◉◉◉◉◉
For some unknown reason, even when faced with a terrifying stench capable of driving away ninety percent of all Pokémon in the world, the black-haired young man across from Kael showed no discomfort at all.
He still stood at the edge of the field, full of energy, staring excitedly at his opponent.
In fact, he even closed his eyes in apparent bliss and took several deep breaths.
It was as if what Gloom was giving off was not a foul odor at all, but the finest perfume in the world.
"What a freak."
Kael silently complained in his heart.
Looking at the hot-blooded youth across from him, hands on his hips and face full of exaggerated passion, the faint bit of goodwill Kael had felt because of his youthful energy vanished completely under the assault of that stench.
To end the source of the smell as quickly as possible, and also to ensure that he could continue living in this world, Kael attacked Gloom with everything he had.
His legs, which looked thin and weak but were actually packed with explosive power like gunpowder, bent slightly.
Then he kicked off hard.
Bang.
A powerful burst of force erupted beneath his feet.
The tender grass around his feet was instantly crushed to pieces. Even the damp soil around its roots was kicked up and scattered into the air.
At that moment, facing a "strong enemy" on a certain level, Kael erupted with unprecedented speed.
At the edge of the field, the black-haired youth only heard a muffled sound. In the next instant, the Sobble across from him turned into a blue flash and lunged toward his Gloom like lightning.
His heart shook with panic.
Hurriedly, he shouted in alarm.
"Gloom. Dodge, quick."
At this critical moment in battle, he exposed the severe weakness of a rookie Trainer who lacked command experience.
For a Gloom that could not yet be said to have perfect coordination with him, and had not formed any deep bond with him either, a simple "dodge, quick" instead of a specific instruction clearly was not enough to make it react in time and avoid Kael's attack.
In Kael's dynamic vision, where everything seemed to slow down, Gloom looked just as panicked as its Trainer at the edge of the field when faced with his charge.
It moved its legs, trying to jump toward the other side of the arena.
But because of the huge flower on top of its head, Gloom's movements were extremely clumsy and slow.
Trying to avoid Kael's full-speed attack like that was a complete joke.
Buzz.
A brilliant white glow appeared in Kael's palm, quickly wrapping around his entire hand before forming a sharp drill-like point at the tip to increase its killing power.
The improved version of Pound was completed by Kael in an extremely short time.
Then, using the powerful impact generated by his high-speed movement, Kael threw a full-force straight punch at the Gloom now right in front of him.
Boom.
Like an explosion, blinding white light flashed across the field. Kael's fist slammed hard into Gloom's body.
The enormous force lifted Gloom's heavy body into the air and sent it flying.
"No."
At the edge of the field, the black-haired NPC youth was just as useless as before.
Faced with his Pokémon falling into an absolute disadvantage, not only did he fail to give any command or try to change the situation, he did not even offer the most basic encouragement or comfort.
He only shouted in panic like an ordinary person.
"And he wants a Badge with this level of skill?"
"Not even close."
In truth, two days ago, when Kael learned that he would be serving as one of the Gym's defending Pokémon in charge of handling Trainer challenges, he had already made a decision in his heart.
First, when it came to the players who came to challenge him, unless they truly had the strength to defeat him, he would not let a single one of them pass.
They wanted to get a Gym Badge from him?
No chance.
Kael could admit without hesitation that he was petty and held grudges.
Ever since he was born into this game world, nothing good had happened whenever he encountered players.
The first time, in order to avoid Wendy, he had been forced deep into Moltenwood Forest and ran into Skarmory, almost dying on the spot and returning to the reincarnation space.
The second time, he met Mason during the fishing tournament. To save Basculin from him, Kael had been forced to act in front of the camera, causing a massive uproar. If Evan had not brought him to the Gym, he did not even know which corner of the world he would be left in now, struggling to survive on his own.
In Kael's heart, there was only one word for his impression of players.
Greed.
Now that he finally had a chance to turn the tables on them, he naturally intended to crush those hateful, arrogant players without mercy.
He wanted to shatter their disgusting belief that being players somehow made them superior, using nothing but his own strength.
If he could force them to quit, that would be best.
If not, so be it.
At the very least, he would make those arrogant players taste the bitterness of failure.
As for the system NPCs who originally belonged to this game world, Kael planned to be more lenient.
Even if they could not defeat him in terms of combat strength, as long as they showed some shining quality that he admired, he would take the initiative to surrender and let them obtain a Badge.
After all, aside from training excellent Trainers, the purpose of Gyms was to help the League select promising Trainers from among the public.
By collecting Badges and entering the League Conference, Trainers could display their strength and gain the League's recognition and recruitment.
For an official Pokémon Gym in a major city, issuing too many or too few Badges would attract investigation from the League's relevant departments, causing all kinds of trouble.
Because of that, distributing Badges to challengers whose performance met the standard was quite necessary.
Kael had already discussed this with Evan before, and Evan had agreed completely.
Of course, Kael had concealed the existence of players and had only discussed the second point with him.
That was right.
When it came to those hateful players, he was absolutely applying a double standard.
And right now, this black-haired NPC youth challenging the Gym clearly did not have the strength required to obtain a Badge.
Even if he were lucky enough to get Azure Bay's Water-type Gym Badge from Kael, he would suffer badly when he went to other cities.
Kael felt that instead of letting him step onto a painful road of no return in the future, it would be better to give him a heavy blow here and let this black-haired youth understand how far he still was from the strength needed to truly earn a Badge.
Spending a great deal of time training his Pokémon properly was what he needed to do right now.
So Kael absolutely did not hold back when he attacked Gloom because the smell it gave off was so unbearable that he could not stand it.
Absolutely not.
Thud.
Gloom's body, topped with its enormous flower, fell from the air and rolled across the ground.
Under Kael's full-force attack, even though it held the type advantage, the huge gap in level still caused it to lose the ability to battle with ease and fall unconscious.
"The battle is over."
◉◉◉◉◉
~Support with 200 PowerStones = 1 Bonus Chapter
◉◉◉◉◉
For early access to advanced chapters on P-atreon:
P-atreon/iamxeno
(Just remove the - hyphen to access normally)
Thank you so much for your support and for reading!