Chapter 82

On the sea, the night had not yet fully faded, and a lifeboat rose and fell gently with the waves.

Huo La leaned against the side of the boat, his fingertips unconsciously tracing the cold gunwale, while Brock beside him had his brows tightly locked, and the stern of the boat was crowded with several strangers who were still sobbing in low voices.

There were dozens of such lifeboats full of survivors drifting around them, looking from afar like broken jade scattered on black velvet.

"The lights of Vermilion City can already be seen ahead! Everyone, hold on a little longer!" On the lead lifeboat, the voice of the Saint Tenu's captain came through the morning mist.

He stood at the bow of the boat, his clothes soaked through, his voice steady despite the exhaustion—this was completely different from the image of the captain who abandoned the ship in Huo La's memory; at this moment, he was personally counting the number of lifeboats, not having left a single passenger behind.

Brock finally couldn't hold back, turning his head to look at Huo La, his face full of worry: "Huo La, do you think Ash and the others... won't be in any trouble, right?"

When the ship began to sway violently, Brock had rushed back to the cabin to find Huo La at the first opportunity.

At that time, Huo La had just escaped from the captain's cabin and was rushing back to his room to put away his Poké Balls; the two had just reunited when they were swept up by the tide of people and pushed toward the lifeboats.

By the time they finally managed to squeeze onto the boat and steady themselves, Brock discovered that Ash's figure was nowhere to be found in the crowd, and even Misty and the female reporter named Lilian were nowhere to be seen.

Looking at the sinking wreckage of the ship in the distance, he was filled with regret, his fists clenched tightly.

Huo La patted him on the shoulder, his tone firm: "Don't worry, they won't die. Ash, that kid, might not be good at other things, but his luck is heaven-defying; he can always turn bad luck into good."

He paused and added, "Although Lilian's Pokémon's background is unclear, with Misty there, it'll be fine—she's a proper Water-type Pokémon Trainer, and she has an even greater advantage at sea than we do."

Even so, Huo La's gaze still unconsciously swept across the vast sea.

He also harbored a hidden worry in his heart, but he didn't tell Brock—Bilan was also not on any of the lifeboats.

That girl had Clefairy with her; logically speaking, she shouldn't have been trapped on the sinking ship with Teleport, but had she ended up with Ash and the others, or did she have another way to escape?

Huo La stared at the rising and falling waves, pondering to himself.

As for those Team Rocket members... A hint of coldness flashed in his eyes, and he couldn't be bothered to think about them anymore. Their lives or deaths had never been within his consideration.

At the same time, on the sea in another direction from the lifeboat group, an absurd and comical scene was unfolding: a huge wooden board was floating face up like a makeshift raft, with five people and one cat lying on it, all of them soaked through, their hair drooping, looking exactly like drowned rats.

And dragging this "cutting board" forward were four Pokémon: Staryu, Squirtle, Seel, and a Magikarp.

In the room at the Vermilion City Pokémon Center, the light from the incandescent lamp was soft but revealed a hint of monotony.

Huo La had just finished his police statement, and as soon as he entered the room, he fell backward onto the hard bed, took a deep breath, and then let out a heavy sigh: "Sigh, this bed is really not as comfortable as the one on the Saint Tenu."

After tossing and turning all night, his nerves finally relaxed, and after lying there for a moment, he raised his hand to summon the system interface. On the screen, the task bar for "Assist Bilan (II)" already had the "Completed" mark lit up.

"Task completed?" Huo La stared at the interface for two seconds, tapping his fingertips on the virtual panel. "System, where is my reward?"

"... Beep, the task reward has been automatically deposited into the host's backpack." The system's mechanical electronic voice sounded.

Huo La instantly perked up, scrambling up to grab the backpack by the bed.

Sure enough, in the interlayer in the corner, he saw a silver feather lying quietly beside the suitcase containing the Pokémon eggs.

He pinched the feather and brought it before his eyes to examine it carefully: the whole body was silver and bright like moonlight, the color was incredibly vivid, the quill was full, and the barbs were smooth; it had none of the dryness of having left the body, but instead looked as if it had just been plucked from a living creature.

"Wait a minute, System, this feather wouldn't have been plucked by you on the fly, would it?" Huo La's face looked strange, and he couldn't help but tease.

"This feather was taken from a sleeping Lugia; the host can use it with confidence." The system's response remained without a ripple.

"My god... it really was plucked on the fly." Huo La rolled his eyes, grumbling as he put the Silver Feather back into his backpack, his gaze then falling on the dark suitcase.

This suitcase was brought out of the captain's cabin by Bulbasaur; in the chaos at the time, Bilan had only hurriedly left behind the words "I'll come to you to get it later" before disappearing with Clefairy's Teleport.

Huo La rubbed his fingertips over the texture of the suitcase, muttering in a low voice: "What kind of Pokémon eggs are actually inside?"

He unbuckled the suitcase and lifted the lid—three eggs of similar size were lying quietly in the interlayer lined with velvet: one with a dark purple luster, with fine, phosphorus-like patterns on the shell; one with the light green of grass and trees, with protrusions similar to vines winding on the surface; and another that was water blue, but covered with hard patterns like a tortoise shell.

Huo La stared at the three eggs and frowned for a long time, finally giving up helplessly; he couldn't recognize what species these three eggs were at all.

"System, help me identify them; what Pokémon eggs are these?"

"Identifying... please wait, host."

After a brief silence, the system voice sounded again: "The three eggs correspond to Salandit, Lotad, and Aron."

"Salandit, Lotad, Aron..." Huo La repeated word by word, searching his knowledge base rapidly in his mind, then his eyes narrowed, and he asked with confusion, "Are these Pokémon eggs from the Galar region?"

"... Cannot distinguish the specific origin."

Huo La didn't dwell too much on the system's ambiguity; this was his own speculation based on common sense: the natural ecological zone of Salandit is only distributed in Alola, Galar, and Paldea, and although Lotad and Aron have records in multiple regions, the core area where the distribution ranges of the three overlap is precisely Galar.

He tapped the eggshell lightly with his fingertips, nodding as if in sudden realization: "No wonder Team Rocket wanted to smuggle through the black market; it turns out these three eggs are not native to Kanto at all."

"Three eggs, it's just right for me to keep one." He muttered to himself, his eyes revealing a bit of calculation, "It's time to form a backup team; I can't rely on my current Pokémon every time. After all, when doing 'bad things', I still need to hide my identity."

This was not a whim.

When he fought Chen Si earlier, he had deeply experienced the passivity of being "single."

It was precisely because of this that he had firmly suppressed the thought of releasing other Pokémon—the data of those Pokémon had long been recorded by Team Rocket, and once exposed, he was afraid he would really have to transmigrate again.

"The other two..." Huo La's gaze moved back and forth over the three eggs, but he finally shook his head, "Let's wait until Bilan comes; after all, this suitcase was her target in the first place."

Huo La's fingertips brushed lightly over the three eggs, finally stopping on the dark purple eggshell: "The one for me, it's decided—Salandit!"

The combination of Fire and Poison types could just make up for the shortcomings of his current team, and the flexible skills of Salandit after evolution would be of great use when launching surprise attacks or retreating.

More importantly, Pokémon from the Galar region were relatively rare in Kanto and not easily predicted by enemies; this was precisely the "hidden card" he needed.

Huo La carefully took the Salandit egg out of the suitcase, found a soft towel to wrap it in, and placed it flat on the desktop; he would go to the Pokémon Center later to rent an incubator and store it inside.

After doing all this, he buckled the suitcase containing the other two eggs, pushed it into the corner under the bed, and hid it.

"Next, I'll just wait for this little guy to hatch, and then wait for Bilan to come to the door." Huo La lay back on the bed, his nerves, which had been tense all night, finally relaxing completely.