The trip had lasted less than two weeks, but Nova felt like far more time had passed than that.
Too much had happened. He had fought his way through from Lune Town all the way to the Black Rock Desert and back again. He wasn't broken — not quite — but the tiredness had settled deep, into the kind of exhaustion that a single night's sleep couldn't fix.
He got home, dropped the Growlithe onto the sofa, set the carefully wrapped gifts he had picked up in Forest City on the bedroom table, and lay down on the bed with the full intention of sleeping until something woke him.
Twenty minutes later, he bolted upright.
Something was wrong.
He had left the Growlithe alone on the sofa.
The Growlithe, which his system had clearly flagged as having the Unstoppable trait — the one that specifically noted a strong tendency toward destruction.
Nova shoved his feet into his slippers and walked out to the living room.
The sofa was gone. Not removed — destroyed. The Growlithe had worked an impressive hole into the cushioning, large enough to crawl inside, and appeared to be treating it as a personal den. Chunks of foam and torn strips of fabric were spread in every direction across the floor. Growl! the pup announced proudly, tail wagging at full speed, clearly inviting Nova to come admire the renovation.
Nova stood in the doorway and accepted that this was his life now.
He pressed a hand over his face.
Every Pokémon he raised somehow turned into a troublemaker. He had no explanation for it. He could only assume it was some kind of pattern he had brought on himself.
At least the Growlithe had shown some restraint. The small bonsai arrangement Nova had put together carefully in the corner of the living room was untouched. Apparently even the pup understood that some things were off-limits.
The Pokémon Egg in the other corner was also exactly as he had left it — a soft, rounded shape with a pale green colour and small markings, rocking gently every few minutes with the quiet, steady rhythm of something nearly ready to hatch. Nova looked at it for a moment. He hoped it would hatch soon. Having both a cat and a dog at once had been a long-standing goal of his, and the dog was already more than enough to handle.
He recalled the Growlithe into its Poké Ball before it could find something else to dismantle, pulled on his jacket, and called out Corviknight. There was no resting now. He needed a new sofa.
Corviknight! it called, spreading its wings on the balcony and waiting.
He flew to the only large furniture store in Harmony City and placed an order. The Alliance's prize payment from the Taylor case had come through faster than expected — political cases of that scale tended to move quickly, because a delayed payout would have reflected badly on the people at the top. Nova now had just over one million League Coins sitting in his account, which was a comfortable amount for the first time in a while.
Technically it should have been 1.2 million. The difference was what he had spent at Zhao Family Kennels, which had almost exactly cancelled out the bonus he had received for his role in the kennel's promotion. It evened out.
His intended rest was completely gone. He was already out and moving, so he decided to keep going.
With Nidoking and Corviknight both having reached their final evolutionary stages, and at least two new Pokémon on the way, the small apartment he shared with Aresdra was starting to feel inadequate. Now that he actually had money in his account, it made sense to start thinking seriously about getting a place of his own.
In his previous life, one million in cash would have bought him a modest down payment in a mid-tier city at best. Here, it was a different situation entirely. Land in the Norlandia Alliance was simply not scarce. Outside of the settled towns and cities, there were vast stretches of undeveloped wilderness — territories so large that even if the region's population doubled overnight, it would still rank among the least densely inhabited places in the world. Land prices reflected that reality. The bulk of what you paid for a house here went toward construction materials, interior fittings, and furnishings — not the ground it stood on.
A small detached villa with a garden, fully furnished and ready to move in, ran around 500,000 League Coins in a smaller city like Harmony City. Real estate speculation — the kind of investment culture Nova remembered from his past life — didn't exist here in any meaningful way. Why tie up your money in bricks and concrete when you could invest in rare resources or high-potential Pokémon? Could a house survive a single Flamethrower from a Charizard? It couldn't. The market had its priorities straight.
Nova had the new sofa delivered, then had Corviknight fly him across Harmony City to the upscale residential district where his landlady lived.
She was a woman in her mid-forties, cheerful and generously built, and she kept a Purugly that matched her energy in every way except the expression. The Purugly wore a permanent look of dignified displeasure, surveying everyone it encountered as though they had personally inconvenienced it. This, Nova had come to understand over the years, was simply how the Pokémon was — deeply grumpy on the surface, genuinely warm underneath.
He had heard that the landlady had done well for herself in her earlier years and now owned a number of properties across Harmony City, living comfortably on the rental income.
She welcomed him in with immediate warmth. Nova gave the Purugly an affectionate pat on the head as he passed it, which earned him a sharp Meow! of protest and absolutely no physical resistance.
"Nova! What brings you here? I feel like I haven't seen you properly in almost a year."
"I've been travelling most of the year," he said honestly. "The life of a Professional Trainer." He lifted the two large boxes he had been carrying and held them out to her. "I picked these up in Forest City — local pastries. I thought of you."
The landlady's face lit up immediately. She had a well-known fondness for sweets, and the gesture landed perfectly.
"You didn't have to do that," she said, already opening one of the boxes. "You and Aresdra work so hard. You shouldn't be spending money on me."
"We've been under your care for years," Nova said. "Now that I've actually earned something decent, it would be wrong not to bring something back."
She gave him a warm, slightly knowing look. "You always did have a way with words."
There was a pause, and then she caught the unspoken part.
"So. Are you thinking about stopping renting?"
"I am," Nova said. "I was hoping to buy something. I thought you might have a property available — somewhere move-in ready. I don't have time to manage a renovation right now, not with everything I have planned."
The landlady smiled broadly. "Buying a house — excellent. I have properties in several neighbourhoods across Harmony City. Tell me what you're looking for, and we can go from there. Not everyone gets offered this directly, you know."
"I appreciate it."
They spent the next half hour talking through options, then another hour visiting two properties in person. Nova settled on a house located reasonably close to the Academy — that way Aresdra wouldn't need to go out of her way on weekends to look after things when he was away on the road.
The final price came to 550,000 League Coins. The location was excellent, and the small premium was fair. Both of them were straightforward about it — they went directly to the Alliance Bank to complete the transfer, then to the Administrative Hall to process the ownership documents. By the time everything was signed and official, the afternoon was gone.
The landlady insisted on treating him to dinner before they parted. Nova accepted, and sat across the table from her in a mild, pleasant state of disbelief.
Across two lifetimes, he had finally bought a house.
People in this world didn't attach much weight to property ownership — it simply wasn't a source of status or anxiety the way it had been where he came from. But Nova carried memories from his previous life, and the feeling sitting in his chest was heavier and more specific than he had expected. It wasn't quite pride. It was closer to relief.
There was no rush to move in. The landlady told him she wouldn't be putting the apartment back on the market until the end of the month, so he could take his time. Nova thanked her, said goodnight, and made his way back to the apartment.
Tomorrow he would sort out the new house. Then he would let Aresdra know.