“Hold on, you mean King Piccolo… That King Piccolo from three hundred years ago?”
When Master Roshi heard Tambourine say the name ‘King Piccolo’, he immediately jumped up, his expression turning ugly.
“Of course. Is there a second King Piccolo in the world?” Tambourine asked as he held his head up with pride; inwardly, he admired King Piccolo more for his reputation. Who would have thought that even after three hundred years, someone would still know King Piccolo’s name.
“Grandpa, who is King Piccolo?”
“Yeah, is he very powerful?” Goku and Krillin rushed to ask.
Master Roshi’s complexion was deathly pale, and after an internal struggle, he seemed to have become weak as he sighed and informed them about King Piccolo’s history. After that, Master Roshi shook his head and said, “… I thought that it would be fine after I sunk the electric rice cooker into the sea. I didn’t expect that King Piccolo would still be able to escape.”
“So, he is a bad guy…”
Goku muttered, and then his body suddenly flashed and arrived beside Tambourine before anyone could react.
Then, he clenched his fingers and punched out hard.
Bang!
The fist which was as solid as a rock fist fell on Tambourine’s chest, causing him to fail to keep up his proud posture. Tambourine immediately bent down with bloodshot eyes, his digestive fluids flowing out from his mouth. His eyes turned over and he immediately passed out.
“Really useless, he couldn’t even withstand a single blow,” Goku muttered to himself and returned to his seat, feeling displeased at the uneventful battle.
Master Roshi was shocked by Goku’s move. He never thought that King Piccolo’s subordinate would be defeated by his disciple so easily.
“Goku, if you do this, King Piccolo will definitely not take things lying down.” Master Roshi glanced at Goku with both admiration and worry. When he remembered King Piccolo’s frightening appearance, Master Roshi’s heart sank, and cold sweat dripped down his face.
As Blonde Launch saw Master Roshi’s cowardly look, her lips curled disdainfully, and she said, “Old man, what’s so frightening about this King Piccolo? If he dares to act arrogant in front of me, I will slap him to death.”
Blonde Launch had lived on Planet Hongshan for so many years, so what kind of experts had she not seen? How would she be frightened by the so-called Great Demon King of Earth? To be honest, she looked down on Earth’s so-called “strong experts”.
Master Roshi was startled. He suddenly realized that the present era seemed to be different from that of the past when he was young. ‘There are experts like Goku, Tien Shinhan, and Launch here; is the King Piccolo that terrified me back then really so scary, so invincible?’
Thinking of this, Master Roshi’s mood calmed down. He stepped forward and said with a serious expression, “Launch, Goku, please… You must annihilate King Piccolo!”
“Not interested!” Blonde Launch flatly refused.
Goku’s eyes, however, lit up and he asked, “Is King Piccolo really so powerful? More powerful than Launch?”
Master Roshi broke into cold sweat and stuttered, “Th… this… I am not too clear…”
A lot of time had passed, yet King Piccolo’s existence was like a nightmare wrapped around Master Roshi’s heart. However, Master Roshi wasn’t so sure about King Piccolo’s true strength, so he couldn’t give guesses.
“Am I really overthinking things?” Master Roshi asked himself, but as he queried himself, he became increasingly uncertain.
Goku shook his head in disappointment. He thought he would be to fight against a powerful opponent, but due to Master Roshi’s uncertainty, he came to the conclusion that King Piccolo was not as powerful as Launch! As a result, Goku immediately lost interest in King Piccolo.
However, since Krillin didn’t perish here unlike in the original work, Goku didn’t get to see King Piccolo’s true strength. Goku waved his hand said, “I promised Bulma that I would go to West City with her. So, put the matter of King Piccolo for later.”
“Hehe, Goku, you have kept your promise!” Bulma didn’t know the terror of King Piccolo; she thought he was just a bad guy with a big name. When she heard that Goku intended to go back to West City with her, she excitedly screamed, while other things were long thrown to the back of her mind.
Master Roshi wanted to say something but then hesitated. He glanced at Goku and Bulma, and sighed helplessly as he mused, ‘Maybe I am really thinking too much.’
At the same time.
On the other side of Earth.
Over a dense virgin forest, a large half-open spaceship was floating in mid-air. The enormous spaceship blocked the sunlight, projecting a shadow over the forest.
Inside the spaceship, on a huge chair seemingly made of bones…
King Piccolo’s aged body was leaning against the huge chair. King Piccolo was already very old; his green skin was covered in wrinkles, and his muscles were not as robust as they used to be in his younger days. They had become droopy.
King Piccolo clenched the little dragon ball in his hand. “Is it this little thing that can summon Shenron and fulfill any of this king’s wishes as long as seven of them are collected?”
Pilaf rubbed his hands, kneeling respectfully on the ground, and next to him were the long black-haired Mai and Shu who were both tremblingly as they waited.
“Yes, Great Demon King. As long as you summon Shenron, any of your wishes will be fulfilled. However, there are currently four dragon balls in the hands of a person called Goku.”
Every time he mentioned Goku’s name, Pilaf gnashed his teeth in anger. If it weren’t for Goku, Pilaf would have gathered all the dragon balls and summoned Shenron himself long ago; thus, he wouldn’t have a need to release King Piccolo. However, after King Piccolo got released, Pilaf regretted it.
‘For the sake of my disappointing little wish, I seem to have made a mistake.’ Pilaf sighed.
In fact, with Pilaf Gang’s silliness, even if the dragon balls were handed over to them, perhaps they wouldn’t have any desire to rule the world. It would be enough for them to just live a rich and comfortable life. Thinking of the useless Pilaf Gang, one wouldn’t be able to comprehend how such a simple and persistent villain would exist in the world.
On the huge stone chair.
King Piccolo was playing with the little orange-red glass bead with interest, wondering why he could feel a natural closeness to the orange-red bead.
Suddenly, King Piccolo’s body shook and his spirit waned a lot. “Damn it, my child, Tambourine, has been killed.”
“What?”
The demon with a pterosaur mouth beside King Piccolo was shocked. “There is someone who can defeat Tambourine in the current age of martial artists?!”
“It’s definitely that Goku… Tambourine went to retrieve the four dragon balls.” Pilaf jumped up and said.
“Shut up!”
King Piccolo berated him. Pilaf and Mai immediately shut their mouths and prostrated down with fear, not daring to speak.
Afterward, King Piccolo spat out an egg from his mouth and hatched a second warrior called Cymbal. He ordered Cymbal to find Goku in order to take avenge Tambourine and also take back the four dragon balls.
However, King Piccolo surprisingly discovered that the signals of the four dragon balls on the screen had unexpectedly disappeared. Without the dragon balls signal, the four dragon balls could not be found. Thus, King Piccolo had no method to summon Shenron. This was by no means good news for him. As his mood suddenly turned foul, a cold aura swept out, and the temperature dropped by a dozen degrees in the entire spaceship.
“Your Majesty, Goku must have hidden away the dragon balls,” Pilaf angrily said while wiping the cold sweat from his face.
King Piccolo glanced at him coldly and lightly snorted. After that, he blew up a storm with a wave of his hand which booted the three people from the spaceship.
“It seems that we will have to bring forward our plans to rule over the world ahead of time. Heed my order, drive the spaceship to the capital of the Central City. This king wants these human beings to once again experience the fear of living under the control of the Demon Race,” King Piccolo’s aged face was filled with nostalgia as he ordered. He seemed to be recalling visions of the past, with his mouth curled into a smile.
“Yes, Your Majesty!” The pterosaurs-mouth demon answered.