“Little Yellow, go talk to them and see if you can persuade them to move somewhere else,” Lu Li said to Beedrill.
Beedrill nodded.
Worried that Beedrill might get hurt, Lu Li added, “Be careful. Try not to get too close to Butterfree. If it attacks you, fight back immediately.”
Unlike with other wild Pokémon, Lu Li wasn’t particularly worried about Beedrill getting injured. After all, Indeedee was practically half a Pokémon doctor and knew a few healing moves.
Even if Beedrill really did get hurt, the worst he could do was swallow his pride and beg Indeedee to help.
Beedrill flew toward the large tree where the Butterfree lived and began conveying Lu Li’s request.
“Bee~drill…”
I am a male Butterfree. Just one month ago, I was still living with my childhood sweetheart in a small valley filled with blooming flowers.
Back then, we were incredibly happy and carefree. We had even produced many offspring.
My mate and I used to dream every day of the time when our family would spread throughout the entire valley. When the flowers bloomed, countless Butterfree would dance gracefully among them.
But all of that changed a month ago.
In the blink of an eye, my mate, our children, and I were transported to this unfamiliar world. It’s a world desperately lacking in resources.
Here, I couldn’t find any sweet nectar. Even the tree sap we could feed on was bland, tasteless, and completely lacking in nutrition. Compared to our previous lives, this place was practically hell.
But as Pokémon, we possess an extraordinary ability to adapt, and we quickly adjusted to life in this world.
Although the tree sap was bland, tasteless, and devoid of nutrition, we could still survive as long as we consumed enough of it.
At first, we were filled with despair. I even took out my anger on the natives of this world.
They were creatures that resembled humans. They were incredibly weak, yet they had appearances just like humans.
Whenever I got angry, I would seek out those fake humans to vent my frustration. But later, I discovered that every time I did so, I would feel a depletion of energy within my body.
This world was already far too barren. Eventually, I slowly accepted reality and stopped taking my anger out on the fake humans, choosing instead to suppress my rage deep within my heart.
I originally thought that things had already become so terrible that they couldn’t possibly get any worse.
But then, one day, my children told me that some of their siblings had died. They were from the most recent batch of offspring my mate and I had produced.
I went to examine them and discovered that they had all died of old age.
What kind of ridiculous joke was this?!
Although there were cases among humans of parents outliving their children, we were Pokémon! Why would something like this happen to us? Besides, I wasn’t even particularly strong!
Later, even more of my children died of old age.
At first, it was only the youngest batch. But eventually, even the children who had evolved into Metapod began dying of old age, one after another. In less than a month, nearly half of my children had died of old age.
I hated the Creator God for being so unfair. We had been living perfectly happy lives in our original valley, so why had he thrown us into this godforsaken place?
Since arriving in this world, I have experienced far too much life and death.
Some of my children died of old age, while others were hunted by bird Pokémon. I was exhausted. Come to think of it, my mate and I were no longer particularly young ourselves.
But for the sake of our children, we gritted our teeth and endured, continuing to consume that bland tree sap day after day.
But today, a Beedrill suddenly came looking for me.
This Beedrill was a disgrace to Pokémon because it had submitted to a human—and a fake human at that! Although the other party had disguised himself to look remarkably like a real human, I saw through his true nature at a glance.
That person was nothing more than a half-real, half-fake imitation of a human. Even more outrageous was the fact that this damned Beedrill had actually come to threaten us on behalf of that fake human!
It had the audacity to tell us to move somewhere else because its master wanted to claim this territory.
Butterfree glared furiously at the Beedrill before it.
Their lives were already miserable enough, so why did this b*stard have to come and trample all over them?!
Furious beyond measure, Butterfree decisively launched an attack.
A wave of Supersonic blasted straight toward Beedrill.
In the Pokémon world, Supersonic had two ways of being used. One was as an area-of-effect attack, releasing sound waves without restraint to indiscriminately strike everything in the surrounding area.
However, worried about hurting its children, Butterfree used the other version of Supersonic—a single-target attack.
Beedrill, which had been on guard all along, narrowly dodged Butterfree’s sudden attack.
Realizing that negotiations had broken down, Beedrill stared coldly at the Butterfree before it with its compound eyes.
Just then, the female Butterfree beside it also made its move.
The stronger female Butterfree fired a Psybeam at Beedrill.
Beedrill dodged the attack again. Because there was a considerable difference in both distance and strength between the two sides, Beedrill could easily evade their moves.
Meanwhile, after seeing the Butterfree launch their attacks, Lu Li quietly found some cover and hid behind it.
At this moment, there were at least twenty meters between him and Beedrill. If he weren’t worried that being too far away would interfere with his commands, Lu Li would have loved to put another hundred meters between them.
“Little Yellow! Use Agility to close the distance, then attack the Butterfree that fired Psybeam with Twineedle!” Lu Li shouted at the top of his lungs.
Upon hearing the command, Beedrill instantly closed in on the female Butterfree. Raising both its stingers, it thrust them toward it without hesitation.
The female Butterfree desperately tried to dodge, but it only managed to avoid Beedrill’s first stinger. Beedrill’s second stinger struck its wing directly.
After all, the reason Twineedle was called Twineedle was naturally because it attacked twice.
Meanwhile, the male Butterfree seized the opportunity. With a powerful flap of its wings, it scattered paralyzing powder toward Beedrill, covering a vast area.
“Dodge it!” Lu Li shouted.
Hearing the warning, Beedrill abruptly stopped and leaned backward, performing a backward flip to create some distance before swiftly darting out of paralyzing powder’s range.
“Little Yellow, let’s use poison too! Use Poison Sting!” Lu Li continued commanding.
Purplish-black poisonous stingers shot straight toward the female Butterfree.
It tried to dodge, but its wing had just been injured, slowing its movements slightly. It could only watch helplessly as the poisonous stingers stabbed toward it.
Just then, the male Butterfree moved in front of the female Butterfree.
“Protect?” Lu Li stared in astonishment at the Poison Sting that had been blocked by Protect.
Could someone explain why a wild Butterfree knew how to use Protect?!
Male Butterfree: Of course it’s because I have someone I need to protect!
After its attack failed, Beedrill decided to press its advantage and finish off its weakened opponents.
But just then, the male Butterfree called for Beedrill to stop.
Both it and its mate were almost completely exhausted. Ever since arriving in this damned world, they hadn’t eaten a single proper meal, even though it had been eating constantly.
If they continued fighting, even if they ultimately won, they would still be poisoned. Combined with their inability to fill their stomachs, their entire family would become nothing more than lambs waiting to be slaughtered.
Taking this into consideration, the male Butterfree decided to make peace.
“Butterfree“
(You win. I’m willing to move.)
The male Butterfree’s cry carried a mixture of grief, anger, and resentment. Seeing this, Beedrill stopped attacking and quickly flew back to Lu Li’s side.
“Beedrill“
(They’ve admitted defeat and agreed to move.)
Hearing this, Lu Li nodded. He had no intention of wiping them out completely. After all, Butterfree weren’t Raticate. If they were willing to move, he was perfectly happy to spare them.
“Go tell them to move right now. And they’re not allowed to attack humans anymore,” Lu Li said.
Beedrill nodded, then flew over to the Butterfree and relayed Lu Li’s words.
“Butterfree“
(We agree.)
Lu Li’s demands weren’t unreasonable. When the male Butterfree had first arrived in this world, it had indeed sought out fake humans to vent its anger. But now, it no longer even considered doing such a thing.
After Beedrill flew back again, Lu Li pointed out a location to it.
It was a median strip on the outskirts of Xinghai Residential Complex. That direction happened to lead to an intersection, and under normal circumstances, there shouldn’t be anyone deliberately passing through that area.
Beedrill nodded and once again resumed its proper duties as a diplomat.
After the female Butterfree recovered, it obediently led its entire family to their new home.
The Butterfree carried their larva children on their backs and slowly flew toward the distant median strip. Working together, the Butterfree couple made nearly eight round trips before their entire family finally completed the move.
Watching the busy Butterfree family, Lu Li rubbed the bridge of his nose and muttered to himself somewhat awkwardly, “Why do I suddenly feel like I’m some kind of evil tyrant?”
Beside him, Beedrill remained as silent as a cold, ruthless knight. In Beedrill’s eyes, being driven out of one’s territory after losing a battle was perfectly normal in the wild.
Moreover, even if they hadn’t shown up today, the Butterfree family would have had to move anyway, because they had already eaten through almost all the trees in the vicinity.
Caterpie and Metapod ate the leaves, and once the leaves were gone, the Butterfree couple would absorb the nutrients from the trunks. Basically, not a single tree they had lived in remained alive.
What did it mean to be a pest? These were pests through and through! And they were even pests that knew how to avoid wasting resources.
Although the Butterfree had left, they hadn’t taken the shells left behind by the deceased Metapod.
In the Pokémon world, Pokémon bodies wouldn’t decompose after death. Instead, they would turn into energy and return to the world. However, there were exceptions, and some Pokémon would leave behind certain materials after dying.
For example, Beedrill would leave behind poisonous stingers after death, Butterfree would leave behind poisonous powder, and Metapod and Kakuna would leave behind their shells.
Lu Li deliberately avoided the area where the two sides had just fought. After all, Butterfree had previously used Sleep Powder, and Butterfree also shed some scales during battle. These substances were all highly toxic.
Don’t assume Sleep Powder isn’t lethal. In the Pokémon world, this stuff was called Sleep Powder, but in the real world, it was undoubtedly poison. After all, an overdose of sleeping pills could kill someone, and Sleep Powder worked on the same pharmacological principle.
Wearing gloves, Lu Li picked up a shell from the base of a decaying tree. It was a relatively fresh shell, still yellowish-green in color.
The shells left behind by Metapod after death were initially emerald green, then gradually turned yellowish-green, and finally lost their color entirely, becoming pale yellow or translucent light yellow.
“One, two, three, four…”
“Ten shells in total? In other words, at least ten Metapod from the Butterfree family have died in less than a month? That’s quite a high mortality rate.”
Lu Li secretly clicked his tongue in astonishment.
He had originally thought humans had it pretty rough, but unexpectedly, these Bug-type Pokémon weren’t having an easy time either. From a certain perspective, the mastermind behind everything seemed to be somewhat fair.
Lu Li continued silently criticizing the mastermind responsible for bringing Pokémon into this world, then picked up his walkie-talkie and contacted Jun Shutong.
“You can come over now. Remember to bring a few people from Atonement Camp. There are some things I need them to test, and I’ll also need them to carry some stuff,” Lu Li said over the walkie-talkie.
Lu Li wasn’t sure whether the shells left behind by the dead Metapod were poisonous. They weren’t poisonous in the Pokémon world, but that didn’t necessarily mean they were harmless to humans.
Besides, he still needed to test whether the Sleep Powder had completely dissipated.
After making sure he hadn’t overlooked anything, Lu Li returned to the outer corridor of the mall and waited for Jun Shutong to bring the others over.
Five minutes later.
Jun Shutong arrived with members of the Scavenging Team, along with several criminals who had been escorted over with ropes tied around their legs.
“You two, go over there and collect those shells on the ground,” Lu Li instructed, pointing toward the shells in the distance.
The two criminals he singled out were unwilling to cooperate, but after Old Xu gave them two lashes with his whip, they obediently hurried off to work.
“Brother Lu, there’s no need to be polite to these inhuman beasts. If they don’t listen, just give them a few more lashes. Whether it’s livestock in the countryside or black slaves in the past, this method has already been proven effective. It’s a very practical approach,” Old Xu said with a grin.
Lu Li: “…”
That era was already long gone. Was there really any need to make such a dark joke?
Lu Li shook his head with a faint chuckle, then began observing the two criminals.
He had deliberately refrained from warning them to avoid the area where the fight had just taken place, so he kept a close eye on their reactions.
At first, the two walked at a fairly brisk pace. But as they passed through the area where the battle had occurred, their steps began to slow. After taking only a few more steps, they collapsed onto the ground.
Seeing this, the remaining criminals stared at Lu Li in terror, their expressions making it seem as though they were looking at a devil.
“What’s with those looks? Back then, we looked at you beasts with exactly the same eyes! How dare you look at our leader like that?!”
A shrill voice rang out, followed by someone kicking one of the criminals to the ground.
The person who had delivered the kick was also the one shouting insults.
Lu Li glanced at Yao Xia in surprise.
“Why did she come along?” Lu Li asked Old Xu.
“Yao Xia is Sister Jun’s assistant now. Sister Jun couldn’t come, so Yao Xia volunteered to join the Scavenging Team in her place,” Old Xu explained.
Afraid that Lu Li might misunderstand, Old Xu quickly added, “Leader, we didn’t specifically ask her to come. Yao Xia really volunteered.”
“All right. I’ll ask Jun Shutong about it when I get back.” Lu Li nodded and stopped paying attention to Yao Xia.
“Sister Yao! I was wrong! Please stop hitting me!”
“Sister Yao, I really know I was wrong! They’re all looking at him the same way, so why are you only hitting me?!”
“Sister Yao, we’re completely loyal to the leader! We’re genuinely working hard to atone for our sins!” The criminal who had made the mistake shouted out his innocence, while clutching his head to protect himself.
Lu Li frowned.
“Enough! Stop making so much noise! If you’re too loud, you’ll attract the nearby demon beasts!” Lu Li put an end to the farce.
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