Chapter 58: Pixie's Invitation (Patreon)

Since they had deliberately slowed their pace, Renan and Misty covered less than two kilometers in a straight line over the whole day.

Just before dinner, the two of them had crawled out of a tunnel through one of the outermost mountains.

In exchange, the Moon Stones in the boy's backpack had quadrupled in number.

And perhaps because they were gradually closing in on the heart of Mt. Moon, mid-grade Moon Stones had turned up noticeably more often today.

After dinner, Renan counted them and found that, with yesterday afternoon's haul included, he now had 11 mid-grade Moon Stones.

His plan was to finish using up the low-grade Moon Stone he'd mostly absorbed yesterday, then try absorbing one mid-grade stone to see exactly how much energy it held.

But he hadn't been in the tent long when a rustling sound drifted into his ears.

Renan instinctively released his mental power.

Almost at once he found that the grass near the valley they'd picked as a temporary camp had, at some point, filled with a group of creatures whose mental fluctuations reached Elite class.

They seemed to be peeking at, or rather observing, his and Misty's tents.

The emotions wrapped around them carried a trace of curiosity. And something else… an inexplicable anticipation?

Renan put the Moon Stone back in his backpack and stepped out of the tent.

Under the bright moonlight, he easily made out who the visitors were: a group of Clefable.

He hadn't gone without meeting Pokémon over the previous two days.

Zubat, Paras, Sandshrew, Diglett, Geodude…

But since none of these little guys had ever been part of his planned team, he hadn't tried to lure them with food or win them over in battle, even when a few of them looked fairly promising.

Clefable, though, or rather their early form, Cleffa.

Renan badly wanted to raise one.

After all, among the Pink Devil family, Chansey had pretty much all been claimed by the Nurse Joys and were nowhere to be seen in the wild. That left only Jigglypuff and Clefairy among the species findable in Kanto.

And compared to Jigglypuff, whose habitat was still unknown, the Clefairy living on Mt. Moon were clearly his best option.

Still, perhaps because they were only on the outskirts of Mt. Moon, he hadn't run into a single member of the Clefable family until just now.

Originally, he'd planned to wait until they reached the core of Mt. Moon, then ask the Pokémon living there, with food as payment, to tell him where the Clefable colony's territory was.

Who would have guessed that, before he'd even gone looking, the Clefable would find him first, for some unknown reason?

Thoughts raced through Renan's mind, then he tapped Misty's tent twice.

"Misty, are you asleep? If not, come on out. We've got guests."

Misty had been doing some light stretches to help her digest.

She froze for a moment at her companion's voice, but didn't hesitate. She grabbed her belt with the Poké Balls on it and stepped outside.

Then she spotted the Clefable not far off.

"They're so cute!"

Clefable were seriously good-looking, and they stole Misty's heart almost instantly.

The Clefable weren't the least bit afraid of people, either. After they called out a couple of "Pii, pii, pii"s, one whose mental fluctuations reached Lv36 or 37, probably the chief or one of the colony's leaders, trotted up to Renan.

Then it grabbed his hand.

"Pii~"

The Clefable half-turned and pointed its free hand to the southwest, toward the core of Mt. Moon.

Renan couldn't understand its words, but from its emotions and the gesture, he could roughly guess what it meant.

"You want me to follow you?"

"Pii!"

The Clefable nodded hard and pulled with all its might, apparently trying to drag the human in front of it along.

Unfortunately, it failed.

So it puffed out its cheeks and started "pii, pii, pii"-ing at Renan again.

It looked less angry than like it was throwing a tantrum to coax him.

Standing to one side, Misty watched the exchange between the boy and the big pink cutie, and the envy in her eyes was nearly spilling over.

She had clearly started thinking about winning over a Clefairy or a Clefable herself, and couldn't help urging, "Why don't we go and see?"

Renan hadn't planned on turning down the invitation anyway. He just needed to make clear to the Clefable what he was going to do first.

That way there would be no clash later.

So he calmed the girl down. "Not so fast."

Then he looked back at the Clefable. "My partner and I came to Mt. Moon to win over two Cleffa or Clefairy with outstanding potential. I hope we can have your permission to do that."

The Clefable tilted its head, apparently thinking it over.

Misty put on a nervous face as well.

Two seconds later, the Clefable seemed to have made up its mind. It nodded hard at Renan, then started calling out "Pii~ pii~ pii~".

The meaning was obvious: it agreed, but the human in front of it would have to pay some kind of price.

As for what that price was, Renan couldn't guess from gestures alone.

The Clefable who'd come to find him clearly lived deep within Mt. Moon.

After packing up the tents, Renan and Misty followed the little ones for more than six hours, crawling through grass and narrow passages more than once, before they finally reached the Clefable's territory at around one in the morning.

It was an open-air canyon.

Mountains ringed it on all sides in an O shape. The only way in was a path just wide enough for one person, along the way they'd come, and its entrance had even been disguised with plenty of vegetation and trees.

An ordinary person would never have noticed it.

At the center of the canyon sat a huge meteorite about five meters across.

Its surface was pitted and uneven, and the whole thing was a dark gray.

Aside from a few scholars who studied astronomy, most people would take this stone for a useless ornament.

In reality, though.

Renan didn't even need to extend his mental power. He could feel the overwhelmingly turbulent energy inside the meteorite, the same attribute as Moon Stones.

Clearly, even if the gray rock before him wasn't the giant Moon Stone from the anime that helped the Clefairy evolve, its effect couldn't be much worse.

Judging by quality alone, it might even exceed the high grade as the League defined it!

Renan was inwardly stunned. He took two deep breaths, then turned to the Clefable who'd brought him here.

"What do you need me to do?"

Oddly, the Clefable no longer showed its earlier urgency and looked much more laid-back.

After hearing the boy's words, it raised a hand and waved it, as if telling him to be patient.

Then it called out a couple of times to another Clefable that had come along.

That Clefable trotted off into the depths of the canyon, and about ten minutes later it came back supporting an elderly Clefable. The old one was obviously very advanced in years, yet its mental fluctuations clearly exceeded the upper limit of what Renan could currently sense.