[Outside spaceship Shenron]

Raijin lowers his pipe and gives Pokasuu a blank stare. Whatever "durwoodiest" means, it's not part of his vocabulary. Then he refocuses on 23. "Overly literal is probably what you're after. But based on your words, there's more to it than that. If your people can afford servants to take care of the elderly, they must be very rich. Most people are not."

"In these parts, if it looks like a winter will be particularly bad, those frail of old age climb on the mountains and sing their own funeral song till they starve. The sick are sent to isolation so they won't infect anyone else. Infants born during bad times are abandoned to the woods to be killed by the cold. This is done, because one excess mouth to feed can make the difference between all surviving, or none surviving."

"I've heard that far to the South from here, even healthy people volunteer to be sacrificed to their gods if they can guarantee a living to their families that way. Their priests gather taxes from those well off and redistribute them to the families of the slain. It's a manner of keeping balance in a land which does not surrender its gifts easily."

Raijin blows a circle of smoke above his head.