Pokemon: Reborn Rich Alternate Earth

Chapter 1025: Chapter 1242: ReasonChapter 1026: Chapter 1243: Little Cousin

Seeing Ember looking like she was breathing out more than breathing in, Julian was startled. He quickly took a few steps forward and came to her side.

Because of their size, Ember's Pokémon couldn't enter the tree hollow. Only a little Chimchar was keeping her company. This Chimchar was a shiny one, clearly recently caught.

Chimchar didn't know Julian, but it knew that Charizard and Blaziken trusted him, so it didn't act aggressively toward Julian approaching Ember.

"Don't worry—now that I'm here, she won't die."

Julian's words were directed both at Chimchar and at Ember's Pokémon outside the tree hollow.

He took out Heavy Water from his system space, which could regenerate limbs.

Then he took out a Flesh-Regenerating Berry, which could regenerate skin.

After feeding these two things to Ember, Julian had Celebi use Heal Pulse.

Having done all this, Julian bought a new set of clothes from the System Shop and placed them beside Ember.

She was still unconscious—but when she woke up, her injuries should be mostly healed.

As for exactly when she would wake up, he estimated it would take at least four or five hours.

"Your luck is pretty good that I happened to appear near you," Julian said.

When entering a Top-tier secret realm, one appeared at a random location within the realm.

And the place Julian appeared happened to be not far from where Ember was, and he was quickly spotted by the patrolling Charizard.

Given Ember's condition, if the treatment had been delayed for even another day, she would have basically breathed her last breath.

And if the person who came had been anyone other than Julian, even if they found her, they probably wouldn't have been able to heal her injuries.

So it could be said that Ember's luck was pretty good.

"Take care of her," Julian said to the Chimchar, then immediately left the tree hollow.

Chimchar nodded happily. It could already sense that its trainer's aura had returned to normal and was no longer as weak as before.

"It's fine now—you all can relax."

After stepping out of the tree hollow, Julian said to Ember's other Pokémon.

Hearing that, they all breathed a collective sigh of relief.

Julian then plopped down on the ground and asked Charizard, "How did you all end up entering this secret realm, and why did Ember end up in this state?"

He was extremely curious about all of this.

So Charizard began to recount the whole sequence of events to Julian.

"I see," Julian nodded.

The gist of it was internal strife within the Hearth family. Although Ember had been designated as the Hearth family's heir, several other direct-line members were more or less unwilling to accept it.

In particular, there was another person whose strength was on par with Ember's and who was three years younger. In terms of talent, the other party surpassed Ember.

And both were of the direct line, yet Ember was chosen as the family heir. Beyond considerations of strength, talent, and how one conducted oneself, there was another crucial factor—Ember was Julian's nominal cousin.

With Julian as a connection, if Ember became the head of the Hearth family, then the relationship between the Walkers and the Hearths would definitely become even closer.

The other candidate lost out precisely on this point—he had no connection to Julian whatsoever.

Naturally, he was unwilling to accept this, and his personality was quite extreme. So after Ember entered the Flame Mountain Secret Realm, he bribed certain guards and secretly entered the secret realm as well, intending to kill Ember inside.

Under careful planning, although he didn't manage to kill Ember outright, he did severely injure her. However, while Ember was escaping, a secret realm gate suddenly appeared in front of her. So to save her life, she had no choice but to enter this unknown secret realm.

However, the other person did not follow her in, because he recognized this was a Top-tier secret realm.

Once inside, there was no guarantee he would be able to find the exit gate. In that case, even if he killed Ember, he himself would also die alongside her.

Internal struggles like this within a family were fairly common.

Many families had even declined entirely due to internal strife.

This kind of strife was unavoidable—whether in small families, large clans, or even top-tier families.

As long as a family had enough members and more than one direct-line descendant, unless the chosen heir had overwhelming strength, conflict was inevitable.

Of course, a certain degree of competition could also promote progress within the family. If controlled well, it could even be a good thing.

"Good thing I don't have any siblings," Julian muttered.

He had been designated as the heir since birth. The Walker family had only one successor—there was no one to compete with him, and his position was rock solid.

"Deoxys, find the exit gate for this secret realm," Julian said.

Now they were inside a Top-tier secret realm, and the location of the exit gate was completely unknown, and Julian also had no idea how large this Top-tier secret realm actually was.

If it were before, Julian would have had no choice but to explore slowly with Metagross.

But now, with Deoxys, a Psychic type First-class Legendary, not to mention anything else—when it came to scanning terrain and perceiving the overall layout, it was truly a cheat.

Metagross could also do it, but compared to a First-class Legendary, it was definitely somewhat inferior in this aspect.

The very fact that Julian dared to enter a Top-tier secret realm meant he was confident he could find the exit gate.

If Deoxys couldn't find it, he could use the Lucky Charms. If even that didn't work, he could always summon Mewtwo.

Deoxys nodded and vanished from the spot.

By finding the exit gate first and resolving the lingering worry of sending Ember out, Julian could turn his mind to exploring this new Top-tier secret realm.

Gurgle—

Charizard's stomach suddenly let out a hungry rumble.

Right after, Blaziken, Camerupt, Ninetales, and the others' stomachs started growling too.

Because the environment here was unfamiliar and they had to protect Ember, they hadn't really gone out to find food these past few days.

Ember's backpack had also been lost when she was attacked, so naturally there were no Pokéblocks or Potions left—otherwise, Ember wouldn't have nearly died.

"Here."

Julian smiled and took out quite a few Pokéblocks, placing them in front of the Pokémon.

Of course they wouldn't stand on ceremony with Julian, and on top of that they were truly starving, so they immediately began wolfing them down. And once they tasted that the flavor was even better than Ember's Pokéblocks, they ate with even greater gusto.

With their trainer's injuries healed, food to eat, and someone so powerful nearby, their safety was fully assured—these factors let the Pokémon's originally tense nerves immediately relax.

After eating and drinking its fill, the little Chimchar sprawled right on top of Ember and fell asleep. It was the weakest among them, and being able to hold on without sleeping until now was already impressive.

The other Pokémon, however, were fine.

Once a Pokémon reached the Elite-level, they could go more than half a month without sleep and still be fine—of course, that was under the condition that they didn't engage in activities that consumed too much energy during that time.

*****

Upto 30 chapters ahead on patreon :-

patreon.com/ReduxMagister

Ember's physical condition turned out to be even better than Julian had expected. Originally, Julian estimated that she would wake up in about four to five hours.

But she woke up in just a little over two hours.

After waking up and realizing that she was still in the same tree hollow as before she lost consciousness, she immediately let out a sigh of relief. At the same time, she noticed that Chimchar was lying on her chest, asleep.

Seeing how exhausted Chimchar looked, it was clear that this little guy had been taking care of her the whole time.

She couldn't help but reach out to stroke Chimchar's cheek, but the moment she extended her hand, Ember froze—her hand had previously been severely burned.

And now, not only had her hand recovered, it even looked smoother and more delicate than before.

The changes in her hand brought her back to her senses. Immediately she realized that her severely injured body had now recovered for the most part.

Her movements woke up the little guy.

When Chimchar saw that its trainer had woken up, it was overjoyed. It grabbed Ember's hand and kept chattering nonstop.

"Alright, alright, I'm fine now. Thank you, Chimchar, for taking care of me the whole time."

Ember smiled and patted Chimchar's head, then asked, "Did Charizard and the others find some kind of treasure to heal me?"

She was well aware of how serious her injuries were—without some powerful treasure, she absolutely would not have woken up. But now, not only was she awake, her wounds were almost completely healed.

Chimchar quickly shook its head, then pointed at the clothes on the ground and then pointed outside.

Only then did Ember notice that there was a set of brand-new clothes placed on the ground. Her own backpack had long been lost, and these clothes were clearly not hers.

"I wonder who saved me…"

She muttered to herself, glancing around the tree hollow. Chimchar was telling her that the person who saved her was right outside.

Thinking of this, she quickly began changing clothes.

But just as she was about to take off her tattered clothes, she saw Chimchar staring straight at her, its eyes full of curiosity.

Thump!

Ember, a bit annoyed, smacked the little guy on the head with her fist.

"Get out!"

Dejected, the little guy left and walked over to Julian's side.

Julian had already heard the commotion inside the tree hollow. And looking at the crestfallen little guy, his expression turned odd as he said, "Didn't expect you to be such a perverted monkey."

Chimchar immediately looked at Julian in confusion, as if saying, 'What do you mean perverted monkey? I don't understand—I'm just a Chimchar with two and a half years of life experience.'

Before long, Ember, now dressed, walked out of the tree hollow. Her Pokémon immediately gathered around her, expressing how worried they had been.

"It's alright, I'm all better now."

She even spun around once to show her Pokémon. Seeing the concern in their eyes made her feel warm inside.

After calming her Pokémon down, she walked over to Julian and said, "My dear little cousin, thank you for saving me."

When she came out of the tree hollow, she had already seen the figure sitting on the ground and instantly recognized it as Julian. And the slight tension in her heart instantly vanished.

Hearing how Ember addressed him, Julian's face darkened slightly. A bit helplessly, he said, "Can you drop the 'little'?"

Cousin was fine, but she just had to add "little"—was she looking down on him?

Ember laughed and looked at Julian with a smile. "What, is yours bigger? Do you want me to call you "Big" cousin instead?"

Hearing that, Julian was so annoyed that he didn't even know how to respond.

Ever since he found out that Ember was his distant cousin, he realized that this woman, even knowing he was her cousin, had deliberately flirted with him—all so she could see the shock, disbelief, and sheer embarrassment on his face the moment he found out the truth.

Julian had never feared her mischievous personality before, but after learning she was his cousin, he inexplicably became a bit wary of her.

After all, he couldn't bring himself to flirt with his own cousin—but this woman had no such qualms.

On this point alone, Julian admitted defeat.

"Hahaha, what's the matter, little cousin? Cat got your tongue?"

Seeing Julian's sulking expression, Ember was thoroughly entertained and felt a strong sense of achievement.

Being able to tease the number one Trainer in the world—there were probably very few people in the world who could do so.

"If you keep laughing, I'll leave you here," Julian said.

It was truly a bit embarrassing—being teased like this by her, and not even being able to fight back.

Though resorting to such a threat only made his counterattack seem all the more feeble.

"Alright, I'll stop."

Ember put on a frightened expression, only to whisper right next to Julian's ear the very next second.

"Little cousin, how did you know my size? And you even got my favorite style, the one with black lace trim… You wouldn't be—"

Before she could finish speaking, Ember found herself unable to speak any further.

It was as if an invisible force had clamped her mouth shut.

'Damnit, does this woman have no shame?'

As for how he knew her size, Julian would say he had piercingly sharp eyes—one glance and he could pretty much tell her measurements.

"Julian, so the reason you don't go looking for a woman is because you're in love with your own cousin? In your human society, that would be inc—mmmmmph!"

Celebi, as if having uncovered some earth-shattering secret, immediately stood up on top of Julian's head. Just like Ember, before it could finish its sentence, Julian directly covered its mouth.

"If you don't know how to talk, then don't. Same goes for you."

Julian looked at Celebi, and after speaking, turned to look at Ember—the latter half of the sentence was meant for her.

Lowering his head, he saw Jirachi covering its own mouth, signaling that it wouldn't say a word.

"Can you stop your nonsense now? If so, I'll let you go."

Julian looked at Ember and saw her nod.

But just after releasing her, she began, "Littl—"

"Ahem, Julian."

Meeting Julian's gaze, Ember immediately corrected herself.

"How did you find me?"

She knew that after she went missing, her father and grandmother would definitely send people to search for her. But the entrance to this secret realm was very well hidden, so the chances of them finding it were slim.

She had been severely injured, filled with despair and unwillingness in her heart.

She hadn't even gotten revenge on the person who ambushed her—she didn't want to die just like that.

But then she woke up to find that not only had her injuries healed, but Julian was right here.

"Well, it went like this—"

Julian then told her about how her father had come looking for him. As for how he found the extremely well-concealed entrance to the secret realm, that was, of course, thanks to Deoxys.

"Good thing you caught Deoxys. Otherwise, in the Flame Mountain, with Metagross's power severely suppressed, finding the entrance would have been even harder."

Ember said with immense relief.

*****

Upto 30 chapters ahead on patreon :-

patreon.com/ReduxMagister