Chapter 318: The Lonely Mountain's Maiden Spirit

He pressed forward through the jungle.

The Doduo was scouting ahead — one head kept watch while the other sniffed the ground, calling out every now and then.

This fellow was searching for herbs to make perfume.

Although its sense of smell wasn't talented enough to learn 【Odor Sleuth】, it was a Pokémon that had once relied entirely on smell and touch to sense its enemies, so finding herbs with a specific scent in a complex forest environment shouldn't be beyond it.

Besides, it had two heads!

Double the scent-searching — surely it couldn't come up completely empty-handed, right?

Facts proved the Doduo really did have some ability in this area; within just half an hour it had found quite a few herbs.

Following the herb-gathering guide he'd bought, Baimu tried his best not to damage the roots — preserving their efficacy to the greatest extent—

There was no helping it.

The Fragrance Lady's memories didn't include the herb-gathering step, and to save on raw materials and pick up another skill, he'd tried to figure it out himself by buying books.

He didn't have her nose, but he had Pokémon!

When he occasionally ran into herbs he really couldn't tell apart, he could also have Porygon help look them up.

Once this fellow entered the phone, it could use the camera like a Rotom to photograph the herbs' appearance and search for keywords or image pages on the internet.

The Pokémon world's internet was remarkably generous about sharing — any knowledge you needed could be found with a search.

But the regrettable part was—

Perhaps because the Doduo looked too ferocious, Baimu and it hadn't run into any wild Pokémon for a long time. The only time they did, it was a swarm of Beedrill coming out to guard their territory — a massive horde flying over, murderous intent radiating, looking ready to give the intruders a good thrashing.

The result was that the Doduo let out a Hyper Voice roar, and they left just as massively as they'd come.

They'd arrived like bombers, and departed like supersonic fighters.

And faced with these warm and hospitable Beedrill, Baimu very friendly chased them down to check their water meter — Doduo and Aggron上阵 together, both suppressing the unruly Beedrill swarm.

And through friendly negotiation, traded plenty of Energy Cubes for the pollen they'd worked so hard to collect.

This pollen, blended with certain berries, could produce a honey that Teddiursa and Ursaring couldn't get enough of — a fairly important raw material for a perfume called Body-Fortifying Essence. Because Beedill were a somewhat dangerous Pokémon and basically appeared in swarms, the selling price wasn't low.

"Hew!" "Hew!"

A hissing cry rang out up ahead.

Baimu hurried over to the Doduo's side, assuming it had made some new discovery. When he saw both heads panting with their tongues out, exhausted and sprawled on the ground, with strange gurgling sounds constantly coming from its belly, he realized it was hungry.

"... Fine."

He glanced at the time. "Time for lunch."

"Hew!"

Hearing the word "lunch," the Doduo immediately perked up, looking at its Trainer expectantly.

Nothing was more exciting than food.

A dragon's life — eat, eat, eat!

—

After a lunch that could only be described as a whirlwind sweeping away fallen leaves.

Baimu and the Doduo pressed on, and before long arrived at the foot of the mountain the old fisherman had mentioned.

"Didn't expect it to be closer than I thought."

He looked up at the cloud-shrouded mountain, then down at his phone.

Still had signal.

The Pokémon signal base stations were impressively built — even deep in these remote mountains they maintained full bars. But it was thanks to this that he dared go up the mountain with peace of mind.

Otherwise, in a mountain with this kind of low visibility, who the hell would go!

Hm?

Wait?

Maybe a ghost really would go!

Baimu knew very well that Ghost-type Pokémon always liked appearing in these strange places — the more remote a place was, the more of them there were.

Of course, some Ghost-type Pokémon liked to do the opposite, and occasionally appeared in places with frequent human activity.

Speaking of Ghost-types in the Hoenn region, it was undoubtedly Shuppet and Duskull, plus the most classic Gastly, Gengar, and so on...

"Hew~"

The well-fed Doduo still walked at the front.

As its control over its heads improved, this fellow had begun attempting the marvelous feat of letting one head nap while the other scouted the path.