Chapter 010 | Meeting

The man dressed in black clothes led Arthur to an old and broken building at the back of the alley.

"Go inside and head to the first floor."

He opened the door and gestured to him to go inside. Arthur guessed that the man who had led him here was a low-ranking member whose job was to guide people to this building.

He moved inside and headed to the first floor.

For some reason, there were no members inside the building and it looked like an abandoned place even from the inside. No one would even imagine that this can be a place to purchase information.

'It looks like Team Rocket acts like a true-crime syndicate in this universe, unlike the anime. They seem more mysterious…'

While having various thoughts in his mind, he moved to the first floor and looked around. There was only one door on the first floor and he opened it and stepped inside.

Inside the room, there was a wooden desk, a chair, and a middle-aged man was sitting. Aside from that, various stacks of papers were carefully organized on the side.

"What type of information are you looking for?" The man asked in a rough tone.

His gaze was oppressive like he was scanning Arthur with it. The middle-aged man was probably trying to gauge him, but he didn't quiver down and opened his mouth.

"I want a map of Viridian forest."

"What should it contain?"

"All the location of the ethnic groups of Pokemon living in the forest. Their current level of strength and population." He said and the middle-aged man nodded his head.

This amount of information was something he had in abundance. After all, Viridian forest was one of the main locations in Kanto and it was also the hub of all Kanto bugs.

"We can give you this much information, but what will you do with it?" The middle-aged man eyed Arthur and asked.

"Is there a reason to tell you?"

"No, I'm just asking for my curiosity. What else do you need?"

"I only need this much."

The middle-aged man's expression changed to one of a surprise hearing that. He had expected that Arthur would buy more information as he would have gone through a lot of trouble to find out the location of this place.

"You only need a map of Viridian forest?" He asked to confirm.

"Yeah, is there a problem with that?"

"... no, I just found it weird. You went through the trouble of coming to our hideout just to get a map of Viridian forest?" The middle-aged man scratched his head. "Can I ask what is the backing behind you?"

'Backing? What is he talking about?'

Arthur realized that the middle-aged man had misunderstood him for someone with a backing, but he didn't say anything to correct the misunderstanding.

"I can't tell you that. Anyway, can you hurry up?"

He hurried the middle-aged man who nodded his head and started searching through the stack of papers. After a while, he passed a map to Arthur.

Arthur examined the map for a second and nodded his head. The map had detailed information about all the Pokemons living in Viridian forest, their population, and the general hierarchy among them.

'As I thought, there's a group of Scythers living in the Viridian forest!'

Arthur looked at the place where Scythers were marked on the map. It seems like they were living in the inner part of the forest and were the strongest group of Pokemon in the whole forest.

He had originally planned to catch one and now it looked like it would certainly not be an easy thing to achieve.

"That would be 5000 poke dollars!"

The middle-aged man said and Arthur gave him the money while frowning inwardly. 5000 poke dollars was almost half of his savings and he still had a lot of things to buy.

After that, Arthur left the building.

As he stepped outside, many gazes fell on him, but he ignored them and left the alley. Soon, he found someone trailing him from behind, but he has long since prepared for it.

'I am not so easy to trail.'

Arthur thought and started to run. Viridian city was a bustling place even at night and it wasn't easy to trail someone. Moreover, he was confident in his speed and stamina.

That's why it didn't take him a long time to escape.

After all that was done, Arthur went to a cheap inn and started to prepare for tomorrow. His true training would start once he entered Viridian forest. He had bought this map because of that too.

He prepared all the things he would need and looked through his supplies.

He finished checking all his supplies after some time and dived into the bed. It was a long day for him and he was really tired. He wanted to sleep now to replenish his energy for tomorrow.

* * *

"So, you lost him?"

The middle-aged man who had sold the map to Arthur asked the person in front of him.

"Yeah, it seems like he was expecting someone to trail him and slipped off. I'm sorry I wasn't able to do anything."

The man bowed and apologized, but the middle-aged man didn't reprimand him. He had already expected this to happen.

"Was there any peculiarity about him?"

"There wasn't much aside from the fact that he seemed cautious."

"It's fine. You can go now."

The middle-aged man waved his hand and the man left the room. After he was all alone, he started thinking about the person who had bought the Viridian forest map from him.

'Which organization is he from? He was able to find our hideout, so at least he has some backing behind him, but the only thing he bought is a map. Is he gonna do something in the Viridian forest?'

There were many questions in the middle-aged man's mind, but there was no definite answer. In the end, he frowned and stopped himself from thinking too much into it.

'I would just pass this information to Proton.'

The middle-aged man thought and shook his head.