The man looked ancient — easily in his sixties or seventies at a glance. Yet Nova had been told by Brant that he was only forty-five.
His hair had gone completely white. His skin was a deep, weathered brown — whether from years under the desert sun or simply from the dust and grime that had settled into him, it was impossible to tell. His clothing had been torn and patched so many times that the original fabric, once some shade of ochre, now looked permanently stained. Even from two or three metres away, Nova caught the sharp smell of stale sweat. It reminded him of the figures he used to pass on city streets in his previous life without a second glance.
"You're not coming inside?" the man asked.
"Out here is fine. Better light," Nova said.
The second meaning in that reply was plain enough. The man blinked slowly, as though the simple act of holding a conversation had grown unfamiliar to him.
"Suit yourself. There's nothing worth seeing in there anyway."
He walked to the sunniest corner of the yard, lowered himself to the ground, and looked up at Nova. "You really planning to deal with those Trapinch?"
Nova did not answer right away. The Trapinch were not his real concern. Taylor was — and Taylor was the reason those Trapinch might be behaving the way they were.
"Tell me what happened to the two Trainers who came before me."
"Hmph."
The man muttered something under his breath, then said, "I warned them both. Told them to be careful out in that desert. They couldn't handle the Trapinch and never made it back. Not enough skill. No business taking a job like that."
Nova had been keeping his tone neutral, but he dropped the effort. Some people would never hold themselves responsible for anything. The more patience you showed them, the more they took it as permission.
"Those Trainers came here to solve your problem," Nova said flatly. "You gave them no help, watched them walk into danger, and now that they're gone you talk about their lack of skill. Does that not bother you at all?"
The man's mouth fell open, then he snapped back, "I never forced them to come!"
"Then go to the Pokémon Center and withdraw the request."
"Why would I —"
"So you do want someone to come. You think a hundred League Coins is what brings people out here? The only reason anyone even considers this job is out of sympathy for your situation. You should know that."
The man stared at him with cold, flat eyes. "And what about you? You said yourself you didn't take the request. You're not here for the reward. So don't tell me you came all this way out of the goodness of your heart. What do you actually want?"
"Don't flatter yourself," Nova said. "You're not interesting enough for a special trip.
I'll look into what's going on with those Trapinch — whatever your reasons for staying out here. That was already my plan. If you have anything useful to tell me, now would be the time. If not, I'll start searching on my own at first light. Your call."
He did not wait for a response. Nova turned and walked back out of the yard, leaving the man sitting alone in the dirt. The man's expression shifted — frustration, then something quieter — before he finally let out a long breath.
By dusk, Nova had set up his tent in the westernmost ruined courtyard, as far from the man's hut as the village would allow. Corvisquire took up a perch outside to keep watch through the night. Nidoking settled beside the tent, its heavy frame and thick hide acting as a natural windbreak against the sand-laden gusts that swept through after dark.
The night passed without incident.
At dawn, Corvisquire's sharp cry pulled Nova out of sleep.
He stepped outside to find both Pokémon already alert. The man was standing about twenty metres away, looking uncertain. A clean slash mark cut through the sand in front of him — Corvisquire's Air Slash, used as a warning to stop him from coming any closer.
Nova had taught Corvisquire the move by TM before setting out from Harmony City. It was not the most natural fit for the Rook Pokémon's style, but it did the job well enough when precision mattered.
Corvisquire held position, circling low at under ten metres. Nidoking stood a metre ahead of it, slamming its tail against the ground in a steady, rhythmic threat — the kind of display that made it very clear it was ready to act if needed.
Whether the sound was what unsettled the man was hard to say, but the clouds of sand kicked up by each impact had Nova coughing into his sleeve.
He gave Nidoking a light kick to get its attention, then immediately regretted it. Kicking something with horn-plated hide was a fast way to bruise your foot.
Nidoking glanced back with an expression that said, plainly, that it could not help itself — that when something approached and felt like a threat, the tail-slam response was simply how things worked.
Nova told it, just as plainly, that a half-starved man in tattered clothes was not a threat, and that all it had accomplished was filling the air with sand. Nidoking was recalled into its Poké Ball for the time being.
Nova turned to the man. "What is it?"
"Come with me," the man said. "I'll tell you what I know about the desert out there."
Nova studied him for a moment, then nodded.
The man had no Pokémon — not even one. He was in no condition to pose any kind of threat. And right now, he needed Nova far more than Nova needed him.
"Where are we going?"
The man's voice was quieter than it had been the evening before. "I want to visit my wife's grave. And my daughter's. I haven't been able to get there in two years."
Nova filed that away. If the man had stayed in this village out of devotion to the people he had lost, why had he not been able to visit them in two years?
When they arrived, he understood.
The village had once had a small cemetery. The man's wife had been buried there. Later, when his daughter wandered into the Trapinch's territory and was attacked, she did not survive her injuries. He had buried her beside her mother.
The cemetery sat on a low hill less than a kilometre north of the village.
That hill was now a dune.
The long, slow process of desertification had claimed it entirely. And at the base of the dune, spread across the sand in near-perfect rows, were dozens of small, shallow, bowl-shaped pits — each one roughly the same size, each one like an empty hollow waiting for something to fall in.
Nova recognised them at once.
Something was living beneath the sand.