On the way down the mountain.
Roy enthusiastically greeted a pale man with dry lips, but the man merely glanced at Roy, nodded, and continued with his own business.
The man was not a Ghost-type Pokémon Trainer; his name was Tyson, and he was formerly a Prosecutor for the League.
The reason he wanted to become a Ghost-type Trainer was that his Houndoom had sacrificed itself during a case involving a black-market poaching ring.
To escape, those desperate criminals released over a dozen Forretress to use Self-Destruct simultaneously; to Protect him, Houndoom had used Protect in front of him, creating an energy shield.
At the last moment, Houndoom jumped out of the energy shield, blocked in front of it, and took the full force of the skills with its own body.
Tyson survived, but the right side of his face was disfigured; Houndoom’s judgment had been correct, as the energy shield it created was completely shattered by the dozen-plus Self-Destructs.
If it hadn’t jumped out to block the vast majority of the energy, they likely would have all perished in the chain of explosions.
After that night, Tyson aged significantly; who would have thought he was only 22 years old, yet looked over 40?
He heard that by becoming a Ghost-type Trainer, one could commune with spirits, so to see the soul of his Houndoom again, he chose to come to Mt.
Pyre to train; all in all, he was a pitiful person.
Roy was truly worried that Tyson might just drop dead here one day—not because Roy was kind-hearted or particularly worried about him, but mainly because burying people was too much trouble.
Mt.
Pyre only handled the burials of Pokémon, not humans; to bury him, one would have to take him down the mountain, dig a hole, fill it with dirt, and count one, two, three, four, five.
Most importantly, Tyson didn’t look like a wealthy person either; he probably couldn’t even pay half price.
It was such a hassle.
Roy counted the stack of Pokedollars in his hand; this was his income for the day:
“100 Pokedollars to buy snacks for Phoebe, 200 Pokedollars to buy tobacco for the old man, and the old lady needs some yarn to knit a hat for Gengar—I really don’t know why a ghost needs to wear a hat?”
“1000 Pokedollars to buy two Poké Balls, and the remaining 700 Pokedollars I’ll save up for my marriage fund.”
After all, if Phoebe and the old couple at Mt.
Pyre existed in the real world, then Cynthia, Lorelei…
should also exist.
Calculating the age, he should be about the same age as them; which one should he pick?
Forget it!
First, I’ll win over the busty Lorelei, then Elesa with legs longer than her life, and after that…
Just thinking about it is wonderful!
“Today is a good day, everything I wish for can come true…”
Roy hummed a cheerful tune, which seemed exceptionally eerie in the quiet of Mt.
Pyre.
Some people who came to pay their respects dodged Roy.
Roy didn’t mind; after all, because the impression of Ghost-type Pokémon was so deeply ingrained in people’s minds, the fact that their Trainers were unpopular wasn’t something that had happened in just a year or two; he was already used to it.
Roy stopped his pace as a woman wearing black robes, with confused eyes and holding a red crystal ball, blocked the path down the mountain.
The woman’s name was Hana, who was often found as a Hex Maniac in the games.
The reason Roy could remember her among the thousands of NPCs across so many generations of anime and games was because she was the only roadside NPC character in Pokémon to have had various series of doujinshi published about her.
This resulted in Roy feeling embarrassed to look at her every time.
Fortunately, the Hex Maniac didn’t say much; she knew Roy was from the mountain, so she moved to the left and cleared the path.
After Roy left, Hana came to the spot where Roy had just walked by, greedily absorbing the aura Roy had left behind.
This was something Roy was unaware of.
He always felt that Hana was deliberately blocking him, and then moving aside when he got close.
Ghost-type Trainers indeed had many habits that people didn’t understand, but they were real, not like in the games where they stood there from morning to night without moving just to challenge you.
In reality, they couldn’t be bothered to pay attention to you, and might even deliberately avoid you, especially Ghost-type Trainers.
But fortunately, the Pokémon had no strange views regarding Roy.
Arriving at the foot of the mountain.
Roy came to a large tree.
“Hello, Rayquaza, still haven’t evolved today?”
Roy enthusiastically greeted the Caterpie on the tree that had once helped him use String Shot to trap a Spearow.
The Caterpie, which Roy had named “Rayquaza,” spat out silk and dangled down from the tree.
It made a “hissing” sound to greet Roy.
“Today is the same as usual; if you can use String Shot to trap Litwick, I’ll buy you berries to eat.”
The Caterpie was already prepared; today, Lord Caterpie was going to eat ten berries!
It said so!
Litwick jumped off Roy’s shoulder; this was almost his daily, unwavering training.
After Roy shouted “Start.”
Caterpie aimed toward Litwick and spat out spider silk.
Litwick continuously dodged Caterpie’s String Shot.
And Caterpie, tempted by the berries, worked twice as hard to use String Shot.
In its eyes, Litwick had turned into a moving berry, just waiting for its spider silk to hook it.
This was Roy’s training for Litwick, during which Litwick could not use any moves and had to rely entirely on its movement.
Just like the godly move “Dodge” often used by Ash in the anime.
Litwick twisted its waxy waist, constantly dodging Caterpie’s moves.
From time to time, it would stop and make a face at Caterpie to provoke it.
Litwick’s behavior successfully provoked Caterpie; not for the berries, but for the principle of the matter, today it had to trap Litwick no matter what.
However, the more anxious it got, the worse the results were; Caterpie’s String Shot gradually went off course, and its accuracy dropped significantly.
Roy’s positioning for Litwick in the future was as a cannon; after evolving into Chandelure, its Special Attack reached 145 points, not to mention that Chandelure also gained a Mega Evolution in ORAS.
After having Mega Evolution, the base stat for Special Attack skyrocketed to 175, and its speed reached 90; although it wasn’t among the fastest, it was only 2 points less than Mega Garchomp.
Completely transforming into a mobile cannon.
Today’s training ended, and Litwick had perfectly dodged all of Caterpie’s webs.
Compared to Litwick’s happiness, Caterpie’s mood was somewhat dejected.
Roy patted Caterpie on the head and said:
“Don’t be dejected; when I come back, I’ll buy you a Sitrus Berry.”
Once Roy promised that he would still bring it berries to eat when he returned, Caterpie’s mood immediately brightened, and it wiggled its body to see Roy off.
That’s right, the joy of being a bug is very simple; all it takes is one berry to secure its happiness for the whole day.
Roy followed the only path at the foot of the mountain to a small town not far outside Mt.
Pyre.
Because this place was tainted by the Ghost-type aura of Mt.
Pyre, it was rarely visited, and usually, only some elderly people lived there.
It was basically a lawless zone; there were some small gangs locally, but they couldn’t be considered organized crime—at best, just a few thugs hanging out together.
They didn’t dare to come to Mt.
Pyre to cause trouble; Roy didn’t even need to intervene, as the Ghost-type Pokémon at the foot of the mountain were constantly waiting for this delivered feast.
The kinder ones might just scare them to absorb their feelings of fear, while the worse ones would directly drain their life energy.
By then, they wouldn’t even know how they died.
“We’re here; let’s go buy two Poké Balls.”
“Litwick.”
“Lit.”
The building in front of them wasn’t much different from the Pokémon Mart in the League games; the entrance was marked by a huge blue Poké Ball.
It was also the only official League institution within a hundred kilometers of Mt.
Pyre.
League Store.
It sold various Pokémon supplies, such as Poké Balls, pokéblocks, Pokémon training equipment, Pokémon perfume, Potions…
Because the population was insufficient, there was no Pokémon Center, League police station, or other professional League centers in the area around Mt.
Pyre.