Chapter 137: Aggron's Woe

Returning home.

Baimu glanced at the simulator's countdown.

The cooldown had already ended yesterday, but because his mind was in disarray he had lingered for now, waiting to use it together with the next one.

By his guess, only every third simulation would yield a blue talent; this was the third, so it wasn't yet time for a blue talent to appear.

Lately, there were quite a few things he needed to do as well.

"Gotta work harder."

Baimu looked at the Pokédex in his hand. Munchlax had just reached level fifty this morning, completely parting ways with ordinary simulator rewards—normal simulations could no longer satisfy its leveling requirements; it had to start from the quarterfinals at the very least.

Only by starting from the quarterfinals could one obtain the reward of leveling up below level seventy.

Aggron wasn't far from level fifty either; he trusted it would happen within this week.

To tell the truth.

The fact that they were progressing so quickly did catch Baimu somewhat off guard. Despite the simulator's boost, a large portion of their levels still came as the reward of their own hard training.

Under the anime backdrop, Pokémon growing this strong so quickly—no wonder Ash could swap Pokémon every season to battle and still achieve decent results.

But since Aggron and Munchlax no longer needed ordinary rewards, Baimu could also go all out in nurturing Chansey and Dreepy, getting them to grow as quickly as possible.

Especially the latter—even though Professor Yam had told him that level wasn't a shackle on evolution, evolving early or late was both possible, the fact that Hydreigon was a late-blooming Pokémon still couldn't be changed.

The evolution level of 64 in the games was, for now, far beyond Baimu's reach.

Compared to that, pseudo-legendaries like Salamence and Flygon actually had much shorter evolution cycles, which honestly made him envious.

"Come here."

Baimu beckoned to the Dreepy mixed in among its companions.

These little ones all looked pretty much the same; if you weren't familiar with them, it was genuinely hard to tell which was which. To strengthen his memory and tell them apart, he had specially dyed the little tuft on his own one's head with a bit of white paint.

This way it was easy to identify.

"Mo nao!"

"Mo nao mo nao!"

But clearly more than just that one held him in good favor—any casual call and almost all of them came running over, one after another in a dark, pressing mass, quite alarming.

"Aren't you going to raise a few more? It looks to me like they really like you." Takeshi said from the side.

Baimu quickly shook his head. "Thanks for the offer, but raising one is already enough to give me a headache. You know it too—my Pokémon are protesting like crazy."

"Uh…"

Speaking of which, Takeshi looked very awkward. In just a few short days, there wasn't a single spot around here that hadn't been wrecked by the Dreepy.

Aggron and the others had originally only complained to Baimu, but now they came straight to him to complain—how could he turn a blind eye to that?

But there was no helping it.

Dreepy's Ability tells you this Pokémon's nature—"Vital Spirit."

Without a lively essence, how could it have gotten that Ability?

"Just kidding, don't take what Aggron and the others say to heart. These guys are way too sensitive—the Dreepy haven't touched anything especially precious of theirs; they're just idle all day scaring people for no reason."

Baimu smiled.

Speaking of which, Aggron and the others were pretty mischievous themselves—clearly they'd already gotten used to the Dreepy's house-wrecking behavior, yet they still had to come out and howl a couple of times to show they existed.

He said, "Let's take a walk in the backyard. Staying cooped up at home all the time isn't a good thing."

"Is that okay?"

"No problem. Generally no one dares to come close around here. I've already arranged it with the maids not to come over lately, and the neighboring house is empty with no maids left behind either. Relax."

Baimu had already scouted the surroundings—no surveillance cameras, and basically no chance of anyone coming over here.

Executives tend to value their privacy a great deal; they don't let people near their houses.

"Okay."

Takeshi agreed. He really did urgently need to soak up some sun and get a breath of fresh air.

—

The backyard.

The Dreepy were shrieking all over the field, running about as if they'd gone wild with joy.

Aggron stood beside its two trees, protectively guarding them with a horrified expression, and shot Baimu an angry look.

"Roar!"

"Don't rush, what are you afraid of."

The latter smiled, picked up the watering can at hand, ran over to the two trees and sprayed a circle around them. "There, that'll do—they won't come close anymore."

"Roar?"

"You don't believe me?"

Baimu looked at Aggron's utterly bewildered face, raised an eyebrow slightly, ran over and picked up his own one, then walked to the trees and slowly set it down.

"Roar—"

"Watch carefully."

He held down Aggron, who wanted to roar but held back.

In an instant, the big beast saw the Dreepy sniff once, suddenly stick out its tongue, and turn and run far away.

"Gru?"

Aggron found it very novel, and lowered its head to sniff the scent as well. "Gru—!"

It quickly covered its own nose, looking at its trainer in disbelief, an expression of astonishment that said "what on earth did you spray there?"

"Scent water that Pokémon hate."

Baimu smiled slightly, lifting the watering can in his hand. "Out in the world this stuff is generally used on high-voltage power lines and railways, to keep certain Pokémon from gnawing on them. Of course the scent doesn't do any harm—if you can stand it, everything goes on as normal."

"But as you know, single-headed Dragons have very poor eyesight and rely on biting and sniffing to make sense of everything around them, so you understand — it can't stand this smell!"

Bouffalant stared with bright, sparkling eyes. Though it couldn't understand, the trainer's words seemed impressive. But the instant it caught the scent, its expression crumbled again.

How can it be this disgusting?

"Roar~"

"Hahahaha, because this stuff's main targets for protection are you and your pre-evolutions. Bouffalant and Bouldour are most interested in things like signal towers and railways — they run over to gnaw on them every now and then."

All Baimu was overjoyed. As a human, he didn't find this stuff smelly at all; on the contrary, since fragrance had been added, he even thought it smelled a bit nice.

This stuff could actually be used on Mawile's Princess bed too.

But surely, the moment he dared to spray it on, Mawile would turn into a vengeful ghost on the spot.

Bouffalant glared at the gloating All Baimu, feeling he'd said nothing good. For the first time ever, it felt the urge to beat him up. Its thick tail swung instinctively — and tripped All Baimu, who was turning around, into a stumble.

The two locked eyes — one looking up, the other looking down.

"Goo~"

Bouffalant turned its head, pretending nothing had happened, and ran off to find Takeshi's Haxorus. That Pokémon, a little shorter than itself, possessed a monstrous strength no less than — even surpassing — its own.

Those sharp fangs like iron axes were also the object of its envy.

How could it not have a proper sparring match?

"This guy…"

All Baimu also realized his joke might have gone a bit too far, and scratched his head.

Suddenly.

A string of cries rang out.

He looked up and immediately saw the single-headed Dragons charging toward him. One after another, they knocked him down, nuzzling all over his body.

And when a slight sting reached his hand along with a faintly damp, sandpaper-like sensation, he looked helplessly at that single-headed Dragon. "Under heaven, the only one who loves biting people is you."

"Mo Nao~"

The single-headed Dragon responded very proudly, completely unafraid.

The surrounding single-headed Dragons, upon hearing this, hurriedly joined in calling out.

"Mo Nao! Mo Nao!"