Chapter 584: Replacing Little Wisdom

Late at night.

The observation balcony.

All Baimu sprawled in a lounge chair and let out a comfortable groan.

Behind him, floating in mid-air, a shiny Gengar kneaded his shoulders with its little fat paws, its face wearing the look of a fawning, scheming courtier.

"That hits the spot! Harder~!"

"Geng!"

"Hiss— so good~ how are you this skilled?"

"Hehehehehe…"

Beside them, a Boldore that had been gazing up at the stars but was forced to listen to its trainer's wailing was utterly speechless.

Why did it have to come to the balcony of all places for a massage?

What gives?

Trying to rub the veterans' noses in the new guy's performance?

It raised a paw with ill intent, plotting to teach its trainer a little lesson, only to see the latter pull out a phone.

"Good afternoon, great Mayor of Iron Town."

Heh, it must be the middle of the night over there for you, right? What, so excited after just snagging the top title that you can't sleep?

"Not at all, I just finished. That guy Hu Pa dragged in a whole pile of people from everywhere, and I called on Kitone and the others from the fan club, so we've been at it until now…"

My, what a hard time you've had, Top Coordinator Trainer Baimu-san, talking about fooling around as if you're half-dead from exhaustion.

The rather snide reply made Baimu burst out laughing.

"Of course I can't compare to a mayor who holds the rice bowls of hundreds of thousands of people and Pokémon. Besides, the first person I thought of inviting was you, but you didn't come yourself."

Hehehehe, you'd better not sleep too soundly from now on, or I'll definitely make a special 'Baimu Sleep Edition' and put it on TV.

"Wrong, bro, wrong."

He hurriedly begged for mercy.

The time difference between the two places meant that when the morning matches ended, it was already evening in the Oure region, and when the victory celebration was being arranged in the afternoon, it happened to be the dead of night in Oure.

Baimu, bringing Hu Pa along, once again met the pajama-clad Suiren.

Since this wasn't official business, the latter was so angry that she kicked him twice.

Naturally, the matter of participating or anything like that fell through.

Suiren on the phone kept coldly laughing: Apologies are useless! Just enjoy these last carefree days of yours, I'll make you understand why 'Champion Dan Di' can be called the busiest Champion.

"……"

Baimu twitched the corner of his mouth.

However, he had actually steeled himself for this aspect long ago.

Suiren, who was dead set on replicating the Galar rise story, naturally had to copy that region's Champion marketing plan; freely acting like Champions Lance, Champion Dawu, Cynthia and the others was basically impossible for her.

Baimu turned his head, his gaze just happening to meet Boldore, who was sneakily extending a paw, and his brow rose instinctively.

What are you up to, shifty-eyed little punk?

"Gugo~"

Its plan foiled, Boldore showed no frustration or intimidation, but instead, with an honest, simple look, continued to place its steel-plate-tearing claws on his arm.

It looked fully prepared to learn from the shiny Gengar and give him a massage.

He stared into the big monster's eyes until the latter guiltily turned its head away.

Tch.

You think I don't know what you look like when you're plotting something nasty?

Baimu disdainfully looked away, enjoying the shiny Gengar's massage as he continued:

"But your publicity strategy really works. At this rate, my name will probably sit atop the Hoenn trending searches for a few days, maybe lasting until the tournament opens?"

As long as it's useful, fine, but this isn't my strategy. If you want to thank someone, thank Captain Huoyan.

"Captain Huoyan?"

He was stunned for a moment; it had been a long time since he'd heard that name.

Seeing you don't know, let me fill you in: most of Iron Town's infrastructure projects have already been contracted out to Team Magma, and one of the people in charge is Captain Huoyan. And when you won, Chief Chiyansong was right in my office.

Suiren's words truly shocked him.

Have the relations between the Rescue Organization and Team Magma really developed this closely?

And infrastructure handed over to Team Magma?

Can they be trusted…

Well, looking at Hoenn's current development, handing it over to Team Magma, an experienced team, is indeed a pretty good choice.

Oure region's cutting-edge tech is certainly advanced, but its infrastructure is genuinely lacking.

The roads within Iron Town go without saying, and the highways leading outside are so dilapidated that most passing vehicles come equipped with their own hover devices; cars running on tires alone would get stuck halfway nine times out of ten.

"…Aren't you trusting them a bit too much?"

Baimu held it in for a long time, but still couldn't help himself.

Trust is the primary prerequisite for cooperation. Besides, you're the one who started this whole line in the first place, so you should be the one taking responsibility, future Oure Champion.

Suiren opened her mouth and immediately started passing the buck.

But this was really hard to argue against, since he had indeed accepted Team Magma's sponsorship fee.

He was speechless for a moment, then said: "Don't tell me Oure is also cooperating with Team Aqua, and they're doing offshore development over in Qinggang."

Correct, but not entirely, because they've also joined the Oasis Project.

"……"

All Baimu had already conceded.

The former young masters of the Plasma Team, the reformed Team Aqua and Team Magma, plus the Rainbow Team under his command — wasn't the Hoenn region a bit mysterious?

It always managed to attract some former bad guys over.

Wait.

Where were the Team Flare people supposed to be sent?

He suddenly felt a little panicked and resolved to check on the specific trial in a couple of days.

If some of Team Flare were also sentenced and sent to Hoenn after conviction, then only Team Rocket and Team Galactic — the two larger evil organizations — would be left without having set foot there.

After chatting a while longer, Mr. Mi Ke Li ended the call on the grounds of not disturbing his rest.

"Sigh, disaster after disaster."

He raised his head to look at the shiny Gengar behind the lounge chair. "Good work. Go get some rest."

"Gen—"

The shiny Gengar had wanted to say it wasn't tired, but caught a glimpse of the Aggron beside it out of the corner of its eye. After a quiet sound, it retreated. "Gen~"

It was very perceptive.

Starlight shone down.

All Baimu and Aggron enjoyed the breeze brushing their faces in the quiet night.

"Next up is your main stage."

"Grrr."

"Let's make our names echo across all of Hoenn!"

He spread his five fingers toward the sky, as if to grasp all the stars within them.

"Grrr!"

Aggron couldn't help but respond loudly.

Shaka!

The loud noise startled the two. Turning their heads, they saw a Mawile clinging to the floor-to-ceiling window, its expression a mix of grievance and annoyance, a rag doll clutched in its arms.

"Tch—do—"

"No more noise, no more noise."

"Grrr~"

All Baimu and Aggron immediately put on apologetic smiles and hurried back to their rooms to sleep.

Nothing more that night.

—

The day after the grand, magnificent celebration ended.

Early morning.

All Baimu was woken by the continuous noise and the cries of Pokémon.

"Mm…"

He got up yawning and moved the Galarian Lileep that had crawled onto his face at some unknown point to the top of his head.

"Sao~"

The drowsy Hydreigon squinted its eyes, bit onto his hem, and was tugged along into the bathroom.

Peng Peng!

Knocking sounds came from the outermost room door. The Dreepy siblings, who had woken up early, flew over to open the door for the person, while the Dragapult hid invisibly in a corner, poking its head out to peek outside.

"Pari!"

Porygon-Z was startled by the siblings' actions and hurriedly tried to stop their reckless behavior.

But the door was already open.

Fortunately, outside the room was not the countless reporters and fanatics it had imagined, but a hotel manager with a face full of helplessness and anxiety.

"Mr. Baimu, your fans— eh?"

"Hiyah~" "Hiyah!"

The little Dreepy brother cheerfully raised its tiny claws in greeting, while the Dreepy sister, seeing a stranger, was especially wary.

The hotel manager instinctively took a step back, but his gaze still tried to peer into the room.

"Mr. Baimu…?"

"I'm here. Is there something I can help you with?"

All Baimu walked out of the bathroom. The Hydreigon biting his hem was still half-asleep, its three mouths forming wavy shapes.

Seeing the man himself, the hotel manager sighed in relief, then hurriedly said, "Your fans have surrounded the outside of the hotel so tightly that not a drop of water could leak through. Please help guide them away! Many other guests have complained!"

"Fans? Surrounding?"

He froze for a moment, then hurriedly ran to the balcony to look down.

Sure enough.

Outside was packed with men and women, some holding up banners high, others wearing merchandise clothing featuring Mawile and other Pokémon. They screamed when they spotted him peeking out.

The Dragapult that had curiously followed over to look trembled all over.

It thought that if it were All Baimu, surrounded by so many people and unable to turn invisible, it might just drop dead on the spot.

Scary.

Terrifying.

All Baimu said with a sweatdrop, "Ugh… it's practically a carbon copy of those fans around Mr. Mi Ke Li."

Mr. Mi Ke Li was also always surrounded outside hotels, and had even planned to surround a Gym not long ago.

Still, he was very curious about who exactly had leaked his specific address — paparazzi? The Pokémon world had paparazzi too?

The one who leaked the address was one of the fan club members invited yesterday.

Porygon-Z, as if knowing what he was thinking, spoke up from the phone: after going back yesterday she couldn't resist posting photos from the celebration banquet, and someone recognized the location from the background.

Good grief!

Pokémon world's Sherlock Holmes!

All Baimu turned around, went back to the room door, and apologized to the hotel manager, saying he would find a way to persuade those fans who were obstructing their normal business to leave.

Only then did the hotel manager turn around and leave with relief.

"A top-tier title and the number one trending spot really are terrifying…"

He sighed. In the past, fans at most blocked the venue entrance; now they had started blocking the hotel he was staying at.

The bigger the fame, the heavier the burden?

After a brief thought, All Baimu chose to contact Mi Ke Li — as a Contest Master, the latter should have plenty of experience in this area.

Why not look for Miss Liuqi?

Given her ironclad law of sleeping a full eight hours every day, she definitely couldn't be woken up at this hour.

"Hello, Mi Ke Li-san, sorry to bother you so early in the morning…"

Half an hour later.

All Baimu was still in his room, while the fans below had been dispersed for the most part under the guidance of core fan club members like North Ayane, leaving only a handful of diehards.

That's right.

Mi Ke Li's method was to let fans manage fans.

And this move was unexpectedly effective — it left him unsure whether to say people in the Pokémon world had high quality, or were just easy to deal with.

After dispersing the fans, North Ayane brought the little girl who had posted the photo upstairs to apologize. Since All Baimu himself hadn't been much affected, he waved it off without caring.

"The ones who deserve the apology more are the hotel and the hotel's guests — disturbing people early in the morning isn't great."

He thought it over, then took the two of them to apologize to the hotel again, and went door-to-door to apologize to the guests who had complained, promising that any reasonable losses could be compensated.

Although the matter didn't start because of him, it had developed to this point under his personal influence — as the person involved, he still had to show that much responsibility.

All Baimu himself didn't feel that getting a top-tier title made him superior to others.

However, unexpectedly.

Among the guests who received the apology was someone who had almost gone from fan to passerby, planning to post on their blog to rant about how fan culture affected people's lives.

As a result, his move not only successfully won them back, but turned that person into a fanatic.

The rant post also turned into a praise post.

Once posted, the share count skyrocketed.

With such a coincidental plot plus the promotion from the tournament, All Baimu's popularity instantly surged even higher — people were already calling him 【Little Mi Ke Li】.

"Terrifying."

Learning the situation from Porygon-Z, he couldn't help but shudder.

The newly-awakened Miss Liuqi exclaimed that she and her management company had marketed for an entire year, and the buzz they brought was probably not as high as his in a single day — simply terrifying!

She also asked: "Are you really not going to sign with this management company I know? Once you sign, a lot of things won't need to be worried about."

"If I sign, someone will beat me to death."

All Baimu shook his head rapidly — he couldn't bear the wrath Sennin would bring.

Being out on his own for so long, he hadn't given the latter few problems, and all those incidents that had been resolved one by one would need to be repaid through future hard work.

The handshake outside the villa back then couldn't be forgotten.

Miss Liuqi then asked when he planned to return to the Ecruteak Gym.

The Sanyou Conference was still about two weeks away — he couldn't just stay in LaRousse City forever, right? This Grand Contest had attracted quite a lot of visitors.

Many outsiders didn't plan to leave after the celebration ended, intending to spend a couple more days playing around in this high-tech city.

—All Baimu also wanted to stay a couple more days.

Mainly because he was very interested in the real Battle Tower — after the Grand Contest ended, the top floor had returned to its original function, and word was you could encounter many interesting Pokémon there.

Miss Liuqi wasn't much interested, and since she wouldn't have work in the short term after this celebration ended, she was going back to "seclude herself."

Aiming for the next top-tier title!

All Baimu felt that if someone of his caliber didn't appear in the next edition, the top-tier title should be hers for the taking.

After discussing everyone's thoughts, most were planning to go home and rest — having traveled for a year, it was time to go back and take a look.

However, Dawn and Brock inexplicably decided to go with him to the Sanyou Conference.

"You two are coming with me?"

All Baimu pointed at himself.

"Ah! I forgot you don't really like group travel."

Dawn and Brock exchanged a glance and asked carefully: "Do you really mind that much? We want to go to the Sanyou Conference to cheer you on…"

He scratched his head and said helplessly: "It's not that extreme — I'm really touched you'd do this… it's just that my life rhythm might be a bit different from yours."

Brock replied: "We know, All Baimu — you're always especially serious and hardworking when it comes to raising Pokémon."

Compared to Ash, who loved hiking in the wild and encountering all sorts of people and events.

All Baimu spent more of his time training Pokémon, rarely touching those little side stories that would waste his time — traveling with him probably wouldn't be particularly interesting.

Of course, Dawn and Brock's main purpose was to go to the Sanyou Conference to cheer him on, so whatever happened along the way didn't matter at all.

Going straight to the destination would be fine too.

"Then thanks for your hard work."

He nodded and agreed.

Come to think of it, haven't I taken over Xiao Zhi's place?