Internet Cafe on Mount Coronet

Withered vines, old trees, dusky crows.

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Wi-Fi, computers, internet cafe.

"Caw, caw!"

In the small courtyard, several black crows flapped their wings anxiously atop a dead tree, as if waiting for something.

A young man carrying a basin had just walked beneath the tree when the pitch-black crows seemed to have made an agreement. With a loud flutter, they all took off at once and flew toward the foot of the mountain without looking back.

He looked up at the rapidly shrinking black dots and froze for two seconds.

"...Looks like it's going to rain."

He turned and went back inside. Behind him, rain began pouring down in sheets.

Unlike the run-down little courtyard outside, the interior of the house was an entirely different sight: clean wooden floors, snow-white walls, and warm yellow lighting.

And at the center of the room, there was a brand-new computer on a table, with two rows of sofas and a counter beside it. Behind the counter was a huge display screen.

At that moment, as the young man stood before the counter, a prompt immediately appeared before his eyes.

[Beginner Mission: First Business]

[Mission Requirement: Serve one customer at the internet cafe for the first time (0/1)]

[Mission Reward: Unlock random basic infrastructure, receive Beginner Business Gift Pack x1]

He sighed.

The young man's name was Luo Chen. Originally, he had just been an ordinary Pokémon enthusiast, but three days ago, he had accidentally transmigrated here.

And he had awakened a system called the Dimensional Internet Cafe. Simply put, as long as he ran the place and served customers using the computers, he could earn various points to upgrade the internet cafe and unlock more games and facilities.

This mission did not seem difficult, but...

Luo Chen looked out the window. Beyond it was nothing but green mountain forest, faintly visible through the distant rain.

...What normal person would open an internet cafe deep in the mountains?

The hell was anyone supposed to come here!

Three days had passed. Other than the Murkrow in the backyard, he had not even seen another person.

This mission had been stuck here for three whole days...

At that moment, the rain outside was growing heavier and heavier. Luo Chen looked away, picked up the kettle, and set it on the stove, planning to boil some hot water first.

But at that very moment, the internet cafe's door was pushed open.

A woman's voice drifted in first along with the sound of wind and rain.

"Mm-hm, I know. This rain should stop later. Let's take shelter here for now. The ruins should..."

The person entering was a tall blonde woman.

She wore a black trench coat, its hem stained with mud and rainwater, and a pair of dark long boots. Yet her bearing was not diminished in the slightest, and she gave off a distinctive aura.

Behind her, a huge dark-blue body lowered its head and carefully squeezed through the doorway.

Faced with the woman and dragon before him, Luo Chen froze.

Wait, someone actually came?

And wasn't this Sinnoh's strongest Champion, Sister Cabbage, Platinum players' strict mom—Cynthia—and her Garchomp?

What were they doing here??

What Luo Chen did not know was that, at the exact same time he was frantically thinking to himself, Cynthia, who had been in the middle of speaking, froze as well.

Today, she had brought Garchomp deep into the Mount Coronet range to investigate an ancient ruin, only for a sudden rainstorm to begin.

She happened to spot a dilapidated little courtyard and assumed it was an abandoned house, so she entered to take shelter from the rain.

But after coming inside...

There was actually someone here??

And...

Her gaze could not help sweeping over the room.

With this kind of environment and decoration, it did not look like something that belonged in a broken mountain courtyard at all, did it?

What exactly was going on?

Before she could say anything, Garchomp stepped forward in the unfamiliar environment and raised his dragon claw before Luo Chen.

He shielded Cynthia behind him. A threatening growl rumbled from his throat, and a terrifying pressure suddenly rose throughout the room.

However, in the next moment, Cynthia merely glanced sideways at Garchomp. He immediately withdrew his aura and retreated to her side.

But his eyes remained fixed on Luo Chen, filled with vigilance.

"Garchomp, don't be nervous."

She turned toward Luo Chen and offered an apologetic smile.

"Sorry, I didn't expect anyone to be living here. We've disturbed you."

"We mean no harm. We only wanted to take shelter from the rain. Would that be all right?"

Luo Chen shook his head.

"It's fine. I run an internet cafe. Customers are always welcome."

Cynthia froze again and could not help repeating the word.

"An... internet cafe?"

She seemed to have heard that term before.

Right, she had read an article about computer technology in an academic journal from the League before. It had mentioned something like this—a kind of establishment with many computers that provided network services for people.

But...

She could not help glancing out the window.

...Could an internet cafe even be opened in a place like this?

Would anyone really come here??

And there seemed to be only one computer in the middle of the room, right?

As Cynthia stood there in confusion, a bolt of lightning streaked across the sky outside, and the rain seemed to grow even heavier.

"This rain probably won't stop anytime soon."

Behind the counter, Luo Chen took out two towels, poured two cups of hot water, and pushed them over.

"You should dry yourselves off first."

"Thank you."

Garchomp did not move. Cynthia sat down in the chair before the counter, accepted a towel, dried her hair, then neatly folded it on the table. Her gaze fell on the calm young man across from her.

Come to think of it, she had appeared here with Garchomp. Anyone from Sinnoh should have recognized her.

But the person before her had reacted far too calmly.

It was as if... he did not know who she was at all.

Just as she was considering whether to ask him something, the huge screen in the distance suddenly lit up.

She blinked in surprise. What was that?

"That's a game trailer," Luo Chen's voice came. He leaned back in his chair, holding his cup. "It's free. You can watch it if you want."

As soon as he finished speaking, the images on the screen began playing.

To cheerful music, beneath a pixel-art blue sky, a young man rode a bicycle across the grasslands.

Then, all kinds of Pokémon began appearing around him.

Pikachu, Butterfree, Dragonite...

Naturally, Cynthia recognized these Pokémon. Although she did not usually play games, she had already formed a rough judgment.

This should be a game themed around Pokémon. That was quite common, though she did not know what kind of game it was.

However, as the scenes continued changing, a figure appeared, and Cynthia froze.

Pitch-black armor, dark-purple flames, and two sharp greatswords on its arms.

As Champion, her knowledge of Pokémon was naturally beyond question. She had studied every known Pokémon in depth.

But she had never seen this Pokémon before!

Before she could think any further, more and more figures she had never seen before appeared on the screen, leaving Cynthia dazzled.

And it was not over yet. The image suddenly stalled, while the beat of the music abruptly quickened and became impassioned!

Blue and red light tore through the sky as two colossal beings faced each other from afar!

One was completely azure, surrounded by towering waves. The other was crimson from head to toe, and the earth around it cracked and shattered beneath its feet.

The scene flashed by in an instant. The red and blue faded, and two more figures, one red and one purple, appeared again, wrapped in radiance like the sun and moon.

Countless silhouettes flashed before Cynthia's eyes, while her heartbeat inexplicably began to quicken.

Why did these silhouettes... give her such an extraordinarily special feeling?

At that moment, as the final silhouette vanished, only darkness remained.

Cynthia thought it was all over.

But immediately afterward, a massive, twisted outline emerged from the darkness!

It stood in an empty void, surrounded by a shattered, inverted world.

Cynthia's eyes followed every frame on the screen, and her entire body shook.

Subconsciously, she pulled something from her chest.

It was a stone tablet engraved with the outline of a Pokémon—twisted, enormous, with golden wings spread wide enough to obscure everything.

Ever since she had obtained this tablet from ruins seven years ago, she had been searching for it. She had traveled throughout Sinnoh and visited countless ancient-history experts, yet found nothing.

No one could identify it. None of the ancient texts contained any record of it, the League database had no matching description, and there were no related clues in other ruins around the world. It was as though it were merely a fictional phantom.

Yet she had never given up. Her return to the ruins this time had also been to investigate everything related to that figure.

In truth, she had not held much hope for this trip, since this was not her first time coming here.

But now, the silhouette on the screen—

Overlapped with the outline on her tablet!

Cynthia abruptly stood, placed the tablet on the table, and compared them over and over.

They were identical!

At the same time, the image on the screen lasted only a few seconds before that figure slowly retreated into the darkness.

Then another slender green figure appeared and transformed into a line of dark-green flashing text.

—[Pokémon: Ultimate Emerald]

Cynthia stood before the table, sinking into a long silence.

Only after a while did she put the tablet back into her clothes and look at Luo Chen.

"Boss, did you make that trailer?"

"Of course not... I just run an internet cafe."

Luo Chen answered honestly.

Cynthia frowned. So the game had nothing to do with the owner...

"Then are all those things from earlier represented in the game?"

She asked again.

Luo Chen nodded.

"Of course they are."

"How much does it cost?"

Cynthia began reaching for her wallet.

However, Luo Chen's answer made her pause.

"Uh... this place doesn't charge money."

Luo Chen continued explaining.

"The rule here is that if you want to play games, you have to livestream."

—That was the system's requirement. As for who the livestream audience was... well, they were not exactly ordinary.

"...Livestream?"

Cynthia repeated.

"Right, it's just..."

Luo Chen pointed at the computer screen nearby.

"You turn on the camera while you play, and someone will watch you play."

Cynthia frowned slightly. Her understanding of the term was limited to "an emerging method of information transmission." Like "internet cafe," it was a concept she had encountered in academic journals, but she did not really know what it would be like in practice.

However, as long as she could learn information about that figure...

"...All right."

She sat up straight again, carefully placed the tablet back into her bag, and looked at Luo Chen.

"What do I need to do?"

Luo Chen sighed in relief and tapped a few times on the system panel. A computer screen beside the counter lit up, and the camera indicator blinked once.

"Just sit over there. Play however you want. You don't need to worry about anything else."

Cynthia got up and walked over. She sat before the screen, where the game icon on the desktop was identical to the words that had flashed at the end of the trailer.

She moved the mouse and opened the game.

At the same time.

Blue Star.

Inside a rented apartment, a young man leaned back in his chair, absentmindedly scrolling through his phone.

"Why have all the Pokémon streamers been so boring lately... They just play old games every day to pad out their streams..."

"Tch... If they're going to stream like this, why the hell should I even watch?"

Just as he was about to leave the platform and go to sleep, his finger stopped.

Because a strange livestream room had suddenly appeared at the very bottom of the homepage.

The default cover had no decoration, with only a few simple words for the title.

[Sinnoh Champion—Cynthia's Livestream]

[Viewers: 0]

The young man froze for a second.

"...What the hell is this?"

He clicked into the livestream without thinking.