Seeing the pile of stuff poured out of the backpack, the general-store owner was stunned. Ten Poké Balls’ worth of Pokémon was already quite a haul, and he immediately started picking through them carefully.

In the sewer black market, Poison- and Grass-type Pokémon were still worth good money because of the Poison Gang that operated here. Anyone who wanted to join that gang first had to capture a Poison-type Pokémon.

However, most of these Pokémon already had Trainers. Recapturing them wasn’t easy, so the only real option was to sell them to a Day Care to breed young.

After carefully sorting through them, the shop owner picked out five second-stage evolutions: two Weepinbell, one Golbat, one Gloom, and one Lombre. He set those five second-stage Pokémon aside.

The remaining Spinarak, Tentacool, Ekans, Grimer, and Beedrill were placed in another pile.

On top of that, he sorted out three categories of non-Pokémon items: Antidotes and various medicines, several knives and daggers, a bunch of Poké Balls, a few broken fossils, and some Poison-type Pokémon training books, stacking them together.

Besides that, there was also a rookie item, Poison Barb, a low-purity Leaf Stone, and ten boxes of Grass-type Pokéblocks. He placed those in a separate pile.

In this way, everything was split into four piles so it’d be easier to estimate the value.

Once the owner finished sorting, he finally started pricing things. “The quality of this batch of hot goods is average. Since you were sent by a regular, I’ll give you this: the Golbat, I can offer 1,000,000 for it. Gloom and Lombre are 300,000 each, and each Weepinbell is 200,000…”

“As for the Spinarak, I’ll give 150,000. Ekans, 100,000. Tentacool, 50,000. Grimer, also 50,000. Beedrill you can take and release; I don’t want that kind of trash in my shop.”

“This pricing is based on how hard they are to catch. Tentacool are everywhere in the shallows, and there’s plenty of Grimer in the sewers…”

After he finished his quote, the owner turned his eyes to Reiji, waiting for his decision. If Reiji didn’t agree, he could walk out with the Poké Balls at any time.

Reiji listened to the prices and nodded lightly in agreement. He felt it was fair enough. After all, these weren’t baby Pokémon. If they were young, they’d sell for even more.

At this moment, he finally understood just how obscene the profits at the department store’s Day Care really were. A common Pokémon that cost only 50,000 in “raw materials” was being sold for hundreds of thousands in the department store. The only explanation was that the customers were way too trusting.

There was also one thing the shop owner hadn’t said aloud: these Pokémon were technically optional. The real issue was that in places with heavy human activity, these Pokémon had become harder and harder to catch.

Once people realized they could make money catching these species, every Trainer skulking around in the sewers would be out there catching them.

When that happened, the Pokémon that originally hid in the sewers would either flee or burrow deeper. To catch them, you’d have to go to even more remote areas.

But more remote areas fell under strict League crackdowns. Compared to that, sewers like this—lawless zones—actually carried less risk.

Seeing that Reiji didn’t object to the prices, the general-store owner raised his hand and pointed at the pile of miscellaneous items sitting with the backpack: Antidotes, medicines, Poké Balls, broken fossils, knives and daggers, and those cheap street-stall books.

“For that pile of junk, I’ll give you 50,000. If you don’t want to sell, you can take it all back.”

“And for the rookie item, Poison Barb, I’ll pay 700,000. The underground black market has the Poison Gang, so demand is pretty high. This low-grade Leaf Stone, I can offer 1,200,000. You can also go put it on a stall in the black market below—you might get an even better price…”

“As for these ten boxes of decent Grass-type Pokéblocks, they’ve got plenty of impurities. They barely qualify as ‘decent’ product—probably made in some little workshop. I’ll count them as 1,000 a box. Down in the black market, you should be able to get 1,500 a box…”

After the owner finished his quote, he fell quiet, unsure whether Reiji would sell the rest or not, and waited patiently for his answer.

“That’s fine.” Reiji pretended to ponder for a bit, then nodded.

He did a quiet tally of the profit. This haul was actually less than what he’d made from the last smuggling ship, but the risk was still within a controllable range, and that was enough. Worst case, he just had to do it a few more times.

“Here’s 4,310,000 Pokédollars. You can count it if you like.” The owner handed over a plastic bag stuffed with cash. Four of the bundles were tied in neat stacks of 1,000,000 each. Reiji thumbed through them roughly with his thumb, then counted the remaining 310,000, which was simple enough.

After confirming the amount was correct, he pulled out 60,000 on the spot and passed it to the young bartender, giving him a light pat on the shoulder. “You did great. Take the extra as a tip.”

After patting the bartender on the shoulder, Reiji left the shop with the remaining 4,250,000 Pokédollars, planning to hit the sewer black market again. A couple more casts of the line, a couple more greedy fish, and he should be able to match his previous score from that smuggling ship.

Once Reiji was gone, the shop owner turned his gaze to the young bartender and tossed him the Poké Balls containing Beedrill and Grimer.

“I remember you already have a Grimer. Take these two and let your Grimer feed on them. The more toxins it eats, the stronger it’ll become.”

A lot of people understood this in theory, but Grimer itself scared off most prospective Trainers. First, it stank. Second, it was highly toxic. Third, it brought pollution with it wherever it went.

Grimer itself was born from industrial pollution—never mind dirty water and sludge, even heavy-metal pollutants couldn’t be ignored. Even its breath polluted the air. Hardly anyone wanted to raise a Grimer.

Even so, there were still plenty of Trainers hungry for power who did raise Grimer. They were chasing raw killing power, the idea of “hurt the enemy by a thousand even if you hurt yourself by eight hundred.”

If all you cared about was maximum damage output, you really could raise a Grimer.

“Thanks, old man.” The young bartender took the Poké Balls. He knew this was his cut for bringing in the business and didn’t bother to act polite.

There were countless teenagers like him struggling to survive here. Everyone was just taking what they needed from one another.

Back at the bar, the bartender couldn’t help thinking about that mysterious man, Reiji. The guy really was his golden goose. In just three meetings, the tips he’d gotten were more than a month of running drinks in the bar, even more than the salary his boss paid him.

He brooded to himself: Is running with crooks really that profitable? That guy just made over four million in one go. That’s two years of my wages.

It might really be time to return to the black market and see if there’s a way to make some money.

Otherwise, when would he ever scrape together enough resources to raise his Grimer properly, and buy an Electric-type for his little sister on top of that? All of that took serious cash.

The bar job was safe, sure, but the pay was just too low. It couldn’t support him on the Trainer path at all. He was already sixteen—if he wasted much more time, he’d probably miss his chance at becoming a Trainer altogether.

…

Reiji, already far away, had no idea what was running through the bartender’s mind. He stopped in front of a nearby ATM, slid in the two bank cards he’d taken, and keyed in the birthday PINs from their ID cards.

The first card’s PIN failed twice in a row. He gave up and tossed the card.

Fortunately, the second PIN was correct, though the balance on that card wasn’t much. Even emptied, it only gave him 400,000.

After withdrawing the cash, he went back down to the shore and threw the ID cards and that bank card into the sea.

He sat on the beach, letting the sea breeze wash over him, and pulled out his little notebook to balance his accounts.

He had 2,800,000 in cash, plus the 400,000 from the bank card, and 4,250,000 Pokédollars from selling his loot to the shop owner.

Total balance: 7,450,000 Pokédollars (seven million four hundred and fifty thousand).

Reiji was fairly satisfied with this haul. Just one more round of robbing crooks, and he’d match what he’d earned from that smuggling ship. He put his pen and notebook back into his backpack, then summoned Pelipper to carry him to the sewer outlet.

When he reappeared in the Poison Gang–run market cavern, the masked men who’d noticed him before all stared. They were shocked he’d come back alive instead of getting wiped out by the people chasing him.

His unharmed return meant those masked pursuers had suffered a grim fate.

In fact, other people had already gone to the scene of the fight. All they found were a few traces of blood—no bodies anywhere.

Chances were high those guys had turned into shark food. Anyone who came later, of course, wouldn’t see a thing.

If fights like that kept breaking out near the coastal sewer outlet, leaving corpses behind, there’d definitely be a whole school of sharks hanging around the outflow, waiting for their all-you-can-eat buffet.

Reiji ignored all the staring and went straight to paying the 1,000 Pokédollars stall fee again. He picked a free spot and reopened for another night of fishing for greedy marks.

This time, though, no masked man came over to ask about prices.

The thugs who hung around here had all seen how those guys ended up. They knew this newcomer was bad news.

Everyone who managed to survive in a place like this was a crafty old fox. None of them wanted to offend a ruthless type like Reiji over just two rookie items, much less risk getting hunted down over it. They all understood that kind of gamble wasn’t worth it.

As for revenge?

Give me a break. In this underground world ruled by profit, the idea of “revenge” was a joke.

The crooks here only cared about profit, not brotherhood.

Unless they were real blood brothers, anyone who cared too much about loyalty was just asking to get stabbed in the back.

So everyone had to be extremely cautious; if you weren’t, you simply couldn’t survive here.

As for whether the Poison Gang that ran the black market would step in over any of this?

The answer was no.

As long as no one caused trouble inside the market itself, the Poison Gang wouldn’t intervene. Everybody was just here to do business. There was no need to start killing each other.

If you were worried about being targeted, you just paid the Poison Gang a protection fee and you’d be safe inside the market.

Reiji had expected all this. He knew this kind of fishing would only work once or twice. Everyone here was as sly as foxes. There was no way people would keep falling for it. Faced with serious danger, they could rein in their greed.

When he saw it was already eleven at night, he decided to pack up and leave the underground cavern.

To be safe, once he was back in the sewer tunnels, he sent out Croagunk and had Spinarak scout ahead, in case anyone tried to ambush him.

Turned out he was overthinking it. There was no rat waiting in ambush and no greedy wanted criminal trying to jump him.

In other words, he’d come up empty. Even he couldn’t help but chuckle—who knew this kind of setup could whiff so badly?

Looked like this fishing-for-profit route had reached its limit. Still, there were two other black markets where he could run the same black-on-black play a couple more times.

But that wasn’t a long-term solution either. Once he’d shown his face enough times in all three markets, the regulars would recognize him, and he wouldn’t be able to fish like this anymore. They weren’t idiots; they wouldn’t walk into his net willingly.

And if someone still stepped into his trap under those conditions, he’d have good reason to suspect they were the ones trying to fish him.

Just two rookie items were never going to attract Advanced-tier Trainers. To make an Advanced-tier Trainer bite, you needed better items.

That was the deadlock. He did have Advanced-tier items, but any Advanced-tier Trainer lured in by those might be beyond his ability to handle. With only two rookie items on display, anyone who knew about him wouldn’t bite.

So, how was he supposed to raise enough funds to feed Gastly’s bottomless pit?

Man, this was rough…

With a quiet sigh, Reiji understood that if he couldn’t keep drawing in greedy thugs, he’d have to switch to taking the initiative—and he really didn’t want to.

After all, actively attacking someone and defending yourself when attacked were very different things.

If you hit someone first, it was assault. If you were hit, it was self-defense.

As for “excessive self-defense”?

Cough. Sorry, that concept didn’t exist here. This was a lawless zone. The League’s laws didn’t reach this place, so there was no such thing as “excessive force.” Leaving someone’s body intact was already considered an act of mercy.

If push truly came to shove, he could ask the bartender which smuggling ships liked preying on other crooks, then play the sheep himself and sweep every black ship at Trovitopolis’s port. That ought to raise enough money to keep Gastly fed for a while.

Once he’d made up his mind, Reiji decided to give up on fishing in the black market and try his luck with the smuggling ships instead.

The sailors who ran the ships seemed to understand saving money a lot better. The four guys in the black market combined hadn’t even had half of what those two sailors carried.

All he could say was that those four just hadn’t worked hard enough. They really needed to reflect on themselves. You work for so many years and have no savings at all? No wonder you end up being someone else’s harvest.

Walking through the dim sewer, Reiji was still turning over ways to make extra money when he suddenly stopped, turned around, and called softly into the darkness behind him.

“Come out. I know you’re there…”

His shout made Croagunk and Spinarak tense up. They hadn’t heard any movement behind them. Had their Trainer sensed something they hadn’t? Since when was his perception sharper than theirs?

“Quit hiding. I see you.” Reiji was actually bluffing. He wasn’t sure whether there really was someone tailing him.

[End of Chapter]

[100 Power Stones = Extra Chapter]

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