...
As evening fell.
At Dr. Senbei Norimaki's residence.
Second-year middle schooler Akane Kimidori had gone home after playing until dusk, having agreed to meet Arale at school the next day.
Meanwhile, Yamiru and the others stayed behind.
Stayed behind... to study Arale.
Of course, this was Dr. Brief and Bulma's idea.
With Dr. Norimaki's permission, the three scientists—small, medium, and large—went ahead and removed Arale's head for disassembly!
"Wow, that smells amazing!" Arale gazed at the table filled with steaming hot dishes.
These were all made by Tights and Yamiru. Since the three doctors were busy with their research, and Master Roshi was too old for kitchen work, the cooking naturally fell to the young couple.
As for Arale...
Master Roshi put down his shell and staff, holding his chopsticks with a deadpan expression as he glanced at the purple-haired girl's head clamped onto a rack nearby… Just a bald, featureless head speaking on its own...
"This is so weird…" Tights whispered, nudging Yamiru.
Yamiru nodded, silently eating his food.
"Do you want some?" Tights held a small plate of rice and vegetables in front of Arale's head.
Arale lowered her head to look at it. Empty.
"If she swallows it, wouldn't it just fall right out…" Yamiru couldn't hold back from commenting.
"Yup!" Arale's head responded cheerfully.
Tights stuck out her tongue and placed the plate back on the table.
Yamiru had the feeling she was deliberately provoking him into making these remarks.
Still… he didn't mind taking the bait.
As Tights ate, she winked at him. Yamiru gave a helpless smile. "I'm fine. Let's eat."
Having spent so much time together, the two had developed great chemistry.
Arale's presence had undoubtedly been a shock to Yamiru.
A character from a pure gag manga… And what's the defining trait of gag manga? Ignoring reality and logic.
For instance, Arale could split the Earth in half with a single slap. That, in itself, wasn't entirely illogical—it just meant she was absurdly powerful. If Yamiru had the strength of a Super Saiyan 100, he could probably flick his finger and cleave the planet in two as well.
But what made Arale's existence truly unreasonable was the fact that after splitting the Earth in half, it would simply restore itself in the next moment as if nothing had happened.
Every chapter of a gag manga was like a standalone episode—no matter how much destruction occurred, everything would reset by the next installment, and the characters would act as if nothing had ever happened.
Back in Penguin Village, Yamiru had witnessed Akane shouting at a crow, then grabbing physical "sound effect" text and slamming it into the bird to send it flying.
The fact that Akane herself wasn't fazed by this absurdity, treating it as perfectly normal, only reinforced the exaggerated gag manga style of this place.
This kind of surrealism was hard for Yamiru to accept. Especially for him, who had struggled so much to accept this world as real. How much effort had he put into training, refining his strength punch by punch, kick by kick? And now, a goofy, logic-defying character had just waltzed in and flipped everything upside down…
Still, Yamiru forced himself to stay composed. As a transmigrator who had even met the Dragon God, he couldn't afford to lose his cool now.
After quickly finishing his meal, he directly faced Arale—who was still just a head, facing the television and watching an entertainment program.
"Arale," he asked gently, considering her pure and childlike nature. "Can you tell us the story of how Dr. Norimaki created you, and what happened after you were born?"
The last time he had seen Dr. Norimaki was three years ago in West City, when the scientist likely hadn't even built Arale yet.
And according to what that middle school girl, Akane, had said earlier, Arale had only started attending Penguin Village Middle School last year.
Since she had never been seen at the village's elementary school before that, Akane and her classmates had been confused for quite a while.
This suggested that Arale had likely been created only a year or two ago.
As Arale recounted her story, Yamiru's guess was confirmed.
At the same time, the absurd, ridiculous tales that poured from the Gatchanirl's mouth left Tights and Master Roshi utterly bewildered.
The way Arale's thoughts jumped around, her peculiar phrasing—it made them suspect she had exaggerated her daily experiences for storytelling's sake.
But Yamiru, on the other hand, was breaking out in a cold sweat.
He hadn't read much of Dr. Slump, but he knew Arale had appeared in early Dragon Ball. He was at least somewhat familiar with Toriyama's signature gag manga style—nonsensical, over-the-top, and surreal.
Yet now, the very events readers would normally brush off as mere jokes were being described firsthand by Arale herself…
Had they actually happened!?
A ray gun that could change the size of objects, a camera that could photograph future events, a time machine capable of traveling back to the dinosaur era…
And even more terrifying—Arale casually mentioned that she once poked the sun with a fork, breaking it, which instantly caused nighttime to fall...
Also, that fly-man from earlier? While "playing" (read: beating him up), she had smacked him so hard that his stomach acted like a springboard, bouncing him to the moon and back… which coincided with the moment Yamiru's group had arrived in Penguin Village.
"A pair of glasses that let you see through things?" Master Roshi's eyes suddenly gleamed.
"A time machine that can travel to the age of dinosaurs?" Tights was astonished. "That's incredible! Dr. Omori put in so much effort to create a time machine, and all it could do was pause time for 50 seconds…"
Yamiru once again began to question his reality…
Are you serious, little Arale? Are these bizarre tales you're telling actually real, Senbei Norimaki?
"…Is that so? So, he actually communicated with you."
"That guy is quite the genius too! His ideas on android modifications were groundbreaking…"
At that moment, the three scientists stepped out from the laboratory—the room in the back—seemingly finished with their examination of Arale's body.
The aroma of food filled the air, making Bulma hungry. She eagerly ran over to eat.
"What are you all talking about?" Dr. Brief chuckled.
"We're listening to Arale talk about her past experiences. It's pretty unbelievable," Tights smacked her lips. "Dad, have you finished studying Arale's structure?"
"Saying we've 'finished' is an overstatement," Dr. Brief said as he sat down at the table and shook his head. "Her design is a stroke of unprecedented genius. And…" He stroked his chin. "According to Dr. Norimaki, Arale is an unrepeatable miracle. He once tried transplanting Arale's core engine into a wild beast in the mountains. While the creature did gain immense power, it was nowhere near Arale's level."
"Genius and coincidence came together to create the miracle that is Arale," Bulma said cheerfully while digging into her meal.
"Hahaha! That's because I'm a genius!"
Dr. Norimaki laughed wildly, basking in the praise from the Briefs.
As he spoke, he reached up and plucked Arale's head from the stand where it was being held.
At some point, Master Roshi had sidled up next to him and whispered, "Hey, do you still have that pair of X-ray glasses?"
"Uh…" Seeing Roshi's perverted grin, Dr. Norimaki suddenly felt like he had found a kindred spirit.
The Gatchanirl's head in his hands spoke up, "That pair of glasses is lost! It's all because the doctor has a bad habit of leaving things lying around."
Dr. Norimaki scowled. "Who asked you to be so talkative?!"
Meanwhile, Tights briefly summarized for her father and sister some of the wild stories Arale had mentioned earlier—especially the one about a time machine capable of traveling to the dinosaur age…
"I heard they even brought back a egg from the dinosaur age," she continued.
By then, Dr. Norimaki had already reattached Arale's head and returned with her. Tights' gaze, however, was now fixed on the top of Dr. Norimaki's head.
"Arale mentioned that the egg hatched into an… angel? Is that the little kid floating above your head, Doctor?"
Dr. Brief also looked at Dr. Norimaki's head, where a small "baby boy" with green hair and tiny white wings was lying peacefully.
"Now that you mention it, I've been meaning to ask—who exactly is that child on your head?" Dr. Brief asked. "I didn't expect it to have hatched from a egg."
"Hm?" Dr. Norimaki felt a movement on his head as the "angel baby" flew off and began drifting lazily through the air. "Yeah, that's it. But it doesn't have a gender. It really is like an angel."
An angel, my foot… Yamiru rubbed his forehead, feeling a headache coming on.
"But this Gatchanuy eats way too much! It chews on everything except rubber, and it can digest just about anything." Dr. Norimaki warned, "You'd better keep an eye on your belongings, or it might eat them out of sheer curiosity."
"Gatchan is well-behaved!" Arale came over and scooped up the "angel baby." "His name is Gatchan!"
"But… was it really a egg from the dinosaur era?" Yamiru asked weakly. "Or rather, Doctor, did you really build a machine capable of traveling back to the age of dinosaurs?"
Dr. Norimaki boasted, "Of course! But… that machine broke down after only a few uses. Such a shame."
"You're basically centuries ahead of the entire planet…" Dr. Brief sighed. "But unfortunately, most of your genius inventions seem to be unreplicable. I can barely understand the theoretical principles you talk about. For example, Bulma and I still don't get how 'Arale's core component disappeared into her body the moment she was activated.'"
Dr. Norimaki grumbled, "Even I don't understand that."
He recalled the appearance of that core component and mused, "Now that I think about it, that component fell from the sky and broke my house's roof. Then, suddenly, I had a burst of inspiration that led to Arale's key design. It was my lucky stone! But after activating Arale, it vanished—almost like it became part of her."
"Did it get conceptualized?" Bulma joked while picking up her chopsticks. "That seems pretty far-fetched."
"You keep mentioning that component… Since it was a stone, could it have been a meteorite?" Dr. Brief asked with great interest.
Dr. Norimaki shook his head. "I examined it thoroughly but couldn't determine its exact composition." He stroked his chin, recalling the details. "That component felt like… a part that someone had originally crafted for something. Though I couldn't analyze it, my genius self still managed to integrate it into Arale's design! Hahaha! I'm truly a genius!"
As his triumphant laughter echoed, Tights noticed that Yamiru's expression was becoming increasingly strange…
It was as if he had realized something. Without a word, he suddenly left the group with a "Wait a moment, I need to ask someone something," and then vanished on the spot.