39 Chapter 39 - Talk Atop The Tower

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Kami had seen many people throughout his long life. Warriors, priests, killers, emperors, kings, kind men, evil men, lucky idiots, naive fools, and smart schemers. But every now and then, a new type of person he had never seen comes.

He had been aware of the special young man flying toward his tower for quite a while now. Ever since he had used the dragon balls. But the young man, Yamcha, had completed his wish so fast that Kami hadn't seen the actual wish. It couldn't have been an item, as even capsules couldn't store things so fast, and Kami would have been able to see the smoke afterward.

He had asked Shenron, who usually hibernates in Earth's core. But the dragon hadn't revealed the wish and had been strangely secretive about this. But Kami knew the dragon knew something he wasn't saying. Shenron had seemed scared, no matter how well he had tried to hide it, he had seen something about the young man named Yamcha.

But such thoughts were for another time as Yamcha landed on the lookout. Kami got a better look at him and couldn't help but think of how the young man felt familiar. Like Shenron, but different. It was a very mysterious feeling. Had Yamcha wished Shenron to make a change to his body? Kami didn't know, and decided to shelve such thoughts for now and sensed the young man's power.

Yamcha was stronger than any human currently on earth. When going all out in the tournament, Kami would put Yamcha's power around that of Demon King Piccolo. Having seen what he could do, Kami was quite confident that Yamcha could likely almost double his current output, bringing the young man to about his level. But his power didn't matter, with Popo around Kami wasn't too worried about Yamcha attacking him.

"Welcome to the lookout, young man," Kami greeted him.

Since they were so close physically, Kami contemplated the ethical question of mind-reading someone. He wasn't usually the type to do so, as generally, he could tell someone's nature by simply feeling their aura. Korin had gotten that trick down a while ago.

Most people who knew of them assumed Kami was the oldest one of the two. But that was quite the opposite, as Korin was over twice his age.

"Thank you for having me," the young man replied. With the way he moved and looked around like a curious child, many would have made the mistake of thinking the young man in front of Kami was a naive youngster.

But there was a melody to his movements, rigid but fluid simultaneously. As if he felt awkward but confident, scared but powerful. Kami didn't know what to make of him. "You're welcome, young man. I see that you already knew of our hideout in the sky. May I ask how you learned of this?"

"Well, you already asked," Yamcha chuckled. He didn't seem to take the question as offensive. "But I learned it from a fortune teller who sells golden snakes."

That was confusing, and Kami didn't think anyone like that even existed on earth. But despite his title as God, he wasn't omniscient or omnipresent. Kami was one person and was quite busy looking after earth to ensure it didn't get hit by huge meteors or some big storm that didn't destroy the planet while keeping the humans, humanoids, and demons in check.

On top of that, not being able to tell whether the man in front of him was lying made Kami anxious enough to extend his mind-reading abilities toward the young man.

But as his spiritual energy got closer, Kami winced as it felt like he suddenly bumped face-first into an invisible glass around Yamcha's memories and thoughts.

He had never seen something like this before, which was becoming a repeating answer as he investigated Yamcha.

Despite trying numerous times, Kami couldn't break through the invisible barrier. By Yamcha's reaction, he didn't seem to notice his intrusions either. So Kami came to a sharp conclusion, this wasn't Yamcha consciously stopping mind reading, but some kind of subconscious magical defense.

After a dozen seconds of awkward silence, as he tried to get a read on what kind of person Yamcha was, Kami finally decided to give up and asked the young man directly. "If you don't mind me asking you another question. Why're you here, young man?"

You could cut the tension with a knife. Kami had no doubt this was one-sided. Yamcha acted and looked all friendly. Even with all the awkwardness, he looked relaxed. So the only thing Kami had against him was that he couldn't read his mind.

"I am what most would call a magic enthusiast," Yamcha says, waving his hand, and an enormous compressed Magic Power flows out of his hand and creates a purple flying carpet with jitters of blue. "So I was hoping you could teach me something new?"

No, Kami didn't even need to think of the answer.

He wouldn't trust such power with full certainty to someone he couldn't trust. While Yamcha seemed like a good young man, Kami knew mistakes could lead to devastation. He was already responsible for Demon King Piccolo's existence, and the last thing he would want was to create another problem for Earth.

He didn't think Yamcha was a problem and even seemed like a good young man. But sometimes you could never know with people, and Kami wouldn't take these chances.

Still, he wanted to break the news to Yamcha softly, so he lied. "My abilities aren't magical, and I know no magic. These are simply abilities granted to anyone who swears to become God and look over the planet's population."

"Oh?" Yamcha's eyes shined with excitement. "Can I become the Earth's Guardian then?"

"No," Kami refused him without a second thought. The next guardian of Earth had to be someone he knew deeply and would care about the world greatly. "Currently, there's no need for a new Earth's Guardian. But when one is needed, I will keep in mind to notify you for the competition."

No, he wasn't even going to call him. Also, deciding the world's guardian in a competition? That's stupid. It's like deciding the leader of a country in a popularity contest, not skill. So Kami was going to choose his next successor by himself. But Yamcha didn't need to know that.

"I understand," the young martial artist sighed and looked defeated. "Then can I at least get some books about long-lost languages? I'm somewhat of a language enthusiast too."

Kami contemplated this. It was no trouble for him to do that. But he wanted to know more about Yamcha, someone so mysterious that he barely knew about him. But in his over four hundred years of life, Kami knew that being controlling and trying to know everything would end up in disaster, he had seen many great people fall into that folly. "As long as you promise to help save Earth once, I will give you all the language books you need. From lost language to things you could never even imagine."

Yamcha glanced at Kami for a couple of seconds longer than usual. Then he turned back to looking around and shrugged. "Sure. But you should ask me another favor since saving earth was something I would have done anyway."

'Maybe I'm so used to reading people that I had forgotten that I lost sight of the goal and immediately assumed the young man was here to trick him.' Thought Kami, so he decided to get rid of his prejudice and accepted the terms. "Okay. But you will owe me one for later. Mr Popo! Bring out what the young man has requested."

As soon as Popo's name was mentioned, the young man turned and looked at his assistant bringing a huge pile of books.

There was cautiousness and even a trace of fear in Yamcha's eyes? Kami found this weird as Popo was always a very soft and gentle gentleman. What got Yamcha so frightened?

"T -Thanks," Yamcha nodded, uncertain, as he took the books and checked them one by one. Kami kept an eye on what he chose, but it was mostly long and ancient languages.

The Namekian Language book was amongst them, but Yamcha threw it by the side, Kami noted.

The Namekian Language book was the most important among them, and he knew Yamcha had been close to his spaceship. Popo had even gone so far as to send a group of dinosaurs to draw him away. It hadn't worked.

But Kami wasn't too worried about it as Yamcha had never entered or even interacted with the spaceship. There's no way for him to know that Namekian was the language used to operate the spaceship.

Namekian was the language of Kami's home world. Something he didn't know the name of. He wondered how that place might look or if other people of his race were out there.

***

Yamcha felt his heart beat erratically as Popo handed him the books.

'Fuck, I really hope this isn't the abridged version of Popo!' He prayed within his heart. He had forgotten how the usual Popo was in Dragon Ball, but he was reminded by the gentle dark humanoid.

'No, no, I need to be calm about this. If this were the Cthulhu version of Popo, I would be dead by now.' Yamcha wiped a bead of sweat from his brow as he put the books in a giant sack.

He wasn't going to show Kami his inventory ability, though he wasn't sure if the Earth's Guardian might know about his secret. Hidden cards are best kept close to one's chest.

From his casual conversation with Kami, Yamcha had gotten quite a lot of info from the old namekian. Kami couldn't see through him, meaning Gamer's Mind could resist his power. The old namekian can't confirm something large-scale, like an old woman selling golden snakes; he needed to be specifically looking for something and knowing the general place, Yamcha noted.

From what he got, Kami hadn't observed him, which was something Yamcha had been dreading.

Maybe that was just his fears and pessimistic mind, always thinking of the worst situation. After all, how could earth's God have nothing better to do than observe him constantly?

After all, the times Yamcha was worried about Kami seeing something was less than 1% of the time. Most of the time, Yamcha was doing something boring like training or just looking around, which was bound to be excruciatingly boring for someone like Kami.