Chapter 253: Special Funding

Dusk. The sun was setting.

All Baimu rubbed his sore, gritty eyes, closed his blog and stopped reading those comments, and stared at the ceiling with a touch of melancholy.

Not long ago, Shanren, far away in Ore, had called to offer his congratulations.

Even though All Baimu had told him early on that he'd decided to enter the Contest Spectacular, staying up half the night scrolling his blog and watching the livestream — and even calling him — meant the guy really had nothing better to do.

When All Baimu roasted him for it, he shot back, "How could the little bros of Team Rainbow miss the boss's match?"

And he said nearly every member of Team Rainbow had watched, even gathering together to watch like it was a holiday — the place was absolutely buzzing—

Just hearing about it was embarrassing enough.

All Baimu instinctively felt an urge never to return to Iron Town.

But besides offering congratulations, Shanren's call also brought some good news of his own: next month he would officially take office as county magistrate… ah no, officially take office as mayor of Iron Town.

During the month someone had been off on a happy travels, he had conscientiously completed task after task of rebuilding and developing Iron Town, earning unanimous recognition from the upper echelons of the rescue organization.

"Once I'm in office, it'll be much easier to sort out your operational funding."

Shanren chuckled.

All Baimu was a little worried, though. "Can that operational-funding thing actually get approved? You're not planning to abuse your power for personal gain, are you?"

"What are you saying! You think I'm the kind of person Elder Ejin is? Just say whether you want it or not!"

"Legitimate funding — of course I want it…"

"If you want it, then stop talking nonsense. Chatting with you is really infuriating! I'm busy from dawn to dusk, can't even sleep well, and I'm still worrying about your financial situation — and this is how you repay me?"

"I'm just afraid you'll stray onto the path of crime…"

"Ha, if I were going to commit a crime now, it'd only be murder — I'd rush over to Hoenn and cut you down with one slash!"

The two of them bantered back and forth.

Although it wasn't clear under what name Shanren would eventually send the money over, the fact that he'd been keeping All Baimu's financial situation in mind was genuinely touching.

But he also mentioned that All Baimu must not let himself be swindled by any talent agency, no matter how high the offers those people dangled.

156n.

With Miss Liuqia's cautionary tale fresh in mind, how could All Baimu possibly fall into that trap?

Shanren and Ula were really overthinking it.

After hanging up, All Baimu had kept scrolling his blog until now, and only just now left the Contest Spectacular venue along with the staff closing up for the day.

The moment he stepped outside, there were actually reporters lying in ambush.

Luckily he was wearing a hat and had stuck fairly close to a few staff members nearby, so he wasn't caught.

Honestly, the best thing was that privacy in the Pokémon world was solid enough that his identity and phone number hadn't been exposed. In his past life, he'd never have had the chance to play on his phone that long — his number would've been blown up ages ago.

Not only was his phone number still hidden, the hotel he was staying at likewise had no crowd gathered outside.

"What a busy day."

All Baimu sighed with feeling, then threw himself onto the bed and lay there like a corpse for a while. He blindly opened Poké Balls to release all his Pokémon, too lazy to move a muscle.

"Lucky?"

Chansey came over to the bedside; it keenly sensed that its trainer's condition was different from usual.

"Don't feel like cooking, Chansey — you make something for us, will you?" All Baimu turned his head and said to Chansey in a lazy drawl.

The room he'd booked was the kind with its own kitchen, except there was no open flame — it used an induction cooker.

"Lucky!"

The pink little egg very considerately agreed. It had learned to cook precisely to help share All Baimu's burden, but most of the time it could only act as an assistant.

Now that it had a chance to shine, naturally it wasn't going to let it slip.

Jangmo-o pounced onto the bed, very naturally resting its head on its trainer's back and clamping onto his other hand.

"So heavy… why bite the far hand when the close one is right there." All Baimu let out a helpless long sigh, then saw his Galarian Luvdisc drop down in front of him.

A pair of bright-red eyes lit up and met his gaze.

All Baimu: "…What?"

"Sang~"

"You going 'sang sang' at me like that — I can't understand you." Even as he said he couldn't understand, he basically figured it out: it was saying it hadn't trained at all the whole day today, and it wasn't going to put in overtime tonight to make up for the daytime.

This guy acts just like some wage-slave clocking in at work.

Seeing this, Galarian Luvdisc couldn't be bothered to argue with All Baimu, that "black-hearted boss," and simply muted itself.

Anyway, when it came time to battle or train, he'd definitely say something.

Seeing it was ignoring him, All Baimu gave up trying to wrangle with the thing too, faced the bedding and sank back into a state of nothingness, trying hard to imagine himself as a stone.

A poor stone being pressed down on by Jangmo-o.

And by the time he came back to himself, Chansey had already finished dinner, and Mawile came clinking over to call him to eat.

"Mmph, didn't expect to be back to a life of food served to my mouth and clothes brought to my hand."

All Baimu lightly tapped Jangmo-o's upper palate with his middle finger; the latter immediately got the hint and let go, raised its head, and in one leap shot past his body and jumped off the bed.

"Mo Nao!"

"Vital Spirit as an Ability really is great."

He tugged at the horn-like ahoge on Jangmo-o's head — the white he'd dyed earlier was gradually fading, and he estimated it would be completely gone in less than a week.

Redyeing it… actually wasn't really necessary; originally he'd dyed it white to tell it apart at a glance.

Now even if a hundred Jangmo-o crowded right in front of him, he could still easily pick out which one was his own hand-nibbling little dragon.

He came to the dining table.

The dishes were more lavish than expected.

Clearly, to give him a proper meal, Chansey had put in a lot of thought.

"Thank you~"

Baimu gently stroked the fluffy little head of the pink egg and began eating with great relish.

You'd never guess, but although Chansey didn't get to watch a chef's memories every night like he did, it had still picked up sixty or seventy percent of the cooking skill — looking closely, you could even see a faint glow clinging to the dishes.

An ordinary person might assume it was fluorescent additive, but Baimu knew this was the hallmark of glowing cuisine reaching the basic level.

"Impressive, impressive. Not bad at all."

He praised it between bites, making Chansey a little shy.

Dinner finished.

Baimu flopped back down like a corpse again, with absolutely no intention of going downstairs to train.

Aggron and Mawile exchanged a glance, understood that their Trainer was probably done for the night, and decided to head downstairs on their own to practice moves.

The latter even made a point of saying so, and got an OK hand sign from Baimu.

And so.

Aggron dragged the single-headed Axew along, Mawile took the lead, Chansey cradled the Galarian Corsola, and the whole group headed out together in perfect harmony.

Along the way, the Lazy Coral woke up, opened its eyes as if about to lodge a protest — only for its gaze to collide with Chansey.

Galarian Corsola: "……"

Chansey: (*￣︶￣)

The Lazy Coral typed out GG.

Of all his Pokémon, Chansey was the one it simply could not handle — on one hand, it was so gentle and took especially good care of it; on the other hand… this one really had no energy worth draining!

If it were Brock's big-muscled Happiny instead, that'd be more like it — but go drain Chansey's energy?

Feels like it'd end up being used as a stool, a table-leg prop, stewed into soup, or burned for firewood by some black-hearted boss…