Paldea League headquarters.
HR division.
Naoki sat at his desk uploading a new batch of Trainer registration files while quietly running the forum in the background.
Moon seemed to be settling in well at Naranja Academy.
She had just been complaining to him about it.
Moon: I already have to go to school in real life, and now I have to go to school in the game too.
Larry, are you a university student?
My mum says once I get to university I can do whatever I want.
What’s university life actually like?
Larry: I’ve already graduated.
As for what it’s like, you’ll find out soon enough.
Naranja Academy is nothing like middle school or high school.
Moon had responded to that with visible excitement.
Naoki closed the chat and sat with his thoughts for a moment.
Things on Moon’s end were moving along smoothly.
He could shift his attention now toward finding other players worth recruiting, ones with genuine ability, reasonable character, and no existing ties to any of the game’s villainous organizations.
Each player was worth roughly 500,000 Credits to him at current rates.
But he had no interest in pulling in players who treated this world as pure entertainment and had no regard for the people and Pokémon living in it.
That kind of attitude could do real damage to Paldea’s culture, and he was not willing to be responsible for that.
The problem was identification.
From the outside, players looked no different from anyone else.
The only reliable way to find them was through the forum.
The forum today was in the middle of a significant argument.
To all the players who joined Team Rocket: what you did was completely unacceptable.
Moon is a middle school girl.
You hunted her down alongside actual Team Rocket members.
Do you not understand that if a player’s character dies, they can never log back into the game again?
The post had been written by a player called Mimi.
Two hours after going up, it had already accumulated over ten thousand replies.
Naoki opened it and skimmed through.
Roach Killer: Mind your own business.
It’s just a game.
I’ll play however I want.
I kill Pokémon.
I kill NPCs.
So what.
Like the League is any better?
If they’re such good people, why are there players who still haven’t received their starter Pokémon?
Mimi: You’re both unbelievable.
Pokémon are kind and intelligent.
How can you treat them like that?
Can’t you see they’re just as aware as people?
They cry.
They laugh.
Their feelings change based on how you treat them.
When I was alone and scared in a cave in the middle of nowhere, my Pokémon came and sat with me and stayed until I felt better.
Do you have no hearts at all?
Inosuke: Same here.
I was exploring the open world and nearly got knocked off a cliff by a wild Pokémon.
My Pokémon jumped in front of me and took the hit.
Rock King: What does any of this prove?
No matter how lifelike they seem, they’re programmed responses.
It’s a game.
Stop taking it so seriously.
Use that energy to spend time with your families instead.
Ultra Tyranitar Warrior replying to Rock King: Idiot.
Naoki stared at the screen.
It was a heated one, as expected.
Scrolling further, he found the argument had attracted spam accounts and people using the chaos to advertise other things entirely.
Dragon Ascendant: Dragon Guild is recruiting!
Why join Team Rocket or the Pokémon League when you can build something of your own?
Dragon Guild is officially open for membership today.
Every new member receives 100 Poké Balls, one random Pokémon Egg, and fifty Potions as a joining bonus.
Send me a private message if you’re interested.
Naoki paused.
A player-created guild.
An independent organization.
Given the tendencies of players as a collective, combined with how much freedom this world allowed, that almost certainly meant more organizations like Team Rocket were going to start appearing, built and run entirely by players.
If that happened, the future he thought he understood had far more variables in it than he had accounted for.
He sat with that for a moment, then closed the forum and opened the Guild tab.
Creating a guild requires 10,000,000 League Credits.
Proceed?
That expensive?
Naoki blinked and read through the description more carefully.
After creating or joining a guild, a guild territory becomes accessible.
At regular intervals, Pokémon will arrive in or depart from the guild territory through space-time rifts.
Guild members may attempt to catch them, with a limit of one attempt per member per day.
The Guild Master and members can develop the territory to improve its living conditions and attract more Pokémon.
The better the territory environment, the greater the variety and quality of Pokémon drawn to it.
Rare Pokémon may appear under the right conditions.
Guild members may also send their team Pokémon into the territory and dispatch them into the space-time rifts for training.
Alongside the strength gains, unexpected rewards may be obtained.
“A guild territory?
Space-time rifts?”
Naoki’s brow drew together slightly.
He was not familiar with the territory mechanic, but space-time rifts were another matter entirely.
Were those not directly connected to Dialga, the god of time, and Palkia, the god of space?
Setting that aside, the benefits a guild offered its members were substantial.
The thought of building his own organization was not unappealing.
But ten million League Credits was a steep barrier.
He ran through his current financial position.
Dream had confirmed the red Gyarados at the Lake of Rage, so the two million Credits from that transaction had already cleared.
Once she confirmed the giant Dragonite and Zapdos, the remaining four million would follow.
Add Moon’s recruitment bonus of five hundred thousand and next month’s salary, and his available funds currently sat at around six million seven hundred and fifty thousand Credits.
Still well short of ten million.
Naoki sat with it.
Was there any rare Pokémon information he had not yet sold?
He worked through everything he could recall from the anime and games.
Information on Groudon, Kyogre, and Rayquaza was out of the question.
There was no telling what players might do with leads on Legendary Pokémon of that tier.
The Tree of Beginning and Mew were similarly off the table.
The tree had the Legendary Beasts as guardians, but if a player decided they wanted Mew badly enough to go after it regardless, the consequences would be severe.
Mew and the Tree of Beginning shared a symbiotic bond.
What harmed one harmed the other.
That left Mewtwo.
Ash had already set out on his journey, which meant Team Rocket’s Mewtwo project was approaching its conclusion.
Mewtwo’s awakening was not far off.
Given Mewtwo’s temperament and raw power, the idea of being caught by anyone was something it would never accept under any circumstances.
And Naoki had no particular objection to causing Team Rocket and Giovanni a little trouble.
…
Stones 💎