Pokémon: Starting with a Pokémon Ranch.

Chapter 24 Anti-"Caterpillar" Alliance (Please continue reading)

All the crabs were put into the Poké Ball.

Fortunately, Poké Balls were already mass-produced in this era. Otherwise, Su Yu would have been exhausted just transporting all those Crabs back.

After that, Su Yu went to look for the Dongdong Rats he had met before. However, they seemed to have moved away long ago, and there was no trace of them at the original location.

After letting Growlithe sniff carefully, Growlithe was certain that the Pokémon had been gone for several days.

"Where can they go?" Su Yu wondered.

Perhaps these Pokémon chose to move for some reason?

Who knows when we'll meet again? This forest is so vast; finding just a few Pokémon within it is like searching for a needle in a haystack.

"I can only wish them good luck and hope they are safe and sound," Su Yu thought to himself.

No longer dwelling on it, Su Yu had already gained a great deal from this trip, just by taking the Maoya Crab family with him.

After climbing onto the tropical dragon's back and taking off, Su Yu prepared to return directly to the ranch.

However, at this moment, the sound, like thunder, grew closer and closer. At first, Su Yu didn't pay any attention. But when the sound became too loud, he had no choice but to look in the direction from which it came.

"It's on the ground, and not in the clouds?"

The source of the sound surprised Su Yu, but when he looked down, he found a familiar figure on the ground.

"Was that... the same caterpillar we encountered last time?"

The caterpillar had some unusual golden markings, which allowed Su Yu to recognize it. At that moment, the caterpillar was locked in a fierce battle with a giant swallow.

At that moment, the giant swallow was continuously using "Air Slash" in the air to launch ranged attacks on the caterpillar.

But the green caterpillar was incredibly fast, constantly dodging and weaving among the bushes, managing to evade the giant swallow's attacks each time and retaliating with an electric net in return.

"Wow, I'm so excited! I saw a caterpillar fighting a giant swallow..." Su Yu said, rubbing his eyes in disbelief.

"And that caterpillar was so fast... how did it do that?"

This Caterpie's instantaneous speed was even faster than Growlithe's, which made Su Yu wonder if this was still the weak Pokémon he knew from his previous life.

Is this a young Rayquaza?

In order to figure out why the caterpillar moved so fast, Su Yu observed it carefully. His dynamic vision, which far surpassed that of his previous life, allowed him to discover that each of the caterpillar's rapid movements was achieved by the enormous force accumulated by each of its abdominal legs.

This is what people often refer to as explosive power.

It's hard not to be surprised that a caterpillar could train its explosive power to this level. No wonder when Su Yu last encountered this caterpillar, it vanished in a flash.

Besides its powerful explosive force, Su Yu was also quite surprised by the caterpillar's proficiency with electric nets. Equally surprising was the amount of electric energy stored within the caterpillar's body.

Even many serious Electric-type Pokémon, like Pikachu, can't use the Electric Net move so many times in a short period of time.

"What a pity, such great talent, it's a shame it's just a caterpillar."

"No matter how hard it tries, it can't escape the fact that it's a caterpillar. Unless it can find another way to break through the limits of its species, its upper limit is just that."

Su Yu could tell that this caterpillar was trying very hard not to evolve into a metapod, because it wanted to try to break through the limits of a caterpillar.

But this isn't a world of beast taming; the evolution paths of Pokémon are relatively fixed, so there aren't many ways to forge a new path...

Wait, a new road?

Su Yu looked at his system. If he remembered correctly, his system had a function called "Divine Beast Template".

When this feature was first introduced, the system explained that its purpose was to help Pokémon using the template grow into the legendary Pokémon corresponding to that template more smoothly.

Su Yu then looked at the green caterpillar that was fighting not far away.

"So, I can actually raise a Rayquaza that I raised myself?" Su Yu's expression was full of strangeness.

This system is really amazing; every function has a huge impact.

"boom……"

Just as Su Yu was expressing his approval of the system, suddenly, the Caterpie in the distance was hit by a slash of air from Swellow.

Caterpie landed on the ground covered in wounds. At this moment, the bird Pokémon that had been watching gathered around, ready to take advantage of Caterpie's remaining health to snatch its head.

Seeing this, Su Yu quickly sent the tropical dragon down to land next to the caterpillar.

Tropius shielded Caterpie under its body, and the surrounding bird Pokémon seemed somewhat resentful.

But a single fierce glare from Tropius silenced the bird-like Pokémon instantly, while Su Yu turned to the lead Swellow and said:

"I know there's a food chain among you Pokémon, and I know it's the law of nature. But this Caterpie is my friend, and I can't just stand by and watch it die."

"Consider these energy cubes my compensation to you. Let's just leave it at that. I'm sorry for bothering you."

As he spoke, Su Yu took out a handful of energy cubes from his backpack and handed them to Da Wang Yan.

Seeing this, the Great King Swallow gave Su Yu a deep look, picked up an energy cube, and flew back to the forest.

Seeing that their older brother had left, the surrounding bird-like Pokémon realized that the matter was hopeless.

They all followed the example of the Great Swallow, came to Su Yu, snatched a bit of energy cube, and flew back to the forest.

After the Pokémon left, Su Yu finally had time to check on Caterpie's injuries. Fortunately, Caterpie was tough and its injuries weren't too serious.

"Even the most effective moves can't do anything to you, wow, you've got a lot of health..."

While treating the caterpillar's injuries, Su Yu made this comment.

After its wounds were treated, Caterpie gradually regained consciousness. Upon waking, Caterpie cautiously looked around and was quite surprised to find that there were no bird Pokémon present.

Seeing this, Su Yu explained:

"I've driven them away for you, don't worry, you're absolutely safe now."

"Ugh... Hiss?" Did you save me?

Upon hearing this, Su Yu nodded and asked:

"By the way, I'm curious... how did you end up battling bird Pokémon?"

"It seems like the last time we met you were already battling bird Pokémon. Is there some reason why that's been going on for so long?"

Upon hearing this, the caterpillar wore a nostalgic expression.

In the very beginning, it must have been when it was just a small, weak caterpillar, right?

At that moment, a little finches spotted it hiding in the bushes and flew over to hunt it. Fortunately, the caterpillar was already gifted with a talent for it, and immediately learned to use its silk-spinning technique, defeating the little finches.

But after that, Finch's parents came looking for them again. Fortunately, Caterpie learned the Electric Net move on the spot and defeated Finch's parents.

And then...

And then it just went on and on. Finch's parents called its neighbors, and after its neighbors were defeated, they called its neighbors' neighbors. It was as if the bird Pokémon were going up against Caterpie.

Until recently, the bird Pokémon of Mt. Chimney even formed an alliance to "hunt down" Caterpie, seemingly unable to tolerate a tiny Caterpie that was invincible among bird Pokémon.

After listening to the green caterpillar's description, Su Yu's lips twitched. Good heavens, you're living the script of a fantasy protagonist?

After the younger ones are defeated, the older ones appear – isn't this the classic villain trope? And then the protagonist levels up by defeating monsters along the way.

Your approach is quite authentic, isn't it?

……

(End of this chapter)