CH50 (180), Treasure Hunt (5)

'He says he wants the triple of that.' Horus/Xatu informed us and I had to whistle. The boss Furret was shooting to the stars, going from 15 to 45 berries like that. I had to shake my head at that number.

"That's way too much. How about 16?" I returned but Furret did not even deign to answer, he just released a hiss with a look of contempt.

"Alright, alright. 90 berries for all coins. How does that sound?" I decided to change the angle of my offer to see if using a higher number would work.

All I got was a deadpan look and let me tell you being looked at like that by a Furret of all things was not nice.

"100?" I went a bit higher but the deadpan look remained.

"110, that's already our limit." I tried once more and this time Furret at least bothered replying.

'200 berries, he says he won't go lower than that, so you shouldn't bother trying.' Horus translated and I saw his amusement reaching sky high before he said the next part.

'The boss Furret also said that we don't have to do the trade if we are too poor to pay the price. He's sure he can send his underling to find other students to trade with that were willing to pay up.' He nearly cracked up when he said that and I had to stifle a groan.

To think that the day would come when I would be called poor by wild Pokemon because of berries of all things. I could see why Horus thought that it was funny since he knew the obscene amount of berries I had stored inside Utopia.

I saw Yu shooting me a look that screamed what are we going to do since he knew how many berries we had managed to gather before this which was 120.

"We don't have that many berries. However, we do have 120 berries. Unfortunately, that's all our berries, so how about we give you those and just take 4 coins instead of taking all 5. However, I'd like to choose the coins we'll take.

I'm sure that no one except for us has bothered gathering berries, so the other won't be able to trade with you, but you can still try to do so with the last coin you'll have after our trade. This way you won't end up empty-handed if the others really don't have any berries." I was practically turning into a businessman here.

Furret looked like he was contemplating my offer for a bit before he began speaking again. Yu and I looked at Horus waiting for his translation but he just remained quiet looking back with an amused twinkle in his eyes.

We heard the rustling again and saw 5 more Furret standing up each carrying a coin in their arms. It seemed like the leader had not spoken to us but to his underlings. After they appeared boss Furret began speaking again and this time he was talking to us since Horus began translating what he said.

'He says that we have a deal and he warns us that we shouldn't try anything funny. They will hand over the coins after you pull out the berries. I actually agree, don't try anything funny since I can feel that they have us surrounded and I can only teleport so many of us at once.' He warned us, or rather he warned Yu since he knew that I, as a man of my word, wouldn't try anything to break the deal.

The 5 coin-carrying Furret came over and waited for the berries, so I began taking them out of my bag. While I was doing that I looked at the coins they were carrying and saw that there were three 1-pointers, one 3-pointer, and one 5-pointer.

No idea where they found a 5-pointer, but once I was done pulling out berries I pointed out the coins I wanted. It wasn't like I did not wonder if they were going to back out and rob us since they had us surrounded, but we successfully managed to leave the clearing with another 20-points, 10 from the battle, and 10 through the deal.

*phew*

Once we had left the clearing behind for a bit, I released a sigh of relief before I told Yu our current balance.

"That was pretty lucky. Together, with the 4 points we gathered beforehand and the 20 points we got just now, we are only missing 14 more points for 200." I said before pausing to take a look at my watch.

"And we still have a bit more than an hour until the deadline," I finished my sentence.

"That's great, but let's not try to bargain that hard with a boss the next time, alright? I was starting to get really nervous when you began to increase the number so slightly. Thankfully the Furret was tolerant enough, others would have probably felt provoked and attacked." Yu said with a bit of rebuke in his voice.

I just nodded without reporting since I saw his point. I might have gotten a bit carried away there with the bargaining, forgetting that I was dealing with a gold-stage leader with a lot of underlings.

"Still, I won't deny that you did a pretty good job. At least I wouldn't have dared to bargain like that. So, which way should we head to next? There's no reason to slack off just because we have nearly reached our goal." He added after he saw that I remained silent.

"Let's have the air squad look for another place that might have a 5 or 10 pointer. We'll keep checking the surroundings while heading there. Also, nothing is stopping us from getting more than 200 points, so we'll just keep going even if we reach that point. I don't plan to underestimate the others, so it's better to keep searching until the end," was my suggestion.

He agreed and we did just that. The air squad took off and found a pretty large tree to our west close to the border of the area our teachers set, so we set off in that direction to check it out.

5 minutes in we saw a small troop of 12 Aipom playing catch with a coin using their hand-like tails. I checked their aura and none of them seemed to be at the gold stage.

Actually, only two of them showed a strong enough presence to my aura sense to qualify for the silver stage. So, as long as they were not somehow suppressing their strength that meant the group was easy to handle.

Once we came a bit closer they stopped playing and stared at us with cheeky looks. Not wanting to directly resort to violence I took a step forward to offer a trade.

"Hi! We would like to have that coin you've been throwing around, and we are willing to" *splat*

I froze for a moment just thinking 'oh no, they didn't, because one of these shitstains actually threw a mudball at me out of nowhere hitting me in the face.

I moved my hand to my right cheek touching to confirm that it really happened, which prompted all Aipom to laugh. Thankfully it did not stink, which meant that it really was mud. Thank Mew for that, but I still got really pissed.

'That's one way to terminate negotiations' Horus commented with barely restrained laughter.

"Ehm, Ah, Mikail." Yu seemed not sure what to say and I saw that he was really trying not to laugh, which made it really hard for him to talk.

"Horus tell me which one of those clowns threw that mudball at me, I'm going to deal with that one personally. After that I want you to make sure these clowns can't run away, while the others deal with them." I said in a frigid tone which made Yu gulp.

Horus quickly pointed me towards the perpetrator not wanting to provoke me any further. It turned out to be one of the two silver-stage ones. As soon as I knew my target I boosted my legs and practically flashed in front of it.

Before it could even release a shout of surprise I punted it into the air. Still, pissed I immediately jumped after it and caught it by the tail, swinging it around for a bit to disorient it before hurling it towards the ground right below me with all my might.

It crashed into the ground creating a small indent. Disoriented and hurt it did not get up, giving me enough time to fall back to the ground. Since it was right below me I used my fall to elbow slam the Aipom. I obviously did not use my aura for the last one, since I just wanted to hurt it and not kill it.

Afterward, I stood up and dusted my clothes off before checking my target. I knew that it was still alive since I could feel its life force and upon checking I noticed that it wasn't hurt all that much.

Still, seeing that it was out cold after my surprise attack I nodded in satisfaction since I just wanted to teach it a lesson. I had not been trying to hurt it too bad anyway, or I would have aimed my elbow at its throat and not its belly.

I actually expected it to still be conscious forcing me to follow up, but that didn't happen. I took a look around and saw all Aipom gaping in disbelief and I had to chuckle before I turned toward my group.

"What are you waiting for teach them a lesson," I commanded, and they sprang into action, quickly knocking them out after smacking them around for a bit. I nodded in satisfaction at the result.

"That should teach them not to interrupt others while talking, especially not by throwing mud at them," I said before walking over to the coin that had fallen to the side to pick it up.

"Oh, a 5-pointer," I exclaimed pleasantly surprised after checking its worth.

"Great!" Yu, who had kept mum while I was releasing my stress, shouted in joy. "Now, we only need 9 more points. Let's go, we should be able to find them in less than 30 minutes." He said before quickly walking away, wanting to leave this place as soon as possible.

I shook my head in amusement and followed behind him with our Pokemon, ignoring the knocked-out Aipom on the ground. Thor/Pikachu managed to find a 1-pointer just a few minutes later and Zebstrika stumbled upon a 3-pointer shortly before we arrive at the large tree we were heading to.

So, we were only 5 points away from 200. Anyway, a short distance from the tree we noticed tracks made by Beedrill which made us stop.

*groan*

"Oh, hell no. Why did it have to be Beedrill?" Yu complained and I had to agree with him even if I would not have said it so whiny. Depending on the number that could turn pretty bad, so scouting out the situation was the most important thing we had to do next.

"Horus, Staraptor, I want you to fly over to the large tree, and check out the situation from high above, but make sure not to get too close and don't provoke them," I commanded the two and they took off.

They came back two minutes later looking solemn, which did not bode well for us.

'We saw a coin, but there are a few hundred Beedrill there, at least. I'm sure we didn't see all of them.' Horus said gravely and if he was using such a tone it meant that the situation was too dangerous.

"Well, it seems like that coin is lost to us. I'm not willing to go there for it. I don't think we can fight against so many Beedrill, and I honestly do not believe they would be willing to negotiate." I told Yu without mincing my words.

He actually seemed relieved when I said that.

"Yeah, I agree. It's not worth the risk. Let's go, we only need 5 more points, and we still have 45 minutes, so let it go," was what he said.

We made our way southeast and managed to find 5 more coins in that time. Two of those were 1-pointers, another two were 3-pointers, and the last one was a 5-pointer. Only two minutes after we beat a lone Victreebel for the 5-pointer we got a telepathic message.

'Time's up, make your way back to the meeting point. You have 10 minutes to be there and don't try to get more coins on the way back, we are still keeping an eye on you.' The voice, which I recognized as Mr. Koetsuji's Gallade said.

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