Chapter 51: New Pokémon

The two of them sat across the table, watching each other.

"I'm a pretty blunt speaker, so I hope you don't mind."

Flobo spoke first, saying seriously, "Those three Pokémon — I don't think your subordinates can successfully tame them. At least not for the next few years."

Baimu nodded. "Indeed, you make a good point."

Just as the other had said, judging solely from the current situation of Otsuka, Narihiro, and the others, relying on strength to tame the Houndour and its companions was indeed not an optimistic prospect.

Seeing that he agreed in words but showed no change in expression, Flobo continued, "A few years — unless you personally step in to raise them, you'll have no choice but to keep them boarded indefinitely, and that's no small expense."

"True."

Baimu nodded again.

"... So if you understand all this and you don't want to sell these Pokémon, why? There must be a reason, right?"

Flobo sighed, bewildered by his impervious attitude.

"Why... actually it's very simple. I want to find them a good home."

The young man before him said calmly and at ease.

"Huh?!"

Flobo's eyes went wide, letting out a sound like a goose with its neck being squeezed. "You said..."

"You heard me right."

Baimu replied, "I want to find a good home for these three enemy Pokémon — no more being bought and sold, no more wandering and suffering."

He knew that most people in Iron Town couldn't understand such talk, and even many people from other regions couldn't understand it either.

But that didn't stop him from having this idea.

Just consider it his saintly heart acting up — when something makes him uncomfortable, he has to do something. These three Pokémon are both pressure and motivation, pushing him to keep climbing.

If one day he fell, the dream of recreating Oak's backyard would forever remain just a dream.

"..."

Flobo looked at the composed Baimu, his thoughts a mess, and couldn't help but say, "Are you a Pokémon ***?"

"What?"

The latter was stunned for a moment, feeling only that the other had said a term he didn't understand — some kind of profession, it seemed.

This was the drawback of being illiterate — sometimes when the other person said something obscure or professional, he had no way to convert it into Chinese for easier understanding.

"Looks like you're not." Flobo breathed a sigh of relief. "What I'm talking about is a group of guys dedicated to protecting the balance between Pokémon and the natural environment. There shouldn't be any of them in the Ore Region."

Ah~ Rangers.

Baimu noted down that term, equating it with Ranger, and said, "You sure know a lot."

"Just spend more time online."

Flobo responded slowly, a hint of relief appearing on his face. "Since that's the case, things are easier — in principle I shouldn't be revealing my employer, but he really wants them, and you're so impervious, so there's no choice.

"Listen carefully — the person who wants to buy the Houndour and its companions is actually one of the bosses behind us and the Hound Pack. He's a Pokémon collector who used to think very highly of Ken. Upon learning of Ken's death, he wanted to take in his Pokémon as a memento."

"Wait..."

Baimu listened, utterly confused. "One of the bosses behind you and the Hound Pack?"

"Right. You should have heard — the Quicksand Pack and the Hound Pack were both security companies guarding a mine, subsidiaries of two different conglomerates. But then some changes happened, those two conglomerates merged, so there's actually just one boss behind us."

Flobo answered slowly, "You might wonder why, with one boss, we still go so hard against the Hound Pack. That's a long story — you just need to know that even within a big conglomerate, it's not a united front. And the conglomerate only has one requirement of us — quotas, on time and in full."

"Mine?"

"Yes. As long as the mine quota is met, they don't care what we do."

"..."

Baimu's mind churned — he truly hadn't expected such inside information.

"Back to the original topic." Flobo tapped the table. "This collector boss is extremely wealthy. To let various Pokémon live better, he even built a massive ecological park."

As he spoke, he pulled out his phone and played a video that could be called a real-life version of Oak's backyard — absolutely stunning.

Low rolling hills and clear streams, various Pokémon at play — Rapidash and Dodrio freely galloping across a grassland-like environment, Politoed singing by the pond, Lapras resting with its head bowed.

Vibrant Pokémon, beautiful nature.

"..."

Baimu suddenly felt a pang of envy.

But just as a human figure suddenly appeared in the bottom-right corner of the video, and he tried to get a clearer look, the video had already ended.

Flobo put his phone away as well, chatting away:

"So you don't have to worry about entrusting them to the wrong person. He has a dedicated care team that will definitely take good care of them. Furthermore, he's willing to take them through an exchange and paid adoption."

"Exchange, paid adoption..."

"You can choose one of the following Pokémon for the exchange, and receive a paid adoption fee of three million yuan. These are already very, very good terms."

Flobo adopted an envious tone. "If the other party didn't really want them, they would never offer such a price."

Without a doubt, there was nothing wrong with what the other said.

He'd even come up with the term "paid adoption."

To be honest, Baimu was tempted.

The only hesitation lay in the authenticity of all this, because it really did seem like manna from heaven. An ordinary person might be overjoyed, but he always felt something was off.

It seemed... too eager.

That collector boss was in such a rush he couldn't even wait half a day. In fact, dragging it out for a month, letting him experience how troublesome and expensive boarding was, would certainly allow for better price pressure and easier negotiation.

Yet the result was: left in the morning, came in the afternoon.

In such a hurry?

Either the other party really didn't lack this bit of money and liked the Houndour that much, or...

"Hold on a moment."

Furobo suddenly stood up, walked out, and began making a phone call with his head lowered. Half a minute later he returned and said, "I know what you're worried about, so I asked on your behalf whether we could film short videos of those three Pokémon afterward, and they agreed."

Damn! It's getting more and more suspicious!

All Baimu felt his heart clench for a moment, but why were these people doing this?

Scamming Pokémon?

Three Pokémon that had been drugged would be worth at most a million each at best. He had specifically gone around yesterday consulting various Pokémon shops in the underground city, and many shops didn't even want these problematic Pokémon.

Three million in adoption fees plus exchanging one Pokémon — no matter how you looked at it, it was a bargain.

Could it be that they had some secret he didn't know about?

Or maybe he was simply overthinking it.

All Baimu thought it over for a long time and realized he actually couldn't refuse. If the other party really was the money behind the Quicksand Team, it would be troublesome to be given face and still not know what was appropriate.

Everything he'd worked so hard to obtain might vanish with the wind…

"Sigh…"

He sighed, thought of the Roggenrola and Chansey frolicking in the backyard, and said helplessly, "Which Pokémon can I choose?"

The moment he relented.

Furobo immediately smiled with visible relief. "There are quite a few Pokémon you can pick, some of them even made my mouth water. And you can rest easy — we both hang around Master Liu Ge, so why would I trick you?"

As he spoke, he set his phone down in front of All Baimu.

The screen was filled with Pokémon avatars; tapping one would show its detailed information.

He couldn't help asking, "There's an app like this?"

"The bigger Pokémon shops all have it, it's nothing special." Furobo waved his hand.

All Baimu gave the other man a long, deep look, lowered his head, and said, "I want a Pokémon with the ability to fly."

The key point of the battle with Ken'ichi was actually the Noibat that drew the Murkrow away; without that guy, All Baimu and the Roggenrola and the others would have had no chance of winning at all.

A powerful aerial unit was far too important.

He first scrolled through the whole list. The other party seemed to have recommended Pokémon — their avatar frames had red tags drawn around them.

Ignoring those, he indeed didn't see any pseudo-legendary.

He then specifically paid attention to Flying-type Pokémon and found that, apart from one Skarmory that was passable, the rest were very ordinary.

Just as he thought.

Pokémon offered up for exchange couldn't possibly be the especially precious kind.

"If you want a Pokémon that can fly, there are actually other options." Furobo considerately tapped the screen, making some Pokémon avatars disappear. "Flying by move, flying by Ability, flying by some special power. There are tons of Pokémon like that — it's just a matter of how fast they fly."

All Baimu nodded and kept scrolling down.

Suddenly, he let out a soft sound of surprise.

"This Mawile?"

In the image was a Mawile avatar, marked with a recommended red tag.

He tapped in to look, and the dense wall of text nearly dazzled All Baimu's eyes.

"Need me to translate?" Furobo noticed his slight embarrassment and offered.

He nodded. "Please."

So.

Furobo slowly read out the contents above.

First was the reason for the recommendation — this Mawile was exceptionally strong. Although its level wasn't particularly high, its destructive power far exceeded the standard for its species.

It could shatter a massive boulder with a single punch, bite through steel with its giant jaws as easily as biting into food, and its tremendous brute strength could only be called abnormal.

At the same time it possessed the rare Ability 【Huge Power】, which, at the cost of sacrificing additional effects, greatly increased the original power of its moves.

Overall.

Mawile was certainly common, but this Mawile was an unconventional specimen, so it had been collected by that boss. The only flaw might be that being spoiled for too long had made this one a bit willful — if its wishes weren't satisfied, it was very hard to get it to obey commands.

And the reason this one could fly was a move — 【Magnet Rise】. Supposedly it flew quite fast, often driving its handler to distraction as they chased it all over the field.

But it loved sweets, and if you bribed it with sweets, it would occasionally behave and obey.

After that came a long list of moves.

After listening, All Baimu was silent for a while, then tapped back out to look at that Skarmory, and immediately said to Furobo, "I'll go with the Mawile."

The Skarmory looked decent on its own, but unfortunately it had the 【Keen Eye】 Ability, and its body was rather small — only one and a half meters — and it had the "advanced age" of twenty-nine, with basically no possibility of growing any larger from here on, so it couldn't carry his one-eighty frame.

At most it could grab some kind of I-beam crossbar and assist with flight.

But that would really be too tiring.

Sixteen-year-old All Baimu might still grow taller in the future, so he was hoping his flying transport would be one of the larger-bodied kind — a two- or three-meter ace-class build was a must.

"Sure, don't worry — I guarantee it'll be exactly as described."

Furobo, afraid he might change his mind, said with a smile.