Chapter 206. I Pity You
Back on the surface, Natsume finally learned that he had stayed in the underground cavern for a full seven days.
Morning.
Crunch—
Stepping onto the soil of Mt. Moon, Natsume felt a little dazed.
Even though he had slept an entire day after returning to the surface, the sun overhead still felt blinding at this very moment.
[Virtual vs. Virtual battle data collection complete.
SSS-tier scratch card +1.]
The sudden voice of the system in his mind made Natsume feel even more out of sorts.
"What?"
Natsume froze, thinking he had misheard.
When he opened it, he found that the "Battle Data Collection" task had already passed one-third progress.
The "Virtual vs. Virtual" column had instantly maxed out, and a scratch card printed with three Master Balls had appeared in his system inventory.
[Typeless Divinity Shard +2.
Random Technical Machine ×10.]
Without another word, Natsume quickly scratched the rewards.
The guaranteed reward for SSS-tier was a Divinity Shard?
Natsume really wanted to interrogate the system on how ten random TMs could possibly compare to a Divinity Shard.
He took the Divinity Shards out for a look, and fell silent.
Two tiny, transparent crystals, both no bigger than a fingernail.
Forget it.
I'll save them for Pika-god.
"System, why did the 'Virtual vs. Virtual' battle collection progress suddenly max out?"
Clutching the two tiny Divinity Shards in his hand, Natsume finally asked.
[Detected that the host has undergone a total of 19,907 Virtual vs. Virtual battles.
Among them: 1,118 Divine battles, 5,600 team battles, 2v2 matches—]
A string of words sounded off one after another, and Natsume arched a brow.
A bug?
Still, a bug that pays out rewards is a good bug for the people.
Natsume chose to keep quiet.
"Ahem…"
Coughing twice and muting the system's announcements, Natsume headed for the construction crew's canteen.
"Professor Oak, when are you heading back to the lab?"
Natsume found Professor Oak.
The work here should be nearly wrapped up.
"Once the development plan for this place is drawn up, I'll be about ready to go back."
"But we need to wait for Professor Magnolia to finish appraising the purity of those crystal clusters."
"Roughly two months from now?"
Professor Oak was eating breakfast.
He thought for a moment and added:
"By the way, Honora and Ash Ketchum called me many times."
"Remember to let them know you're safe."
Natsume nodded at that.
Later, he planned to swing by Pewter City to buy a phone.
After feeling around for a moment, Natsume took out a small booklet and handed it to Professor Oak.
"What's this?"
"Didn't that tunneling machine already get fixed?"
Professor Oak took it suspiciously.
On the cover were the big words, "Praise the Machine Soul."
"Uh… this is the complete edition."
"You'll definitely need it once you're back at the lab."
"What?"
"Hold on—explain clearly!"
Professor Oak was completely lost.
He tried to stop Natsume, only to see the latter vanish in the blink of an eye.
In high spirits, Natsume returned to Pallet Town, impatient to get back to the lab and tally his gains.
Passing through the snowy mountain, Natsume found that the area he had planned out had already been cleared.
The trees along both sides of the road had been felled, widening it several times over.
On the road, countless hundred-ton heavy trucks rumbled back and forth, hauling all kinds of construction materials.
Realizing that the construction of his research institute had begun, Natsume suppressed his excitement, changed course, and decided to check the worksite first.
At the end of the road, Natsume froze.
There, he saw an enormous, unexpected behemoth.
It was a mining haul truck, massive in size, with tires taller than the surrounding heavy trucks.
Most eye-catching of all, the haul truck was fully loaded.
Natsume reached out with his senses and found it was filled entirely with silver ore.
What's going on?
He paused, then noticed a gaze locking onto him from below.
Looking down, Natsume saw another "himself."
It was Mewtwo, disguised as him.
Mewtwo was speaking with some foreman, and upon spotting Natsume, it waved, left the man, found an open patch of ground, and then teleported away.
A breeze stirred behind Natsume, and Mewtwo's figure appeared.
The two exchanged a glance, descended slowly, and came to rest beneath a large tree.
"What is that?"
Natsume pointed at the gigantic haul truck in the distance, voice puzzled.
"A mining haul truck."
Mewtwo waved a hand.
"I know that."
"I'm asking why a mining haul truck is here."
Natsume narrowed his eyes.
Did they take a wrong turn?
"When we blasted the mountain, we struck a silver vein," Mewtwo said, pointing in another direction.
"There."
"Right over there."
Natsume looked and finally realized there were two crews here: one building his institute, and another mining.
His breath caught at once.
The site for his institute was indeed on a small hill.
A silver mine like that would be worth at least—
Natsume's hands trembled as he slowly gave Mewtwo a big thumbs-up.
"How much did you pay to bring in miners?"
"I'll reimburse all of it!"
Good things come in pairs.
Natsume felt wonderfully refreshed.
"I didn't pay anything," Mewtwo said, puzzled.
"Didn't pay?"
Natsume was just trying to figure out what Mewtwo meant when his expression suddenly stiffened.
Sure enough, Mewtwo spoke again:
"That's a League mining team."
"Aren't they all free?"
Mewtwo's voice hit Natsume's mind like a heavy punch.
Of course they're free!
And the silver mine is "free," too!
"You… you turned it over to the League?" Natsume's voice shook.
"Mhm."
Mewtwo nodded as if it were the most natural thing in the world.
"Who—who taught you to do that?"
Natsume's eyes reddened.
"It's written in the book you gave me," Mewtwo said, taking out a book.
Pokémon League Statutes.
"It says I should submit it to the League."
While speaking, Mewtwo flipped to a page in the Land Act.
Natsume: "…"
In an instant, countless guesses in Natsume's mind turned to ashes.
His head buzzed like a mosquito bite—numb and itchy all at once.
"You're reading by the letter."
Natsume clutched his head in despair, slowly squatted, and leaned weakly against the trunk.
"What's wrong with you?"
Mewtwo looked at Natsume in confusion.
It had already been handling things strictly by human rules.
Wasn't that a significant step forward?
But Natsume turned his body away, seemingly unwilling to speak.
After a long while, Natsume's faint voice finally sounded:
"I pity you."
"Don't worry."
"I submitted it in your name, so the honor is yours."
Thinking Natsume cared about that, Mewtwo teleported away.
When it reappeared, a silk commendation banner had appeared in Mewtwo's hands.
Natsume looked up and glanced at it.
Emblazoned across it in gold letters was: "Honored Mr. Natsume."
"That's even more pitiable."
Seeing that Mewtwo had sealed off every escape route, Natsume covered his face in despair.
"Is that mining area large?"
Natsume tried to hear something—anything—that might console him.
"Not large."
"A small mine."
Mewtwo nodded.
"Oh."
Natsume felt a tiny bit better.
"Wait—no!"
Natsume snapped back.
"Does a small mine need that many trucks?"
He stared at the convoy of trucks swarming back and forth like army ants, baffled.
"Your institute site is too close to the mine, so the League allocated more personnel," Mewtwo explained.
"They plan to finish extraction quickly so your institute's schedule isn't delayed."
"Fine…"
Natsume felt a little better again.
"How are the materials coming?"
As if recalling something, Natsume looked at Mewtwo with hopeful eyes.
"Mmm."
"Come with me."
Mewtwo put a hand on Natsume's shoulder as it spoke.
In the next second, the two appeared in the backyard of Professor Oak's Laboratory.
The once-empty yard was now stacked with alloys of every kind.
Piled in heaps across the yard, they made it look from afar like several little houses had been built.
"How many truckloads did you swipe?"
Natsume's eyes went wide.
He had assumed the consumables would be just about enough.
But this was way too much.
"I don't know."
"I asked them directly," Mewtwo said.
"They refused at first, but after we turned the mine over, the League sent several truckloads."
"They're all here."
"They said if it isn't enough, we can call and ask for more," Mewtwo added.
Natsume: "…"
As it happened, after discovering that Rotom could adjust typing based on the number of Plates, Natsume had planned to scale up Loleton's chassis a bit from the original design.
A loss in one place, a gain in another.
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