Chapter 457: Larvitar and the Unknown Unown

Iron Tail!? Paul froze for a second.

He thought.

Leaving aside the fact that Iron Tail didn't deal outstanding damage to Quilava.

Even now, Pikachu's Iron Tail shouldn't be able to hit the Quilava underground.

But reality dealt Paul a heavy blow.

Pikachu leaped into mid-air with agility belied by its flabby body, spinning as it descended like a diver.

At the same time, its lightning-bolt-shaped tail shimmered with a metallic luster, as if plated with a layer of steel.

The next instant.

Harnessing the momentum from its spin along with its own strength.

Pikachu's petite body instantly unleashed force powerful enough to make the entire gym tremble; Iron Tail slammed violently onto the crater-pocked field, triggering a deafening boom! Immediately, the entire battlefield became covered in dense cracks, spreading out from the point of impact like a spiderweb.

The Quilava underground was directly blasted upward by the shockwave, landing with a splat on the battered ground before immediately passing out.

Seeing this, Ash and Pikachu excitedly hugged each other.

"Awesome!"

Paul was now completely stunned.

No way.

Can you even call that Iron Tail? I'd believe you if you called it Earthquake!

Paul stared fixedly at Ash, who was bonding with Pikachu, his heart racing.

This guy named Ash is a bit eerie.

"Ahem—"

A light cough from beside him interrupted Paul's churning thoughts.

Paul looked toward Luo Mu, who had approached unnoticed, met his gaze, and then followed Luo Mu's glance back to the battlefield.

The Quilava, unable to battle, was still lying there.

Paul quickly regained his composure, rushed over with hurried steps, crouched down, and scooped up the Quilava.

The Quilava also slowly regained consciousness at this moment; meeting Paul's gaze, it displayed a slightly apologetic expression.

Paul's expression remained somewhat stiff; some sincere words stuck in his throat, unable to be spoken, so he finally just kept a tight face and said rigidly, "It was my misjudgment."

At this moment, the light above Paul's head was suddenly mostly blocked.

"Is Quilava okay?"

He looked up and saw Ash speaking with a brilliant smile.

"... I don't need your concern; the battle isn't over yet."

Paul did not take Ash's outstretched hand; he did not need others' pity.

Relying on his own strength to stand, he handed Quilava to Shizuka nearby, letting her, a former Nurse Joy, and her partner Chansey treat Quilava's injuries.

Then he looked at Ash expressionlessly. "Let's continue."

"..."

Even single-minded Ash noticed something was off at this point.

This Paul seemed very impatient with him?

But Ash was, after all, Ash; if he could truly read the air, he wouldn't have earned the reputation of having zero emotional intelligence and negative romantic intelligence.

Upon hearing they were to continue fighting, he cast all that aside, brimming with fighting spirit as he returned to his position.

Meanwhile, Paul gripped a Poké Ball he had touched countless times and pressed the button.

"Turtwig, prepare for battle!"

"Wow, another Pokémon I don't know!"

"Pikachu, I'm counting on you again!"

Ash sent out Pikachu once more.

This battle ended very quickly.

Because the injuries Quilava had inflicted on Pikachu earlier still remained, Turtwig defeated Pikachu without much effort.

This left Luo Mu, who had blown the whistle as an observer, somewhat uncertain.

He actually couldn't tell whether Pikachu was truly unable to recover or if it was simply time to act and clock out.

Should one say, as expected of an old actor, terrifyingly impressive! When Pikachu was taken away by Shizuka for treatment, Ash still asked with an innocent face.

"Young Lady, you look a lot like Nurse Joy, and your partner is also a Chansey."

It was only after Shizuka explained that he learned he actually had a classmate who was a former Nurse Joy! With Ash's eyes sparkling as he pestered her with questions, Shizuka exchanged a glance with Botan, who was helping, and they jointly reached a conclusion.

This temporary classmate seemed a bit simple-minded.

The second battle soon continued.

However, this time the Pokémon Ash sent out was no longer the harmless-looking Pikachu.

A red light flashed, and Ash released a Charizard with sharp eyes.

Although Charizard's size was still on the smaller side compared to its kind, its improvements in Charicific Valley were very real.

Just like in the previous school tournament, during the finals when it battled Botan's Flareon.

With its type completely countered and its level not yet catching up, Paul and Turtwig suffered a crushing defeat; many strategies were meaningless against Charizard's rich battle experience and overwhelming power.

At least Turtwig had a chance of winning against Flareon after evolving into Torterra, but against Charizard, it was even worse than before evolution, getting completely dominated.

Not only did it have a Flying-type weakness, but it was also weak to Fire; Ground-type moves, which were super effective against Fire-types, could be easily dodged by the flying Charizard, while Grass-type moves were resisted fourfold.

Even if it were Luo Mu, it would be difficult to turn around such a disadvantageous situation.

The battle ended.

Little Intel had his fun, which left Paul feeling miserable.

He never expected to be overturned by such a rash youngster.

It was even more frustrating than missing the Tera Orb during that school tournament.

During Luo Mu's subsequent lecture, Paul rarely lost focus, allowing one to fully imagine how great a blow this event had dealt him.

Yet Ash was even worse off than Paul.

The moment he sat down on Arven's chair, he immediately entered a drowsy state, lying prone on the desk and falling asleep.

This was not because Luo Mu's lecturing possessed hypnotic effects equal to those of a Drowzee; it was simply Ash's constitution, unrelated to how interesting the course was—as long as it was a theory class, he would get sleepy.

In academies over in the Kanto region, trainers like Ash are generally categorized as "Travel Type," "Battle Type," or "Instinct Type."

Their progress is based entirely on battle after battle, while theoretical knowledge only needs to be maintained at a minimum level to suffice.

Seeing Ash like this,

Luo Mu had already begun pondering just how difficult it would be to make Ash memorize the type matchup chart before the Silver Conference began—

Theory class time ended quickly.

The moment class dismissed, Ash instantly perked up, went straight to Paul, and challenged him to a battle.

Of course, Ash also extended invitations to Penny and Eri.

Paul was still holding back a belly full of anger and agreed without hesitation.

Penny and Eri exchanged a glance; being truly too curious about what other Pokémon this trainer who had collected Eight Badges possessed, they accepted his invitation.

The four of them went together to the battle grounds on the sports field to spar, while Luo Mu waited bitterly for workers to bring Ground-type Pokémon to repair the battle arena, inspected it once more, and only completely freed himself after confirming it was up to standard.

Luo Mu silently made a resolution in his heart: Next time,

he would utilize his authority to make Professor Professor Huangbo, who was nominally and factually his subordinate, do the work.

Pressuring oneself is not as good as squeezing others dry.

It was nearly five in the afternoon when Luo Mu finally left Grape Academy with Ash, who had battled to his heart's content.

The moment they landed at the doorstep and Ash dismounted from Charizard, a small green cannonball shot directly toward him.

Ash caught Larvitar in one hand, his body not even swaying once.

This left Luo Mu, standing nearby, in silence.

He had been careless; he had forgotten again to film the precious footage of Super Newbie.

Looking closely into Ash's arms, Larvitar still had some undried traces hanging from the corner of its mouth, clearly having woken up not long ago.

Not long after Larvitar rushed out, Oranguru, who had received Luo Mu's task to care for it, also followed out.

"Young Master, you have finally returned!"

Looking at Luo Mu, Oranguru seemed to have found its backbone.

Lei Guan Wang had spent the last two days taking Spectrier and Glastrier to Cave Town to investigate the environment and the output of ore metals, so the only one capable of making decisions was Luo Mu.

"A Pokémon that can speak just like Meowth from Team Rocket."

Holding Larvitar, Ash stared blankly at Oranguru.

At noon today, Oranguru had been supervising construction over at the new house and hadn't met Ash; this was their first meeting.

Clearly, upon their first meeting, Oranguru had given Ash a fright.

"This is telepathy, just like with Entei."

Luo Mu patted Ash on the shoulder, and only after seeing an expression of sudden realization appear on his face did he turn to look at Oranguru.

"Did something happen?"

Luo Mu asked with a furrowed brow.

Oranguru's face showed a look of difficulty, shaking its head, then nodding it.

Using telepathy, it slowly recounted the course of events—

Not long ago, the sleeping Larvitar had awakened.

Not seeing Ash nor Luo Mu, it had nearly erupted into cries loud enough to flip the roof, startling Bai Bai Pengpeng and the others who were sunbathing on the balcony on the floor above.

If it were only this, it would have been fine; as long as they waited for Luo Mu and Ash to return, Larvitar's crying would naturally stop.

Of course,

Oranguru had also made many efforts of its own regarding this matter.

For instance, it used psychic power to wrap up toys left over from Growlithe's childhood, making them float to amuse Larvitar.

Larvitar's attention was indeed diverted for an instant, but very soon, its emotions began to spiral out of control again.

Just then, Larvitar noticed a wooden box placed in a corner of the living room.

Ever since the wooden box had been placed in the home, it had hardly ever been moved; if not for Oranguru's meticulous daily cleaning that spared not even a single grain of dust, it would likely have accumulated quite a layer of grime long ago.

For some reason, Larvitar became very interested in the wooden box, rushing forward to hug it and refusing to let go no matter what, even forgetting that its body should stiffen when facing a stranger.

Helplessly, Oranguru could only comply with its wish and opened the locked wooden box.

Inside the box were stored two wooden tablets possessing a strong sense of history.

Oranguru remembered that these wooden tablets seemed to be something Luo Mu had brought back when he went to the Johto region to collect Gold and Silver Berry saplings.

Because no matter what they did, there was not the slightest reaction, they had simply placed them directly inside the wooden box, locked it, and put it in a corner of the living room.

Oranguru did not know why Larvitar was interested in the wooden tablets, but knowing the background of these tablets, it allowed Larvitar to touch them.

Then,

something happened that was beyond Oranguru's expectations.

The wooden tablets suddenly burst forth with a strong light; amidst Larvitar's cry of surprise, a sense of responsibility drove Oranguru to struggle to open its eyes to see the surrounding environment clearly.

After finally managing to open its eyes, it witnessed a rather bizarre scene.

Those two wooden tablets floated up, transformed into two Pokémon that Oranguru had never seen before, and charged directly into Larvitar's body, vanishing without a trace! Moments later, the strong light dissipated, leaving behind an empty wooden box, a Larvitar that stood blankly not knowing what had happened and deciding to just stiffen up for now, and an Oranguru whose mindset had completely collapsed.

Then Larvitar slept another nap, until Luo Mu and Ash returned.

After hearing Oranguru's explanation, Luo Mu fell silent for quite a while.

Glancing at Ash interacting with Larvitar, he said in a low voice, "Let's go inside first; bring me the wooden box to take a look."

Although Luo Mu had no intention of blaming anyone, Oranguru felt it had been too lax and made a mistake—a slip-up no perfect Pokémon butler should ever commit.

Truly shameful.

Forcing itself to perk up and reply to Luo Mu, it then hung its head and shuffled inside to fetch the wooden box.

A few minutes later, in the living room.

Luo Mu took the wooden box from Oranguru's hands and examined it carefully.

Inside the box, which emitted a faint woody fragrance, there was now nothing; the wooden carving tablets that had once rested quietly there had vanished without a trace.

But that didn't matter; looking at the box, Luo Mu recalled the origins of those two wooden carving tablets that had been placed inside it.

After resolving the Unown riot triggered by the Snowdon mansion incident, as well as the Entei affair at the Crystal Tower.

That same morning, those two suddenly appeared behind him, dropping onto the floor with two soft pats.

Thinking back carefully.

He remembered that the patterns Ke Yin on those two wooden carving tablets differed from the set held by Professor Shuli; utterly distinct from those twenty-six letters, they were the symbols for an "exclamation mark" and a "question mark."

According to his memory, the wooden carving tablets were the incarnations of Unown after falling asleep; furthermore, since there are twenty-eight kinds of Unown in total, among them are special individuals representing the "exclamation mark" and "question mark," besides the twenty-six letters.

It could basically be inferred that the Pokémon formed from the wooden carving tablets were the "exclamation mark" and "question mark" Unown, possessing extremely miraculous powers.

But as to why the two Unown reacted to Larvitar, and why they entered its body, Luo Mu had a vague answer in his heart, yet he couldn't be certain.

Pondering briefly.

Taking another look at Larvitar and Ash, Luo Mu beckoned Oranguru to lean in close and said, "Pay extra attention to Larvitar's physical condition over these next couple of days; for now, don't tell Ash about this—he's too impulsive."

"... Everything; let's wait until Little Little Dandan returns before conducting further investigations and diagnoses."

Oranguru nodded gently and gave a soft affirmative.

"I understand."

The next morning.

Ash, who had been sleeping sprawled out on his back alongside Pikachu and Larvitar, was ruthlessly woken up by Luo Mu.

"Hurry up and get up; it's time to work."

Still yawning, Ash instantly widened his eyes, his face a mask of bewilderment.

Work?

What work? Is he talking to me? Luo Mu, holding a crate filled with Poké Balls, flashed a sinister smile at the groggy Ash.

That mouthful of white teeth made Ash feel inexplicably uneasy.

The next second, his premonition proved true.

Luo Mu spoke in a ghostly tone: "Free special training covering food, clothing, shelter, and travel naturally comes with a price."

"As it happens, Professor Oak has already sent all your Pokémon via the transport machine to the Pokémon Center in Pingdie Town, and they've already completed the handover with me."

"Next up is the joyful time for farm work."

(End of Chapter)