Half a day later.
As the sun dipped once more toward the west, Dendra was on the road back toward the Alfornada Cavern when she ran into a green-haired, androgynous beauty in boys' clothes, riding on a Gogoat.
To be exact, it was the other party who stopped her on purpose.
Of course Dendra knew who she was.
As a Fighting-type specialist from Paldea who often traveled between Alfornada Town and Cortondo Town, she had run into this person more than a few times.
"Heyaa! Isn't this Rika-san? Long time no see!" Dendra called out.
"Long time… ah, I remember now," Rika said. "You're Dendra, right! Tulip's friend, that well-known local Fighting-type trainer around here!"
"That's right. I'm on my way back to Alfornada Town, and I'm also going to look for Scovillain to collect some of that legendary chili extract. Did you stop me because you needed something from me?"
Rika wiped the sweat from her forehead with a handkerchief.
"Phew, I'm beat. Since I couldn't find any trace of him, I couldn't just hop on a Flying Taxi. Thank goodness I've got Gogoat."
"So yeah, I do have something to ask! Right, could I ask if you've seen a Trainer riding on some kind of unidentified flying object?"
"That flying object might look something like this."
Rika held up a sheet of paper she carried with her. On it was a rough sketch of something that looked like a UFO.
Dendra frowned. "Haaah, what is this supposed to be, a spaceship from outer space?"
Rika looked a little embarrassed. "Uh, it does kinda look similar, but it shouldn't be the same sort of thing. According to the info we've got, that's probably a Pokémon."
"The witnesses only saw it from far away, so don't mind the drawing quality. The important part is what's on the page!"
As Dendra kept looking, she suddenly blinked.
The outline of this thing… part of it looked a lot like…
Right, it was one of the Pokémon in that group, that modified, steel-bodied giant insect-thing!
But that bug and this unknown flying object only shared a similar head.
Could it be…?!
"Can it transform?" she muttered.
"Hm? What are you mumbling about?" Rika asked.
"No, no, nothing." Dendra looked off into the distance, suspicious. "If we're talking about a strange Trainer, I actually met one just now. He says he's a traveler from Unova and he's headed for Levincia."
"He's got a lot of Pokémon with him, and every single one of them is really strong. I even battled him, but unfortunately I lost."
"The one I fought was a Charcadet. And this flying thing you drew here kind of looks like one of his Pokémon."
Rika suddenly got excited.
"Unova, traveler, unidentified flying object, and Charcadet! Yes, that's exactly it!"
"You said he's going to Levincia?! Then he's going to the art festival, right. Yeah, that matches up! This guy really is an artist!"
"Look at this news article, then look again. Is this the same guy?"
Rika opened her Rotom Phone, skipped past the Paldea news feed full of food promotions and buffet coupons, and switched over to a Unova news site.
Near the top of the homepage headlines was a piece about someone conquering the Black Tower, Unova's top-difficulty facility. Even though it had been many days since, it was still trending.
"Ah?!"
Dendra stared. "Is that some really amazing facility or something?"
"You really don't know, huh." Rika sighed, then her expression turned very serious.
"The so-called Black Tower is a high-difficulty challenge facility in the Unova region."
"There are similar, brutally tough facilities in several regions. The Battle Frontier facilities in Johto, Hoenn, and Sinnoh; the Black Tower in Unova; the Battle Chateau in Kalos… and even in far-off Alola, there's supposedly a strange place called the Battle Tree. All of them are famous for their harsh battles!"
"And it's exactly because these facilities exist that Trainers from other regions, on average, are at a far higher level than ours!"
"It's said all the area bosses inside have at least Gym Leader-level strength, and the higher areas even have Trainers on par with the Elite Four!"
"This guy is the Area 10 tower boss, you know! In other words, his strength is above mine, even though I'm one of the Elite Four myself!"
Dendra was startled, then a bit confused. "Y-yeah! When I battled him, I could really feel that 'aura'. It was like he was some incredibly powerful martial artist."
"But what are you looking for him for? Did he break some Paldean law or something?"
Rika pressed a hand to her forehead and took a deep breath.
"It's exactly the opposite. When someone that strong shows up over here…"
"It's not that I'm looking for him. The Top Champion wants to find him."
"Did you know?"
"Even though we've been doing everything we can to recruit people, there are still vacant Elite Four seats in the League. We still haven't found anyone whose battle power truly matches that of an Elite Four member."
"And now that someone this powerful has appeared, how could the Top Champion not be interested?"
"In other words, we're going to extend him a very important invitation!"
——
"In Levincia, huh. Got it."
"Please head for Levincia immediately. I'm counting on you, Rika. It might still take me a while before I can get there."
"To show our sincerity, no matter what terms he asks for, tell him we can accept all of them."
"And according to the latest information I've gathered, he's not just the boss of Area 10, and not just an artist. He apparently is also an excellent Pokémon researcher…"
"And of course, most importantly, he's that mysterious craftsman who sold you those products before."
On the other end of the Rotom Phone, Rika's voice was somewhat noisy with background sounds, but her shock was still clearly audible.
For Geeta on this end of the call, though, this was the exact reaction she wanted to hear.
"You're surprised too, right? Talents like this are rare, no matter what region you're in."
"Someone who is simultaneously proficient in different fields; a true master of battling, an excellent researcher, and even juggling other lines of work on top of that…"
"In the research world, you've got the illustrious Professor Oak; the three battle legends from Pallet Town; Hoenn's Mr. Steven Stone and Mr. Wallace; Sinnoh's Champion and Elite Four…"
"And now, another person like that has appeared."
Geeta's voice was firm.
The fledgling Paldea League was short on people, painfully short.
It wasn't that Paldea lacked outstanding young people.
Every year, plenty of students graduated from Mesagoza and set out into the world, but very few of them turned out to be on equal footing with those powerful Trainers, researchers, and investigators from other regions.
At first glance, that seemed like a paradox; after all, Paldea's academy was one of the most prestigious and ancient schools in the world.
A school with an eight-hundred-year history should, in theory, have produced an untold number of outstanding talents.
But reality just didn't work that way.
And sometimes, the academy had some odd and unpleasant rumors floating around, like bullying on campus and so on…
"An eight-hundred-year-old academy, yet it can't compete with famous schools like Archfield University, Edenfield University, or Twin Dragon Academy… Is that because the academy's culture has gone crooked…?"
"I should really remind Harrington to thoroughly investigate what's going on inside the school and among the students."
"For a school with such rare, ancient pedigree to be unable to present truly powerful talents… Of course, maybe it's also because Paldea's climate is so comfortable that people are more willing to live an easy, peaceful life. But that doesn't do the League's development any favors."
Geeta muttered to herself with a sigh.
Yes, the climate in Paldea was indeed wonderful.
And there were no organizations like Team Rocket, Team Magma, or Team Aqua here, nor was there the excessive freedom of Unova that allowed all kinds of mysterious organizations to grow rampant.
There were legends about ancient treasures, true, but the research in Area Zero had always been led jointly by the academy and the League.
At least for now, there was no sign of those incomprehensible "teams" here.
Geeta really was handling big things at the moment.
Right now she was accompanying a Pokémon Professor from Unova and an Elite Four member from another region on a survey of the northeastern part of Paldea.
The information she'd just mentioned had also come from Professor Aurea Juniper right in front of her.
"If it really is as you say, and we find the Pokémon named Kingambit here…" Geeta said,
"…then, Professor, I hope you can treat this research as a collaborative project with the Paldea region and publish it together with us."
"After all, it's a new evolution that only appears here in Paldea due to ecological pressure."
For researchers, actively seeking opportunities to publish results in collaboration was a common trait.
International journals often had greater influence. Not just in other regions, but within a given region as well.
Geeta hoped that, via this ecological survey, she could nudge Paldea's scholars into shifting part of their focus back onto local Pokémon ecological research.
She had previously run into a researcher like that, a man named Jacq, but because of his work on Terastalization, they couldn't pull him away from that project yet.
More recently, Professor Sada's publication frequency had been gradually declining.
Perhaps it was about time to pull a few other researchers off their current projects too.
Come to think of it, Paldea had rich, pristine natural environments, yet no Pokémon Rangers had ever been assigned here… Geeta was already considering whether she should file an application with the Ranger Union.
Professor Aurea Juniper watched, through a telescope, the great chaotic melee between the armies of Bisharp and Tinkatuff in the distance, and chuckled.
"It's fine. The importance of co-authoring papers really goes without saying."
"Collaborative publication lets experts from different fields work together, merge their respective research results, and produce findings that are more innovative and impactful."
"By broadening the reach of those results, they can spread through more academic circles and gain wider recognition, while also letting Pokémon ecology become better known to the world. That's our job as researchers."
"But I won't be the first author on this one."
Professor Juniper blinked. "If you're going to invite him anyway, we might as well ask about this at the same time."
"After all, it was him who first told us about this new evolution."
(End of Chapter)
[Get +30 Extra Chapters On — P@tr3on "Zaelum"]
[Every 300 Power Stones = 1 Bonus Chapter Drop]
[Thanks for Reading!]