Dragon Ball Z: The Beast Within - CH29

[Escarot POV]

As we neared the location of the tower where the so-called evil king was supposed to be, I started to question the wisdom of our current course.

I hadn’t exactly thought this through. At first, the whole thing seemed like a favor with zero risk. After all, the math was simple; Motei was weak, and if his corrupted king was roughly ten times stronger, then we were still leagues ahead of the curve.

Like an ant fighting the sun.

But not all threats were direct. Or simple. Some of them had layers.

The story the locals told had been bouncing around my brain like a bad idea ever since we’d left for the tower. A good king turned evil. A cursed tower. An evil wizard demanding servitude. It wasn’t just tragic lore. It was a pattern.

A familiar one.

The more I thought about it, the more one name kept creeping into my mind.

Babidi.

I wasn’t entirely sure it was him, and chances were it could be nothing. Maybe there were dozens of evil wizards across the galaxy turning others into mind-slaves. Who was I to say? This universe was huge, and full of weird crap.

But…

The description lined up a little too well. And the moment you say “evil wizard” and “corrupted our leader making him stronger,” you start to narrow the possibilities.

I didn’t know exactly how early Babidi started pulling strings. He wasn’t exactly a headliner until much later in the original story, but that didn’t mean he was inactive. Even then, I knew very little about the guy, but what I knew was enough to know I was out of my depth. The guy had minions, some of which could sneeze the cold family into the afterlife. Magic. Mind control. Monsters. For a troll-sized gremlin, he was annoyingly dangerous.

And that made this little side quest a lot more complicated than I originally signed up for.

If this really was Babidi’s handiwork—and I wasn’t saying it was, just if—then stepping in here could screw up a lot more than a cursed planet. This wasn’t just about some evil monarch waiting to be killed. This was a thread tied to a nuclear bomb, and yanking it without thinking could get the wrong people looking our way.

I wasn’t afraid of a fight. Obviously. I just wasn’t an idiot.

Because if Babidi was behind this, then chances were this would escalate out of control the moment Okara blasted their king off, putting us on a radar we didn’t want to be on.

Worst-case scenario?

He shows up. Brings his monsters. Maybe Dabura’s already under his control by now. But even if he wasn’t, we would die. Pretty easily at that.

Best-case scenario?

Babidi doesn’t care or is not involved in this. But if he is, maybe this planet’s already dead weight to him. A failed experiment. Hell… Maybe he forgot he even cursed it in the first place.

The thing was, I had no way of knowing which it was. And I didn’t feel like betting my life and the life of my friends, or my entire species for that matter.

I hated walking blind into something like this.

I glanced at Okara, who was floating slightly ahead of me, looking annoyed that she had to fight the weakling. Completely unaware. Completely unconcerned. Mildly annoyed.

I sighed, brushing a hand through my hair. No point jumping to conclusions. I had to wait before making a decision. If this tower guy wasn’t tied to Babidi, then I was overthinking it and wasting energy.

And if he was?

Then we would leave… 

As bad as I felt for these guys and their situation, I owed them nothing. And I wasn’t about to risk my life, and the life of my friends by starting a fight with an enemy I had absolutely no way of defeating.

I was all in for a good fight; with high stakes and all, but this went beyond that.

"Hey," Okara called over her shoulder. “You spacing out again? You get weirdly quiet when you think. It’s creepy.”

“I was just considering whether I should feed you to the tower as a peace offering.”

“You can try,” she said with a grin. “But then who’s spar with you? Garlik?”

Touché.

I smirked, shaking off the thoughts for now. We were close. I could feel a faint, distant energy—muted, it felt evil alright, weak but very evil.

Yeah.

We were definitely getting close.

“Don’t do anything until I tell you otherwise, ok?” I said, taking a deep breath.

“Why?” Okara asked. “Didn’t you want me to kill this guy?”

“Yeah, I just want to make sure of something before you do,” I replied.

—-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The tower loomed ahead, looking exactly as I imagined it would, old, with spikes all over the place, and more. The generic evil looking building.

Motei stopped a few steps short of the entrance, his eyes locked on the heavy stone gates. “Generik waits beyond those doors. He never leaves.”

I could feel the energy signature inside. Weak, but surprisingly evil. Oppressive in a dull, smothered way. More importantly, it wasn’t moving. Which told me something.

Meaning that the Evil King couldn’t sense energy.

If he could, he’d have reacted by now, realizing he was heavily outclassed, by now I would’ve felt his energy spike in apprehension. But the energy inside remained calm, unaware. Either asleep, distracted, either way completely blind to who was outside.

“Stay here,” I said, looking at Okara. “I’ll check him out. Alone.”

She squinted at me like I’d just told her to lick a cactus. “Wait, wans’t I supposed to fight him?”

“Don’t argue.” My tone dropped just enough to kill the discussion. “Stay here, and that’s final.”

I didn’t like pulling rank on her, but this situation needed… a certain level of finesse that she lacked. I didn’t want to start anything unless I was completely sure that Babidi wasn’t involved.

Her lips tightened, but she nodded.

I stepped forward, pushing the massive doors open just enough to slip through. The hinges creaked, loud enough that I froze halfway through; but nothing happened.

Inside, the air was... different. Not like the cold outside. Here it was warmer, drier. Lit. Yellowish lights pulsed along the walls in some kind of crystal, maybe?

I followed the ki signature, walking quietly down a narrow hall. The stones here felt older, somehow. Worn. And the place smelled like dried old blood. Pushing ahead, I passed a few empty chambers, some with shattered weapons, others with old, dusty remnants of what might’ve been armor racks or beds, but most of them, with remains of those who had come to fight the King.

None of the corpses looked fresh. Most of them were skeletons by now. 

Ignoring the sights, I continued moving, as my tail swayed behind me, betraying me by revealing the level of anxiety I currently had.

Eventually, I reached the last door at the tower. 

The power radiated from behind it like a leaking pipe. I stepped up, rested my hand against the frame, and peeked through a crack.

There he was.

The King.

Sitting on a crude throne made out of bones, leaning back. Unlike his former subjects, who looked mostly fast, his body looked like it had been sculpted by someone with an unhealthy obsession with muscle mass. Thick arms. Broad chest. Veins running across his body like cables. His face was blank; eyes closed, breathing slow.

And there, burned into his forehead, unmistakable in that eerie glow—

The Majin symbol.

An M.

My stomach dropped.

I stepped back from the door, quietly, carefully.

I had been right.

Babidi was behind this.

We had to leave this planet, immediately.

The puppet king might not be powerful by my standards; but killing him might send a ripple. A signal. Making the evil wizard take notice.

And then this planet wouldn’t be our training ground anymore; it’d be our tomb.

I exhaled.

As much as it hurt my pride to admit it… this was a nest of wasps I didn’t want to poke, no matter how much my saiyan genes, which seem to lack any survival instinct wanted. Babidi and everything the little bastard represented was far above my current pay grade, and the best course of action was leaving this planet, immediately.

I turned and made my way back toward the entrance, ready to leave this place.

—-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Walking out of the tower was harder than walking in.

Not physically. That part was easy. But mentally? That was something else.

I knew what I saw. And that little "M" on the king’s forehead didn’t leave a lot of room for interpretation.

The Majin Symbol.

Babidi.

I had truly hoped this was just some random spooky tower with an overhyped, and highly disappointing guy to fight. But no. Of course not. It had to be worse.

The moment I stepped back into the darkness outside, Okara was at my side.

“Well?” she asked, bouncing on her heels. “Is he strong? Do I get to kill something now?”

I didn’t answer right away. I just stood there, staring at the cracked horizon in the distance, thinking.

I wanted to help these people.

Really.

They seemed decent. They’d lived in darkness for decades and still held onto hope. 

But…

As much as I wanted to help them, as much as I liked them, I had to accept the hard cold truth, I didn’t care enough about them to risk everything for them.

As easy as it would be to kill their King without him even realizing it, I couldn’t risk it… he had Babidi’s brand and that alone changed the stakes completely.

The guy might’ve looked like a roided-up version of their old ruler, but the M on his forehead? That was like a galactic "Do Not Touch" sign in neon.

If I took that king down, and Babidi was still watching—even distantly; he’d know. He’d sense the loss. Maybe track it back here. And if he did?

He’d find me.

I wasn’t scared of dying. Not really. This world had a decent enough afterlife system, so dying didn’t seem so bad, and yeah, if Babidi kicked down the door tomorrow, I’d fight. Even knowing I had zero chance. If I was to die, I would die fighting. That was the Saiyan part of me, the part that didn’t care about odds when the fight was right in front of me.

But that scenario would just be the result of a bad turn of luck. Crossing paths with the evil wizard by a chance, and dying because of it.

This wasn’t that.

The possible outcome of this encounter was still within my hands. And I knew that stepping into it now, was suicide. Not just for me, but for Okara, Garlik, maybe even the Saiyan race.

I wasn’t a hero. I never claimed to be one.

I wasn’t heartless, either.

I just... knew my limits.

“Escarot?” Okara said, tone shifting from excited to confused. “Hey. You okay?”

I sighed, finally turning toward her. “We’re not fighting him.”

She blinked. “What?”

“We’re not fighting him,” I repeated, firmer this time. “Not today. Not here.”

“Why the hell not?” she snapped. “You said it yourself, he’s weak! I could take him down in five minutes!”

“Yeah, you probably could,” I admitted. “But it’s not that simple.”

“Then make it simple,” she growled. “What changed?”

“We are leaving this place, and that’s final,” I replied, crossing my arms.

We didn’t owe them our lives. And I wasn’t about to trade mine for a chance to lift someone else’s curse when I didn’t even know the full scale of what said action could unleash.

Maybe in a few years, if I got strong enough, I’d come back and help them. Wipe the king off the map, then take the fight to Babidi himself.

But not now.

Okara kicked a rock off the edge of the cliff. “Fine.”

“Let’s go,” I said. “The sooner we leave this planet, the better.”

She grunted, clearly not happy, but didn’t argue.

I looked up at the empty sky.

If Babidi ever found me, I’d fight.

But I wouldn’t go waving my flag at him just to feel brave.

I was a Saiyan.

But I wasn’t stupid. Even if my genes kept trying to push me in that direction.