Chapter 239: Even the Cone Head Has a Fan Club?

[VIP Chat Group]

[Iris]: The movie’s over!! But my head is still completely filled with Rayquaza and Eternatus blasting each other!! That was incredible!!

[Dawn]: Uwaaaah, that ending was so good! I knew Asher wasn’t really a bad guy! I believed in him from the very beginning!

[May]: Exactly! That final scene with Asher and Elaria hugging was so heartwarming!

[Steven]:@Everyone, all of you better go watch The Dragon-Riding Princess! If you don’t, you’re no brother of mine! I’ve already decided to book every theater owned by Devon Corporation. Starting tomorrow, they’ll play this recording on repeat until everyone has seen it!

[Wallace]: Steven, calm down. Devon Corporation owns more than seven hundred theaters. Do you have any idea how much that would cost?

[Steven]: Money isn’t important! What matters is making sure everyone gets to see Diancie riding Rayquaza! That’s art! A miracle! The most perfect image in hundreds of billions of years!

[Mr. Stone]: Steven, you’re not even president yet, and you’re already trying to make decisions over my head? Devon Corporation needs to make a profit. It isn’t your personal playground.

[Steven]: Dad, there’s always more money to be made. As Hoenn’s leading corporation, Devon Corporation has both a responsibility and an obligation to contribute to the development of world culture!

[Lance]: ...Since when did Steven have such a strong sense of social responsibility?

[Steven]: Since the moment Diancie entered my life.

[Wallace]: ...

The video continued playing.

Once the movie ended, the lights in the screening hall came back on.

"Elaria."

Diantha reached out and tidied the loose strands of hair over her daughter’s forehead.

"The premiere is over. How do you feel?"

Elaria blinked her golden eyes and thought about it seriously.

"More tired than last time."

"Of course you’re tired."

Diantha laughed.

"Last time, you only had to be the lead actress and producer. This time, you wrote the script yourself too."

"You did the work of three people by yourself. How could you not be tired?"

"But Elaria is still really happy."

Elaria turned toward the screen, where the ending credits were still rolling.

"Because Daddy was willing to play the villain for Elaria."

"Who said I did it for you?"

Asher reached over and ruffled her hair.

"An actor saying his lines is perfectly normal, isn’t it?"

"But Mommy said that a real actor puts their own emotions into the character when delivering their lines."

Elaria tilted her head.

"The things Daddy said in the movie clearly came from your heart!"

Asher looked toward Diantha, who was sticking her tongue out at him.

He could only shake his head helplessly.

"Your mother really has taught you quite a lot."

"So it’s true, right?"

Elaria’s eyes lit up.

"Daddy really would do anything for Elaria, right?"

"No."

Asher reached out again and messed up Elaria’s hair.

"It’s not for you."

"It’s for all of you—you, your mom, and everyone else I care about."

"Understand?"

Elaria nodded vigorously.

Then she threw her arms around Asher’s neck and buried her face against his shoulder.

"I understand! Daddy really is the gentlest daddy in the whole world."

Diantha lightly cleared her throat beside them.

"Hubby, Eternatus has been staying on the roof of League Headquarters ever since filming ended."

"When are you planning to send it back?"

"Send it back?"

Asher raised an eyebrow.

"It doesn’t want to leave. What am I supposed to do about that?"

"It doesn’t want to leave?"

"Yeah."

Asher pointed toward the ceiling.

"It said the communications tower at League Headquarters makes a pretty good new nest, so I let it stay there."

[VIP Chat Group]

[Leon]: ??? The Legendary Pokémon that nearly destroyed the entire Galar region, and Asher just lets it openly lounge around on the communications tower at League Headquarters?!

[Raihan]: ...I suddenly feel like Eternatus’s intimidation factor just plummeted in my mind.

[Steven]: That’s what you call staying grounded! Even a Legendary Pokémon from outer space can settle down and live happily at League Headquarters. That’s more than enough proof of Brother Asher’s management skills!

[Wallace]: Steven, I genuinely admire your ability to find an angle like that. Somehow, you can connect absolutely anything back to Asher.

[Steven]: Of course! Brother Asher is my sky!

[Aaron]: Still, Eternatus settling down at League Headquarters really would be a massive upgrade to the parallel world’s security system. If another villainous organization ever tried attacking headquarters, they’d probably turn around on the spot the moment they saw Eternatus.

[Bruno]: True.

The video continued playing.

Less than twenty-four hours after the premiere ended, The Dragon-Riding Princess completely shattered the box-office record that Light of the Diamond had only just set.

Theaters everywhere urgently added late-night screenings.

Yet even those tickets sold out within just forty-seven seconds of going on sale.

Scalpers even drove the price of a single ordinary ticket into the six figures in League currency—

Only to be caught on the spot by the League’s Anti-Fraud Department.

In the end, The Dragon-Riding Princess earned twice the box-office revenue of Light of the Diamond, becoming the highest-grossing movie in Pokémon world history.

Meanwhile—

Inside the office of the World League Cultural Department’s Minister.

Elaria sat in her office chair.

Spread across the desk in front of her were all kinds of official movie merchandise and autograph books waiting to be personally signed.

She gripped a marker in one hand, her expression already on the verge of collapse.

Because there was exactly twice as much merchandise to sign as last time.

Last time, she’d needed an entire afternoon to finish everything.

This time, the amount had doubled outright.

And every autograph book had a label from a different fan group attached to it—

"Diancie Princess Fan Club."

"Princess Elaria Cheer Squad."

"Dark Iron Triangle Association."

"Steven Cone-Head Global Fan Alliance."

Elaria stared at the name of the final fan group.

She remained silent for quite a while.

"...Why does Uncle Steven’s cone head have its own fan club?"

Lillie stood beside the desk with a folder in her arms, looking equally exhausted.

"According to the statistics, even though Mr. Steven’s appearance in the movie was voted ’the biggest source of comedy in the entire film,’ it also generated an enormous amount of attention online."

"At the moment, ’Steven-Style Cone-Head Hair Gel’ has already sold out across five regions."

"Hair gel?"

Elaria blinked.

"What’s that?"

"It’s a product used to hold your hair in a cone shape."

Lillie opened the folder.

"Last week, Devon Corporation rushed out a new product called ’Mr. Steven’s Extra-Strong Styling Gel.’"

"The first batch of one hundred thousand bottles sold out completely within three days."

"Right now, a single bottle is selling on the black market for fifteen times its original price."

Elaria fell silent for a moment.

Then she lowered her head and continued signing autographs.

"The world of grown-ups is so complicated."