Dragon BAll- Hermit Shen[A Human Story]

"Now for what I came here for!" Shen turns toward the underpass.

A minute or two pass as he speed-walks through it. At one point, the path splits into two, making him pause for a second to decide which way to take.

"Well, both eventually lead to the same place," he thinks, and without giving it much thought, he takes the left path.

The path winds up in a dead end with a wall in front of him. He wonders if he remembered wrong...

Suddenly, some sort of contraption is set off, and the floor below him splits open like a double door.

With a jolt, he starts free-falling, but with his powers, he controls his descent and softly lands on a squishy surface. "Ohh! What's this? A rock??"

Yet again, something feels off. The surface he's standing on starts to wobble.

A loud, beastly voice erupts, "Heh! Heh! Heh! It's been a while since I had some food."

It's a giant octopus—he's standing right on top its head.

The octopus wiggles its tentacles toward its newfound prey. "Thanks for the meal!"

However, to its displeasure, Shen easily dodges by jumping into the air. While airborne, he fires two somewhat weak ki blasts at the octopus's rubbery limbs.

The octopus squirm around in pain. Two of its tentacles have gone from slippery and agile to rough and dry.

The octopus is in a dire situation. "Please wait, sir! Over the years, some humans stored a large amount of treasure here. I can bring you there if you spare me."

"Really now?" Shen looks toward the pond, beside the octopus.

"Yes! Yes! Are you going to spare me?"

"No, I'm going to eat an octopus." With a final ki blast, the octopus is cooked to a crisp. The taste isn't that great, however.

"I need to dive down this pond." He removes most of his clothing, leaving only his pants, and dives underwater. He notices a canal opening up to another part of the cavern.

Following the waterway, he resurfaces in another section of the cavern. Finally, he has found the treasure room.

"There's the goddess statue." Of course, he didn't forget about the multi-armed goddess statue, that guards the treasure.

As he gets close to it, the statue's eyes open, and it starts raining down swords from its multiple arms.

Shen skillfully dodges all the swords and proceeds to open the three treasure chests laid in front of the statue. One turns out to be empty, another is a trap chest that fires an automatic machine gun at him, and the last one contains a key—finally, something useful.

There's a keyhole on the platform where the statue is placed. He inserts the key.

Click! The mouth of the statue opens, and shining treasures flood from it, perfectly landing on the middle chest.

"One can't help but drool over all this treasure," Shen slowly exclaims to himself. Who could blame him?.

He lived a dirt-poor existence in his past life, doing below-average salary jobs, with most of the money spent on living expenses.

Smearing his hand over the heap of gold and jewels, he gets lost in his own thoughts...

"There are more treasures hidden in this room. I remember one is behind the walls of this statue, but where could the others be...?"

"Either way, I have a long time to find them. For now, I need to convert a portion of my wealth into actual money and turn this abandoned pirate base into a highly secure lab. Wealth means nothing if I don't use it well, and what better way to use it than to invest in the future."

"With my own scientists working for me, I can have them build things like a gravity chamber, Dragon Ball radar, spacecraft, and much more..." His mouth curves into an evil smile, though it only ends up looking silly on his old, wrinkly face.

"But first, I need to find a capable scientist. Dr. Gero and Dr. Brief are out of the question. Dr. Gero is too elusive, and I can't just kidnap the world-renowned scientist—Bulma's father—without potentially destroying the timeline. What if Bulma isn't born? What if Goku doesn't become a Super Saiyan because of me?"

Shen isn't as concerned about Goku's future as he is about his own. You always need a backup if things go wrong, and who fits that role better than Goku? None! Son Goku's second name is Backup Goku.

"I can always find another scientist, but not another plot-armor king like Goku. He's also hardworking."

"I don't need a scientific menace like Dr. Gero who can create planet-busting androids. I just need a good enough, above-average scientist."

However, no such person comes to Shen's mind at the moment. "Well, either way, I'll have to search for my future scientist outside, under the sun. No point staying in this hole."

For the time being, Shen leaves the cave on his submarine, taking some large fist-sized diamonds and other jewels along with him. They're likely to fetch a large amount of money.

Getting out of the waters, he flies off to West City, where he plans to sell the diamonds after learning about the market price.

...

West City is a modern metropolis with trees still remaining, giving off the vibe of an advanced society that combines nature with the future—very different from his previous world.

Shen's old brain is astonished. "King Furry is truly praiseworthy." [A/N- King Furry is the king of Earth.]

He floats around the city, drawing amazed gazes and wide mouths from the regular city folks, but he doesn't care about it...

He's searching for any large jewelry shop where he can sell his diamonds, but instead, he finds something more interesting.

The Capsule Corporation—he sees Bulma's home and research facility. "But why is there a line here?" he lands and asks a passerby.

"Don't you know? Today, Capsule Corporation is selling a large part of its stocks. These are all the big businessmen who have come here in person."

"Is that so?" Understanding the situation, Shen gets a sinister idea.

He floats up to the front gate of Capsule Corporation. He raises his finger, points it toward the sidewalk, waits for it to clear of people, then... "Dodonpa!!" Boom!

"Get out of here!" he shouts frighteningly loudly. Everyone panics and rushes out of the place.

"Now then." He slowly walks up to the front counter behind the gate.

The accountant or whatever he's called, sees an ancient demon walking up to him. If he hadn't gone to the toilet not long ago, he would have wet his pants by now.

"Call the president of your company." A bucket of ice-cold water is poured over the employee's head. "Y-yes sir, right away." His boss had ordered to deny any requests to meet him in person, but...

"Who cares about that right now? Saving my own neck is more important."