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Blue Crystal's management took the incident extremely seriously. The moment the situation on-site was brought under control, the park dispatched a dedicated response team led by the director of general operations.
The people now entering Sosuke's line of sight were those officials.
"Hummm..."
The wheels slowed, and a brown-gray vehicle the size of a shuttle bus rolled to a stop on the grass.
Click!
The door opened automatically.
A polished pair of expensive dress shoes stepped out first, landing cleanly in the wet, muddy grass as though the man wearing them did not care in the least about dirt.
A lean, stern-faced middle-aged man jumped down from the vehicle.
Thin gold-rimmed glasses rested on the bridge of his nose, and his thick hair, parted neatly to one side, gave him the air of a scholar rather than a bureaucrat.
Peter.
Director of General Operations for Blue Crystal Marine Park.
The moment Sosuke saw one of the park's true senior executives arrive in person, he knew he no longer had to wrestle with the decision himself.
All his concerns and hesitations could now be handed over.
Because the one in charge of the field had changed.
"How are the visitors? Are they all right?"
There was no wasted time on formalities. Peter gave Sosuke a brief nod and went straight to the point.
"Just some light scrapes. Nothing serious."
"But more important than that..."
Sosuke quickly explained everything he had learned about the incident and gave his assessment of Sobble's aggressive response.
There was no dragging it out.
Within about five minutes, the handover between the two men was complete.
Peter rubbed lightly at his chin, nodded in thought, and immediately sent some of the staff who had come with him to calm Hannah down and handle visitor care.
Peter had worked his way up from the bottom and had more than enough experience handling crises like this. After no more than ten minutes of leaning against the vehicle door and thinking it through, he reached a final decision.
First, regarding the visitor involved in the incident.
The park would waive the full cost of Hannah's visit and cover her medical expenses, along with a certain amount of financial compensation.
However, because of the reckless and overly aggressive way she had behaved around a Pokémon, she was quietly added to the park's internal blacklist.
From that point on, any ticket purchases or reservations made under her personal information would be pushed to the lowest possible priority.
Which meant that during peak travel season, she would have almost no chance of getting a ticket at all.
And even if she managed to secure one during the off-season, her movement through the park would be limited to a specially designated safety route and monitored closely in real time.
A restriction was still a restriction.
But judging by her pale face and shaky steps when she left, Peter doubted she would ever have the courage to come back anyway.
Second, regarding the guide assigned to her.
Because of his severe violation of park safety rules and the dangerous actions he had taken, Aaron was dismissed on the spot and barred from future employment in related companies across the industry.
The punishment may have looked somewhat harsh.
But considering that his actions had nearly resulted in two deaths, it was difficult to say it was undeserved.
And finally, regarding the Sobble involved in the incident.
Because the Pokémon's attack had been a reactive response after being threatened by the touring car, no major punishment was imposed.
Instead, the only measure taken was to relocate him to a section of the park with much lower visitor traffic, somewhere few guests ever went.
Kael, naturally, was more than happy with that.
Fewer tourists were exactly what he wanted.
For him, it felt less like a punishment and more like a reward.
That, in essence, was the rough resolution Peter arrived at after thinking everything through.
In truth, the decisions regarding Hannah and Aaron had taken almost no time at all, a minute or two at most.
What had consumed nearly all of his thoughts was how to deal with Sobble.
Under normal circumstances, Pokémon in the park that attacked humans were typically dealt with by being released back into the wild.
But this time, Peter hesitated.
As a senior member of the park's management, he naturally knew where this Sobble had come from.
The Joy family.
One of the most powerful families in the Pokémon world, a pillar of the League, and the force controlling seventy percent of the world's medical resources.
Peter understood that Sobble's actual connection to the Joy family might not be particularly deep.
But that did not mean he could handle the matter carelessly.
He had to think farther ahead, for the sake of both the park and himself.
So in the end, the punishment imposed on Kael was mostly symbolic.
And with that, though the conclusion had come together somewhat abruptly, the first major incident of Kael's life in Blue Crystal Marine Park was finally over.
The outcome was not bad.
Within the park's safe and comfortable environment, he had gained a living area where human traffic was scarce.
The park's efficiency was high. By the very next day, under staff coordination, Kael had already been moved to a new habitat.
It was still a wetland environment, but compared with the last one, there was noticeably less land and much more open water. The lake stretched so wide it almost seemed endless.
Kael leapt lightly into the water.
Clear droplets splashed up, and fine ripples spread outward in widening circles.
As the cold lake water wrapped around his blue skin, it naturally blurred and faded into transparency, his camouflage activating on its own.
He did not bother swimming with any force.
Instead, he let the buoyancy of the water hold him up as he floated on his back, allowing the current to carry him wherever it pleased.
His blue eyes reflected the broad blue sky above until the two seemed almost ready to merge.
His gaze lost focus.
His expression drifted somewhere far away.
And there, rocking gently on the water, Kael sank into thought about his future.
Ever since he had left that tiny lake inside Molten Season Forest, all sorts of things had happened to him.
Players are discovering him.
Threats from wild Pokémon.
A volcanic eruption.
All kinds of unlikely events, things most people might not encounter even once in a year, had crashed into his life one after another with absurd density.
Sometimes he even wondered whether something unseen was deliberately interfering with him, throwing his plans into chaos over and over again, just like the world consciousness had in his last cycle.
Fortunately, thanks to Nurse Joy, he had now arrived in this very safe marine park.
He should be able to develop properly for a while here.
At least, that was what Kael hoped.
Splash.
Then suddenly.
A heavy sound of water shifting rose from beneath him.
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~Support with 200 PowerStones = 1 Bonus Chapter
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For early access to advanced chapters on P-atreon:
P-atreon/iamxeno
(Just remove the - hyphen to access normally)
Thank you so much for your support and for reading!