“Beldum, have this for breakfast.”
Shiryu handed Beldum the last piece of Exp.
Candy left over from the previous night.
“Beldum~”
Beldum generally wasn’t fond of sweets, but Exp.
Candy seemed to be the one exception.
[Beldum consumed Exp.
Candy that grants a small amount of experience.
Level increased to Lv.
13.]
“There’s nothing on the ranch you can really eat yet, and you can’t live on soup forever.”
Shiryu pointed toward the mountains southwest of the ranch.
“How about heading over to the area Zigzagoon came from earlier and seeing if you can find any edible ore?”
As simple as the request sounded, it was actually important to the ranch’s future development.
Shiryu would inevitably end up raising Rock-, Ground-, and Steel-type Pokémon later on.
Many Pokémon of those types preferred certain rocks and minerals to conventional Pokémon food.
If Beldum could find a reliable source of ore, then feeding those Pokémon in the future would become much easier.
And if he happened to discover some kind of rare mineral deposit or valuable treasure while he was at it…
Shiryu could practically see the money already.
One lucky discovery could save the ranch ten years of struggling.
…
Growl…
Not long after Beldum left for the mountains, Shiryu’s stomach reminded him that he had problems of his own.
“I’ve been so busy trying to work my way toward prosperity that I forgot to feed myself.”
He rubbed his flat stomach through his T-shirt and opened the Ranch Shop.
Pokémon food, canned Pokémon meals, Berries—there were plenty of options.
Human food, however, was nowhere to be found.
“I feel personally discriminated against.”
Shiryu was still grumbling when he spotted a familiar figure approaching along the quiet path.
“Shiryu!”
Gloria waved at him from a distance.
She was carrying something in one hand, and even before she reached the ranch, the smell of breakfast drifted toward him.
“Gloria, you are officially my favorite person today.”
Shiryu muttered the words under his breath as he hurried over.
After pushing through the overgrown grass near the entrance, he met her halfway.
“Here.
Breakfast.”
Apparently, Gloria had already guessed that Shiryu hadn’t eaten and had deliberately brought him something.
“You really do know me.”
He accepted the bag from her.
Inside were two fried dough sticks, two meat buns, a tea-marinated egg, and a cup of sweet soy milk.
Shiryu stabbed the straw into the cup and took a long drink before biting into one of the fried dough sticks.
The combination of warm fried dough and sweet soy milk hit exactly right.
“Whoa!
Shiryu, you’ve only been here for one night.
How do you already have this many Pokémon on the ranch?”
Gloria stared in amazement at all the Pokémon busily working around the property.
She had secretly visited Shiryu’s family ranch before his return.
Back then, the entire place had been desolate.
Weeds covered almost everything, while the only building on the property was an old thatched cottage that looked ready to collapse.
Yet after a single night, the cottage had already been cleaned up, an entire section of weeds had been cleared, piles of cut grass were stacked nearby, and several Pokémon were actively helping with the work.
Had all of this really happened overnight?
Gloria could hardly believe it.
“Mmph…”
Shiryu hurriedly swallowed his mouthful of food, took another drink of soy milk, and began peeling the egg as he answered.
“Yeah.
Maybe I’ve just been lucky.
Yesterday I caught a Wooloo and a Zigzagoon.
As for the other Wooloo, the first one helped me kidnap—”
He stopped himself.
Calling it kidnapping sounded questionable.
Then again, saying the Wooloo had tricked them into coming here sounded even worse.
Shiryu settled on something much more elegant.
“Those Wooloo are all his girlfriends.
They heard about the ranch and came to join him.”
“His…
girlfriends?”
As expected, Gloria froze for several seconds.
Then a faint flush crept across her face.
She was old enough to understand exactly what Shiryu was implying.
She just hadn’t expected Wooloo to have that kind of social life too.
The thought left Gloria feeling strangely embarrassed on their behalf.
“Come on in.”
Shiryu finished peeling his egg, took a bite, then pushed aside some weeds to clear a narrow path for her.
He really needed to get rid of all this grass.
At this rate, simply entering and leaving the ranch was becoming a chore.
Gloria followed him toward the cottage and looked around once they stepped inside.
“Shiryu…
did you actually sleep here last night?”
“Yeah.”
He nodded while continuing to eat one of the meat buns.
“What?
Then are you planning to keep living in this cottage?”
Gloria glanced at him.
There was still an empty room at her house.
If Shiryu didn’t mind, he could always return to Postwick in the evenings and stay with her family instead.
Before she could voice the offer, however, Shiryu answered.
“Probably not.
I’m planning to build a wooden house within the next couple of days.
It should only take about a day’s worth of work.”
Of course, what Shiryu really meant was that he expected to finish the ranch quest within a day.
Once that happened, the system would automatically renovate the old cottage into a proper wooden house.
“A wooden house…
yeah, that’d be better.”
Gloria nodded and kept the unspoken invitation to herself.
“Oh, right.
Shiryu, I came here specifically to help today.
Is there anything you need me to do?”
Unlike the clothes she’d worn the previous day, Gloria had arrived in practical sportswear with an outer layer suitable for fieldwork.
Even her usual boots were gone.
She had clearly come prepared to work.
“Oh?
You were serious about helping?”
Shiryu had assumed her offer yesterday had mostly been politeness.
“Of course I was!
You’re rebuilding the ranch.
Obviously I’m going to help.”
Gloria sounded completely serious.
“All right, then I won’t hold back with my new ranch hand.”
Shiryu went inside, retrieved a sickle, and handed it to her.
“Help Drilbur clear the weeds.”
That was easily the most urgent job on the ranch right now.
And if Gloria was offering free labor, Shiryu certainly wasn’t going to waste it.
“Sure.”
Gloria regularly helped her mother with yard work, so she already knew how to handle basic weeding.
Once she started clearing the grass, Shiryu finished the rest of his breakfast and opened the Ranch Shop.
He spent 300 Ranch Coins on ten Oran Berry saplings.
“Ten Oran trees should be enough for now.
I can add other kinds of Berry trees later.”
Shiryu began mentally planning the ranch’s future orchard.
Any decent Pokémon ranch ought to have its own Berry grove.
Besides supplying food, it would let the Pokémon living here pick fresh Berries whenever they wanted.
He walked to a patch of land south of the cottage.
The river lay to the east and the forest to the south, making the soil in this area naturally moist.
It seemed like an ideal spot for Oran Berry trees.
After clearing away the nearby weeds, Shiryu personally planted all ten saplings together within a plot measuring roughly ten meters by ten meters.