After thinking it over for a long time, Lumiere ultimately decided to agree. There was no helping it—he couldn't exactly sleep rough out here.
As long as the person Volo was worried about wasn't him or Rowlet, there wouldn't be any problem. As for protecting a girl, that should probably be doable… maybe.
Before long, the two arrived at the Floaroma Town bus station. After waiting a bit, they boarded a bus headed for Jubilife City.
Once the bus had been driving for a while, Lumiere finally couldn't hold it in anymore and asked, "Uh… why are we sitting on top of the bus?"
"If we're not on top, should we be clinging to the bottom?" Volo replied.
"That's Lance's spot! What I'm asking is, isn't this a bit too on top? Who the hell rides on the roof of a bus?!"
Lumiere was completely losing it. He'd never experienced anything this absurd in his life. With the cold wind blasting straight at him, he'd already stuffed Rowlet inside his clothes to keep it warm.
Volo leaned against his huge backpack, shrugged helplessly, and said, "Can't be helped. I only had enough money for one ticket. This seat was only given to me because I flashed my face. But hey, that's the perk of being a Gold Member—open-air seating. Look around, do any other passengers get this treatment?"
"Aren't you a Gold Member? How can you not even afford a bus ticket?!"
"Where do you think that Gold Member status came from?"
"..."
Faced with that somewhat serious question, Lumiere fell silent. After a moment, realization suddenly hit him.
"So you're a grinder!"
"Shh! Keep your voice down!"
Seeing Volo's smiling face, Lumiere really wanted to kick him straight off the bus roof.
A so-called grinder was someone who spent money—either by hiring others or doing it themselves—to repeatedly post commissions and instantly complete them to farm points, basically buying points with cash.
He didn't know how many points were needed to become a Gold Member, but it definitely required completing at least tens of thousands of tasks—and the service fees weren't refundable.
"All the Gold Members right now are hardcore grinders…" Volo explained, then suddenly paused, stroking his chin as he added uncertainly, "Well… maybe there's one exception?"
"But that green-haired guy definitely grinded too. Otherwise, a normal person would probably need more than ten years of commissions to get that many points."
At that, Lumiere didn't even feel like complaining anymore. Volo's image in his mind had completely collapsed.
Time passed little by little. The cold wind kept blowing, and after mooching another meal with Rowlet, the sky gradually grew overcast—it looked like rain was coming.
Along the roadside, Bibarel and Starly could already be seen consciously moving under trees to take shelter. Affected by this, the bus gradually slowed down.
Aside from avoiding Pokémon taking shelter from the rain, another reason was that they were nearing mountain roads. After all, Jubilife City was built into a mountain that had been carved open.
It was said that hundreds of years ago, when this place was still Jubilife Village, it had been chosen to avoid wild Pokémon.
Seeing rain about to fall, Lumiere tucked the sleeping Rowlet back into his clothes and asked, "Hey, it's about to rain. Got a Groudon? Hurry up and send one out to save us."
"You'd have to go to the Hoenn Region for Groudon. That thing isn't Rayquaza—how could it fly over here?"
"Then what about Baby Groudon?"
"No Torkoal, but I do have a tent. Let's take shelter for now. We've probably got another three hours until Jubilife South Station."
"..."
Setting up a tent on a bus roof to avoid the rain—an entirely new experience.
Volo pulled a portable tent out of his huge backpack and tied it directly to the railings on both sides of the bus.
Lumiere couldn't really help. But seeing Volo's backpack sitting to the side, not yet zipped up, he crawled over out of curiosity to see what this free merchant was actually selling.
Unfortunately, after taking a glance, aside from food, he didn't find anything else.
At some point, Rowlet had woken up. It climbed up along Lumiere's clothes, squeezed its way out through the collar, and jumped straight into the backpack.
"Huh?"
Lumiere froze slightly, only to see Rowlet move with practiced ease, pulling open a lower compartment. To his surprise, there was a hidden space inside.
Looking more closely, he found two eggs. One was Togepi, fast asleep.
The other egg couldn't be checked for information—it probably hadn't hatched yet. The shell was dark blue, with light blue and red patterns on it, looking somewhat like a Gible egg.
Rowlet ignored both eggs and started rummaging around nearby instead.
"Hey, don't go digging through other people's stuff!"
Lumiere hurriedly reached in and pulled his little princess out of the backpack. But Rowlet seemed to have grabbed onto something and was dragged out together with it.
Just as he was about to stuff the thing back inside, he suddenly realized—it looked like a black skirt, with some strange decorations on it.
After examining it more carefully, he recognized it. This was a legendary Gothic Lolita outfit—elementary school size, no less.
And when he glanced back into the backpack, he could see several other outfits of the same size in different styles among the clothes Rowlet had dug out earlier…
"..."
As expected of you, Volo. You always manage to surprise me with something new.
Lumiere was truly speechless. Sure, everyone has their own… hobbies or preferences, but I still strongly recommend you restart your life.
Fortunately, he moved quickly and stuffed everything back in before Volo noticed anything wrong with his backpack. After finishing the tent, the two hid inside and watched the rain.
In less than a single day, Volo's image in Lumiere's mind had gone from villain, to good guy, and now was once again drifting dangerously toward "going to jail" territory…
At some point, Lumiere was suddenly shaken awake. Only then did he realize he'd fallen asleep without noticing.
"Are we there already?"
"We don't need to get off at the terminal. We'll get off near the Pokémon School. My place is close by."
"Oh…"
Holding the still-sleeping Rowlet, Lumiere looked out through the tent opening.
It was already night. The rain had stopped, and the air carried a faint dampness. In the distance, tall buildings and bright lights could be seen, not much different from a city nightscape in his original world.
Cars passed by on the road, rolling through puddles and splashing water dyed with reflected colors, startling two Meowth rummaging through trash cans nearby. One after the other, they fled into an alley.
By the roadside, a trainer holding an umbrella stopped, took out their phone, and snapped a photo of two Psyduck—one yellow, one blue—happily jumping in a puddle behind them.
"So this is a big city where humans and Pokémon live together…"
Watching scene after scene unfold before his eyes, the curiosity in Lumiere's heart to explore this world was amplified once more.
"Rowlet~"
Rowlet finally woke up, stretched its wings, then looked up at Lumiere blankly, as if saying it was hungry and wanted food.
"Alright, alright, we're almost at the place. Hang in there a bit longer." Lumiere affectionately rubbed its round head.
A few minutes later, the bus driver stopped the vehicle and leaned out the window, shouting, "Pokémon School stop! You can get off here."
"Got it~"
Volo responded, then dismantled the tent together with Lumiere and stuffed it back into his backpack. The two climbed down from the bus roof.
There was plenty of standing water around, but it wasn't a big deal as long as they were careful.
Moments later, as they watched the bus drive away, Volo slung his large backpack over his shoulders and led Lumiere onward.
It was already close to nine in the evening. Aside from a few dim streetlights, the Pokémon School was completely quiet, with hardly anyone around.
Still, it was clearly a large campus. Maybe there'd be a chance to look around during the day.
Volo led him past the school gate, walked a bit farther, entered a high-end residential area, and stopped in front of a two-story house with lights still on.
Looking at the house, Lumiere said in surprise, "A school-district house, and a standalone two-story one at that. What kind of family background is this?"
"I rent it with subsidies. There's no way I could afford to buy a place in this area…"
"So basically, I'm renting a secondhand rental?"
"In a certain sense, that's about right."
"..."
Lumiere was completely speechless. Volo walked up, put on a smile, pressed the doorbell, and called softly, "I'm home~"
"Just a moment… coming."
After a brief pause, footsteps sounded from behind the door, and it opened from the inside.
Standing there was a girl wearing light-blue pajamas with Gible patterns on them. She was wiping her hair with a towel, seemingly fresh out of the shower, and a faint scent of shampoo lingered in the air.
She wasn't very tall, and her appearance resembled Volo's somewhat—but she was cuter. Her strands of golden hair shimmered softly under the light.
The moment Lumiere saw her face, he hesitated slightly. Her identity immediately surfaced in his mind, and his expression turned to shock.
"Cynthia… big sis… or little sis?!"