"Alright, I'm done teasing."
"You wait here for a minute. I've got a favor to ask you in a bit."
Watching Lopunny blush so hard she could barely move, Noah couldn't help smiling. There was something wickedly delightful about flustering a girl this gentle.
He shifted Gardevoir, already dozing, into his arms and started toward the bedroom.
"Eh?"
Across from him, Lopunny froze. Her already pink cheeks went scarlet.
A favor?
Her mind leapt straight back to what she had glimpsed in the bathroom the other night. Heat rushed to her face. Her legs went weak.
She pictured Noah's easy smile as he stepped closer, pressing her to a corner and taking full advantage. Should she be bold like Gardevoir, tilting her hips and accepting him, or put up a token protest while secretly undoing the lace at her chest?
So hard to choose.
A few minutes later Noah came back out and tossed something dark into her hands.
Still flushed, Lopunny fumbled the catch, then stared.
It was a small pouch of mushroom spawn.
"Come on. We're planting."
Of course. Noah was still Noah, never playing by the script she wrote in her head.
He gave her a fond scritch between the ears. "Help me with this and I'll grant you one wish."
"O… okay, Noah."
Her face burned as his warm palm slid over her shoulder and down her arm, nothing more than a light, steady touch, yet somehow enough to leave her breathless.
"C… could I have a little advance?"
Under Noah's startled look, she drooped her hot ears and, without quite meeting his eyes, guided his hand to the upper curve of her chest for the briefest, skittish second. The contact was shy, fleeting, and wholly chaste, but her breath still hitched and she had to turn her face away.
"Mm…"
The moment passed like a spark in dry grass, quick and bright. Lopunny's whole body seemed to hum; she clamped her knees together and let out a tiny sound she could not quite swallow. Embarrassment chased the warmth across her skin.
I said I would resist a little, and then I just…
The late sun spilled through the window and wrapped her in gold. Eyes shining, teeth catching her lower lip, she caught Noah's hand again and, blushing furiously, pressed his fingers to her palm as if to say that was enough.
I am going to turn into a very bad girl at this rate.
Half an hour later, Noah decided that was as far as the "advance" would go. He took pity on the dazed Lopunny, laced his fingers with hers, and led her outside.
As much as he enjoyed their sweetness, work would not do itself. Without mushrooms, the farm would not see that extra stream of income.
"Lopunny, how about here?"
They followed a narrow path between fields into a stand of trees. Noah looked over the undergrowth and pointed.
"J… just a second, Noah."
Still bashful, Lopunny lowered her hands from her cheeks and closed her eyes. She was not a Ground or Grass type, but with Dig and Tilling under her belt she could read the land well enough. She felt for soil body, drainage, the cool of the air.
A moment later she found it.
Beneath several towering trunks lay a gentle, shaded slope with rich earth and good runoff.
"Perfect."
Noah tapped the tip of her nose, then spread the spawn evenly over the loosened soil. Growing specialty fungi in the wild was not so different from his old world. Pick the right spot, mix in the substrate, sow, then water.
He worked in the starter blend he had bagged earlier, smoothed the surface by hand, and scattered a clean layer of leaf litter on top.
Lopunny came back from the river with two neat armfuls of water cupped against her chest. She knelt and let a cool ribbon of it slip through her fingers, soaking the bed until the ground drank it all.
Grow well, little mushrooms.
"Nicely done. We'll need to check this patch every day."
Noah rubbed her ears again, and she all but purred. These strains were valuable and thirsty. Without a Water type on hand, they would have to be diligent.
He had not forgotten the system reward either. At a thought, two tight bundles of yellow-green herbs appeared in his hands.
System goods never missed.
He nodded, pleased. The smaller, darker leaves were Heal Grass, shade loving and a staple for medicine sprays. The paler, sun-hungry stalks were Bugbane, one of the core ingredients for repellents.
"Looks great."
Seeing the fresh green, Lopunny's eyes lit up. Like Noah, she could already picture the place in a few months, with tidy beds and heavy baskets, a farm buzzing with life.
The mushrooms and herbs would take time. If he wanted a faster way to raise money to fix the farmhouse, Gideon's suggestion still made the most sense. Try the lake.
"A net would do it. I could buy one in town, or…"
Noah glanced toward the forest, gears turning. It might be better to make his own.
Plenty of Bug types produced excellent fiber. In Paldea, Tarountula's silk was said to rival wire and could even turn a Scyther's blades. In most forests, Spinarak were everywhere, and their webs were tough enough to hold a ten-kilogram stone.
Fishermen used that silk to weave nets strong enough to haul up Pokémon.
Hearthglen sat in Sinnoh. That settled it.
"In a few days, we'll head into the woods outside the farm and gather Spinarak silk."