"You're here? Want some tea?"
The girl in the red dress looked at Rope and gave a light, clear smile.
"Sure, do you have any black tea?"
"Yes, I'll go make it for you."
The room wasn't big enough for Rope to see where the tea was made. He wasn't worried about Kaedenatsu harming himself either... that made no sense.
After a moment, Kaedenatsu poured black tea into Rope's cup.
"What did you come to ask?"
Kaedenatsu's face is unchanged.
"You're Latias, aren't you."
Rope opened his mouth with those words.
"You just guessed that now?"
Kaedenatsu looked at Rope with a smirk and a bit of a snicker.
Rope shook his head, "When did I see it... does it matter?"
"What is going on in your world?"
Kaedenatsu's smile finally disappeared from her face at those words. She showed a look of remembrance that had a few painful moments.
After a few moments, she opened her mouth and that whole story unfolded.
"Our world started out just like yours. Only in our world, the Legendary Pokémon's battle power was much weaker than yours. But it was still beautiful. Our relationship with humans isn't as well-matched as yours, or even somewhat hostile. We get along with humans just fine!"
"These two, Ash and Red, are really amazing. Ash has never accomplished anything particularly great on his travels, but he has a lot of Pokémon."
"Red is very talented and strong. Pallet Town is amazing. It was the site of the last refuge of our world."
"But that very day...very suddenly...the world began to fall apart. At first there were just strange cracks in the trees. Then it was on the ground. We didn't think it was anything very scary at first, and patched it up."
"It wasn't until the water started to have cracks in it that couldn't be filled...that we realized...it seemed like something really bad was happening."
"The humans and us Legendary Pokémon started working together, and we kept searching for the reason why it happened. When the flowers on Shaymin began to wilt, we found the reason."
"The Laws... began to crumble."
"But what was the reason for the law collapsing? We weren't sure until the end."
"You know? That feeling of watching your world crack, break, and disappear bit by bit is so painful."
Kaedenatsu said, and the expression on his face grew more and more agonized.
Rope actually looked at Kaedenatsu as a friend. That's why he didn't immediately speak out again. But he also had no intention of letting Kaedenatsu off the hook.
After bringing the expression on Kaedenatsu's face to ease for a few moments, she said to Rope somewhat helplessly, "I'm just a fugitive, hoping to have a place to land. It would be best if I could settle."
Kaedenatsu looks up and smiles with a somewhat pale face, "I'll help you, for my shelter."
"As long as the information you give me is true, I will help you land."
Rope was speaking less like a friend and more like a businessman at this point.
His eyes were as stern as knives, "You tell me, Red, what exactly is their purpose?"
Kaedenatsu, as if he had known he was planning to ask this question, shook his head with a bitter smile, "I really don't know. I'm not one of their people, so I definitely don't know about these plans of theirs either."
"I was the lucky one of those victims who escaped."
Kaedenatsu recalled his brother's smile before he died. But he couldn't help but shiver.
It was a world of despair.
"All of us gods, and those Pokémon whose laws depended on the gods after their deaths, were imprisoned in an orb-shaped thing. The laws in us were all drawn out. Many Pokémon died. There were also ones that lived like me."
"I knew Red, he cried that day, but his whole face was still so cold and hard...he hadn't smiled since Ash's sacrifice."
"They opened the space passage. Left the world. We didn't have a chance to leave...we could only lie there and wait to die. But the sky was the limit, and Poipole and I found a space passage just as the world barrier began to shatter. And then came here."
"What I didn't expect was...Red and the others, also came here."
Rope, however, didn't say anything, what was there to not expect.
Maybe this had been one of the last few Pokémon worlds.
How else would the salvation clause have been activated?
"Does Red and the others know you're here?"
"Yes. Phoebe even came to see me and said she wanted me to join them, like Lunala and the others."
"But I don't want to, I just want to get through this. No more infestations of middle despair."
Rope interrupted her.
"But Red and the others are plunging our world into despair."
Rope's face was just as cold and hard.
Kaedenatsu looked at him and after a moment smiled miserably, "You look a lot like Red did back then, Rope. maybe the choices you made would have been the same if you had run into the same thing."
Rope shook his head slowly as he heard this.
He knew that this information, while not enough, should really be the limit.
So he planned to get up and leave.
"Rope, aren't you going to ask about your end? What were you in that other world thankful for when despair struck?"
Kaedenatsu shouted.
Rope didn't look back.
There was no point in asking such a question.
Looking at Rope's resolute departing back, Kaedenatsu's eyes had a slight misty look.
"Sure enough, do you also know that the other world doesn't have you at all?"
"I am an exile, Red is an invader, and what are you, Rope?Are you the same as that woman who never showed her face?"
"Truly, a visitor from another world."
——————————————
At night, Rope looks at the ceiling in silence.
Following what Kaedenatsu had said, he had brought himself into the role of the otherworldly Red, and then backtracked through it all from what he was doing now.
He came to only one conclusion.
Otherworld Red intends to save that world. He intends to put his world back on track. Going so far as to sacrifice this world that Rope is in to do so.
This man was great. This man is despicable.
The clock hand was pointing to 11:00 p.m. Rope hadn't gone to bed yet, and he hadn't always been a big fan of staying up late. But tonight he didn't, didn't sleep.
Poipole was watching and studying in the next bedroom with Dragon Pulse's Technical Machine.
Not surprisingly he would evolve tonight. As much as Rope hated that the guy had lied to himself. But Rope wasn't going to let him evolve and pull his partner's leg just for that little thing.
That wasn't Rope's character.
The main reason he was still awake tonight was because he was waiting for someone.
He was waiting... for that person to arrive.
[Drip... Spatial ripple detected. Checking for ripple type in progress. Ding, confirming that the spatial ripple was sent by the Civilization Recovery and Management Bureau, and is a legitimate world shuttle].
The chip in Rope's head belonging to the company prompted so.
And so Rope also knew that the person he was waiting for today, had arrived.
In the blink of an eye, the space violently trembled a few times, and then it was a door that looked light and strange on the inside that opened, and then a young man with a dirty white lab coat, dyed red hair, a cigarette in his mouth, and tight pants but slippers under his feet walked out.
"Yo, this is the 'company' buddy? Can you help me report to your higher-ups and ask what process I need to go through if I want to jump from the Cultural Affairs Bureau to your company?"
The youth had a smile on his face, gangly and bitchy, not like a normal person anyway...
Rope also didn't expect this guy's first opening sentence to be asking himself to be an introducer...
"Er, I'm a newcomer to the company, I don't really understand what you're talking about. Doesn't the company have any open recruitment?"
Rope asked, opening his mouth.
"There is, but I can't go and take the test... the Cultural Affairs Bureau is watching it closely. There are many rules, and jumping ship can be troublesome..."
The red-haired youth said somewhat helplessly. After saying that, he looked towards Rope and extended his hand, "My name is Lai, a third level investigator of the Cultural Affairs Bureau. I came over this time to hand over the work of the high grade civilization relics with you."
"My name is Rope, a newcomer to the company, and I was notified to be in charge of handing over the captured Soul-Nourishing Beads to you."
With that, the small ball of fire at his waist rose up to his eyes before the flames dispersed and a small bead with a shimmering gray glow hovered where it was.
Lai looked at the small bead not feeling attracted to it at all, instead he shook his head in disgust.
"Just for such a sugar bean...those guys can really line fine wine this thing is also worth a special trip..."
Though her mouth was year-old cow press complaining, Lai still discreetly pulled out a box from her carry-on space and packed the Soul-Nourishing Beads inside.
"It's not bad though, performance and time to be able to be lazy..."
Said Lai as he glanced at Rope's king-sized bed and gulped, "Brother Rope? That..."
"Feel free, I can't sleep right now either, if you have time, I'll straighten something up and we'll chat for a while, I'll do my best as a landlord."
Just as Rope finished speaking, Lai spread out onto Rope's bed in a flash. Then yawned widely.
"Damn it, the R&D department side is just too busy...I haven't rested for dozens of days. The production team's donkeys aren't even driven to work this much..."
Rope grabbed some snacks and tree nuts from his table. It was just something Daisy had prepared for him because she was worried he'd be hungry at night.
He brought them to the bed and didn't mind sitting on them as well.
"Brother Lai, are you an Earthling too?"
Rope asked one of his most curious questions.
"En, an Earthling, a Great Tang person to be exact. My family is from Chang'an."
Lai was tired, but didn't bother being polite with Rope, and just picked up a variety of food and started filling her mouth.
"It's also fortunate that I'm here to collect such a small thing today. Otherwise I'd have to go through a lot of effort to collect it again. I'll have to go back immediately after the mission time is over."
Lai's tone took on a bit of relief.
Rope didn't quite understand his current state of mind, but he knew he didn't need to say much right now, and there was plenty of intel for him just by listening quietly.
When some people knew a lot more than what you knew went out, the things he said from time to time were precious information in themselves.
"I'll tell you, the Cultural Affairs Bureau looks beautiful, and those field officers are all tugging like anything else. But do you know how tiring it is for those of us involved in logistics? Working more than ten hours a day, we can't rest until the project is finished."
"Physically it doesn't feel like a lot of exhaustion, it's more of a mental tear. It's genuinely hard to top..."
Lai's tone was full of helplessness.
Rope nodded and handed over another Pecha Berry. something sweet at this time of year always gave a sense of happiness.
"Seriously, it's still a good deal at your company! Flexible sitting shifts, double time off, annual leave, bonuses, subsidies, and publicly funded trips."
"And it's said that your company has a very large number of female employees. We also have beautiful women in the Cultural Affairs Bureau, but those are basically in the field ah! We, the logistics, simply can't come into contact with a few women."
"I'm almost thirteen hundred years old and I'm still a single dog!"
Rope then reacted to this guy's earlier joke about whether he was from the Da Tang or Chang'an not some modern man... this guy really was from Chang'an! That Chang'an of the Sheng Tang...
"I should have known that I should have listened to brother Bai back then, and it's not a big deal to go to a green house and hang out..."
The more I talk, the more outrageous it gets. But Rope also had some understanding of the situation in the main world. According to Rope's estimation, the big brother of the Civilization Recycling and Management Bureau should also be an Earthling, and there should be quite a number of Earthlings within the Bureau, otherwise Lai wouldn't have been surprised to see himself at all.
"Brother Lai, not so much, not so much, we are in our prime, it's still early, this kind of thing like women, just by the fact that you, Brother Lai..."
Rope looked Lai up and down and the corner of his mouth twitched hard.
"Brother Lai I think that things like finding a girlfriend should start with changing yourself."
"Are you saying I'm not handsome now? That's right, I've been up for dozens of days, so emaciated that my handsomeness is about to be covered up by my emaciation."
Rope: ...
If you're going to think like that... then there's nothing I can do about it...
"How about... we start with changing our hair?"
Rope said somewhat helplessly.
"Change your hair? This is the most popular hairstyle on Earth twenty years ago. I gave myself a particularly popular screen name at the time, 'Acting y1 World's Flamboyance', and I'm a man who is at the forefront of trends."
Rope: ...
My lord, times have changed...
"Brother Lai, let me ask you something."
"Say! You give me a bite of good food today, and your Brother Lai will know everything about you today!"
With that, Lai glanced at his bracelet, then said, "You'll have to be quick though, I'll be resting for another 30 minutes before this mission is over."
He reached out and patted Rope on the arm and said, "And I know it's not easy for all of you who are saviors in the company either. Like us in the field, you keep your heads in your pants to make money. I like you, I'll tell you anything you want to ask, anything I can tell you."
Rope wasn't going easy on the guy either, "I didn't bring the Soul-Nourishing Beads here, what other possibilities are there for this thing to show up in this world?"
"There are many possibilities, the biggest one being temporal turbulence. This phenomenon can happen in any location except for the space that the 'Mighty Ones' stabilize with 'anchor points'. And there's no warning."
But Lai thought about it and still shook his head, "No temporal turbulence was observed, which means that the greatest probability of this thing is still being brought in."
"Smuggled in?"
Rope asked.
"Not sure," Lai shook her head, "I'm not in charge of approving the relevant certificates, how annoying is the paperwork."
"I have items from the main world too, why wouldn't mine be recycled?"
"Yours was approved by the Authority. Your company's saviors have approvals for it. Letting you go straight to the Otherworld without a little help...your company will be sued by the Biological Rights Organization to the Court of Order."
"The Biological Rights Organization?"
"An organization that aspires to fight for the rights of all creatures in the main world. An organization that doesn't have much of a brain. If it weren't for the fact that their organization's boss is both crazy and strong, this obtrusive organization would have been wiped out long ago."
Good lord, this world really has its share of madness...
"Then is there anyone else in this world besides me?"
"There should be, but of course there's a possibility that there isn't, brother, let me remind you. Things like world breaking, if it happens naturally, then it should happen at the beginning of the world's birth, or when the world's lifespan is about to end."
Lai had seriousness in his eyes, "If it happens in a normal environment, the likelihood of the world breaking during its growth and maturity is only like one in a billion. This is our internal statistics from the Cultural Affairs Bureau. It's absolutely accurate."
Rope nodded, signaling that he understood.
"You have to realize that those of us who came to this world were more or less suppressed. But you're different, you were commissioned by this world to enter it for salvation. Even in the case where the world consciousness of this world has been seriously injured and slumbering it will subconsciously help you."
"That's why you're the key to breaking the game, Rope."
Said Lai as he yawned and barfed twice, he buried his head on the quilt and said, "I'm not talking to you, I'm going to take a nap, I'll leave on my own in 30, oh, 25 minutes, don't worry about me. You go to sleep."
Rope nodded and smiled, "Then you sleep for a while Lu. I'm going to my room to rest. Thank you for today."
Lai's body stiffened for a moment, then he waved his hand and didn't look up.
Rope gently walked out of the room and then brought the door with him.
Not long afterward, the sound of even breathing came from the darkness.
Rope walks back to her room, then lies down on her bed, recalling today's exchange with Lai, and is also vaguely tired.
But it was kind of a way to get a break.
He didn't know why Lai was telling him so much. But it was good.
So Rope drifted off to sleep as well.
——————————————
Twenty-five minutes later, Lai opened his eyes again, shaken by the white light in front of him, and then cursed tiredly, "What's wrong with you, you porcelain hammer?"
"Time's up, your work isn't done."
A teenager who looked to be only seventeen or eighteen years old said as he looked at the paperwork at hand.
Lai scratched his red cocktail head and said, "We're at the end of our research, what's wrong with me taking a break...you're just looking for trouble."
"Work means finishing on schedule, you can go ahead of schedule, but you can't delay."
The teenager spoke with an emphatic cold with some metallic flavor.
Lai ignored him as well and just asked suspiciously, "Why remind him that neither the Company nor the Shadow League has much to do with us. It's not like the Empire is begging for our heads."
"Shadow League fished over the line." The teenager still didn't look up, "It's against our rules for them to take something as worthless as Soul-Nourishing Beads and fool around with it, and leave him behind on a secondary world."
Lai also rubbed his chin, "That's true, after all, those guys from League didn't even apply towards the delivery, it's not against our principles."
"A work regulation you're violating as well." The teenager said calmly, "Aren't you afraid of being sued by them for denigrating the 'right to biology'?"
"They can sue if they want. It's not like I'm wrong anyway. And I'm saying this as a staff member of the Cultural Affairs Bureau, so who of them can refute it."
Lai had a disdainful look on his face.
The teenager finally raised his head and looked at the non-mainstream in front of him with some speechlessness, "It's fine for you to denigrate 'Biological Rights', why do you have to denigrate our Cultural Affairs Bureau?"
"Oh, boss you've finally connected us, the Cultural Affairs Bureau, to the situation and biopower? Let me tell you, there are a lot of people out there who think our Cultural Affairs Bureau is in the way too!"
Junior: "..."
"Boss, how do you think this kid could tell that I was planning to give him help?"
"You're so stupid and bad at acting that you were seen through in a second."
Speaking of which, without waiting for Lai to open his mouth to complain, the teenager frowned and said, "But this kid is really something, I didn't expect that this guy would actually guess the message I was trying to convey so easily."
"The company really has a lot of talent!"
——————————————
Rope opened his eyes, only to see a large yellow and white bee-like Pokémon appear in front of him.
"Knock it off, Naganadel, give me a break."
Rope didn't even want to pay attention to this asshole, keeping everything to himself. If Poipole and the others had spoken up earlier, maybe Rope would have gotten along with a way to deal with the three otherworldly visitors.
Naganadel was a little aggravated. He wasn't stupid enough to know that Rope must still be angry with him.
But it wasn't something he wanted either. It was a memory he wouldn't tell anyone if he could. Whether it's a human or a Pokémon, the damage received at a young age takes a lifetime to heal, by and large.
Rope, on the other hand, turned on his side, but was having some trouble sleeping...
He recalled his conversation with Lai last night, and was also quite helpless.
"That means even Red and the others were all used? Who is the real murderer..."
"And... does he have anything to do with the breakup of the last world, or not? And what was the purpose of their coming to this world?"
Asking herself mentally, Rope's weariness surged up once again, so she fell into a deep sleep once more.
Yesterday, it was just too long...