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"This may disappoint you, Miss Lanqi. Why don't you exchange the documents in your hands and take a look?"
Hearing the suggestion from the fairly good-looking female Trainer in front of him, Sato smiled faintly, then shook his head.
After that, he placed the document in his hand openly on the table, allowing the other party to read it freely.
"Pika~pi~"
Pikachu was the first to react. Without the slightest hesitation, he jumped from Sato's shoulder onto Lanqi's shoulder. When he saw the patterns on the document in her hands, he immediately imitated Sato, shaking his head and calling out in an old-fashioned, world-weary tone.
"How could this be… does that mean everyone's task target is different?"
Hearing Sato's words and seeing Pikachu's reaction, Lanqi quickly realized what was going on. She hurriedly compared her document with the one Sato had placed on the table, then said in frustration.
At this point, she had already discovered that the contents of her document were vastly different from Sato's. Even the hints for the task locations were completely mismatched.
In other words, Sato and she were not heading in the same direction. If Sato helped her, he would likely have no time left to complete his own task.
Sato's words stirred up a huge reaction.
Earlier, all the civilian Trainers had been wary of one another, maintaining almost zero communication. They even sat far apart from each other.
As a result, none of them had noticed that their documents were different. Now that they realized it, they became just as annoyed as Lanqi.
"Damn, it's really like that. Even the location hints are totally off. That means teaming up is pointless."
"I thought forming a team could lower the difficulty. Looks like the old foxes really know their tricks—trying to exploit loopholes is way too hard."
"Does anyone's task location mention Fiery Path? If so, let's go together—at least we'd be on the same road."
For a moment, the reception room was filled with murmurs. The civilian Trainers looked at one another, their expressions unpleasant. Still, some refused to give up and began calling out their task locations, hoping to find someone who could at least help a little.
After all, as the saying goes, the more the merrier.
The difference between having teammates and going solo was enormous. With teammates, at the very least, you had extra eyes to observe and extra brains to think. And if it was a male–female pairing, even better—who knew, something pleasantly unexpected might happen along the way.
Sato had no intention of teaming up. After pointing out that the tasks were different, he quickly left the League building with Pikachu.
A little over ten minutes later, he was already riding his off-road bicycle along the high-speed cycling route leading toward Mauville City.
As he rode safely along the roadside, Sato pondered the scant information provided in his task document.
Although the document itself was quite large, the information written on it was pitifully sparse—only three phrases in total: a grassy plain with fragrant wind, a pitch-black place, and a stone statue.
In truth, even with so little information, Sato already had a rough idea of where the task item might be located.
Most of the Hoenn region consisted of hilly terrain, and due to its proximity to the equator, vast areas were covered by tropical rainforest. Grasslands were extremely rare.
In Sato's memory, there was only one place in Hoenn that matched the description of a grassy plain with fragrant wind—Verdanturf Town. It was a small town situated on a grassy plain, and thanks to the wind direction, it hadn't been affected by the volcanic ash from Mt. Chimney.
As for a pitch-black place, Sato guessed it referred to somewhere sunlight couldn't reach—most likely a cave. And to the northwest of Verdanturf Town, there just happened to be a cave.
At present, that cave was still under construction. Its purpose was to be excavated through to connect to Rustboro City. Once completed, it would become a tunnel—what would later be known as Rusturf Tunnel.
As for the final hint, the stone statue, Sato believed that was the last clue pointing to where the task item was hidden. If nothing unexpected happened, the statue should be located somewhere inside the cave.
However, if he wanted to find it quickly, he would most likely need to interact with the residents of Verdanturf Town.
This time, the journey to Mauville City was very safe. He didn't encounter any reckless biker gangs along the way. In a little over half an hour, he smoothly reached the other end of the cycling route and arrived at Mauville City.
But the moment Sato entered Mauville City, he sensed that something was wrong.
It was only a little past four in the afternoon, yet the streets were eerily desolate. Most of the shops lining the roads were closed.
"Excuse me, did something happen in the city? Why are the streets so deserted?"
Sato stopped a rare passerby to ask about the situation.
"You just came in from outside, didn't you? Mauville City has been suffering a citywide blackout. It's been like this for several days now. Without electricity, most shops can't operate normally. Sigh… who knows when the power will be restored."
"Oh, right—your Pikachu's electricity should still be pretty full, right? Could you have him charge the backup batteries in my shop? If there's no power any longer, all my stock is going to melt."
The hurried passerby had been irritated at first when Sato stopped him. But the moment he saw Pikachu on Sato's shoulder, his eyes lit up. After answering Sato's question, he looked at Pikachu with eager anticipation.
Before Sato could even respond, the man enthusiastically scooped Pikachu up from Sato's shoulder and tried to rub his face against Pikachu's cheeks.
"Hey—don't!"
Seeing the passerby commit such a suicidal act, Sato shouted to stop him. Unfortunately, he was still a step too late.
"Pika—CHU!!!"
Because the person touching him wasn't a beautiful woman—and was even trying to rub faces with him—Pikachu instantly flew into a rage. A non-lethal Thunder Shock burst from his body.
"Ahhh!!"
"So… so numb…"
The next second, a scream rang out as the man collapsed to the ground, his body scorched black.
"Pika~"
Seeing the man electrocuted and lying on the ground, Pikachu quickly hopped back onto Sato's shoulder, calling out disdainfully.
...…
More than ten minutes later, inside an ice cream shop in the city center, Sato and Pikachu were happily eating luxurious, oversized ice creams with spoons.
"Here you go, Pikachu. This is your reward."
After Pikachu finished most of his ice cream, a green-haired girl with short hair, wearing a white dress, brought over a cup of chilled sour plum juice. Smiling brightly, she handed it to Pikachu, her eyes sparkling.
Pikachu clearly loved the sour taste. After drinking it, he wore an expression of pure enjoyment, then lay flat on his back on the table, completely relaxed.
Seeing this, the green-haired girl happily rubbed Pikachu's fur with her fair hands, letting out bell-like laughter.
The man's name was Horn. He was the owner of this ice cream shop. Due to the blackout, his products had nearly been ruined. If not for the backup batteries, all his ice cream would have been lost long ago.
But after several days without power, even those batteries were nearly depleted. Thankfully, with Pikachu's electricity earlier, his shop had finally escaped the crisis of total loss.
At the moment, Horn and his daughter were hosting Sato and Pikachu in the shop, while also taking the opportunity to quickly sell off some of the accumulated stock.
Unfortunately, without enough power to run the air conditioning, there were still very few pedestrians outside. Most people stayed indoors to avoid the heat.
"Wahaha~! Horn, you're finally open! I'll take a strawberry one!"
Just as Sato finished his ice cream and was about to take his leave, a hearty laugh came from behind him. Turning around, he saw a white-haired, chubby old man wearing a shirt patterned with lightning bolts push the door open and sit down at the table next to him.
"It's him."
Sato recognized the man instantly.
It was Wattson—the electricity-obsessed Trainer who had already been appointed by the League as the Gym Leader of Mauville City's Gym.