Chapter 600: The Southern Kingdom 1

Once Alex finished digesting Gardevoir’s report, he had her clean up the scene. This included removing the recent events from everyone’s memories, reducing their interest in the monster hunter, and sweeping through the town to do the same.

As for the messenger that had already been sent, Alex didn’t bother with it. Two weeks from now, they would return only to find that the mayor had lost all interest in the matter and would simply shove it aside.

The only potential danger was if another Psychic or Dark type Mage or Mystic came to investigate. They might discover traces of Gardevoir’s fiddling, but even then, it barely mattered in the long run.

Alex then headed back to the island and called another meeting with the girls, giving them an update on his investigation.

“Do you think we’ll be able to become Knights or Mages?” Iris asked excitedly.

“I don’t know,” Alex replied. “Assuming the mana that supposedly permeates the air is what causes their abilities, then we should be able to. But only if we trained in their world.”

“Their situation is kind of like ours,” Marnie said. “We have those with Affinities here, like their Mystics, and we also have regular people and Trainers. It just sucks for them that their lifespans don’t increase by much when they reach Elite rank.”

“The Knights’ and Mages’ powers are temporary, so that should explain the difference,” Talia commented. “If their bodies could grow through their energies, that would be a different story. Maybe that’s why they don’t grow any stronger? They only temporarily use their energy and nominally store it somewhere rather than allowing it to permeate through their bodies.”

“You seem particularly excited about this,” Celise teased, a playful smile on her face as she looked at Talia.

Talia blushed. She was usually more passive during these meetings, but it would be a lie to say she wasn’t interested. After all, the cause of the native’s powers might be entirely biological rather than dependent on the world’s unique energy. If so, she was interested in their unique anatomy.

“How are we going to proceed?” Lyra asked, getting straight to the point. “I’m assuming our objective is to start a farm to grow these monsters or whatever. If that’s the case, we’re going to need a lot of private land.”

“I’m thinking we should claim the entire southern side of the continent for ourselves,” Alex said. “Apparently, it’s considered no-man’s-land, which makes it the perfect place for us to settle. We can start investigating the differences between regular and giant Pokémon there. Once we figure that out, we can work on increasing their population and harvesting them once they reach the appropriate ranks.”

“Are we going to be nobles?” Iris asked excitedly. “We can build a settlement in the southernmost part of the outskirts and claim everything south of it as ours. We can even kill anyone who tries to go any farther south.”

Everyone looked at Iris after her sudden bloodthirsty suggestion, seeing her in a new light. They had never realized she had this side to her. It must have been influenced by the bounty hunters she regularly teleported.

“And what are we going to do when we’re asked to provide our best resources to the kingdom?” Nyx asked. “We can’t become nobles unless we want to be ordered around. We could be asked to fight in wars, clear monsters so they can build more settlements, or do anything else the monarch happens to want. Obviously, we’ll be living longer than them, so our station will only be temporary at best.”

“How about a kingdom, then?” Iris suggested. “We proclaim the southern continent as our kingdom and kill anyone who approaches.”

“That could work,” Nyx said, nodding. “Although, we’ll have to regularly fight with people from the north. It’s going to be a continuous bloodbath, pretty much every few decades. Humans are greedy and persistent. We’ll also have to play politics and give the nearest monarchy some benefits.”

“Are we going to have subjects?”

“Probably not. It’ll all have to be handled through Rhea’s android army.”

“Aw… I wanted to be a princess…”

“You can’t be a princess since you’re with Alex. He’s going to be the king, so you’ll be a queen.”

“That’s not so bad…”

“My time to shine has come!!!” Rhea shouted as she stood on her chair, planting both hands on her hips.

As the girls grew rowdy with their suggestions, Alex came to the conclusion that they couldn’t rely on people. Nyx was right. They were simply too unpredictable. Almost any establishment they created would either become too successful, eventually driving the giant Pokémon toward extinction, or become too destructive once the people running it inevitably betrayed them. After all, he and the girls could be gone for decades at a time, giving anyone ambitious enough plenty of opportunities to screw things up. A more automated approach was necessary.

“That should be it, then,” Alex decided, cutting through the chatter. “Lyra, Mika, are you girls coming? We’re going to investigate the southern side of the continent and see if anyone is living there. If there isn’t, we’ll mark out a place for our castle and make sure it fits the era.”

“Yeah, we’ll be on our way,” Lyra replied before cutting the video call.

The meeting continued with Kaia outlining the ideal locations for their planned castle and any necessary outposts before Lyra and Mika arrived via Teleport. The three then prepared for their journey before using Hoopa’s portal to return to the medieval world.

They emerged in the forest where Alex had taken down the giant Greedent and quickly made their way west, deeper into the forest. Riding Arcanine and Lyra’s Mightyena pair, they encountered plenty of Pokémon behaving like wild animals, along with the supposed monsters simply lumbering through the wilderness. Eventually, they reached the western coast of the continent.

“This should be far enough that no one will spot us,” Alex said as he released Mantine.

They took off and headed south, gradually increasing their altitude until they were high enough that they became difficult to spot among the clouds. Over the next few days, they continued their journey atop Mantine, watching the landscape below transform from dense forests into frozen mountain ranges as they traveled farther south.

“I’m pretty sure we’re in the Galar region,” Lyra pointed out.

“Their language was Old Galarian, and they have giant Pokémon, so it checks out,” Mika said. “I wonder how this world differs from ours, though. How come they have giant Pokémon while we have Dynamaxed Pokémon?”

“Apparently, something resembling a meteor descended here a few centuries ago. It was destroyed in the atmosphere, raining meteorites across the continent. That was when reports of monsters first started appearing,” Alex explained. “It’s just a guess, but I think it was Eternatus. Rather than bringing about the Darkest Day, though, it was destroyed and scattered, leaving behind neutralized chunks of its body and power that spread across the continent.”

“Wouldn’t the energy signature still show up during Vera’s examination, though?”

“Like I said, neutralized. Whatever took Eternatus down also removed the berserk effect from its energy before it permeated the continent.”

“That’s interesting.”

Their conversation continued as more frozen mountain ranges stretched along their left while open sea extended to their right. The temperature grew colder the higher they flew, eventually becoming uncomfortable even for them. Finally, after an entire week of traveling through the air, they arrived at their destination, the southern end of the continent, where the frozen mountain ranges gave way to lush greenery.

“This should be the best place for us to set up our defenses,” Lyra said as she surveyed the landscape. “We’ll build a wall of turrets running from east to west along the edge of the northern mountains. Anyone coming from the north will first have to cross that frozen wasteland with limited supplies, and once they reach the wall, they won’t be able to push into the southern territory to replenish their food or other resources. They’ll be forced to maintain their siege from the mountains, where the cold and lack of supplies will eventually do as much damage as our defenses.”

“What about the coast?” Mika asked. “They can always take a ship and bypass the mountain range like we did. Are we going to place turrets along the entire coastline?”

“I think we’ll have to,” Lyra answered. “We don’t have much of a choice if we want to completely isolate this land.”

“Let’s check whether it’s inhabited first,” Alex said. “If there are people living here, I don’t want to claim this territory for nothing. I’d rather go to the Isle of Armor to the east, where we could own the entire island ourselves.”

“That place will be too small to cultivate giant Pokémon.”

“I’m sure Vera, Lina, and Kaia can come up with something. It’s better than committing a massacre for land.”

“Won’t we be massacring armies that come to claim our land, though?” Mika asked.

“Defensive massacres are better than offensive ones. Let’s just hope this place remains uninhabited.”

Over the course of the next month, Alex, Lyra, and Mika flew across the entire southern continent from a bird’s-eye view, searching for any signs of civilization. They found no shrines, towns, villages, settlements, or nomads roaming the land. The only things they encountered were Pokémon living in their natural habitats, along with plenty of giant Pokémon.

As for their relative strength, there were plenty of Master ranked giant Pokémon roaming the southern continent. From their initial count alone, they estimated there were more than a hundred. That boded well for their endeavor. As long as they maintained the resources of the southern continent, they would eventually have access to as much Master ranked meat as they could ever need.

“This place is beyond perfect,” Lyra concluded. “Where should we set up our main base?”

“How about by that tree at the southern end?” Mika suggested.

“Not there,” Alex said. “If memory serves, that’s where the Galarian Legendary birds reside. I don’t know if I want to mess with them yet.”

“Wouldn’t it be better to get rid of all the powerful Pokémon? That way, the giant Pokémon can thrive.”

“Maybe. But what if we get killed the same way Eternatus was? This world is too mysterious for us to start controlling its natural ecosystem through strength. It’s better to leave well enough alone as long as we can maintain a sufficient supply of Master ranked Pokémon meat.”

The girls didn’t argue. Alex had a point. Besides, they could always decide to take the Legendary birds down later, once they had established themselves.

In the end, they decided to build their castle atop a mountain north of Giant’s Bed, right at the center of the dividing line between the frozen tundra and the southern greenery. It also happened to be the area with the highest concentration of Master ranked giant Pokémon lounging about in the open.

For Alex, it was the perfect place to begin building their new kingdom.