Better Gardening 10 (Patreon)

Better Gardening

Chapter 10

-VB-

Umma looked around this new world that her charge decided to explore, and she instinctively understood that there were many dangers here. 

How could she not? A single bird no bigger than a human male was able to bring down a tenth of a percent of her shield capacity. While this wasn’t much compared to a shot from a charge lance (at least, according to “The Defensive Guide and Parameters for Shield Calculations” in her mind), the fact that an animal was capable of causing damage at all to her energy shield was a testament to this world’s dangerousness. 

And her charge and master only wanted to go exploring even further. 

Deciding that perhaps caution was needed at hand, she activated her internal comms and connected it to Daniel.

[Daniel?]

“... oh! Is this how you sound like, Umma? You sound very smoky.”

[Is that how I sound to you? Your machine friend did this, so I would not know.]

“Eh, that’s a bit of a bummer,” he hummed. “Anyway, what’s up?”

[Do you have a plan on how you intend to explore this world? Simply running around does not seem to promote your safety. Or contribute to your expedition in general.]

He seemed to ponder on her words. “You are right. I shouldn’t be exploring for the sake of it. I have a job to do. We should begin with a wide area general survey. Once we know the general layout of the land and concentration of animals. With that kind of ferocity, I guess we don’t want to needlessly antagonize more animals by running head first into their nest.”

She let out a rumble of agreement and contentment. It was good that Daniel listened to her advice instead of dismissing her.

[Then let us start. Do you wish to use your scanner or would you prefer to use any one of the sensors built-into me?]

“... Let’s go off the scanner first,” he replied after a moment. “It is specialized for this exact sort of thing, after all.”

She flapped her ears in agreement. 

As she waited for him to fiddle with his scanner, she looked about. With her eyes, she could spot at least four dozen creatures of varying sizes, shapes, and colors all looking at her and Daniel. Most of them were smaller, far smaller than the half-man sized bird. Some of them, though, looked like juveniles of that bird. Had they accidentally walked into its nesting site? 

“Alright, I got a preliminary scan…” Daniel hummed. “And there’s actually a human town just a few kilometers south of us!” 

Oh? Was there? 

[Do you wish to contact them?]

“Well, yes. It’ll be easier to learn about how the local animals behave than camping out here for days to observe them.”

Umma thought about it and acquiesced. 

When he saw that she would follow his direction, he pointed her toward the human town, and she made her way through the forest. 

-VB-

The scanner’s wide scan map of the area showed me a lot about this.

First off, the region he was in was next to the ocean but between the forest, mountains, and hills, I just couldn’t visibly see the ocean. 

It did explain why the air here was wet and saltier than what I was familiar with. 

Second, the mountains and forests. The entire region was so mountainous that he was surprised that people had settled here. The scan also showed me the technological level of the local civilization, and it wasn’t anything to write home about. At a gist, I would label the local technology level as 20th century to 23rd century. 

Especially because the road he directed Umma toward was a packed dirt road and not concrete, asphalt, or metallic material. 

But that didn’t mean that I would lower my guard. The local animals were powerful enough to put a small (almost negligible) dent on Umma’s energy barrier. That was significant, and if the humans here were half as smart and ambitious as the ones from my home universe, then they would be just as powerful if not many fold more powerful. 

As for the town that I was heading toward, the map showed a town core that was no more than twenty square kilometers. There were farms around it, but most of those farms were next to rivers, lakes, and valleys. The size of the farms, and the waterlogged state of more than half of them, suggested rice farming. Now, I wasn’t personally sure about how much a plot of rice fed how many people, but the number of farms around the city and the size of the city suggested that it was enough to keep them all fed with just a little bit of surplus.

Of course, my guesstimate didn’t take into account other things like orchard, fishing, and ranching, so the people here probably lived without too much food scarcity. 

Which begged the question.

How did the keep themselves from being attacked by the powerful animals? 

Oh oh oh! Maybe they had some animals of their trained! That’s what we humans do best. 

I mean…

Look at my Umma. 

She could probably devastate the local region by herself, assuming there wasn’t anything stronger than a patrol boat spaceship. 

“Hey, you!” 

I blinked and looked around. Umma had come to a stop right after coming out of the forest, so we have been stationary for some time. It took me a few seconds to find the person who shouted at me.

It was a young man with very short dark brown hair in some kind of army uniform. In his hand was a red and white ball. 

“Oh, hello!” I greeted them with a smile, but he didn’t. He glared at me. “Um, so is there something I can help you with?”

He continued to glare at me while looking at Umma with … was he sweating? 

“Who are you?” he demanded after a while. “I never saw a pokemon like yours from either Kanto or Johto.”

Kanto? Johto? Pokemon? Pokemon… was that … really the name of the animals here? Kanto and Johto sounded like place names.

“Ah, well, I’m a traveler from far away. I’m here on an exploration mission.” 

“Do you have an ID and permission from the government?”

“Ah. No.”

“Then you should’ve contacted the Kanto government before you popped up around here!” he harshly scolded me. “Get down here so that I can take you to Viridian!” 

Oh, was that the name of the closest city? 

I got down as he asked and -.

The young man suddenly froze for a second when we all heard sound from further down the road away from the town. He snapped to look and grimaced when he saw a dozen men in uniforms charging toward us with a variety of animals. 

“Shit, Johtonians!” he hissed. 

He threw his white and red balls into the air, and I watched in amazement as all sorts of animals appeared. 

Then he turned to me. “I am Lieutenant Giovanni! I’m enlisting your help to fend off the invaders so get your pokemon to help me!” 

Wut?

I looked toward the rapidly approaching group of unifo-.

Oh.

That was an army uniform.

“Giovanni” wore a different army uniform.

I just stumbled into a war. 

-VB-

A/N: I don’t know why but I struggled with this chapter for two full days and then - bam! - the entire chapter came out in under an hour.