Not Being a Trainer This Time

According to the location marked on the map Raifort gave him, the Icerend Shrine where Chien-Pao is sealed lies in the foothills in the western part of the Paldea Region.

This time, Naoki once again went with the same strategy as the previous three times, using the Power of Viridian and food to hire local Pokemon gangs to help him search for the Icerend Shrine and those eight Sealing Pillars.

Stonjourner, Phanpy, Mudbray, Numel, Gumshoos, Makuhita...

For the sake of tasty food, this group of wild Pokemon happily agreed.

They all turned around and ran off in different directions, starting to comb the mountains for whatever it was this human wanted to find.

"As expected, the kinds of Pokemon living in the mountains are really different from the ones on the plains!" Watching the backs of those Pokemon, Naoki couldn’t help muttering.

Pokemon like Stonjourner and Numel were almost nowhere to be seen back near Porto Marinada Town.

Naoki even spotted Pokemon like Rockruff and Axew among them.

Rockruff, a Pokemon from the Alola Region, has three different evolution forms: Midday, Dusk, and Midnight.

In the anime, Ash has a really cool Dusk Lycanroc.

And that Axew ultimately evolves into Haxorus, whose strength is also pretty impressive.

While those Pokemon were off helping him investigate the Icerend Shrine and the Sealing Stakes, Naoki began surveying the Pokemon species that lived around here.

If he remembered correctly, in the game there were rare and precious Pokemon like Riolu, Larvitar, Bagon, and Gible living in this area.

Tyranitar evolved from Larvitar, Salamence evolved from Bagon, and Garchomp evolved from Gible are all incredibly powerful Pseudo-legendary Pokemon.

Naoki started wandering through the mountains with Koraidon.

Weaving along the mountain path, he could see a woodland set in a valley below.

There, Naoki saw a group of Pokemon covered in pale yellow fur, with brown on the ends of their limbs, and a pink pig nose on their faces.

Those were Mankey!

The group of Mankey were using their nimble hands and tails to grab the branches, hanging from the trees, yammering loudly, saying who knew what.

"So many Mankey!"

"Aga-sii?" Koraidon turned its head and glanced at the group of Mankey.

"Shh!" Naoki immediately made a hush gesture. "Keep it down, don’t startle that bunch of Mankey!"

From what he knew, Mankey are short-tempered Pokemon that get angry easily, and once they fly into a rage it’s hard to stop their rampage.

More importantly, as long as one Mankey gets mad, the others nearby will get mad too, so there’s never a quiet moment in a Mankey troop.

"Aga-sii!" Koraidon immediately insisted it could beat all those Mankey.

Naoki smiled and patted its head. "I know, but it’s better not to look for trouble, and with that many Mankey, what if a few of them come to attack me while you’re busy fighting the others? So let’s just not go provoking them."

But in response to that, Koraidon was full of confidence, a proud look appearing on its face.

"Aga-sii!"

It was no longer that weak little Cyclizar from before. No matter how many Mankey there were, it would knock them all down!

Naoki: "..."

"Alright, alright, let’s get going! They haven’t done anything to us." With that, Naoki pushed Koraidon along and left the area.

"Aga-sii..." Koraidon could only agree helplessly.

Farther ahead seemed to be a Bombirdier’s territory.

Naoki saw from a distance a Bird-type Pokemon dropping rocks from the sky for fun.

Huge rumbling boulders were hurled down by Bombirdier, rolling straight along the mountain path—Bombirdier seemed to be enjoying itself.

Then Naoki saw some of those boulders roll into the woods where the Mankey lived.

Seeing this, the Mankey troop was instantly enraged.

Howling furiously, they pounded their chests with their fists and then charged in unison toward Bombirdier’s turf.

A territorial battle between wild Pokemon was about to erupt!

Naoki hurriedly mounted Koraidon to get out of danger.

He watched with his own eyes as the Mankey rushed into Bombirdier’s territory, but Bombirdier was in the air, and Mankey couldn’t fly.

Furious, they stomped wildly, only able to pick up little stones from the ground and hurl them at Bombirdier in the sky.

Naoki: "..."

Just then, the nearby stones were all picked clean by the Mankey. One Mankey couldn’t find any more stones, so it turned its head and looked around.

Soon, its gaze locked onto a certain direction.

Following that Mankey’s line of sight, Naoki saw a Pokemon with a pink body and lower half that looked like it was wearing pants walking toward them from not far away.

That was... Happiny?!

Naoki was slightly taken aback.

Completely unaware of what was going on ahead, Happiny had just walked up when the Mankey rushed over to it, snatched the round stone on its belly that looked very much like an egg, then dashed to a spot under Bombirdier and hurled it with all its might.

"Buuku!"

Seeing this, Happiny was struck as if by Bolt Strike, and then snapped out of it and angrily charged at that Mankey.

The next second, it was grabbed by the enraged Mankey and thrown toward Bombirdier.

"Buuku!"

Happiny cried out in alarm, and seeing things go south, Naoki immediately shouted a command: "Koraidon!"