Pokémon: Master of the Rain Team

Reiji let out a long breath, then went right back to counting his loot.

Sharp Beak, a Flying-type item. It looked like a long, razor-pointed bird beak. There were two of them, both Beginner-tier items. A Flying-type Pokémon could hold one to boost the power of Flying-type moves.

It was useless to him. The item tier was too low—barely any benefit for Pelipper. Still, even selling them should bring in around one million Pokédollars. If he ever needed this slot later, he could just buy a higher-tier one.

Poison Barb, a Poison-type item that boosted Poison-type moves. This one was a bit more interesting: two Elite-tier items, plus nine Beginner-tier ones. Not surprising—down in the underground black market, Poison-type users were everywhere.

But he wasn’t keeping them. Sure, Poison Barb boosted Poison-type moves, but his Poison-types didn’t need it. Their venom was already nasty enough.

All things considered, Croagunk and the others didn’t need held items for now. Selling was simply better value, and he needed quick cash.

The two Elite-tier Poison Barbs could sell for roughly six million.

The nine Beginner-tier Poison Barbs could still fetch a bit over five million total—around five to six hundred thousand each. Beginner-tier, so of course they weren’t expensive.

Soft Sand, a Ground-type item. It literally looked like someone scooped a bag of fine beach sand. Reiji couldn’t help thinking it looked more like food than equipment.

There were several Soft Sands, all Beginner-tier. They boosted Ground-type moves. He wasn’t selling these—he could use them internally. Just feed them to Hanhan(Rhyhorn).

Beginner-tier Rock-type and Ground-type items could all go to Hanhan, same as Smooth Rock: one extended the duration of sandstorms, the other boosted Ground-type moves.

Hard Stone, a Rock-type item. Just a gray chunk of stone. There were several of these too, also Beginner-tier.

Its effect was similar to Soft Sand—one boosted Ground-type moves, Hard Stone boosted Rock-type moves. It could be ”food” for Hanhan as well.

Honestly, for Rock-, Ground-, and Steel-type items, a lot of them could be treated as both equipment and edible training resources.

It’s just that very few trainers were rich enough to raise those three types by feeding items. A Beginner-tier item cost five or six hundred thousand. No matter how you cut it, feeding that kind of money into a Pokémon was a bottomless pit—and higher-tier items only got pricier.

For baby-stage training, you could barely justify it. Once you hit Elite-tier, you couldn’t afford it at all. A single item ran into the millions.

Otherwise Naoki’s Golem wouldn’t have needed to eat ore for over a decade just to reach Elite Four tier.

Reiji figured that when Naoki first caught it, the talent must’ve been poor, and the Elite Four threshold was brutal to break through—so it got stuck for years.

Not everyone was as lucky as Gengar, able to bump potential just by evolving. That Golem only got two evolutions’ worth of potential boosts. After that, there was nothing left but grinding time.

Reiji estimated it took at least three to five years for that Golem to finally step over the Elite Four line. If Naoki had been feeding it Gems and the right items, it might’ve grown faster. Without those resources, it could only slog forward.

…

Back to the loot. He still wasn’t done. Next up—

Silver Powder, a Bug-type item. It was also a powder item—something you smeared onto a Pokémon. It boosted Bug-type move power.

There were seven of them, all Beginner-tier. They did nothing for his Bug-types. He’d sell them and buy Advanced-tier items later.

Seven Silver Powders could sell for around four million, about the same unit price as Poison Barb. Poison Barb might even be a bit pricier, since demand was huge.

Mystic Water, a Water-type item that boosted Water-type moves. There were eight, all Beginner-tier. Useless to him. If they were Elite-tier, maybe he’d consider it, but Beginner-tier? Sell.

Eight Mystic Waters could go for around five million. Demand for this was even higher than Poison Barb, so the price naturally ran a little higher too.

Miracle Seed, a Grass-type item. It looked like a pale yellow seed, and it boosted Grass-type moves. Also Beginner-tier.

There were four Miracle Seeds. Selling them all should bring in around three million. He didn’t even have a Grass-type Pokémon, so keeping them was pointless.

Magnet, an Electric-type item that boosted Electric-type move power. Beginner-tier. Two of them—selling them could bring in about 1.5 million. Electric-type items were always in demand.

Charcoal, a Fire-type item that boosted Fire-type move power. Beginner-tier. Three of them—he could sell them for about 1.5 million as well.

And that was it. Items: fully sorted at last. Almost everything was Beginner-tier. These guys couldn’t afford high-end gear. A lot of the items had been taken off Pokémon anyway—Pokémon and items got sold separately.

If he ranked the market value of these Beginner-tier items, the priciest should be—

Black Sludge: 800,000 each.

Miracle Seed: 750,000 each.

Magnet: 750,000 each.

Mystic Water: 620,000 each.

Poison Barb: 600,000 each.

Silver Powder: 570,000 each.

Sharp Beak: 500,000 each.

Charcoal: 500,000 each.

Toxic Orb: 500,000 each…

There were other items too, but there was no point ranking them. They were all for Hanhan to eat. If Hanhan ever ran out, Reiji would just have to buy more of the same and keep feeding it.

At this rate, Hanhan was going to turn into another Gastly—another bottomless pit. Without throwing in a few hundred million, you wouldn’t even hear a splash.

Still, he’d deal with Gastly first. Hanhan could wait.

The items he planned to sell totaled forty-six pieces. If he could offload them all, it would still be a serious chunk of money.

The items he wouldn’t sell totaled twenty-one pieces: Smooth Rock, Damp Rock, Soft Sand, and Hard Stone.

Everstone and Float Stone were separate. He’d already given Spinarak an Everstone. As for Float Stone, he still hadn’t found a use for it, so he’d keep it for now.

…

With items done, it was time for Gems.

Water Gems were the most—over thirty. Next were Ground Gems and Rock Gems, plus Grass Gems, Poison Gems, and Bug Gems.

He didn’t have any of the rarer-type Gems, though there were one or two of some common types. Those weren’t worth calculating.

He wasn’t selling the Gems. He’d keep them for his own Pokémon.

If he ran short on resources later, he could trade some unused Gems for the Ghost- and Poison-type Gems Gastly needed, and keep pushing Gastly’s potential upward.

…

He also had Evolution stones. Not many—and they were all low-grade stones…

Eight low-grade Water Stones. At 1.2 million each, that was about ten million.

Six low-grade Leaf Stones. Same 1.2 million each, about seven million.

One low-grade Dusk Stone. He wasn’t counting this one—one of his Pokémon really needed it.

One low-grade Thunder Stone. If he sold it to a black-market dealer, it would be 1.6 million. If he sold it himself, maybe 1.8 million.

One mid-quality Water Stone. Buyout price was three million; if he sold it himself, he could add another 300,000—after all, the department store price was 3.5 million.

This mid-quality Water Stone was the only mid-quality Evolution stone in the whole pile. These guys were seriously broke—what kind of trash stones were these? Still, value was value.

As for what to do with the stones, Reiji called Darkrai out and tossed it the Dusk Stone.

”Darkrai, this Dusk Stone is yours. Absorb the Dark-type and Ghost-type energy inside it. And don’t tell Gastly…”

As he threw it, Reiji raised a finger to his lips—quietly take it, quietly absorb it, and absolutely do not let Gastly find out.

”I understand.” Darkrai took the Dusk Stone, nodded once, and slipped into the shadows. Their little secret.

If Gastly found out, it would definitely get mad. No doubt about it—Gastly was petty, and it was greedy.

Reiji watched Darkrai disappear, then packed all the remaining Evolution stones back into his backpack. He’d also set aside plenty of things for Gengar: Poison-type Pokéblocks, poison sacs, Poison-type Gems, Poison-type items, and any food that carried poison.

Anything poisonous basically belonged to Gastly. Nobody was taking it away. Croagunk and the others already had strong Poison attributes—there was no need to keep boosting Poison-type damage.

Everything else, including that mid-quality Water Stone, he planned to sell. Low-grade stones weren’t worth holding.

Too bad there were no Mega Stones or a Key Stone. Not a single Mega Stone in all those backpacks, and all the held items were low-end too. A bunch of weaklings’ bags.

But enough small gains turned into something real. If he sold everything, this wasn’t pocket change anymore. At a conservative estimate, it was at least 200 million.

Even so, Reiji felt Riku’s backpack would be the real jackpot. Just Riku’s bag alone might be worth more than everything he’d sorted so far.

He’d glanced at the pile from Riku’s bag when he dumped it out earlier. There was no question—there were plenty of good things in there.

He still hadn’t fully cleaned up the junk pile on the ground. Riku’s bag could wait. Once he finished cracking open all these weaklings’ ”blind boxes,” then he’d move on to Riku’s bag—the real feast.

…

Fourth category: Pokémon food.

With items done, he moved on to Pokémon food.

In the chaotic pile, Water-type Pokéblocks were the most common, followed by ore.

He already had three backpacks full of ore: one from the black-clothed strongman squad leader, one compiled from the forty-plus backpacks, and one that was already his.

After that came a lot of Poison-type Pokéblocks. The remaining Grass- and Bug-type Pokéblocks were a bit fewer than Poison, but those two were roughly equal to each other.

There were also Flying-type and Dark-type Pokéblocks, plus Electric-type Pokéblocks. Just far too many.

He picked out all the premium Pokéblocks. Every ”good quality” Pokéblock would be sold. There was no reason to feed his Pokémon that kind of stuff—he wasn’t short on money anymore.

These ”good quality” Pokéblocks were probably the kind made in back-alley workshops around the black market. Quality was hard to guarantee.

Anything with too many impurities got kicked out immediately. After sorting and sifting, there weren’t that many premium ones left.

These weaklings were broke. Expecting them to feed premium Pokéblocks to their Pokémon would be giving them way too much credit.

In the end, premium Pokéblocks came out to only a few hundred boxes. The ”good quality” ones were over a thousand boxes. He stuffed all of those into one backpack and couldn’t even be bothered to count them. Later he’d just dump-sell the lot and let the black-market shop boss do the counting.

Besides Pokéblocks, there was also all kinds of Pokémon-specific food—mass-produced, filling, the sort of stuff you could shovel by the bag. There was too much of it as well, and he’d sell it all.

He didn’t trust the quality. Better not feed it to his Pokémon. Worst case, he could spend a little at the department store and buy fresh supplies.

…

With Pokémon food sorted, he looked at human food next: drinks, milk, mineral water, instant-heat meals, snacks. All of it went into one backpack.

He wasn’t planning to eat it, and he wasn’t tossing it as trash either. He’d sell it to a buyer. It would still bring in money—there was enough here to stock a small convenience shop.

…

Fifth category: miscellaneous goods.

Anything miscellaneous but still useful went into another backpack.

That pile included: a mountain of random Berries, a mountain of healing sprays, all sorts of cheap street-stall books about Pokémon training, various self-defense cold weapons, outdoor gear, stacks of move-learning discs, and a heap of broken fossils.

He checked every fossil. The status display called them nothing but broken stones—completely useless.

As for the move discs, he’d basically figured it out: learning a new move through a screen was hard. If he didn’t want to gamble on luck, he needed a real teacher.

Still, this stuff was worth something. He could sell it for at least some cash. Throwing it away would be a waste.

…

There was one more thing that was also valuable: gold and jewelry he’d dug out of those forty-plus backpacks. There was a lot of it, and he couldn’t tell what was real and what was fake.

But he could guess it was stolen. A bunch of unemployed drifters living underground weren’t exactly the type to buy gold chains and gemstone necklaces.

At the current gold price—2,000 Pokédollars per gram—this little pile was three to four kilograms. That put it around seven to eight million. Definitely not a small amount.

…

Finally, there were personal odds and ends—daily necessities. He stuffed those into one backpack and tossed it straight into the sea.

All the clothes and shoes dumped out of the forty-plus backpacks—men’s and women’s—everything from underwear to stockings… no exaggeration, it was enough to open a clothing store.

Whoever picked up that backpack, he wished them booming business and a river of money.

At this point, aside from Riku’s backpack, everything else had been fully sorted.

He had one backpack for his own supplies.

Pokémon took two backpacks: one to sell, one for release.

Items took two backpacks: one to sell, one to keep.

Ore took three backpacks: his own ore bag, the black-clothed strongman squad leader’s ore bag, and the newly consolidated ore bag.

Pokémon food took one backpack: the ”good quality” Pokéblocks and Pokémon-specific food he planned to sell. The premium Pokéblocks were kept in his own bag.

Human food took one backpack.

Useful miscellaneous goods took one backpack.

Gold and jewelry took one backpack.

And then there was Riku’s backpack.

Thirteen backpacks total.

Next came the biggest box: Riku’s backpack. It should be packed with surprises—and Reiji could barely wait.

Translator’s note: ”Hanhan” is Reiji’s nickname for Rhyhorn. The original Chinese nickname (憨憨, hānhān) is an affectionate way of calling someone ”dopey/silly” in a harmless, cute sense, so I’m keeping it as ”Hanhan.”

(End of chapter)

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