The puddle at the entrance of the dorm district didn't mean much to the heavy truck — its tall tires carved out a path through the muddy water.
"Put away the Pokémon in the water! Don't come looking for me if they get hit!"
The driver seemed to have had some unpleasant experiences in the past. After giving two short honks, he leaned out of the window and shouted at the Pokémon in the water and the nearby crowd.
However, the driver failed to notice that the biggest surprise had been clinging to the back of his truck all along.
If he had known someone — a "guerilla rider" — was standing on his rear bumper, he'd have jumped into the water himself to drag the person off.
But he never imagined that people nowadays still dared to hitch rides on trucks. Thanks to that, the student who'd hitched a ride made it safely to dry ground and left before the driver even got out.
"Nekomi, wait here for me a bit. I'll deliver the food and come right back."
Rowan remembered where the perimeter wall was, but getting there required walking down a dirt path through a small grove. With the recent rain, the road was all muddy, and Nekomi would likely get her feet dirty walking it.
After the heavy rain, Nekomi's feet weren't particularly clean to begin with, but walking on paved roads was still a lot better than trudging through mud.
Back during the Gym Battle, it was already obvious that Nekomi wasn't fond of those kinds of terrain. Getting mud on her paws would be a hassle to clean at home, so Rowan hadn't planned on bringing her with him.
Returning to the Poké Ball would have solved a lot of problems, but Nekomi disliked Poké Balls too much to even consider it.
"Meow~"
"Here, you take this first. I don't know what the souvenirs from the other Gyms are like, but if they're all like this, that'd be pretty cool."
The model, worth tens of thousands, was a limited edition because it had been a gift from the Gym, so the price was a bit inflated.
But for a Gym Leader, the cost wasn't particularly high. Their side jobs and the League's subsidies already brought in good money — and Ground-Type Pokémon from Lanxiang Gym had plenty of practical uses in daily life.
You could see those Ground-Type Pokemon in mineral exploration, underground construction, and mine rescues.
Rowan never went anywhere out of Nekomi's line of sight, and Nekomi didn't mind — she just stood by the roadside waiting for him to return.
Before long, Rowan arrived at the perimeter wall and saw Zhang Lin coming out, wading through water in a pair of slippers.
"Flooded inside too?"
"There's a bit of water here, but it's not as bad as the entrance. By the way, your Gym Battle was kinda insane. That Meowscarda is so strong—why didn't you go into the Battle Department?"
"Uh... would you believe me if I said I just finished raising her?"
"If you raised her to that level in four years, you should've joined the Breeder Department."
Compared to a single powerful Pokémon, someone who can consistently raise strong Pokémon is just as rare.
There are plenty of Pokémon with outstanding natural talent, but it's not like they can grow strong just by eating and sleeping around. Breeding has always been a crucial part.
Most of those with strong battle aptitude have at least some knowledge of breeding—they're just not experts at it.
"We're about to graduate anyway, don't worry about the details. Here's your dorm's lunch. By the way, how did you know the details of the match?"
"Didn't you check their Gym's homepage? It has your battle record."
"They even upload the videos of their losses?"
"Of course — how else would they attract more challengers?
But I think the person who edited the video must have a grudge against that substitute Gym Leader — they even kept in the part where he failed his entrance from the sky."
Zhang Lin adjusted the progress of the video he had just been watching and held it up in front of Rowan.
[Why no Mega? Can't or won't?]
[He can't! The one Pokémon he can Mega Evolve is that Pidgeot — and it got one-shotted at the start!]
[Hahaha, karma's real — now he's the one getting humbled!]
In the bullet screen comments, Trainers who had previously been defeated by Rong Fei were cheering. Thanks to this substitute Gym Leader's habit, his online reputation had recently taken a sharp downturn.
Unlike the teachings from other Gym Leaders, his always carried a condescending tone, which rubbed many people the wrong way.
Seeing him finally getting humbled, those people silently reached a shared understanding.
However, Rowan never appeared in the video footage — even the voice giving commands had been specially filtered.
"My guess... the video editor is probably the old Gym Leader."
A regular staff member likely wouldn't target the young master like this — after all, that guy could be their future boss. Unless, of course, this came straight from the current boss.
"I can't say for sure. Anyway, there's going to be a university Pokémon Race in a few days. You interested?"
"Pokémon race? Are the Pokémon supposed to drive or something?"
"No, I'll send you the link later — take a look for yourself. Oh, and I already transferred the money for the food to you."
With the hope of the whole dorm riding on him, Zhang Lin returned to the dormitory, while Rowan and Nekomi headed back to their rented apartment.
"Hang on, I'll get you a towel... actually, never mind — let's just rinse you off."
Even though Nekomi hadn't walked through the mud, a trail of footprints was still visible behind her.
Normally, when it hasn't rained, she could just wipe her paws on the doormat — but now, that would mean having to wash the mat again too.
"Don't move around your feet, okay? If you dirty the wall, I won't get my security deposit back."
Placing the excavator model off to the side, Rowan told Nekomi not to move, then scooped her up in a princess carry.
He didn't want to dirty the floor, nor did he want to get his clothes dirty — so this was a fairly reasonable action.
After all, Meowscarda wasn't the kind of size you could just pick up like a Sprigatito.
Nekomi indeed didn't move — even when Rowan set her down on the bathroom floor, her hands were still resting on his shoulder, with no intention of letting go.
"You're down now. Here's the showerhead — I'll go get you a fresh towel."
As she watched Rowan's back disappear out of the room, Nekomi suddenly felt a bit nostalgic of her Sprigatito days.
In her memories, back when she was a Sprigatito, she could lie directly on top of Rowan's head. And when she got dirty, it was Rowan who cleaned her up.
After evolving and gaining hands, a lot of things had become more convenient — but it still felt like she'd lost a bit of joy.
Maybe because she felt a bit dirty from the earlier battle, Nekomi went ahead and gave herself a thorough cleaning.
While she was showering, though, she kept feeling like there was something odd going on in the room outside— she could occasionally hear Rowan laughing.
When she finally finished drying off and stepped out of the bathroom, she figured out the source of the strange sounds.
At this moment, there was a bag of rice on the floor, and next to it a moisture-proof storage box. Rowan was holding a remote control, slowly moving the rice bag with it.
"Meow? (What are you doing?)"
"Playing around. This thing's pretty versatile—it can even drag a 10 kg bag of rice. Want to give it a try?"
Nekomi didn't say anything. She simply picked up the bag of rice, poured the rice into the box in one go, and demonstrated what efficiency looked like.
She didn't quite understand why her Trainer was so interested in something this inefficient.