Chapter 11 - Yunzabit Heights
…
After setting off, Yamcha felt like a weight had been lifted from his shoulders.
'And to think I used to laugh at protagonists who were suffering under cute stalker girls.'
"Yamcha, are you sure you have everything you need?" Puar asked, pulling him away from his thoughts.
"Yeah, of course. I have been planning this trip for a while." No, he hadn't had the time to get everything he would need. But due to his inventory, he had almost everything he needed on this journey. That was all thanks to his paranoid past self, afraid of getting sealed or stranded in space or something like that.
He had food, clothes, vehicles, and some money in his inventory. The bigger objects were in capsules and were then put in his inventory.
"Like good old days, just the two of us, pal," Yamcha patted the talking cat-like creature on the head and smiled as he felt the soft fur run through his fingers.
Puar smiled. "Where are we going?"
"To the Yunzabit Heights," Yamcha answered without thinking much about it. This place had the harshest environment on the planet, so he was going to visit it eventually.
"I- Isn't that the super dangerous place where no one dares to go?" Puar looked at him, frightened.
"Don't worry, little buddy, as long as you're by my side, nothing will dare to touch you," though Yamcha didn't have the feelings the original Yamcha had. He still considered Puar his best friend. "I am like superman, without the weakness to kryptonite."
"Who's Superman?"
Yamcha sighed. Well, he needs at least someone to understand his references. "Okay, so there is this planet known as krypton…"
…
About six hours later, Yamcha and Puar were flying along the sea. The talking cat had a frown on his face. "So Mary Jane doesn't stay with spiderman despite promising him to do so? Knowing his difficulties."
"Well, Harry Osborn is rich as hell. What did you expect?"
Puar was about to answer when suddenly the plane shook, it rattled their bones. Suddenly the shaking grew stronger, and Yamcha saw one of the engines get hit by something and explode.
"What's happening?!"
"We're close to our destination," Yamcha noted cautiously. "Or at least we should be."
As soon as he said that, a strong wind hit the plane and tumbled it over. The glass broke as a stone flew straight through the window, causing Yamcha to jump off the plane with Puar in tow. They jumped onto the cold sea.
As the freezing water hit him. The water was so cold that it burned. While dropping down, he had put Puar on top of his head so the little creature wouldn't be submerged in this.
"Yamcha… what's that?!" Puar's little hand shook as he pointed in front of them. A giant wave, a tsunami that could engulf the biggest skyscrapers, was approaching them.
"The strong wind likely carried debris from the ground, and one stone smashed into our plane. But after the strong wind, big waves come too." Yamcha analyzed calmly.
"This is not the time to be so nonchalant!" Puar pulled on his head in fear.
"Well, panicking about this won't help anyone. Nobody ever said: Oh yeah, I wish I panicked more during a dangerous situation. That would have been a perfect response to this clearly dangerous predicament where I need to think clearly-"
"Okay, okay! I get the point! Just get us out of here!"
Dangerous situations were the best time to tell someone 'I told you so' even if they had an excuse. Nobody is too worried about refuting you when their life is on the line. Just point a gun at someone's head, and they're bound to agree with everything you say.
"Well, I have an idea, though I am not sure if it will work," Yamcha frowned as the tsunami wave got closer. He already had his plan in action.
"What idea?! C'mon spit it out; that thing is getting closer!" Puar panicked even more.
"Well, my plan is to… pray…" Yamcha clasped his hands. "Kami, please come to our rescue."
"NOOO! We're gonna die here!" Puar had tears coming out of his eyes, mixing with snot running down his face.
Yamcha felt a little bad, so he got to work. He gathered energy with one hand while using the other to stabilize himself in the water. Essentially he was charging a one-handed Kamehameha wave.
As the tsunami wave was about a block away, he shot the beam, and it separated the wave in two. Creating a good passage for both of them not to be hit by it. Yamcha felt tiredness hit him like a truck. He had previously used all of his Ki as he wasn't sure how strong a one-handed Kamehameha was.
Being low on Ki and tired was dangerous, so he took a senzu bean and munched down on it. Just like that, he was back in top shape.
Since he no longer had a plane to fly… He had another plane. But he didn't want to break that one too. Instead, this was the perfect situation to figure out how to fly without planes or wings.
Yamcha closed his eyes, and the cold water surrounding him made concentrating hard. Some Ki to alleviate the head by surrounding the body with it made things much easier. Yamcha recited the words Gohan told his girlfriend when teaching her how to fly.
Feel the Ki in your stomach, and just push. It was a strange sensation, but Yamcha's body slowly rose from the sea.
[You have gained skill: Flying]
"Yamcha! We're flying! This is amazing!" Puar said in amazement before his tail slapped Yamcha on top of his head. "Also, if you could break the wave like that from the beginning, why didn't you tell me?! I almost had a heart attack!"
"Even I didn't know I could do it. But our power of friendship made me jump to the next level," Yamcha muttered jokingly.
"Really?" Puar asked, leaving Yamcha confused. The cat-like creature sighed. "Then that's good, but we should be more careful."
This guy is way too trusting, thought Yamcha. A bead of sweat dropped down his cheek.
"Okay, let's fly back like this," Puar sighed.
"No, we're still going to our destination," Yamcha was headstrong. He was even glad that the winds and climate were so horrible. This was where he could get some training.
The next time he meets Goku, Yamcha has no intention of being the weaker one among the two. He wanted to become so overwhelmingly strong that even Goku, with his Zenkai boosts, wouldn't catch up to him any time soon.
"Okay, then we can fly there," Puar sighed in disappointment, or maybe it was desperation?
"Who said we're flying?"
"Huh?" The little furry's face paled.
"We're swimming," Yamcha cancels his flying technique and drops down into the cold water. He starts swimming like a madman.
[You have gained Skill: Swimming]
Oh? That was cool, thought Yamcha. Today's challenge was not to take any Senzu Beans and struggle. That's the way growth works in this world. This world worked on Shonen logic, well, it technically didn't for most people, but he had to adapt to it now. If he couldn't struggle a little under control, what about times he would have to struggle later when the situation was dangerous?
…
After fighting a shark, a whale with a spiky horn, two dolphins, and getting his Swimming Skill to level 8, they finally arrived at their destination.
Yunzabit Heights was a desolate place, where even grass barely grew, and harsh wind storms hit the place. Puar had to hold onto Yamcha's hair so as not to be blown away by the powerful storms.
The first thing Yamcha did was to put on the weighted vests and bracelets Dr Briefs had made for him. It wasn't weighted clothing but as close as one could get to them in a week.
He also put Puar under his shirt so the little guy didn't have to face the harsh winds.
After that, Yamcha started what he had been drooling about since coming here. To explore this whole place! Why were there such harsh storks here? Discovering things and training simultaneously was like hitting two birds with one stone.
Yamcha went past desolate hills, mountains, and caves, and except for a couple of dinosaurs with ice around them like armor, nothing else really bothered him.
'If it were a week ago, I would have had to eat Senzu Beans constantly just to stay alive. Yet now, while uncomfortable, it isn't that dangerous.'
But just as he thought that, he peeked over another hill and saw something that shocked him.
There was a building in the distance, standing on four legs. It's white with an organic sculpted appearance, protruding spikes, and a large bulbous window.
'Is that a… spaceship?!'
It didn't take even a second for Yamcha to figure out who this spaceship belonged to. The Namekian style built made it quite obvious this was Kami's spaceship. The same one Bulma, Krillin, and Gohan used to go to Planet Namek in the Dragon Ball Z Saga.
Yamcha swallowed the cold air, his hand shook. He wanted to get in so bad. He remembered the password was just the word: Piccolo. This was an honest to god alien spacecraft. Okay, for this world it sounded underwhelming, but for him…
Maybe he should go in. What could change just from him going in there? Even if something changed, it wouldn't be that big.
'No, I can't do that. Just Kami noticing him would be enough of a change. What if they get suspicious of something?' Yamcha tried to convince himself.
He held in such desires, despite how insistent they were.
Resisting a cute girl's advances, Yamcha did that easily, but curiosity was a whole other matter.
It was like knowing you could get away with being on your phone at work. You wouldn't get anything done, and it would hurt your productivity, ruining your future chances of promotion. But there was that temptation still there.
"No, no, I must resist," Yamcha shook his head and turned around.
Once the spaceship was out of his sight, he just walked off in the distance, deciding not to approach the alien vehicle for now since the temptation was too strong.
Having seen the spaceship gave him some new ideas. Maybe going to space before DBZ would be beneficial in many ways. But for now, he was too weak to even think about it. There was some merit to having the spaceship studied by Dr Brief.
A roar in the distance woke Yamcha up from his thoughts, and he saw a dinosaur as big as a mountain covered in ice and leering down at him. The creature was quite far away, but with a dozen steps from the creature, it would be here.
Other dinosaurs and some saber tooth tigers were charging from behind the creature.
"You must be the kind of these parts," Yamcha stated. He didn't know if the creature could head him through all this howling wind.
Normally during fights like this, Yamcha would take off his weights. But right now, he didn't need normal and cracked his neck. Some of his skills had reached Level 10, and he wanted to level those bad boys up.
So without shooting a beam or anything, Yamcha charged Ki around his body and jumped toward the army of monsters. The giant dinosaur swiped its tail toward and, for its size, the attack was quite fast and the range too big, so Yamcha couldn't dodge and was hit head-on.
The feeling of his organs shaking, and blood bubbling up his throat was something he had recently grown familiar with. Through this pain, he saw his HP drop dangerously below 40%, even though he had enhanced himself with Ki.
"Yes, this is it! This feeling!" It wasn't something you could get when working in an office job as he had in his past life. The boring movements of doing the same thing every day like a machine.
'My eyes are open now, and I can see clearer than ever. Life is boring without a little danger. Modern life is too comfortable. Man and machine become the same. I don't want to just survive… I want to live in this amazing world!'
[Willpower increased by 1]
Ki burst out of Yamcha like a tidal wave as he flew faster than before and charged toward the giant creature like a bullet.
[Flying Skill Leveled up to 2]
…
A month later, Yamcha stood atop a giant mountain of monster corpses. Due to the cold, the corpses hadn't started rotting yet.
Yamcha's clothes were long since gone, and he was covered in the dried blood of creatures and had a rough sabertooth belt as pants. Ever since the first day he came here, endless attacks of creatures had been coming at him.
"Puar, this battle is finished," he called out.
Puar came out from being in the middle of the corpses, hiding and looking around cautiously. "Are you sure everything is gone? What about that extra big dinosaur?"
"I killed like ten of those," Yamcha waved his friend's worries away.
As the creatures seemed always to find him, Yamcha was a little suspicious of what was happening. During this month, he hadn't even gotten a wink of sleep.
He glanced at the spaceship that was quite a bit away.
Yamcha understood the situation somewhat. This might seem like coincidence to someone else, and maybe it is. But Yamcha suspected that someone didn't want him close to that spaceship.
Maybe Kami was worried he would destroy the only relic the old Namekian had of his homeland? Since Kami or Popo couldn't intervene in worldly affairs, they had to use other creatures to stop him.
'Well, I won't destroy or take the spaceship yet since it would be useless to me. But that's only a matter of time. Maybe I should contact Kami better and show him that it's all good. Or maybe that's a bad idea since he wouldn't be able to read my mind.
Yamcha didn't want to make enemies needlessly. Also, he liked how Kami (maybe?) had sent dinosaurs to attack him.
Sadly, his stats have risen quite a bit, especially since his willpower was breaking through the thirties.
Opening his Status Page, Yamcha saw that he had a Power Level of 113, which wasn't bad by Earth's standards, as during this month, he had been training every skill he had. He could also push that Power Level past 150 if he went all out with his skills.
Yet he was worried about none of his skills going past level 10.
Initially, he had thought there was some kind of bottleneck, but since he was fighting most of the time during these months, he was certain that none of his skills had yet risen to that level.
Yamcha sat atop the mountain of corpses and stayed cross-legged, like a Buddhist Monk. He felt the Ki in his body, something he had long since been able to sense. Yet, for some reason, his Ki Control hadn't improved despite using the skill to shoot beams, control the Kamehameha, and many other things.
Suddenly, Yamcha was reminded of a scene in Dragon Ball Super, with Krillin concentrating his Ki onto his fists, and he tried to do the same. It wasn't that hard, but then Yamcha realized and tried to concentrate all of his Ki onto his right hand.
A bright light shined as a hazy white aura gathered around his fist.
[Ki Control has Leveled Up to 11]
Yamcha ignored the notification and instead punched down, and immediately as he did so, he knew it was a bad idea. Because of all that gathered, Ki exploded, and his arm blew up.
Yet, for some reason, despite his arm blowing up, Yamcha had only one thought in mind.
'That is a pretty strong punch.'
His second thought was to understand why he never saw such a move used in the original show because it was the equivalent of a Ki Beam exploding at their fingertips.
Yamcha took out a Senzu bean, something he hadn't used in a while. Could a Senzu Bean heal an arm blown up to smithereens? Yamcha's guess was a no. But he didn't know for certain. In his case, this didn't matter since the Senzu Bean healed his HP to the max, which meant he had a new arm.
[Willpower increased by 1]
"Puar, since there's no strong enemy here, let's swim back to the mainland," Yamcha stated while flexing his new arm. It felt normal, but seeing his arm blow up was a new experience.
"I just saw your arm blow up," Puar noted. "Also, what do you mean by swimming? You can fly."
Yamcha sighed and shook his head. "Puar, do you know why Goku can turn into a giant monkey?"
"No?"
"Well, there are some mysterious things in the world. I don't question things a lot." Yamcha shrugged nonchalantly as he took out a new pair of clothes from a capsule but then remembered he was covered in blood and needed to clean up before that. "Also, I am swimming through the ocean to take a cold shower and test if I can swim through the rough waves."
Puar looked at him with a raised lip. "You've changed. From not being afraid of girls anymore to this."
"You've also changed and learned the Sexy Jutsu-"
"Don't call it that!" Puar intervened, but Yamcha continued as if he didn't hear him.
"You have changed too. Life is the period where everyone changes." Yamcha reasoned while using a Ki Blast to blow up the mountain of corpses. "Whether it's opinions, ideals, knowledge, everything and everyone changes with time. For some, it takes longer than others."
He wanted to avoid and gaslight who he was and where he came from. Since he had none of Yamcha's memories, he wasn't him. But that didn't mean he was ungrateful to the original for this life. That's why he took his name and will fix the miserable life the original Yamcha would have had.
'I also need to travel to the mainland. Use the Dragon Radar Bulma gave me, and get one dragon ball and put it in my inventory.'
Yamcha knew he had changed the story and would continue to make many more in the future. So he wanted the one dangerous thing on this planet, the Dragon Ball. He wanted them to be unable to be used without him knowing.
He had already tested, and the Dragon Balls disappeared from the radar when in the inventory.
Depending on how things developed, Yamaha might or might not use the Dragon Balls. But one thing was for sure. He would know every wish and who makes them from now on.
A/N: Even though the Dragon Balls have their limitations, they're still very dangerous in the wrong hands. Yamcha is taking measures against them.