Azure Iridium Street.
The place where Baimu had grown up.
It was cramped, with shacks, crumbling tile-roofed houses, and sheet-metal huts everywhere.
It was filthy, too. Even the water was hardly clean.
Everyone worked themselves to the bone and relied on one another just to scrape by. They also had to endure exploitation from every level of the Quicksand Team. It was hard to imagine how they had kept going.
Later, with Aron's help, he had narrowly escaped a well-connected man's pursuit through an abandoned mine. He had survived the charity Battle Royale, too, earning Liu Ge's recognition and a promotion to Squad Leader.
Only then had the people of Azure Iridium Street been freed from exploitation.
As Baimu grew stronger step by step, life on Azure Iridium Street improved with him. He no longer even needed to support the residents out of his own pocket. Without those crooks skimming from them and exploiting them, they naturally stopped living in hardship.
During the battle for liberation,
most people had joined the Rescue Organization. Azure Iridium Street had been destroyed by Shadow Pokémon and bombs, leaving nothing but endless rubble and ruins.
But they had not lost their "home."
On the contrary, with the liberation complete, they had gained homes that truly belonged to them, along with the right to live as happily and peacefully as people in other regions.
By now,
the shacks and crumbling houses had become rows of brand-new townhouses. The taps no longer ran with murky yellow water, but with clear, clean water.
Outside, there were green plants and countless Pokémon.
The elderly had people to rely on, and the young had people to care for them.
Baimu had seen some of these changes with his own eyes before setting out on his journey. He had learned