Facing Tetsuya's questioning, Kanta hurriedly said, "That's right, my little heart is still pounding right now, so you absolutely must compensate me~ L-Look, my tent is broken. Do you think you could..."
As Kanta spoke, his voice actually began acting "cute", truly making goosebumps fall everywhere.
'How could there be such a person in this world? I really want to kick you to pieces.'
Tetsuya took out a tent that had originally belonged to a Cherrygrove team member from his backpack and handed it to Kanta, saying, "Use this."
After speaking, Tetsuya walked toward his own tent.
Leaving Kanta standing there like a statue, foolishly saying, "Eh… thank you very much for the tent…"
Inwardly, he had long since cursed, 'Who the hell wants your tent? If I needed a tent, would I have come looking for you? What a hateful little boy!'
---◓---
Another official half-year day.
Which also meant that Tetsuya had already arrived on this island for a full year.
Nine years old!
Tetsuya let out a long sigh. He still had to remain on this island for another two years. Now his head was already full of messy shaggy hair, and he had absolutely no mood to tidy it up. He completely looked like a wild man… cough, wild kid!
Raven gathered together everyone who had arrived and conducted unified registration, listing the five Pokémon each participant would send into battle. Tetsuya registered Haunter, Piloswine, Golett, Beedrill, and Houndoom. If Haunter established a [Shadow Contract] with him by then, he would only need to claim that Haunter had died. In a wilderness like this, the death of one or two Pokémon was far too common.
After the battle Pokémon had been registered, Raven already had the Shadows prepare this round's rankings.
At this moment, discussions had already begun below, with everyone guessing who would rank first. The hottest candidates were naturally Tetsuya, Kanta, the former leader of the Cianwood City team, and the former leader of the Blackthorn City team.
Kanta had already quietly approached Tetsuya. Secretly, he said, "Hey~ We definitely won't become battle opponents."
Tetsuya merely glanced at him lightly without speaking.
"…Because I also didn't capture Pokémon to exchange for points," Kanta said rather boredly.
Sure enough, when the ranking list was posted, the entire place nearly exploded.
All the previously "hottest" candidates were nowhere near the top positions. Tetsuya and Kanta had unexpectedly become the last place and second-to-last place respectively.
The two people who had just been excited about becoming first and second suddenly turned pale after seeing their opponents.
"T-There's definitely a problem with this ranking. I don't want to be first… I don't want it!"
The person ranked first was Dia, from Azalea Town, who "specialized" in using Bug-type Pokémon and was also competent at creating traps to capture Pokémon. Therefore, he had captured the most Pokémon and naturally became first place. Of course, his own level was good. Entering the top ten should not be a problem, but compared with Tetsuya, he was still not enough.
Dia's appeal was rejected by Raven, who shouted, "What are you afraid of!? Tch, this time it's a points match."
Points matches were relatively much fairer. Three people formed one group, and one person would be eliminated.
Now there were 57 people remaining, which could perfectly be divided into 19 groups. In other words, 19 people would be eliminated this time.
The grouping format had also changed, though it was still based on those rankings. Dia, Tetsuya, and one cannon fodder from Olivine City formed a group.
After the grouping ended, everyone simply waited for the huge ship transporting supplies to arrive once again.
This time, the sea was probably relatively calm, because the ship arrived on the second day. Kurusaki Sō and the Shadow Team members behind him all appeared full of energy.
Seeing the huge ship arrive so smoothly this time, Raven finally let out a sigh of relief.
"Heh~ My brother Sō looking energetic this time! Tks tks~ Seems like the sea conditions were quite good, huh!? No seasickness this time, I see."
Raven warmly stepped forward to greet his old friend Sō.
"Sōhaha! Un, this time it was truly calm seas and gentle winds. We finally arrived safely," Kurusaki Sō also said with great relief.
Afterward, Raven immediately gave orders to begin transporting and registering the supplies. In addition, the Poké Balls that needed to be transported onto the ship this time were piled up like mountains.
"Ho~hoh, so many Poké Balls. You, Raven, will definitely accumulate the greatest merit this time. It seems the promotion two years from now will definitely be yours," Sō said.
"Hee, I'll still have to rely on you!"
"Why should chums like us say such things? This time I even brought your favorite Red Sake. Tonight, we won't return until we're drunk!"
"Rahaha! Okay then, I think it's already getting late. Let's go now. Leave the remaining matters to them."
"Sounds good!"
Raven and Sō immediately hit it off and went drinking.
"…"
---◓---
The battles officially began the next day.
Tetsuya's group of three started first with the battle between Dia from Azalea Town and Keke from Olivine City.
Tetsuya leaned against the fence, watching their battle from afar.
The battle did not become one-sided. By now, everyone had already survived for a full year in this kind of desolate wilderness. Those who were able to stay alive were no ordinary people. Even if they were eliminated now, being sold to other underground forces would still allow them to become qualified enforcers.
Dia's strength was obviously somewhat greater, but in a life-and-death battle, nobody would give up so easily. Keke also stubbornly clung on against Dia. In the end, the score became five to three, and Dia let out a long sigh of relief.
Dia had originally thought he could easily defeat Keke, but unexpectedly Keke still managed to eliminate three of his Pokémon. Tomorrow would be the battle against Tetsuya, so he absolutely had to restore his Pokémon to their best condition.
After watching their battle, Tetsuya returned to his tent area. For tomorrow's battle, he could only say that it would mainly serve as training for Golett.
The others truly had no special training value…
---◓---
Tetsuya versus Dia.
A five-on-five battle. Now Dia's pressure was no longer so great. After all, he had already won one battle. What he needed to do now was exhibit an even more brilliant performance for the Shadow Team to see. Only then would it increase his chances of ultimately surviving.
"Go, Pinsir!"
'Hm? Pinsir as the lead again?' Tetsuya glanced lightly at it. The tactics were the same as yesterday, which instead would only speed up his own victory.
Pinsir was a pure Bug-type Pokémon. The two large and aggressive horns on its head were its primary battle style.
Tetsuya threw out Golett's Poké Ball. Now the second layer of energy on Golett had already spread below its knees and wrists, making its jumping and running capabilities even stronger. Its bodily flexibility, strength, and defense had also steadily improved, already carrying the momentum of overtaking from behind.
Seeing Golett enter the field, Dia's expression became extremely ugly. If the Shadow Team did not have rules prohibiting mid-battle Pokémon replacement, he definitely would have switched out Pinsir.
Almost all of Pinsir's moves were Fighting- and Normal-type, yet both of those move types were completely ineffective against Golett. Although Pinsir was Bug-type, the only Bug-type move it could learn through leveling up was X-Scissor…
Trying to defeat Golett with only X-Scissor was simply a fantasy!