Dadan's long-suffering groan seemed to reverberate through the rough-hewn timbers of the bandit hut, a sound that spoke volumes of her current, Garp-inflicted predicament. She shifted me slightly in her arms, her grip still awkward but a fraction less like she was holding a live grenade with a faulty pin. The flickering light of the single, sputtering oil lamp cast long, dancing shadows on the cluttered walls, making the various weapons and animal pelts seem to writhe with a life of their own. My new world was a symphony of rough textures, pungent smells, and the constant, underlying thrum of barely suppressed panic emanating from my new guardian.
"First thing tomorrow," she'd muttered, her voice a low, gravelly rumble that vibrated against my ear, "we're finding you a damn durable crib. Or building one. Probably gonna need to chain it to the goddamn floor, knowing my luck and anything associated with that blasted 'D'."
Chaining a crib to the floor? Charming, I thought, my adult mind already picturing some kind of medieval torture device reimagined as baby furniture. Still, points for anticipating potential… exuberance. Though I suspect my 'exuberance' will be less about rattling bars and more about, say, accidentally levitating it if I ever figure out how these Frieza-race powers actually work in a baby's body.
The night was… an experience. Dadan, clearly having no clue what to do with a baby once it was actually quiet, eventually settled on a makeshift nest for me. It consisted of a pile of surprisingly soft (if rather odorous) animal furs in a relatively clean corner of the main room, barricaded by a couple of overturned crates and a dented shield that looked like it had seen better days, and possibly better owners. She herself didn't seem to sleep much. I'd drift in and out of baby-slumber, my senses still hyper-aware from my wishes, and each time I'd crack an eyelid, I'd see her outline. Sometimes she was pacing like a caged animal, muttering under her breath – colourful, inventive curses mostly directed at Garp. Other times, she'd be hunched by the dying embers of the central fire pit, staring into them as if seeking answers, a half-empty bottle of what smelled suspiciously like cheap, fiery booze clutched in her hand. The ever-present scent of tobacco clung to her, a testament to her stress-smoking.
This woman is running on fumes, fear, and resentment, I analyzed, my tiny chest rising and falling with the even breaths of a (seemingly) untroubled infant. Garp's threat, though. That's the leash. She's terrified of him, and by extension, terrified of me getting hurt, lost, or eaten by a mountain boar. A reluctant protector is still a protector, I suppose. I need to make myself as low-maintenance as possible… while simultaneously figuring out how to become a demigod. Easy peasy.
The first grey light of dawn, filtering through the grimy window and the cracks in the wooden door, found Dadan already awake, or perhaps, never truly asleep. She looked even more haggard than the night before, her orange hair sticking up in even more alarming directions, dark circles like bruises under her eyes. She was gulping down something that looked like cold, watery gruel from a wooden bowl, her expression one of deep, abiding misery.
"Oi! You awake, brat?" she grunted, peering into my fur-lined corner. Her voice was rough, like stones grinding together.
I blinked my baby eyes at her, offering a small, experimental gurgle. It seemed to be my go-to sound for "yes, I am conscious and not currently plotting your demise."
"Hmph. Figures." She slammed the empty bowl down on the rough table. "Alright. Crib. And… other… things." She shuddered visibly at the thought of "other things." She then stomped to the door and bellowed, "DOGRA! MAGRA! GET YOUR LAZY ARSES IN HERE! NOW!" Her voice, even when hoarse, had a parade-ground quality that could probably wake the dead, or at least seriously annoy them.
The two aforementioned "lazy arses" stumbled in a few moments later, looking even more sleep-deprived than their boss, if that were possible. Dogra, the lanky one with the perpetually worried expression and the nose that seemed to enter a room five seconds before the rest of him, was nervously twisting a bit of straw in his fingers. Magra, the stockier, slower-witted one, was still blinking owlishly, as if the concept of morning was a recent, unwelcome discovery.
"B-Boss?" Dogra stammered, his eyes darting towards me, then quickly away, as if direct eye contact with an infant might be hazardous to his health.
"You two," Dadan jabbed a thumb towards the door, "Foosha Village. Now. Get… baby supplies." She said the words "baby supplies" as if they were a particularly virulent strain of incurable disease. "Makino at the bar should know what a… a thing like that," she gestured vaguely at me, "needs. Milk. Uh… cloth things. Whatever. And while you're at it, find some sturdy wood. Strong planks. We're building a damn cage… I mean, a crib."
Magra's brow furrowed in deep, painful concentration. "A… crib, Boss? Like… for the… little… uh…"
"Yes, for the little uh, you blockhead!" Dadan roared, her patience, already thinner than cheap paper, snapping. "The one Garp dumped on us! The one that's going to get us all killed if we're not careful! Now MOVE before I decide to use your thick skulls for target practice!"
Dogra and Magra didn't need telling twice. They practically fell over each other in their haste to escape the hut and their volatile, newly-maternal boss, muttering panicked assurances of "Right away, Boss!" and "We'll be quick, Boss!" The door slammed shut behind them, leaving a quivering silence in their wake.
Dadan let out another explosive sigh, running a hand through her chaotic hair. She then looked at me, her expression a mixture of exasperation and grim determination. "Alright, you. Let's see what fresh hell you're going to unleash on me today before those two idiots get back."
The morning passed in a blur of new, often unpleasant, sensations. Dadan, to my surprise, seemed to have a vague, instinctual understanding that babies needed to be fed. After Dogra and Magra had left, she rummaged through a sack and produced a waterskin that, thankfully, contained actual water, not booze. She then managed to find some dried, tough goat jerky – a staple of the Dadan Family diet, apparently. Her first attempt at "feeding" me involved trying to get me to suckle on a corner of the jerky.
Seriously? my inner adult deadpanned, as a piece of leathery, salty meat was thrust towards my face. This woman thinks I have teeth capable of gnawing through cured animal hide? I'm a newborn, not a piranha. I, of course, expressed my displeasure in the only way I knew how: by turning my head away and making a series of distressed "eh, eh, eh" sounds.
"What? Not good enough for her highness?" Dadan grumbled, though a flicker of something like confusion crossed her face. "Damn Garp. Didn't leave an instruction manual." She then had a brilliant idea: she chewed a piece of the jerky herself into a softened, saliva-laden pulp and tried to feed it to me with her fingers.
I recoiled internally, though my baby reflexes weren't fast enough to avoid a smear of pre-chewed jerky on my cheek. Oh, for the love of… This is disgusting. And probably a choking hazard. Note to self: Creation magic. Priority one: conjure a sterile, nutritionally complete baby formula and a self-cleaning bottle. Assuming I can figure out how to use said magic without accidentally summoning a small black hole in the middle of this bandit den.
Mercifully, this particular torture was interrupted by the return of Dogra and Magra. They stumbled back into the hut several hours later, laden with an assortment of bizarre and mostly inappropriate items. Dogra was carrying a large, clucking chicken under one arm and a jug of what smelled suspiciously like fresh goat's milk. Magra was wrestling with a bundle of rough, undyed wool, a few oddly shaped gourds, and a very large, very sharp hunting knife.
"We're… we're back, Boss!" Dogra panted, narrowly avoiding tripping over a stray boot. The chicken squawked indignantly.
Dadan eyed their haul with deep suspicion. "Well? What did that Makino girl say? What is all this… junk?"
"Makino-san was very helpful, Boss!" Dogra explained, beaming nervously. "She said the little one needs milk! So, we got some from old Farmer McGregor down the valley! Fresh this morning!" He patted the jug. "And she said soft things for… uh… 'diapers.' This wool should do, right? It's… softish." He held up the bundle of scratchy-looking wool.
Magra proudly presented his acquisitions. "And Makino-san said babies like 'rattles'! So I got these gourds! We can put pebbles in 'em! And… and she said something about 'cutting the cord,' but I think Garp already did that, so I just got a good, sharp knife in case… uh… for… general baby emergencies?" He waved the gleaming hunting knife a little too enthusiastically.
Dadan stared at them, speechless for a solid ten seconds, her eye twitching. The chicken chose that moment to escape Dogra's grasp, flapping wildly around the hut, squawking in terror, feathers flying everywhere.
Goat's milk is a start, I suppose, I mused, watching the chaos unfold with a detached sort of interest. Though unpasteurized, straight from the goat… could be interesting for my brand-new digestive system. Wool for diapers? That sounds like a recipe for the worst rash in the history of infancy. And a hunting knife for 'baby emergencies'? These men are a danger to themselves and everyone around them, especially small, helpless babies. My Frieza-race resilience might be tested sooner than I anticipated.
The next few hours were a masterclass in comedic incompetence. Dadan, after bellowing at Dogra and Magra to catch the "damned feathered menace" and then to "get that wool out of my sight before the brat gets fleas," reluctantly took charge of the milk situation. She managed to heat some of it over the fire – nearly boiling it over twice – and then, after much searching, found a small, chipped wooden cup. Her attempt to get me to drink from the cup resulted in more milk down my front and onto the furs than actually into my mouth.
"Damn it, kid! Drink! It's food!" she growled, frustrated, wiping milky spittle from my chin with a rough hand.
I'm trying, you oaf! But my neck muscles are non-existent, and this cup is the size of my head! I wailed internally, which translated to actual, frustrated baby wails. This, at least, seemed to be a language Dadan understood, or at least, reacted to.
"Alright, alright, stop your caterwauling!" she snapped, though she looked slightly panicked by my sudden outburst. "What now? You're wet, aren't you? Gods, this is a nightmare."
The "diapering" process, using strips of a relatively cleaner (but still rough) old linen shirt that Dadan unearthed from a dusty chest, was an exercise in fumbling, awkwardness, and more than a few muttered curses from my bandit queen foster mother. She handled me with the grudging care one might afford a particularly valuable but highly unstable explosive device.
While Dadan wrestled with the practicalities of my existence, I focused my internal energies. My body was weak, a fleshy prison. But my mind, amplified by my wish, was a supercomputer. I began to catalog everything. The sounds of the forest outside – wind in the pines, distant animal calls, the creak of branches. The smells inside the hut – woodsmoke, Dadan's tobacco, drying herbs I couldn't identify, the faint metallic tang of old iron. I tried to focus on individual threads of conversation when the bandits spoke, parsing their rough dialect, storing away new words and intonations. Accelerated learning, activate.
I also tried, tentatively, to feel for this Frieza-race potential. Was it a tingling? A warmth? A hidden reservoir of power? So far, nothing. Just the usual baby sensations: hunger, discomfort, the overwhelming urge to sleep. It was frustrating. My mind was capable of grasping complex astrophysics, but my body could barely lift its own head. The disconnect was jarring.
Patience, I told myself, a mantra I suspected I'd be repeating a lot. Even Frieza started as a baby, probably. A very powerful, homicidal baby, but a baby nonetheless. Growth takes time. And near-death experiences. Hopefully, I can achieve the former without too many instances of the latter.
The "crib" construction began in the afternoon. Dogra and Magra, under Dadan's thunderous supervision, managed to drag in several sturdy-looking planks of freshly cut (or possibly "liberated") timber. Their carpentry skills, however, were rudimentary at best. Magra nearly sawed off his own thumb twice, and Dogra managed to hammer his fingers more often than the nails. The resulting structure, when they finally finished, looked less like a crib and more like a very small, very badly made wooden crate with uneven bars.
Dadan inspected it critically, kicking one of an uprights. It wobbled precariously. "This is supposed to hold a D.?" she snorted. "It looks like a stiff breeze could knock it over. Get some rope. We're lashing it to that support beam. And find something to line it with, something that won't give the brat splinters the size of her arm."
By nightfall, my "crib" – a reinforced, fur-lined crate, securely (if uglily) tied to a central roof support – was ready. Dadan, looking utterly exhausted but with a grim sort of satisfaction, deposited me into it. It was… confining. But also, strangely, a little bit secure. At least I wouldn't roll into the fire pit.
As Dadan and her men settled down for their own rough meal of roasted meat (the chicken, I presumed, had met its unfortunate end) and hard bread, I lay in my crate-crib, staring up at the smoky ceiling. The sounds of their gruff conversation, punctuated by laughter and the clinking of mugs, washed over me. It was a strange lullaby.
This was my life now. A life of discomfort, of constant, low-grade peril, surrounded by rough, dangerous individuals who were, for the moment, my only protectors. A life where my advanced intellect was trapped in an infant's helpless form.
But it's a life, I reminded myself fiercely. A second chance. And I have… advantages. I focused, trying to ignore the itch of the rough furs and the lingering smell of Dadan's tobacco. I thought about my wishes. Strength. Learning. Creation. A safe haven. All untapped. All waiting.
Suddenly, a thought, sharp and clear, cut through my weariness. The pocket dimension! Wish number four! Inaccessible and undetectable unless I permit entry! Could I access it now? As a baby? How? Was it a mental command? A feeling?
I closed my eyes, trying to shut out the distractions of the bandit hut. I pictured it – a calm, empty space. Safe. Mine. I focused all my will, all my nascent, untrained mental energy on the idea of it, the desire for it.
For a moment, nothing. Just the usual baby-brain fog. Then… a flicker. Not in my vision, but… deeper. A subtle shift in my awareness, like the faintest echo of a distant door creaking open in the vast, empty corridors of my mind. It was almost imperceptible, gone as quickly as it came.
My tiny heart, if it could, would have leaped.
Was that… it? Was that the first hint?
Dadan's voice, slurred slightly from booze and exhaustion, cut through my concentration. "Oi, you two! One of you make sure the fire doesn't go out. And if that brat starts squawking again in the middle of the night… you're dealing with it."
A grunt of assent from Dogra or Magra. The sounds of the bandits settling down for the night.
But I wasn't focused on them anymore. That flicker. That tiny, almost non-existent shift.
It wasn't much. But in a world of uncertainty, in a life starting from absolute zero, it was everything. It was hope.
And as I drifted off to sleep, the last coherent thought in my baby brain was not of fear, or discomfort, or even of the dubious hygiene of my current caretakers.
It was a single, electrifying question: If I can feel it… can I open it?