IQ App

"Do you have any other Ghost-type Pokémon?"

Hearing that Roy had other Ghost-type Pokémon, Mary's voice immediately grew excited again.

Roy nodded. He pulled Duskull, who had been Resting inside its Poké Ball, out to make an appearance. Its stiff skull mask revealed no expression whatsoever.

Perhaps because she had seen too many cute Pokémon, Mary instead found Roy's Duskull to possess a strange kind of beauty.

It was as if Duskull had been made exactly to suit her tastes.

"Can I touch him?"

After getting Roy's permission, Mary tried to touch Duskull's body as well. However, unlike Roy, she did not have Ghost Power to coat her hand, so she could not touch Duskull's physical form. She could only gently stroke the skull mask on its face.

"Hello, Duskull."

Duskull stared expressionlessly at the woman before it. If Roy had not forbidden it from scaring people, it definitely would have given her a good fright.

Seeing that Duskull ignored her, Mary did not get angry. She simply began dressing it up, even hanging a pink bow accessory from its skull mask.

Duskull: I'm tired. Let it all be destroyed.

That hour or so had also satisfied Mary's desire to explore Ghost-type Pokémon.

In the end, Mary even pulled Roy and the two Pokémon into taking a group photo, then directly uploaded it to the IQ app on her communicator.

"Roy, add me on IQ."

"IQ?"

Although Roy had inherited Wallace's communicator, this was his first time using the apps on this kind of device.

With Mary's help, Roy used his ID Card to register an IQ account.

Roy opened one of its pages and took a look, finding that the app was very similar to Weibo from his previous life.

Users could make all sorts of posts, with likes, reposts, and comments below them.

Just after he finished registering, a notification popped up on the IQ app page:

The Pokémon: A Journey of Light movie will officially hit theaters across all major regions next month. What are you waiting for?

Roy had just been about to close the ad when he saw the woman in the movie's promotional image standing atop a helicopter. Dressed all in white, she had a pair of pure white wings behind her, and her exquisite face was flawless.

Wasn't that Diantha, the superstar Champion from the Kalos region?!

Could IQ even show posts from the Kalos region?

With one glance further down, Roy froze. There were millions of likes and reposts below, while the comments were overwhelmingly filled with, "Big sister, you're so beautiful!"

There were even comments from the Galar region, leaving Roy completely dumbfounded.

If those likes had gone to him, how many Popularity Points would he have earned? Could he just buy out the entire System Shop?

Roy could only look on enviously. After scrolling past Diantha's post, he found a post about the Rustboro City Rookie Cup among the many topics and opened it.

Sure enough, the first image was the photo Wallace had shown him that morning. It had over two thousand likes, which must have been the source of last night's Popularity Points.

The second image was a group photo of Roy and the girl he had met that morning.

In the post, the girl kept praising Roy for his wonderful temperament, saying that if anyone happened to run into him, they could ask to take a photo together. She believed Roy would not refuse.

It had also received quite a few likes.

Roy opened his system and found that after using up ten thousand Popularity Points yesterday, he had had six thousand left. Yet now, it had risen back to the ten-thousand mark.

Seeing that it was getting late, Roy shut off his communicator. After saying goodbye to Mary, he rode his old bicycle toward Rustboro Academy.

Creak—creak—

Accompanied by the sounds of his battered old bicycle, Roy returned to Rustboro Academy. He was back fairly early today, arriving at the academy gates by six in the afternoon.

Roy rode his bicycle through the campus.

He clearly noticed that the reactions of the students passing by were different. Some students who had just walked past even turned around to look at him, just like when he had first arrived at the Pokémon Contest venue that morning.

One girl even specifically came over to ask Roy for an autographed photo.

Too handsome. Nothing he could do about it!

Roy had originally wanted to brush back his bangs like Wallace, but only when his hand reached his head did he realize he had a crew cut. What bangs was he supposed to brush?

Right, he still had to request leave later. There were classes tomorrow, Monday.

"You entered the Rookie Cup?"

Lina was also the sort of person who rarely used her communicator. She had not even known that the Rookie Cup was being held at the Pokémon Contest venue.

But after seeing that the Rookie Cup was an official competition, Lina's expression turned serious. When she learned that Roy had already qualified for the Rookie Cup finals, she was even more shocked.

She told him that if he placed in an official competition like this, the academy would reward him as well.

Especially after she saw the group photo of Roy and Mary on IQ, she immediately approved a leave slip for Roy and asked him to get her an autographed photo of Mary?

Teacher Lina was actually a fan of Mary?

After leaving Lina's office, the truly thrilling moment came next.

Just in case, Roy stopped when he was still three hundred meters from his dormitory.

He discovered that a shadow was already floating around outside the little house. Judging by its silhouette, it did not look like Roxanne, who had said yesterday that she would come challenge him.

Was it the kind Misdreavus or the ruthless Flutter Mane?

Before Roy could make out who the shadow was, it seemed to sense something and suddenly floated toward him.

Roy had just been about to turn and run when he heard the shadow's voice:

"Misdreavus!"

Thump—

Seeing the tiny figure in his arms, Roy let out a sigh of relief.

It was Misdreavus. Then there was no problem.

Misdreavus threw herself into Roy's arms. She had already waited outside his house for an hour. Hadn't he said he would be back by sunset today?

Misdreavus also said that a sneaky fat man had come outside the house earlier, and she had scared him away.

At that, Misdreavus straightened herself up and waited for Roy's praise.

A sneaky fat man? Was that Fujino?