carrot was shown to have some common sense, so I kept to his character.