[You said goodbye to Ryme, but her words about wanting to resign still echoed in your mind.]
Ryme's words were hardly earth-shattering, but they seemed to point Dancer in a new direction.
She was so absorbed in them on the road that she nearly tumbled down a long slope. Thankfully, Volcarona reacted quickly.
After a long climb, Dancer finally found Glaseado Gym.
The building stood far from town amid snow that never melted, looking rather lonely. But inside, soft, warm light and a comfortable temperature changed the atmosphere at once.
[For some reason, you felt at ease.]
The Gym Leader, Grusha, was a delicate-looking boy bundled up from head to toe. When Baimu first saw his pixel portrait, he had mistaken him for a girl.
Dancer seemed to have made the same mistake.
[You felt terribly sorry for mistaking his gender.]
There always seemed to be a character or two in the Pokémon World who looked like a girl but was supposed to be a boy.
After Dancer registered, Glaseado Gym gave her a test: ski down a designated route. Baimu searched online and learned that Grusha had once been a professional snowboarder who had won quite a few awards.
But a serious injury had forced him to retire.
Was having Gym challengers ski Grusha's way of remembering those days?
Who knew?
In any case, learning to ski was not especially difficult for Dancer.
Her remarkable flexibility and balance meant she fell only once before mastering the basics. She made it all the way down and passed the test.
Even Grusha, who shivered as he spoke and could hardly get through three sentences without mentioning the cold, praised her.
The official battle began.
Dancer had long heard that Grusha was the strongest Gym Leader of them all, so she had