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"What are you sneaking around here for? Leave immediately."
Half an hour later, just as the tailing thugs were preparing to wait until Sato fell asleep before sending out Ghost-type Pokémon to attack him, a guard on duty walked out from the stairwell with a Growlithe. With a cold expression, he ordered them to leave.
Every floor of the Pokémon Center had surveillance cameras. These people had been wandering around the corridor for a long time, and their suspicious behavior had already attracted the attention of the monitoring staff.
Although they appeared intermittently and deliberately avoided the visible cameras in the hallway, they had no idea that there were also hidden cameras that the naked eye could not detect.
The cameras that were clearly visible in the corridor were merely decoys meant to mislead people.
Because of this, the monitoring room quickly identified them as suspicious individuals and sent security personnel to intervene before they could commit any crime.
The Pokémon Center was the territory of the Joy family. Even though these lackeys belonged to a relatively powerful local gang in Slateport City, once they were discovered, they didn't dare provoke the Joy family.
If they were placed on the Joy family's blacklist, they would have nowhere left to go.
Thus, under the guard's unfriendly gaze, the thugs left the Pokémon Center with awkward expressions, not daring to utter a single threatening word.
However, after leaving the Pokémon Center, they continued monitoring all of its exits in case Sato attempted to sneak away.
....
"Keep a close watch. This is a deal worth tens of millions of PokeDollars. Even if we split it among ourselves, it'll still be a massive windfall."
Late at night, on the rooftop of a building opposite the Pokémon Center, one of the watchers—his eyelids drooping with sleep—said this to another man who had just brought some late-night food.
As soon as he finished speaking, he snatched the steaming, fragrant meal from the newcomer and hurried to a wind-sheltered corner, devouring it hungrily.
"Of course. Brother, you go get some rest. I'll handle the second half of the night."
The newcomer grinned and patted his chest confidently. Then he picked up the infrared binoculars from the ground and continued the surveillance.
But the moment he looked through the binoculars, he saw nothing but darkness covering the view.
Assuming something dirty had gotten onto the lens, he quickly lowered the binoculars to check them.
However, as soon as he lowered them, he realized that he himself was standing in a shadow. In front of him appeared a pair of well-worn running shoes.
Following the shoes upward with his gaze, he saw a mysterious masked man staring at him coldly.
A deadly sense of danger instantly flashed through his mind.
But before he could react, the foot wearing those running shoes suddenly kicked forward.
Caught completely off guard, the thug was struck squarely in the face and sent flying backward. By the time he hit the ground, he had already lost consciousness, several blood-stained teeth scattered beside him.
"Who are you?! Show yourself! Mightyena—tear him apart!"
Nearby, the other thug—who had been happily eating his midnight snack in the wind shelter—reacted quickly. Throwing away the food in his hand, he hurled a PokéBall toward the masked man and shouted.
In the next instant, a fierce Mightyena burst out of the PokéBall and lunged at the masked stranger.
But the attack hit nothing but air.
The masked man, accompanied by a Pikachu, had vanished.
When he appeared again, he was already standing behind Mightyena's Trainer.
At the same time, Pikachu released a burst of electricity.
The thug let out a short scream before collapsing, instantly knocked unconscious.
Just as Mightyena tried to turn around to help its Trainer, the masked man and Pikachu vanished again.
In less than ten seconds, the two watchers monitoring Sato were both knocked unconscious. If the masked man had not held back, they would already be corpses.
.....
Over the next half hour, several other watchers lurking around the Pokémon Center suffered the same fate. Each of them was suddenly attacked by the masked man and swiftly defeated with overwhelming force.
Inside Sato's room at the Pokémon Center, the masked man carrying Pikachu suddenly appeared.
Removing the black cloth covering his face revealed that the mysterious attacker was none other than Sato himself.
"That should make the forces behind those lackeys behave themselves for a while. If there's a next time, I won't hold back."
After putting away his night outfit, Sato lay back on the bed, yawning slightly from fatigue.
His purpose in teaching those thugs a lesson was to send a message to the forces behind them: he was not someone easy to provoke. As for sparing their lives, it was because he didn't want to completely tear relations apart with those factions.
Perhaps because he was too tired, Sato quickly fell asleep.
Meanwhile, the night sky gradually gave way to dawn.
.....
Sure enough, the next day Sato discovered that his warning had worked. Most of the watchers had disappeared completely, and some of the factions behind them even sent compensation as a gesture of goodwill.
However, there were still some whose eyes were blinded by greed. They ignored Sato's warning and continued sending people to follow him.
"So they really refuse to accept kindness… Since you insist on courting death, don't blame me for being ruthless."
Although Sato wasn't entirely satisfied with the outcome, it was acceptable. At the same time, he quietly developed a killing intent toward the stubborn watchers and the forces behind them.
But before he could deal with them completely, Sato still had to respond to the invitations delivered to him early that morning.
Most of the invitations came from local forces within Slateport City.
Of course, these local powers were relatively legitimate armed organizations, usually controlled by local conglomerates.
Among them, only one truly caught Sato's interest—the Slateport Shipping Security Company, controlled by Slateport's local shipping tycoon, Brock.
The so-called security company was essentially a private armed force created by Brock. Most of its members were civilian Trainers like Sato.
Brock recruited them as mercenaries. In ordinary times they operated as a normal business, but whenever special situations arose, they could instantly become a powerful armed force under Brock's command.
In fact, many large corporations maintained similar organizations disguised as security companies. Even powerful families like the Sasaki family were no exception.
The invitation Sato received from Alice that morning was signed with the name:
Sasaki Security Company.