Rattata had a nightmare.
In its dream, it felt as if all its strength had been drained away. When it woke up, it found itself utterly weak.
Lifting its head, it looked at the seemingly peaceful grassland before it, and memories of its nightmare surfaced in its mind. After hesitating for a moment, it turned and left.
"The first wild Pokémon to invade the village this year,"
Aven sat calmly on the rooftop, watching the departing Rattata, his expression a little complicated.
In his previous life, because berries were readily available in the wild, Pokémon didn't have to worry about food.
Although incidents of wild Pokémon invading human territories still happened, they were usually caused by special circumstances, not mere survival needs.
"If we want to solve the problem of wild Pokémon invasions in Aspiration City Territory every winter, the key is to address their survival issues,"
Aven pondered silently.
"If the food in the Black Forest could satisfy all the Pokémon, they wouldn't need to invade human territory."
In his past life, humans had established forest ranger defense lines in many forests.
The duty of forest rangers was to protect the Pokémon's living environment from destruction, so Pokémon wouldn't need to invade human settlements for survival.
Of course, for now, this was just an idea in Aven's mind.
Trying to establish a ranger defense line in this world a thousand years early would face countless obstacles.
While Aven was deep in thought, more Rattata entered the grassland outside the village.
Whenever that happened, the Oddish hidden in the grass would use Sleep Powder to put the Rattata to sleep,
then use Absorb to drain their strength, while simultaneously recovering their own stamina and accumulating energy for evolution.
"Seems like everything is going well for now."
Seeing the Oddish driving away the invading Rattata, Aven felt reassured.
Returning to the berry orchard at the farm, Aven headed to the place where he stored the growth fertilizer.
Due to the freezing temperatures outside during winter, he had dug a large pit between the grassland and the orchard, burying hundreds of barrels underground.
These barrels were filled with unripe berries bought from fruit farmers, now slowly fermenting.
After fermenting throughout the winter, by spring of the next year, he would have an enormous amount of powerful growth fertilizer.
"Rhy, Rhy, Rhy—"
In the grassland, the Rhyhorn was still full of energy, training without stopping every day.
Meanwhile, Starly was patrolling in the sky.
In order to defend the farm through this winter, Starly had heavy patrol duties.
If it spotted any wild Pokémon breaking through the village's first defensive line, it would immediately alert Aven, who would then bring Rhyhorn to reinforce the farm.
In the orchard, Cherrim maintained its Sunny Form, continuously absorbing solar energy.
One could see milky-white energy shimmering around its body.
Originally, Aven had planned for Cherrim to master the move Sunny Day before winter arrived.
However, he had clearly underestimated the difficulty of mastering that move.
After thinking for a while, Aven decided to change tactics—
he would have Cherrim learn Solarbeam first, to strengthen its ability to manipulate solar energy.
"Cherrim, just like that, try releasing the gathered solar energy."
Aven observed Cherrim's training.
When the energy fluctuations around its body reached a certain threshold, he gave a prompt.
Cherrim, feeling encouraged, concentrated the solar energy around itself.
The petals on its head began to shine with a milky-white light!
However, just as Cherrim was about to unleash Solarbeam,
the milky-white light around its body suddenly shattered into countless specks of light and dissipated.
Clearly, Cherrim had not yet fully mastered this powerful Grass-type move.
After failing to use Solarbeam, Cherrim immediately shifted from Sunny Form to Overcast Form—
perhaps due to exhaustion, or perhaps out of embarrassment.
"Solarbeam is definitely one of the hardest Grass-type moves to master," Aven said with a chuckle, patting Cherrim's head.
Nearby, Petilil shyly stuck out its tongue.
After hearing about how powerful Solarbeam was, it had eagerly wanted to learn it too.
But compared to Cherrim, Petilil's affinity for solar energy was far inferior.
It couldn't even sense basic solar energy yet.
In contrast, Cherrim's racial advantage was simply overwhelming,
allowing it to achieve this level of mastery over Solarbeam so quickly.
Hearing Aven and Petilil's encouragement, Cherrim felt much better.
It happily returned to Sunny Form again, its face beaming with a joyful smile.
…
Meanwhile, at the knights' camp outside the Black Forest—
Even though many wild Pokémon had already broken into human territory, the patrol knights still stood their ground.
They were the eyes of Aspiration City, and they had to remain vigilant—
to prevent any overly powerful Pokémon from sneaking into the territory.
If even the knights retreated, Aspiration City would be blind,
and no one would know if a powerful monster was already at their gates.
Thanks to the powerful Pokémon stationed at the camp, no small wild Pokémon dared to approach,
so the camp remained relatively safe.
Only when patrolling outside did they have to be cautious.
Although most Pokémon driven out of the Black Forest were weak ones,
there was always the chance that a curious and powerful Pokémon might wander out.
Those were the ones the knights had to be especially wary of.
"This winter really came early. Good thing it hasn't started snowing yet,"
Sutter said, riding on his Rhyhorn, speaking to his companion.
"Yeah. Hopefully, this winter will pass quickly too,"
Fessen nodded, also mounted on a Rhyhorn.
Patrol teams operated in pairs,
with a Staraptor accompanying them in the air, scanning the land with its sharp eyes—
so keen that even a tiny Rattata couldn't escape its notice.
"Star, Star, Star!"
At that moment, Staraptor suddenly let out a warning cry and dove rapidly toward the ground.
"Something's up!"
Sutter's expression tightened, and he spurred his Rhyhorn into a gallop.
As they approached, they saw Staraptor confronting a purple cobra—
both creatures wary and ready to strike.
It was an Arbok!
Sutter's face grew serious.
Usually, only weak Pokémon were driven out of the Black Forest,
but Arbok was no weakling.
It was a tyrant even within the Black Forest!
It was hard to imagine such a powerful Pokémon being driven out.
Or maybe—this Arbok's appearance here was just a coincidence?
(Chapter end)