With Steven's confirmation secured, Naoki felt himself relax slightly.
A Champion-level Trainer had agreed to protect him. Even if those players eventually pieced together his identity as Larry, they would not be able to drag him off to Mewtwo's island.
"Thank you."
Steven shook his head and wrote his private contact information on a piece of paper.
"This is my personal communication line. Contact me before you set out."
For now, he was planning to investigate Team Magma and Team Aqua, along with the legends surrounding Groudon and Kyogre.
Naoki nodded and carefully tucked the paper away.
With that, the deal was complete.
Naoki did not linger. He could tell Steven wanted to go verify the intelligence he had just been given.
"In that case, I'll take my leave." Naoki said.
Steven gave a small nod.
The two parted, Steven leaving Mossdeep City in a hurry.
Naoki headed to Mossdeep's seaside Wailord viewing area, where he took Zorua, Pawmi, and Gyarados out to watch a Wailord performance together.
At the same time, his mind was turning over which other places in Hoenn might be worth visiting.
The Hoenn region. The main stage of the Ruby, Sapphire, and Emerald games.
The three Legendary Pokémon here were the Land God Groudon, the Sea God Kyogre, and the Sky God Rayquaza.
Beyond those three, this fertile stretch of land was also home to a considerable number of other rare Pokémon, some sealed away, some still living hidden.
Sealed within ancient ruins were the three legendary titans. Regirock, Regice, Registeel.
Resting in the northern reaches of Hoenn's landmass was the wish-granting Legendary Pokémon Jirachi.
Beyond those Legendary-tier Pokémon, there were also two powerful pseudo-Legendary species native to Hoenn. Salamence and Metagross.
Steven's own signature Pokémon, a Shiny Metagross, was exactly one of these. Its strength had helped him claim the Hoenn Champion's title.
The difficulty of acquiring any of these Pokémon, though, was extraordinary. And each required an enormous amount of effort.
Take the three legendary titans, for example. They required solving ancient underwater ruin puzzles using Relicanth and Wailord together before the temples where they had been sealed would reappear in the world.
Wailord was manageable. But Relicanth was a species believed to have long since gone extinct.
A scattered handful might still live in the deepest ocean trenches. But the ocean was enormous, and finding one would take a monumental amount of time and effort.
As for Jirachi, at this point in the timeline it was almost certainly still sleeping somewhere in the lands of Faraway Island, in its stone form.
Even if someone did catch it, Jirachi only woke for seven days every thousand years. It was fundamentally useless in battle.
The one genuinely accessible target was Metagross.
If Naoki could build a relationship with Steven, there was a real chance Steven would gift him one of the offspring of his own Champion-level Metagross.
That said, compared to any of these, Ogerpon was the more practical goal.
"Next stop, Snowpoint City, in northern Sinnoh." Naoki thought.
The rest of Hoenn could wait until after the World Tournament, when he had built up genuine self-defense capability of his own.
With the decision made, Naoki did not linger in Mossdeep.
The following morning, he boarded a plane bound for the Johto region.
After several hours in the air, the plane touched down in Ecruteak City, the ancient city of Ho-Oh.
Snowpoint City sat far to the north, an isolated and unremarkable place removed from the central population zones of Sinnoh. It was so remote that people in the Pokémon world sometimes referred to it as farm country. There were no direct flights to it. To reach Snowpoint, Naoki would need to switch to a bus from Ecruteak.
That said.
Naoki stood in the middle of Ecruteak City's ancient streets and glanced up at the sky.
The hour was not particularly late, but late enough. They could rest in Ecruteak for the day and set out for Snowpoint tomorrow.
Speaking of Ecruteak, there was no separating it from Ho-Oh and the Bell Tower where Ho-Oh had once resided.
In the Pokémon world, this was a city with a deep historical connection to the Legendary Pokémon Ho-Oh.
Three hundred years ago, Ho-Oh had rested at the peak of the Bell Tower. Later, disillusioned by human warfare and by humanity itself, Ho-Oh had left Ecruteak and never returned.
All it left behind was a lonely tower and the monks who continued to keep faith with it.
"The Bell Tower."
Naoki pulled out the Rainbow Wing he had received back on New Island during the Mewtwo event, held it up, and compared it against the towering silhouette in the distance.
The orange evening light fell across the feather, and rainbow-colored radiance shimmered along its length.
Rainbow Wing: A feather containing a special power. The key to unlocking a certain hidden quest.
"Still not enough to trigger the quest?" Naoki thought.
"Wuu?" Zorua jumped up onto his shoulder and looked at the towering structure in the distance alongside him.
"It's nothing." Naoki drew his eyes back and let out a quiet sigh. "Maybe it's not the right time yet."
"Wuu..." Zorua half-understood.
Naoki smiled and rested a hand on her head. "That's fine. Get proper rest tonight. Starting tomorrow, we're going back to intensive training."
"Wuu!" Zorua's fighting spirit lit up immediately.
Magikarp had already evolved into Gyarados, gaining a massive jump in strength. She and Pawmi could not afford to fall behind.
Since they were in Johto now, they had to try some of the region's local cuisine.
Naoki walked through the streets and quickly found a well-established old restaurant with a century of history behind it.
He glanced at the menu. The style of food here was worlds apart from Paldea.
Paldean cuisine focused heavily on sandwiches and paella. Johto specialized in sushi, noodles, sweet buns, rice balls, and sashimi, dishes that carried the particular flavor of the region.
Inside the restaurant, Naoki sat at a table with Zorua, Pawmi, and Gyarados gathered around him.
The three uncommon Pokémon drew immediate attention from every other Trainer and diner in the room.
Especially Gyarados with its enormous frame and unusual coloration.
Waves of startled exclamations rose from the surrounding tables.
"Wow, what kind of Pokémon is that pink one?"
"My god, is that a Gyarados? It's huge. And why is it that color, it looks vicious."
The other diners were openly pointing.
Sensing the attention, Gyarados turned its head and shot the crowd a glare, letting out a low roar from its throat that immediately sent several of the guests scrambling.
Naoki's mouth twitched. "Alright, alright. Gyarados, they don't mean any harm. They're just impressed by how powerful you look."
Hearing that, a trace of pride flickered through Gyarados's ferocious eyes.
"Pawmi..."
"Wuu..."
At the table, Pawmi and Zorua both stared at their teammate in a mixture of awe and disbelief.
Just a short while ago, this had been a Magikarp with slightly stronger physique than most.
Then overnight, it had transformed into an enormous Pokémon with a fearsome appearance that could scare a room full of people.
The waiter, clearly nervous about Gyarados, brought the food to the table with his eyes half-closed.
It was a plate of sashimi, ordered specifically for Gyarados.
Gyarados's eating manner was as direct as its personality. It clamped its mouth around the plate, tipped its head back, and swallowed the fish in one gulp.
"Pawmi..."
Pawmi stared, dumbfounded.
This is what evolution is? it thought. When am I going to evolve?
Pawmi felt with quiet certainty that it was no match for Gyarados right now.
On this team, its own strength was the weakest.
Pawmi silently made up its mind. It was going to learn from Zorua and start sneaking off to train alone, then astonish everyone in one dramatic reveal later.
Zorua lifted a small teacup between her two tiny paws and sipped slowly, looking thoroughly zen.
Sneaking off to train? She did not need to bother with that anymore.
Because Zorua could feel it. When Naoki was with her, her training was somehow more effective than when she trained alone.
Was this because of Naoki's special quality of some kind?
Curious about it, Zorua had once quietly asked Pawmi whether it experienced the same thing.
Pawmi's answer had been that it had no such feeling. It had not even understood what Zorua was asking.
Zorua had been secretly delighted by that. Because it proved something.
She was special.
She and Naoki were the best partners.
Naoki looked at the three Pokémon around him, each with their own distinct personality, and could not help thinking to himself: what would it be like if this could just keep going the way it was?
Who had not, as a child, imagined themselves receiving a starter Pokémon from Professor Oak, becoming a Trainer, and traveling the world alongside their Pokémon?
Naoki still remembered watching Ash back then, huddling with his Pokémon inside caves during snowstorms, curling up together with Charmander, Bulbasaur, and Pikachu for warmth.
Zorua, Pawmi, Gyarados.
Pokémon really were the most endearing thing in the world.
The moment that thought crossed his mind, a notification appeared before his eyes.
Player "Larry" has met the conditions.
Hidden quest "Chosen One of the Rainbow" is now officially active.
Quest Objective 1: Complete the trial of Entei.
Quest Objective 2: Complete the trial of Raikou.
Quest Objective 3: Complete the trial of Suicune.
Quest Objective 4: Complete the trial of Marshadow.
Quest Objective 5: Complete the trial of Ho-Oh.
Quest reward: ???
Naoki went completely still. He immediately reached into his bag and pulled out the Rainbow Wing.
The feather that had been giving off only a faint glow before was now radiating brilliant rainbow-colored light.
The quest had triggered.
Naoki caught himself and understood immediately.
Chosen One of the Rainbow.
In the anime, Ash had once taken the trials to become the Chosen One of the Rainbow, and eventually encountered Ho-Oh at Tensei Mountain, earning the title.
Now, that same trial had appeared before a player in quest form.
Naoki's eyes moved across the list of names.
Ho-Oh's entire honor guard was mobilizing to test him.
How exactly was he supposed to complete this quest?
Or perhaps the real question was, how was he supposed to find the three Legendary Beasts?
Naoki thought back to the anime storyline. The three Legendary Beasts and Marshadow had appeared before Ash on their own initiative.
Their movements had been trials and observations, all of it designed to lead him toward Tensei Mountain and Ho-Oh's final test.
"So there's no need to rush... All I have to do is take things one step at a time. The three Legendary Beasts will appear before me when they're ready." Naoki thought.
Of course, right now the most pressing matter was not going to Tensei Mountain to complete the trials. It was getting to Kitakami and making contact with Ogerpon.
Early the next morning, Naoki boarded a bus bound for Kitakami.
After several hours of a monotonous ride, the bus pulled to a stop beside a rural bus station surrounded by open rice fields.
Naoki followed a small group of sightseers off the bus.
The air of the countryside hit him immediately, thick with the smell of earth and the faint scent of grass.
He looked around. In the distance, at the far end of the road, he could see a towering mountain, and at its base sat a small town.
The town was surrounded by unbroken stretches of rice paddies and apple orchards. Farmers wearing rain boots could be seen working through the flooded fields.
"So this is Kitakami?"
"It looks pretty deserted."
"That's because it's not the right season yet. When the village Festival opens in the summer, this place gets livelier than most cities."
The tourists nearby spoke of the festival with clear anticipation.
Naoki listened quietly and set off toward the town at the end of the road, Mossui Town.
Both sides of the road were lined with continuous rice paddies.
The farmers of Kitakami had clearly mastered the art of working alongside Pokémon. Every single paddy had Paldean Wooper and Bibarel visible in it. The two species lived among the rice, chasing away pests and forming a natural symbiosis with the fields.
Passing through the paddies, Naoki finally arrived at Mossui Town, the small town nestled against the mountain.
The town was not large. Beyond the imposing Community Hall at its center, the rest of the buildings carried a distinctly Japanese countryside style.
"Young man, you a tourist from out of town?" An elderly man doing woodwork under the eaves of his house looked up at him.
Naoki nodded. "That's right."
"This isn't really the season for Kitakami tourism," the old man said with a small laugh. "The town's most famous festival, the Masked Festival, is still several months away."
"That's alright. I'd heard the natural scenery here in Kitakami was beautiful, so I came to relax for a while." Naoki said with a smile.
"Farmers all want to run off to the big cities. City folk all want to come out to the countryside. Strange, isn't it?" The old man laughed to himself.
Because of the Masked Festival, Mossui Town's tourism industry was actually quite well developed. Small as it was, the town had a full set of inns and facilities to serve visitors.
Naoki checked into a comfortable inn and, once settled, asked the innkeeper about Ogerpon and the mountain where it lived.
"Oni Mountain?" The innkeeper's expression shifted. "Young man, don't go sneaking off to that mountain. That place is the territory of a demon."
"A demon?" Naoki raised an eyebrow. From the way the villagers seemed to shut down about it, it was clear they held a deep fear of Ogerpon.
"That's right. It's a legend that has been told in this town for hundreds of years. Hundreds of years ago, that demon came rampaging into the village in a fit of rage and cruelly killed many of our villagers. Thankfully, three brave Pokémon rose up and protected the town from the demon's clutches."
"Those three Pokémon sacrificed themselves to save us all... And it was all because of that hateful demon." The innkeeper spoke with genuine dread.
Naoki said nothing. He knew the whole story perfectly well.
Three hundred years ago, Ogerpon and a man had come to Kitakami.
Because their appearance did not match the villagers, they had been treated as outsiders and refused entry into the town.
At that time, the town's mask craftsman had seen their situation and voluntarily carved four masks to conceal their features, so they could blend in with the village.
But those four masks had drawn the attention of another Pokémon and its owners. Pecharunt, and the elderly couple who kept it.
To gain favor with the couple, Pecharunt poisoned Okidogi, Munkidori, and Fezandipiti, and sent all three to Kitakami to steal the masks.
While the three were breaking into the man's home, the man returned unexpectedly. To protect Ogerpon's masks, he fought back with everything he had. He managed to keep one mask safe, but the three Pokémon killed him in the process.
When Ogerpon returned to the cave, that was what it found.
To avenge the man, Ogerpon took up its Ivy Cudgel, marched into the village, and struck down Okidogi, Munkidori, and Fezandipiti in a single instant. It also injured Pecharunt, the mastermind behind them.
But the villagers, knowing none of this, saw only Ogerpon in the middle of a violent rampage.
They were terrified. They believed that Okidogi, Munkidori, and Fezandipiti had died protecting the village from the demon. They gave the three the name Loyal Three, and buried them with full honors.
According to the game's storyline, the mask craftsman who knew the truth tried repeatedly to tell the villagers what had really happened.
Nobody listened. He himself was labeled a heretic and driven out by the villagers, meeting a tragic fate at their hands.