If We Swapped Roles...

"I can let you stay, but we need to agree on three rules," Hu Yang said to Gengar.

After learning that everything Gengar had said earlier had merely been meant to scare him, Hu Yang's position was immediately reversed with its.

Now, he no longer needed to watch Gengar's expression. Gengar needed to watch his instead.

Gengar was a little nervous. "What do you want me to do?"

Hu Yang said, "First, no pranks or teasing other people. Second, don't give me nightmares—can you do that?"

Now that it was dependent on someone else, Gengar answered obediently, "I can."

Though it was a curse, it was the source of it and could control it freely.

Hu Yang nodded. "Third, if you can do both of those things, then I might be able to help you fulfill your wish."

"Really?" Gengar looked somewhat surprised.

Hu Yang asked, "So, what do you want me to help you with?"

Gengar grew a little excited. "Take me back to that ruin!"

"Didn't you just come out of there?" Hu Yang froze for a moment.

Gengar looked confused. "I don't know, but I can feel that something there is drawing me in. If you take me there, I can tell you where the treasure hidden in that ruin is."

Hearing that, Hu Yang raised an eyebrow. "So you weren't lying to me?"

Gengar had never intended to deceive him from the start. The day it regained consciousness, Hu Yang had already bought it.

Before it had been sealed away, it had suffered at the hands of humans. Instinctively unwilling to trust them, it had thought to use that method to threaten Hu Yang into taking it there.

But it had not expected to be exposed so quickly.

"It's just that you're still not strong enough." Gengar looked at Budew and said quietly, "That ruin is very dangerous for you."

Hu Yang nodded to show that he understood. Once Gengar had finished explaining, he got up to deal with the fish Cramorant had brought back.

He set a pot on the stove, poured in oil, added scallions, ginger, and garlic, and stir-fried them until fragrant before dropping in the prepared fish balls one by one.

Soon, an enticing aroma filled the room.

Cramorant had long been standing nearby waiting to be fed. Budew was a Grass-type Pokémon and did not like meat, so Hu Yang had not prepared any for it.

Though Gengar could not touch anything, it could smell. When Hu Yang turned around, he saw that purple figure floating in the air.

Hu Yang jumped in fright.

Gengar stared fixedly at the fish balls in the bowl, nearly putting on a performance of a waterfall plunging three thousand feet, as if the Milky Way had fallen from the heavens.

Hu Yang said, "...You can't eat them."

Gengar, which had not eaten anything for thousands of years, nearly burst into tears upon hearing that.

Seeing how badly it wanted to eat, Hu Yang seriously thought about it.

Gengar was currently a spirit unable to condense into a physical body. Put simply, it was a ghost.

How did ghosts eat?

Hu Yang thought of the Lam Ching-ying zombie films he had watched in his previous life, as well as the paper money and offerings people burned when worshipping their ancestors.

Could it be...

With that thought, Hu Yang took out a sheet of paper from the drawer and lit it with a lighter.

After the paper turned to ash and fell onto the floor, Hu Yang said to Gengar, "Try it. See if you can touch it?"

Gengar was puzzled, but it still reached a hand toward the pile of ash. Then, its hand passed straight into the ground.

Hu Yang said, "..."

Never mind, then.

He turned around and fed Cramorant. Gengar suffered a severe blow and hid inside the jewel, vanishing from sight.

That night, Hu Yang indeed did not have another nightmare.

Gengar kept its promise, and Hu Yang kept his as well. He began special training for Budew so he could help Gengar return to the ruin—and obtain the ancient treasure there to sell for money.

After class, Hu Yang brought it to the hill behind the school again. Cramorant played with the fish in the river while he and Budew practiced moves on the shore.

Battles in games could not be completely applied to reality. Moves with guaranteed-hit effects in games could still miss in reality.

As such, commanding battles in reality was far more difficult than in games.

When Pokémon used moves, it was like shooting practice, except the opponent was a moving, dodging target.

Under those circumstances, it became extremely difficult for some moves to hit the opponent.

Trainers in this world understood this very well too. Through his observations, Hu Yang had discovered that they also put their Pokémon through related special training.

Of course, there was also speed training, strength training, and more, carried out through methods such as running and weightlifting.

Information on the three moves Budew knew surfaced in Hu Yang's mind:

Absorb, Stun Spore, Seed Bomb.

This world had no such thing as a Technical Machine. There were only three ways for a Pokémon to learn new moves.

First, being taught by another Pokémon.

Second, comprehending them on its own during growth or evolution.

Third, proper development by a trainer.

Trying to learn too much would only leave one with nothing mastered. Given Budew's current situation, Hu Yang had no plans to let it learn other moves. Rather than that, it would be better to first train these three moves to maximum proficiency.

"Stun Spore is a control-type move. If the opponent's resistance is insufficient and they inhale the Stun Spore, their body will immediately enter a paralyzed state," Hu Yang mused inwardly.

Hu Yang had Budew use Stun Spore at full power.

"Bude!"

With Budew's exertive cry, a large cloud of pale yellow powder spread out from the flower bud on its head.

It covered the area directly in front of Budew, extending roughly three meters away.

The flaw in this move was obvious as well.

If the enemy did not enter that area and instead attacked from beyond three meters with ranged attacks, Stun Spore would lose its effectiveness.

Hu Yang then had Budew use Seed Bomb once more. Likewise, it fired a seed the size of an adult's fist from the flower bud on its head.

The seed was brown and glowed faintly green. It was large and hard, the kind that looked capable of smashing someone's head open.

But that only corresponded to the first two words of "Seed Bomb."

A bomb, as the name implied, was something that exploded. Combining the two made Seed Bomb.

This move did not attack by smashing the opponent's head with a large seed. Its real attack was the explosion after it hit.

It was worth mentioning that Seed Bomb was not a continuous move like Bullet Seed. Though its move animation in the games showed many small seeds being fired at the opponent.

In reality, Seed Bomb was simply a Pokémon throwing a large seed from its body—or some strange place—to attack its opponent.

The reason it was made that way might have been because GF lacked the technical ability? Or perhaps they were being lazy?

Seed Bomb did not travel very quickly through the air either, making it similarly difficult to hit fast opponents.

Then, was there a way to make it hit the enemy one hundred percent of the time?

Hu Yang turned his gaze toward Stun Spore again.

The flaws of both moves were obvious.

But what if Seed Bomb and Stun Spore were combined?

That way, even if Seed Bomb failed to hit, the force of its explosion would scatter the Stun Spore hidden on it. As long as the enemy inhaled it, they would immediately fall into a paralyzed state.