Drampa: "Living is about taking it easy, don’t burden yourself too much."
Looking at Drampa, who seemed intent on giving it advice, Gabite said nothing and simply continued sipping its juice.
As for what Drampa said, it didn’t agree with it at all.
This was just laziness—of course life would be easy if you just lay flat and did nothing.
But while Drampa could lie flat, it couldn’t.
Although everyone in Julian’s team got along very well, in reality, there was serious internal petition.
Among the first echelon, except for Metagross whose status and strength were unshakable, who didn’t want to be the team’s number two?
Dragonite was only in second place because it got lucky and reached the Elite level first, but once Lucario, Aggron, Melmetal, and the others broke through to the Elite level, whether Dragonite could keep its second place was still a question.
Despite Dragonite’s goofy appearance, it was secretly anxious and trained hard in private.
And now, with the addition of the Elite-level Kartana.
Dragonite was even more on edge.
When dealing with powerful opponents, Julian naturally used his main team.
For weaker foes or training opportunities, he mostly relied on the second-tier team.
But there weren’t many members in the second-tier team, just Gabite, Doublade, and Bagon.
Others, like Celebi and Magearna, rarely appeared due to their special status.
As the leader of the second-tier team, Gabite was far from satisfied with its current strength; it didn’t want to stay in the second-tier, it wanted to join the first echelon.
But right now it couldn’t even evolve, let alone enter the first echelon.
In Gabite's eyes, what Drampa said was nothing but empty talk.
Everyone’s circumstances were different—how could the same approach work for all?
Even Slowking's counseling hadn’t work on it, let alone Drampa.
Meanwhile, Drampa was feeling rather pleased with itself; seeing Gabite stay silent, it assumed its words had gotten through.
From Gabite's earlier conversation with Gumshoos, it had already noticed that this kid had a strong obsession with being stronger.
In its view, being stronger wasn’t that important—living fortably was what mattered.
So it had brought Gabite to this little tavern, hoping to change its mindset.
Drampa was naturally sociable, enjoying conversations with both humans and Pokémon. It was a gentle creature by nature, so of course it disliked fighting and the pursuit of strength.
Creak—
As the tavern door was pushed open.
The Pokémon inside instinctively glanced toward the entrance and, upon seeing that it was a human, a Tsareena who had been sipping juice suddenly lunged at Julian.
However, as soon as it moved, Gabite immediately slammed it to the ground.
These Pokémon knew Drampa, and while Gabite had a decent impression of it, if any of them dared harm its trainer, it wouldn’t hold back.
This secret realm had never been visited by humans before, so the Pokémon here had no idea that creatures like them even existed.
But ever since humans started showing up, some Pokémon had been hunted or captured, naturally giving rise to emotions like anger and hatred toward them.
Tsareena was one of them—its panion had been taken by humans.
So when it saw Julian, another human, it attacked.
The other Pokémon didn’t attack Julian, and nor did they dare to.
Couldn’t they see Gabite glaring at them fiercely? Not to mention the terrifying Metagross standing beside Julian, whose mere presence made their souls tremble.
In such a situation, starting a fight here would be suicidal.
"Let it go," Julian said.
Gabite immediately released Tsareena, who didn’t attack again but continued staring at Julian with anger.
Julian could more or less guess the reason and said, "I’m not the one who wronged you. If you want revenge, go after the real culprits. Taking it out on a random stranger like me is just a sign of weakness."
"But honestly, you should give up on revenge. Otherwise, you might end up losing yourself too."
With strength only at the Advanced-level, the idea of revenge was simply a joke.
After speaking, Julian took a seat at the bar and glanced at Drampa beside him, "Your philosophy doesn't suit Gabite."
Sure enough, no matter the species, as long as there was intelligence, there would always be those who embraced the idea of laziness.
This Drampa was one who didn’t want to work hard itself and even tried to drag others down with it.
Drampa was a Normal/Dragon type, but its base stats didn’t even reach 500, and it didn’t like fighting, so Julian didn’t even have the desire to capture it.
Also, its appearance wasn’t Julian’s type.
Being spoken to like this by Julian, Drampa was a little dissatisfied—what was wrong with its way? Wasn’t it acceptable?
Eat well, drink well, and live happily—wasn’t that the way of life?
If it wasn’t for Metagross watching it, Drampa would have argued back.
Oranguru took the initiative to mix a glass of juice for Julian.
But Julian didn’t drink it, because while the berries Oranguru used were safe for Pokémon, but if a human ate them, although it wouldn’t be fatal, diarrhea would be inevitable.
"Use these instead."
Julian took out ten berries from the system space; these were berries humans could safely eat.
Then he took out another five berries as a service fee and handed them to Oranguru.
Oranguru looked curiously at the fifteen berries Julian had taken out; these kinds of berries didn’t exist in this secret realm.
Picking up one of the fee berries, Oranguru took a bite, and its face immediately lit up with delight.
While Oranguru was making juice for Julian, Julian took the opportunity to look around the small tavern.
He felt that this Oranguru really knew how to enjoy life, truly worthy of being called a high-IQ Pokémon.
This guy’s intelligence could rival that of Slowking; sometimes, if you wandered along the coast, you could even see it peting with a Slowking to see who was smarter.
Taking a sip of the freshly made juice, Julian had to admit, it really tasted quite good.
He then released Arcanine and handed Oranguru a few more berries, requesting a drink for his fiery panion as well.
He didn’t let Aggron out, though-because its sheer weight would’ve collapsed the entire treehouse.
Patting Aggron’s Poké Ball, which was expressing its dissatisfaction, Julian then took out a hundred berries, indicating that he wanted to pack some juices to take away.
He planned to give each of his Pokémon a cup.
Any leftover berries would be considered part of the payment, and if it wasn’t enough, he would make it up later.
Seeing Julian appreciate its juice so much, Oranguru was naturally very happy, and besides, many of the berries Julian took out were ones it had never seen before.
It needed to first taste them to know their flavors and then match them with other berries for blending.
At the same time, it also specially took out some of its treasured berries to mix into the blend, making the juice taste even better.
Meanwhile, Gabite sat to Julian’s right, continuing to drink the juice it hadn't finished earlier, its expression looking a bit sullen—clearly, it was still brooding over its inability to evolve.
Julian had no intention of forting it either.
They were all grown-up Pokémon; forting couldn’t truly solve the problem.
However, Julian had a feeling, that before they left this secret realm, Gabite would probably manage to evolve.
*****
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