"..."
Gradually, she actually began wishing she weighed a little less... Otherwise, if she turned into a little girl, Qiao Ran should be able to pick her up too... probably?
Following the passage forward, Qiao Ran and the others crossed a long "bridge." Darkness surrounded the bridge, while an empty room lay on the other side.
"What is this place?"
Qiao Ran narrowed his eyes and tried to make out his surroundings. Only then did he spot several protruding pillar-like objects in the center of the room.
Holding Vulpix, Qiao Ran walked over. As he drew closer, he finally saw what those "pillars" truly were. They were not utility poles standing on the ground, but transparent containers. Most were hollow inside, while the one in the center seemed to contain something.
"...!"
Qiao Ran narrowed his eyes and looked toward the central container, but what he saw inside still shocked him.
Inside the container was a very young-looking woman with brilliant golden hair flowing down to her hips. Most importantly, her slender, flawless body was completely bare, frozen within the container by some unknown substance like a sleeping beauty.
Staring at the naked woman frozen inside the transparent container, Qiao Ran stood there in a daze. Then, word by word, he spoke her name.
"Lusamine..."
Lusamine—the president of the Aether Foundation... Why was she here?!
And... in a frozen state, too...
"What exactly happened here?!"
"Crack."
Just as Qiao Ran exclaimed in shock, a strange sound came from behind him. Moreover... the various crystals embedded in the walls lit up in an instant.
Multicolored light blossomed, washing through the sea of air.
Dreamlike, gauzy veils drifted out from behind the crystals...
An oppressive aura began spreading through the room...
UB01: Nihilego
Hazy light seemed to illuminate the polar day of a dim ocean. Along with the spreading glow, several creatures shaped like white jellyfish drifted out from who knew where, swaying through the sea of air.
They had exceptionally beautiful forms. Their heads resembled sun hats with blue trim, and even their every movement was as elegant and soft as that of human girls.
Beautiful, dreamlike, yet incomparably deadly.
"Nihi...lego!"
Looking at the sudden swarm of "jellyfish," Qiao Ran could not help sucking in a cold breath. He had expected to encounter something dangerous here, but he had never imagined so many Nihilego would be hidden in this place.
—Nihilego. In the Aether Foundation's records, these creatures were classified as UB01: Parasite. They were lifeforms from another world.
Although, like Pokémon, they could be placed inside Poké Balls, as Pokémon from another world—or rather, "Ultra Beasts"—their abilities far surpassed those of most Pokémon in this world.
An ordinary Nihilego had an astonishing base stat total of 570. Among ordinary Pokémon, only Pseudo-legendaries could probably reliably surpass that number. If it were Sunkern, with the lowest base stat total of all Pokémon at 180... who knew how many it would take to match a single Nihilego.
"These things..."
Moreover, Qiao Ran could not sense even the slightest goodwill from these Nihilego. They had appeared because Qiao Ran's arrival had disturbed this quiet environment—or perhaps... they had a particular fondness for Qiao Ran's body.
Nihilego, UB01: Parasite. They were called that because they could parasitize other lifeforms, and through that parasitism, control the host's thoughts. However, Nihilego did not parasitize just anything. Their parasitism seemed to have its own criteria...
In any case, as he watched the white jellyfish slowly swim closer, Qiao Ran could not simply sit and wait for death. He immediately issued orders to his Pokémon.
"Suicune, Water Cannon! Dianxi, Earth Power!"
If they had been ordinary "real jellyfish," Qiao Ran certainly would not have used Water-type and Ground-type moves against them. However, despite being special jellyfish capable of swimming through the air, Nihilego had the extremely unusual dual typing of Rock and Poison.
In other words—as jellyfish, they were somehow, just like Dianxi, doubly weak to Water-type attacks...
"Roar!"
"Di!"
At Qiao Ran's command, Suicune opened her mouth and fired a rushing column of water, dousing one Nihilego directly. At the same time, Dianxi summoned the power of the earth and struck that same Nihilego in flawless coordination with Suicune.
"...!*@!..."
The white jellyfish let out a strange cry, sounding like both a girl's scream and something else entirely. She swayed as she fell from the air. Double-effective Water-type damage and quadruple-effective Ground-type damage were not easy to endure, especially when the moves came from two "Legendary Pokémon."
"Keep attacking! Vulpix, Altaria, go help too!"
The attack had worked, and Qiao Ran pressed the advantage. However, when he looked at the white jellyfish lying limp on the ground, her body covered in Suicune's fluids, a strange thought could not help arising in his mind.
"Wait... I remember my Pokémon-collecting mission happens to require Rock Types, right?"
Qiao Ran scratched his head, then, as if possessed, pulled a Poké Ball from his pocket.
He suddenly felt that taking some jellyfish home might not be so bad... After all, every macho man living by the sea liked catching jellyfish.
A long time passed.
Yet the battle in the room continued. By now, Suicune and Dianxi had knocked down more than a dozen Nihilego in succession, but the jellyfish seemed endless, continuing to drift in from every direction.
"...Is this a jellyfish nest?"
Looking at Vulpix and Altaria, who had begun panting heavily, Qiao Ran silently cursed his bad luck. Not only them—even Suicune and Dianxi were growing tired.
"Vulpix, Altaria! You two return to your Poké Balls and rest for now."
Qiao Ran took out Poké Balls and recalled the two of them. The special aura here seemed to suppress ordinary Pokémon, causing Vulpix and the others to expend their stamina far faster than usual.
Furthermore, because they were inside a singularity, neither Qiao Ran nor his Pokémon could directly return to Pokémon Pioneer Land. They could only leave this damned place after completing the final mission.
"The mission objective is to deal with the root of the singularity... What exactly is that root? The leader here?"
Qiao Ran glanced at Lusamine in the transparent container behind him. The leader of the Aether Foundation had now become a frozen ice sculpture at the mercy of others. In her current state, she could not possibly be the root.
Then... was the root something else?
"Dianxi, Suicune, let's get out first. We can't stay here and keep getting surrounded!"
Qiao Ran made his decision. Nihilego held an absolute advantage in numbers. If they kept fighting like this, they would eventually be worn to death. Moreover, this room had only one obvious door. If the Nihilego occupied the exit, they would be trapped here for good.
"Di!" Dianxi nodded in agreement with Qiao Ran's idea. As a Pokémon, she could clearly feel her stamina draining. And to defeat Nihilego, she had to focus with all her strength. Although she and Suicune had knocked down quite a few Nihilego, that did not mean these creatures were weak. On the contrary, they were incredibly strong.
Thus, having made up his mind, Qiao Ran led Dianxi and Suicune out through the encirclement, returning to the bridge at the room's entrance.
"Whew..."
Qiao Ran braced his hands against his knees and bent over, breathing hard. That room had been absurdly huge. As expected of the Aether Foundation, it never skimped on space. Even a man who had trained himself like Qiao Ran felt exhausted.
However, before Qiao Ran could take more than a few breaths, a hair-raising sensation spread from behind him. His eyes widened, and it felt as though his heart stopped for a second.
—A black tentacle tore through the air and stabbed directly toward Qiao Ran. Its target was not a human Pokémon, but Qiao Ran himself, the human Trainer.
This thing was attacking the Trainer directly! I'm... I'm dead!
Qiao Ran closed his eyes. He could already see himself being grievously injured.
"Di!"
"Clang!"
However—at the final second, the very second Qiao Ran thought he was about to suffer a devastating blow, Dianxi stretched out her hand and created a massive pink diamond behind him, blocking the attack for him.
"Di...anxi!"
Qiao Ran's eyes were full of shock, but Dianxi's were full of gravity. Her gaze remained fixed behind Qiao Ran, as though she faced a great enemy.
"..."
Following her gaze, Qiao Ran slowly turned around.
There—a massive black jellyfish drifted out from the darkness, and in the center of that jellyfish was a very young, adorable-looking girl.
Her hair appeared to have been dipped in ink, turning pure black, with only the ends retaining the same gold as Lusamine's. Furthermore, her expression was filled with malice... Looking at her, Qiao Ran could not help thinking of the description, "a good child turned bad."
"Lillie...?"
Qiao Ran felt that he seemed to know this girl.
That was right. In the Pokémon world, this girl was incredibly popular. It would not even be an exaggeration to call her the newest generation's queen of human doujins...
—Her name was Lillie, and she was also the young lady of this Aether Foundation...
Normal Lillie.jpg
Overlord: Parasite
"Has she been parasitized...? Is that black thing a Nihilego?"
Qiao Ran looked at the girl wrapped in the "jellyfish," and his expression worsened by the second. Although he had long understood that Nihilego possessed such an ability, actually witnessing it still sent chills down his spine.
No one liked being parasitized, and Qiao Ran was no exception.
And Lillie—in the Pokémon world, she had always been a particularly special character.
She was the innocent young lady of the Aether Foundation, as well as the daughter of Lusamine, the "frozen person" Qiao Ran had seen earlier. Everything about her was as pure as a blank sheet of paper, and Lillie herself did not possess much combat power. Yet she was the only person in all the games to have raised a base-680 box Legendary from infancy.
Furthermore, even gf, the company that made the Pokémon games, treated this character like their own daughter. They prepared a separate set of models for every Lillie appearing in the games, forcibly stuffing a full 400 MB of Lillie into games only a few gigabytes in size...
Although that had much to do with gf's outdated technical capabilities, it also showed just how important Lillie was.
"Hehe..."
However, the current Lillie no longer resembled a "pure young lady" in the slightest. Wrapped in Nihilego, her face held only a malicious smirk. Her aqua eyes were lazily half-open, as if she were considering how to dispose of Qiao Ran and his group.
"Di...!" (Master... be careful, that thing is dangerous...!)
Dianxi's gaze never left the black Nihilego. Nor was she the only one—Suicune had kept her body taut as well. The instant Qiao Ran had been attacked, she had wanted to help, but she had been a step too slow.
Although Dianxi had resolved Qiao Ran's crisis, Suicune still felt a trace of self-reproach in her heart. She had always wanted to be a quiet guardian, yet—her strength was still too weak.
This was the first time Suicune had felt such an urgent desire to grow stronger. Only by becoming stronger could she protect what she wanted to protect. If she could not even protect her master now, could she protect Lady Ho-Oh in the future?
Rotom, who had been floating beside Qiao Ran, also gave her analysis. Because the opponent's condition was highly unusual, she had spent some time examining her.
"Master! This thing's level... her level is actually 41, Rotom! Her energy... her energy is extremely powerful!"
"What? Level 41?!"
Qiao Ran looked toward Rotom in surprise. Level 41 was no ordinary matter; as an Ultra Beast, a level 41 Nihilego was innately far more powerful than an ordinary Pokémon.
Moreover, this Nihilego that had parasitized Lillie was enveloped in a strange aura, and her body looked somewhat larger than that of an ordinary Nihilego.
"Hehe..."
An eerie laugh rang out from the darkness, echoing around the long bridge. The black Nihilego extended her tentacles and sprayed purple venom at Qiao Ran and the others.
"Dianxi!"
Seeing the opponent suddenly attack, Qiao Ran immediately gripped the Dianxi Key Stone against his chest and sent his power into Dianxi's body.
This Nihilego was vastly different from the previous ones. If they did not deal with her carefully, they could very well be defeated completely—Qiao Ran did not dare let down his guard.
After that sneak attack just now, Qiao Ran understood that she truly wanted his life—or his body...
"Di!"
Wrapped in dazzling pink light, Dianxi's appearance changed completely. Powerful energy burst from her body, and in this darkness, she became a shining source of light.
Dianxi extended her hand and formed a jeweled barrier before them, blocking the incoming venom. The venom struck the gems with a piercing hiss, giving off strange purple smoke.
If it had been an ordinary battle, Dianxi most likely would not have chosen to block directly. But this was different. Her master stood behind her, and she would never choose to retreat.
"Dianxi, Earth Power! Suicune, block her attacks too! Keep using Water Cannon!"
On the bridge, Qiao Ran sent both Legendary Pokémon into battle. Furthermore, he considered whether to send Vulpix and the others back out. Even Qiao Ran could not predict the outcome of this battle.
If they lost, an incomparably miserable ending awaited them... He might become a jellyfish too, then drift through this ocean with Lillie forever.
"Hehehe..."
Faced with Dianxi and Suicune's attacks, the black Nihilego did not panic at all. She merely shifted slightly to the side and dodged them. Moreover, the white Nihilego that had remained in the room slowly drifted over from around her.
—The enemy's numbers were increasing.
"Damn it..."
Qiao Ran's pupils contracted. This was the enemy's territory. The longer they fought, the more unfavorable things would become for them.
Before you continue