Pokémon Detective Case Files.

A job interview is a process in which individuals, in order to make a living, completely abandon their personal dignity, alienate themselves into a commodity called "labor power," and actively sell themselves to the market.

In this special occasion, humans are no more noble than a cabbage, and the buyer and seller will engage in sincere and sharp bargaining over the job applicant's usefulness.

Specifically, employers will go to great lengths to put on airs, nitpick resumes, criticize personality, and comment on attire, employing every means, both overt and covert, to undermine the applicant's confidence and thus lower their expected salary. If applicants are unprepared and unable to demonstrate their value in a short time, they will be met with utterly rude and abrupt dismissals.

Everyone's first job interview is a major test from society.

Bilan, who filled out her resume haphazardly on the spot and didn't even know what kind of job it was, stepped into the examination room with her Archaeopteryx on her head, completely unprepared.

The result was predictable—the girl performed terribly in front of the interviewer and ultimately fell into deep self-doubt.

"Young lady, you're not suited for Pokémon breeding here. While you're still young, pretty, and don't need glasses yet, go find a job at a nearby electronics factory. Tightening screws is a delicate job, the pay is stable, and it's perfect for a quiet girl like you..."

The auntie from the personnel department put down the materials, raised her gold-rimmed glasses to her forehead, and so "kindly" offered advice to the strange girl with the little bird on her head.

Yes, yes, that's how useless she, Bilan, is.

She has never attended a proper vocational college or obtained any decent certificates. Apart from being able to assign Pokémon to battles, what advantages or special skills does she have?

As nothing more than an unofficial assistant to Professor Oak and a top four finalist in the 10th Indigo League, what right does Azur have to work at their prestigious ironworks?

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"Sister Xiaolan, don't listen to those people's nonsense. Those interviewers use the same rhetoric with everyone. Real ability isn't printed on diplomas and certificates. You have to believe in yourself."

Touko gently patted the back of the stunned Bilan, soothing his senior's emotions, and winked at the detective, wanting Hugo to say something comforting as well.

However, Hugo remained unmoved, frowning as he pondered.

After thinking for a while, just before Touko was about to complain, the detective in the white coat came to his senses.

He raised his face, looked at the two girls seriously, and said, "Don't you find this strange?"

"What's strange?" Douzi tilted his head in confusion, and even Bilan turned her gaze toward the detective.

"There are still so many trainers lined up in front of us, but the interviewer, faced with an applicant like Azure who clearly doesn't meet the job requirements, didn't kick her out immediately. Instead, they pretended to interview her for almost half an hour and then gave her a long speech of advice... Don't you think their actions were too deliberate?"

"You mean they're deliberately stalling for time?" The girl with the high ponytail thought for a moment and voiced her guess.

"They are indeed stalling for time, but their purpose is not limited to that..."

Hugo paused mid-sentence, noticing the renewed fighting spirit in Azure's eyes, and decided to hand over the floor to his assistant.

"Azure, it seems you already know the answer."

"Yes, Director." Upon hearing the riddle, the girl with the Archaeopteryx on her head seemed to have been rehydrated and regained her usual energy.

She smiled and said, "This is actually a very simple deductive reasoning."

At this moment, the girl's eyes were no longer empty. Her brain, honed through years of experience in the agency, worked rapidly and came to an obvious conclusion.

“Wasting time on me was just a means to an end. The interviewer’s real goal was to prolong the time spent on each interviewee in order to reduce the total number of people interviewed that day.”

"Why did the interviewer do that?" Douzi asked Bilan cooperatively.

"My first reaction was that these companies didn't actually want to hire Pokémon trainers. But that idea was immediately dismissed because the decision to hire or not is up to the company. If the higher-ups wanted this job fair to be a complete failure, they could just throw all the resumes in the trash. There was no need to do such a thing at the job fair."

As Bilan recounted the story, Hugo nodded slightly; this was indeed his deduction.

"So, is it because the HR manager who interviewed me had some private plans? Is it because she personally hates me? That's impossible, because logically speaking, the trainers hired by the factory have nothing to do with the HR department's business, so there's no conflict of interest like competing for jobs. And I've only arrived in Liyong City for the first time today, I don't even know the local customs, let alone have any connection with the steel mill."

"But then, why exactly did that auntie give Sister Xiaolan such a severe scolding?"

Douzi looked at the detective and his assistant, who seemed to have a telepathic connection, and watched them speak in unison as if they were exchanging answers. He was completely baffled.

"It's to avoid seeing someone in the line behind me," Azure said softly.

"What that interviewer was really thinking was—if she could make each interviewee last long enough, she could get through this recruitment day and leave before that mysterious troublesome person showed up, thus avoiding any potential conflict."

"Avoid conflict?"

For some reason, Douzi remembered a quote from Victor Hugo—

It's best for two creatures with strong opinions but unable to convince each other to avoid meeting, otherwise they're likely to end up arguing.

But the girl still couldn't believe it. Little Blue had only been scolded by the interviewer, so how could she have deduced so much information? Could it be that she made it up on the spot to escape reality?

"This wasn't a deduction I made up on the spot."

Azure read her junior's feelings from her expression. And so, just as a detective often does, she used her mind-reading skill with pinpoint accuracy—

"It only just dawned on me that the applicants in front of me, some successful and some unsuccessful in their interviews, all of them without exception spent far more time than normal—I overheard people talking about it. Combined with my own experience, I accidentally wandered into the job fair, yet I was still dragged into an interview for half an hour—that interviewer's delaying tactics are now crystal clear! There must be something fishy going on behind this!"

"But it seems that the interviewer's delaying tactics failed."

Hugo glanced at the queue in front of him and suddenly said—

"Many people here are applying for interviews at different companies at the same time. The line at this iron smelting company is so long that more than half of the applicants have already left. By some twist of fate, the person who scared the interviewer might already be in front of her in the queue..."

Before the detective could finish speaking, the crowd at the front of the line suddenly erupted into a frenzy, like boiling water.

Exclamations of surprise came from afar...

"Oh no! Our supervisor has been attacked! His nose is bleeding a lot... Quick! Get him to the hospital!"

Chapter 121: Exemplary Interview Assessments

The sudden chaos took everyone except Hugo completely by surprise.

While Bilan and Douzi were still in a daze, hesitating about their next move, the detective had already rushed into the venue, heading straight for the source of the commotion.

The interviewer is stalling for time to avoid meeting someone, while Hugo is searching for a key witness in the bombing. The coincidence of these two strange events at the same time and place makes the implied message obvious—the person the interviewer is avoiding and the person Hugo is looking for are the same person.

The detective in the white coat moved nimbly through the crowd like an eel in a quagmire, and soon arrived at the meeting room at the end of the line.

Before seeing the person, one could already hear their voice.

A heated argument erupted from where Azure had previously conducted her interview—

“Mr. Telt, let me reiterate. Your work experience has a major blemish, and whether you are hired is not up to me alone. I will report your interview situation to the company truthfully and let the higher-ups decide your fate.”

"Don't think I don't know what you're up to!"

A loud voice rang out, piercing through the clouds and splitting the rocks. Even through the walls of the conference room and the vast sea of ​​people, the detective could still hear it clearly.

"You and your boss have already excluded me from the hiring list, afraid that this unlucky guy who can't be separated from the bombing will run into your factory and affect your business! But I'm still here, you bespectacled old lady! I want you to deliver these words to your boss verbatim! Listen carefully!"

With a loud, muffled thud as someone slammed their hand on the table, the violent noise paused briefly, like the calm before a storm…

Then, thunder struck, and it was continuous and incessant, echoing for three days.

"I am Telt, the top Pokémon breeder Telt! I am the most skilled Pokémon trainer in the entire Liyong City! If your little lousy factory still wants to do large-scale breeding, then don't be stingy with my meager wages!"

"Yes, my old employer, the Liyong Power Plant, exploded for some reason, but that was an accident and had nothing to do with me! In fact, if I hadn't worked there, all those Magnemite and Electrode in the power plant would have gotten sick or died long ago before this explosion happened! You money-grubbing capitalists have no idea what large-scale Pokémon breeding means. You think you can get this done by hiring a few fresh graduates? Bah!"

"Listen! If the number of Pokémon you keep at the same time exceeds fifty, that makeshift shed you use to raise them will be as fragile as Mimikyu's 'mask'—it'll burst at the slightest touch! A change of just two or three degrees in temperature will trigger a deadly virus to spread among the Pokémon; a moment's carelessness in food distribution will result in half of the Pokémon becoming obese while the other half suffer from malnutrition; and if you're not careful during rearing, some mischievous Pokémon will try to escape. And once they have that thought, hey! No amount of high-tech wire mesh or electrical wires can stop them..."

"I know your ironworks has long wanted to expand like William. Listen carefully, only I! Only I! Have enough experience and technology to be your training consultant! If your boss wants to open a factory and expand instead of wasting money on charity, then he should invite me into your company as soon as possible!"

Finally squeezing to a window where he could see the situation inside, Hugo instantly understood why his previous observations had failed to pinpoint this important guest in the bombing incident—

He was simply a brute who would turn all his emotions into anger all at once!

Through the window, Hugo saw a burly man he had glanced at earlier in the queue.

His appearance differed slightly from that of a typical trainer—

The latter is similar to a pet store clerk, generally giving people a gentle, steady, and considerate impression; while this guy, even though he was wearing a suit, shirt, and tie—the three-piece interview outfit—still looked like a raging, roaring tiger in human skin, as if just seeing him appear would lower your attack power.

They practically have the words "dangerous element" written all over their faces.

The burly man had loosened his tie, revealing a stubborn and unyielding head on his flushed neck, beneath which lay an even more stubborn and unyielding brain. A wild, unruly beard covered his head from the base of his nose down to the southern hemisphere.

And on the face in front of this head, no expression other than anger or laughter would appear. Because on that face covered with a thick beard, any subtle emotions of sadness would vanish without a trace.

The world is truly full of all kinds of people... Hugo couldn't help but admire the biodiversity of the Unova region.

Across from the bearded man, a middle-aged female white-collar worker sat with a pale face. Under the pressure of the applicant, her body trembled incessantly, but she managed to remain calm.

The detective noticed that the interviewer's nose was a little red and that there was some dust on the surface of the gold-rimmed glasses he was wearing.

This must be the source of the commotion, right? The atmosphere of the conversation he overheard earlier wasn't too bad; there shouldn't have been any intentional harm. Hugo roughly deduced what had happened before he arrived at the scene—

A burly man named Telt went too far in expressing his opinion, his gesturing brushing against the interviewer's nose, causing the latter's glasses to fly off. The interviewees in the queue saw what happened through the window and spread the story, turning what was initially an accident into a farcical incident where "the interviewer was assaulted and bled from the nose."

Of course, this might also include the resentment of job applicants who waited too long outside, deliberately spreading a less favorable image of the interviewer.

The interviewer, his image damaged, forced himself to remain calm and mustered the courage to look the burly, bearded man in the eye.

“We will take your feedback seriously. Mr. Telt, please leave the recruitment fair now; there are many other people waiting for their interviews.”

"Tsk, more platitudes." Telt frowned, as if about to explode in anger again. The interviewer quickly shrank back in fright.

In such a situation, it's truly impossible to tell who the interviewer is and who the applicant is.

In the end, the burly man didn't do anything more drastic. He simply stood up and coldly told the interviewer, "Remember what I told you to pass on to your boss," before walking away on his own.

The HR manager who conducted the interview couldn't help but let out a long sigh of relief and leaned back in his chair.

At this moment, Bilan and Douzi finally emerged from the crowd and squeezed to Hugo's side.

"What's going on here? I think I hear people arguing loudly?" Azure poked the detective on the back curiously.

"A truly outstanding interviewee just arrived. He confidently and generously stepped forward, declaring in a booming voice that he was exactly the kind of talent their company needed. He boldly and confidently showcased his value, accurately pinpointing the employer's key concerns. His poised demeanor left a lasting impression, yet also prevented the interviewer from making any negative comments. This is a model of effective interviewing. I believe that soon he will overcome any blemishes on his resume and land a new job."

Hugo stroked his chin, then suddenly turned to the azure sky and said in a cautionary tone—

“Azure, you should learn from Mr. Telt. He’s very good at showing off his strength. People often think that strength is something you automatically acquire after reaching a certain level, but that’s not true. Usually, what people perceive as strength is just an attitude. Sometimes, just a little bluffing can make many seemingly indestructible obstacles start to loosen.”

"Mr. Telt? Bluster?" Upon hearing the unfamiliar name and the inexplicable warning, the assistant was utterly bewildered.

The detective seemed to relish the bewildered expressions on people's faces, and with a smile, he dropped the bombshell—

"Yes, he is the former Pokémon breeding consultant at Liyong Power Plant, and he is the important witness we are looking for."

Chapter 122 Trainer Telt and His Work

Once the identity of the key witness was discovered, the rest was easy.

It didn't take long for Hugo to catch up with Telt, who had just caused a scene at the meeting.

Perhaps because he was also curious about the truth of the bombing, Hugo revealed his identity as a private detective to the other party. The fierce-looking breeder immediately agreed to the suspicious detective's request, and the two went into an open-air bar on the street to exchange information.

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"This is my detective assistant, Ms. Azure, and this is the client's representative, Ms. Touko. If you mind their listening in, we can continue our conversation somewhere else."

The bar wasn't lively during the day; only soft music drifted through the open air. The detective sipped the iced water served by the waiter and introduced the two ladies who had arrived later to Mr. Telt.

"It's alright, feel free to ask me any questions you have."

Telt gave a perfunctory reply, then eagerly raised his enormous beer mug and began to gulp down the malt beer that the detective had paid for.

Is this person really a Pokémon breeder?

Douzi and Bilan, who were watching the show from the sidelines, met Mr. Telt for the first time. Looking at his fierce, bearded face, the two ladies simultaneously became suspicious.

Of course, the detective wouldn't waste time on such a trivial question.

“Since you put it that way, then…” Hugo hesitated for a moment before asking directly, “Did you cause the explosion at the Liyong Power Plant?”

Telt didn't react for a moment, still chugging his beer, before he realized what the detective was talking about.

He abruptly stopped drinking, the beer stuck in his mouth bulging his cheeks, and then with a "pfft," like a Water-type Pokémon unleashing a "high-pressure water gun," he sprayed out the beer that had just entered his mouth.

The smell of alcohol filled the air.

Azure, who dodged in time and escaped danger, threw out a Poké Ball and sent out Archaeopteryx to use "Clear Fog," but it was unclear whether it would work.

Just as the yellow fledgling was listlessly flapping its wings, the girl couldn't help but wonder about Hugo's behavior—

What is the detective doing? Who asks questions like that to someone they're investigating? Besides, even if Telt really is the culprit, he won't confess just because of Hugo's question!

Was Hugo joking? Honestly, it's really not funny for a detective investigating a case to say something like that.

However, at this moment, Hugo put down the wine list stand that he had been using as cover, and stared intently at Mr. Telt’s surprised face with his gray eyes, like a pheasant that had spotted its prey. He was not joking, but was seriously questioning him.

The bearded caretaker wiped his mouth, and instead of being angry, he laughed. He let out a terrifying, low chuckle, and slowly put down the beer glass he had been holding in the air with a thud.

"Do I look like the murderer to you?" Telt answered the question with a question, his expression playful as he steered the conversation back to Hugo.

The detective scoffed and slammed his glass of ice water down on the table.

He became interested, leaned forward abruptly, and put on an exaggerated expression of doubt—