Pokémon: My Parallel World Daughters Revealed

The video continued playing.

Deep within the desert, rolling sand dunes stretched into the distance without the slightest trace of greenery.

Miori had spent the entire day following an almost completely dried-up ancient riverbed. All she encountered along the way was yellow sand and broken stone.

A warning sign stood ahead of her. Written crookedly across it were the words:

"Ruins ahead. Please..."

Everything after that had been worn away by the sandstorms.

"In this context, an unfinished warning like that usually means, ’You’ll die if you go inside,’" Miori commented.

"But..."

She reached up and adjusted her goggles.

"How dangerous could a place my dad personally sent me to really be?"

After walking for approximately another hour, Miori finally saw the complex of ruins at the far end of the desert.

Relic Castle was even more magnificent than she had imagined.

The remains of stone pillars rose from the yellow sand. Each one stood more than ten meters tall and was densely covered in ancient writing.

Miori patted Emolga on top of her head.

"We’ll enter through the stone gate, pass through the corridor, and find the main hall first."

Emolga immediately flew down. Its cheek pouches lit up, allowing it to serve as a temporary flashlight.

An arched doorway stood at the end of the corridor. A shattered blue stone tablet had been embedded above it.

"What does that say?"

Miori narrowed her eyes and stared at the tablet for quite some time, but she couldn’t make out the writing.

She decided to move closer.

However, the very next second—

"Aaah—!!"

She stepped on a loose stone slab.

Her entire body slid down the slope beneath it as though she had been dropped onto a playground slide.

Her backside bounced against seven or eight stone steps before she finally crashed into a patch of soft sand in an exceptionally undignified position.

Emolga was launched through the air and landed directly on Miori’s face, all four paws spread across it.

Miori peeled Emolga off, spat the sand out of her mouth, and muttered:

"...Ancient people, did your trials include going down slides?"

Only after climbing to her feet did she notice the magnificent underground palace directly ahead.

A gigantic stone statue stood at the center of the main hall.

Miori walked around it and discovered a line of ancient writing carved into its back. When she scanned it with her Pokédex, it produced only a single sentence:

[None but the king may enter.]

"None but the king may enter?"

Miori scratched her cheek.

"Doesn’t that mean anyone who successfully enters this place is the king?"

[Regular-Seat Chat Group]

"I entered this hall → only the king can enter this hall → therefore, I really am the king."

"Ancient people: No, we weren’t thinking that deeply when we carved it."

"Miori: I don’t care. You carved the words, I got inside, and that makes me the king. Hurry up and issue my coronation certificate."

[VIP Chat Group]

[Steven]: "None but the king may enter"? Miori landed on her backside when she entered, so does that count as the King’s Slide Tackle?

[Wallace]: Steven, try to behave normally. Becoming a king can’t possibly be that simple.

[Diantha]: Hmm... Judging by the plots of most movies, people capable of becoming kings usually possess some kind of rare abilities or bloodline.

[Steven]: Brother Asher’s bloodline is naturally invincible! It doesn’t matter what specialty his daughter pursues—she’ll always bring it to the absolute pinnacle!

[Wallace]: You’ve completely abandoned logic when praising Asher now.

[Steven]: Who needs logic? Brother Asher is logic.

[Asher]: Excellent speech, Steven. Don’t ever give it again.

The video continued playing.

Miori slowly followed the wall, running her fingers over the uneven inscriptions.

The Pokédex’s translation function intermittently managed to identify several words:

"Ideals."

"Truth."

"Ideals and truth again."

Miori stopped walking.

"Dad said Reshiram is the Dragon of Truth and Zekrom is the Dragon of Ideals. Is this castle connected to them too?"

The moment she finished speaking, the ground beneath her feet suddenly trembled.

The base of the enormous statue in the center of the main hall slowly split apart.

A stone staircase rose from within the opening, extending downward into absolute darkness.

"I knew it."

Miori planted both hands on her hips, looking exceptionally pleased with herself.

"I activated a hidden mechanism just by walking around. What does that prove? It proves I was born to be the protagonist."

Emolga pointed one wing toward the bottomless staircase before flying ahead. A small circle of warm yellow light spread around it.

The staircase was extremely long.

The farther down they went, the colder the air became. The surrounding rock gradually gave way to solid black stone walls.

"Now this looks like a proper ancient ruin."

Miori planted her hands on her hips.

"Look at the interior design. Understated yet luxurious, filled with mysteries beneath the extravagance, and within those mysteries..."

Before she could finish, the glowing stones embedded in both walls simultaneously changed from blue to red.

"...there are traps."

Miori expressionlessly completed her sentence.

A heavy impact sounded from the end of the corridor, followed by the grating noise of something massive scraping across the ground.

Miori and Emolga exchanged a glance.

"Run!"

The girl and Pokémon dashed into a nearby passageway.

Behind them, an enormous stone sphere nearly two meters in diameter rolled from the other end of the corridor. The stone floor creaked beneath its tremendous weight.

Miori looked back while running.

"Isn’t this trap ridiculously old-fashioned?! Did ancient people have no creativity at all?!"

Naturally, the stone sphere didn’t answer.

It merely rolled closer.

Miori reached the end of the corridor and discovered three branching paths ahead.

"Take the middle one!"

She lunged into the central passageway.

The stone sphere stopped at the junction.

It wasn’t because it had lost momentum. The opening was simply too narrow, leaving it firmly wedged in place.

Miori remained bent over with her hands on her knees, panting for quite some time.

She finally straightened and looked at the motionless stone sphere lodged between the walls.

An exceptionally smug smile appeared on her face.

"That’s it? Is that really all you’ve got? It seems ancient people weren’t particularly skilled at designing mechanisms after all!"

The stone sphere remained silent for a moment.

Then it split open through the center.

It didn’t shatter into ordinary pieces of rock.

Instead, its shell separated cleanly into four sections like the petals of a flower. Countless gears and transmission shafts were embedded within each section.

All four sections of stone began rotating simultaneously. The sound of interlocking gears echoed throughout the corridor.

Miori’s smile froze.

"It... It transformed?!"

She stared in disbelief.

"Why would a stone ball need to transform?!"

The stone sphere—or rather, the object that could no longer reasonably be called a stone sphere—released a succession of crisp metallic impacts as it rearranged itself.

The four sections of its stone shell folded backward, revealing a complete mechanical structure inside.

Ten seconds later, an enormous four-legged mechanical beast crouched in the middle of the junction.

Its body was constructed from countless intricate gears and transmission rods.

Its head possessed no facial features. There was only a horizontal glowing slit aimed directly at Miori.

Miori slowly raised both hands.

"I apologize, ancient people. You were extremely creative. Please turn it back into a ball."

The mechanical beast emitted a piercing, high-frequency hum.

All four legs began moving simultaneously as it charged toward Miori.

"Why am I still getting attacked after apologizing?!"

Miori turned and ran.

The mechanical beast opened its mouth and fired a compressed energy projectile.

The attack grazed Miori’s shoulder before striking the stone wall and blasting out a small scorched crater.

"What even is this thing?!"

Miori dropped into a slide and shot into a side passage.

"Whatever! Staying alive comes first!"

After rushing into the side passage, she slid all the way down and landed in a wide underground chamber.

Stone walls surrounded the entire space.

There were no other exits.

Seeing this, Miori expressionlessly turned around and pulled out a Poké Ball.

"I only ran away earlier because I was worried about accidentally bringing the entire corridor down."

She stared at the approaching mechanical beast.

"You didn’t genuinely think I was afraid of you, did you?"