Chapter 145: Feeding

Looking at El, who had fainted on the ground before him, Luyun was somewhat puzzled.

"How did he just pass out?"

The only living person left in this town should be him.

If he wanted to understand the specific situation of this world, he would still have to start with El.

Pondering this,

Luyun picked up the lying young boy, tucking his slender body under his left arm,

casually found a house by the roadside, twisted the doorknob, and walked inside.

Dropping El onto the living room sofa, Luyun began to observe his surroundings.

"LCD television... range hood... refrigerator..."

At least in terms of civilian life, the technological development of this world did not seem low.

However...

Luyun recalled his experience in the underground base.

There were astonishing cultivation pods capable of rapidly healing his injuries;

yet the surgical and experimental equipment appeared extremely crude.

Despite being a very important experimental base,

its security consisted merely of a few ordinary handguns and some mediocre Pokémon.

Luyun guessed in his heart that this world, much like the anime from his past life, had its technological tree completely skewed.

Technology related to Pokémon was extremely advanced, featuring a vast array of black technology;

while in other aspects, development was entirely mediocre.

Or perhaps, there were other unforeseen changes...

Glancing at El, whose chest rose and fell steadily as he lay on the sofa,

Luyun figured that just waiting around was no solution, so he began wandering around the house.

Casually pushing open a door,

a small table with wood grain sat across the window, where golden sunlight slanted across the surface, illuminating a few thick, unread books piled together.

On the walls on either side of the room were neat bookcases filled with various books.

This was a very ordinary study.

Luyun glanced inside casually,

his eyes shifting, and the footsteps he was about to take suddenly came to a halt.

"Wait... a study!?"

A brilliant, ruby-like light flashed through Luyun's crystalline pupils.

Perhaps... there were history books about this world in here?

Moving his feet, Luyun walked quickly into the study.

Driven by the curiosity of exploring the unknown, he pulled a book with a red cover from the bookcase.

Opening it gently,

what met his eyes was a dense mass of tiny characters resembling earthworms, writhing and arranged closely together.

Luyun suddenly understood,

"Oh..."

"So I am illiterate."

The writing used in the Pokémon world was somewhat similar to Japanese from the human world of Luyun's past life,

but upon closer inspection, the two were entirely different.

Even if it were Japanese, given Luyun's poor cultural literacy in his previous life, he wouldn't have been able to read it anyway.

"Sigh."

Luyun sighed helplessly; he had assumed too much.

As a Pokémon, he could clearly understand the meaning of human speech,

so it was only natural that he assumed he could read the text of this world as well.

Pity that the cruel reality dealt him a heavy blow.

Putting the book back in its place with a forehead full of black lines, Luyun still did not give up.

"Even if I can't read text, there must be picture books..."

Hard work pays off,

after some searching, Luyun actually found two cartoon-style books.

They seemed meant for preschool children,

containing text, but very little of it, with the majority consisting of simple cartoon illustrations.

Luyun flipped through them roughly,

and found that the first book was similar to a Pokémon encyclopedia,

with strange patterns appearing every two pages.

Although slightly different from what he remembered, he could roughly recognize various spirits,

followed by text that likely recorded their habits and moves.

The second book,

much like cave paintings, depicted a coherent sequence of patterns that seemed to possess a cause-and-effect relationship.

Luyun had a faint premonition that this must be the book he wanted, the one recording the history of the world.

Suddenly,

a slight commotion came from the living room behind him.

Luyun's eyebrows twitched, and he turned around, walking back out of the study.

...

El slowly opened his eyes,

and what greeted his vision was an unfamiliar, pristine white ceiling.

"Where... am I?"

His mind felt heavy, and his gaze was somewhat dazed.

Suddenly,

fragments of memory surged into his mind like a tidal wave,

and El's body shuddered.

Seeming to remember something,

he pressed his hands against the soft surface of the sofa and pushed himself up abruptly.

"Right... right!"

"Daddy... Mommy..."

Muttering, El's hollow gaze was filled with violent, churning emotions.

He leaped off the sofa and ran unsteadily straight toward the door.

Behind him, Luyun held the book in his left hand, silently watching the boy's frail back.

A hint of pity flickered deep within his pupils.

Connecting this with the hellish, tragic scenes on the town streets, he could roughly guess the boy's ordeal.

Luyun knew that under such circumstances, comfort from a stranger was useless.

Allowing El to fully release the suppressed emotions in his heart was the only way to help him calm down as quickly as possible.

Wailing, mournful sobs echoed through the air of the town,

like a final twilight solo, leading the deep, thick night to slowly swallow the earth and the light.

...

The town of Whiteleaf under the shroud of night,

unlike its usual brightly lit and bustling self,

was now wrapped in silence and darkness hovering in the air.

Somewhat abruptly,

a bright yellow light illuminated one of the houses.

Luyun sat at the dining table with his arms crossed,

watching silently as El, who looked like he hadn't eaten in days, frantically shoved food into his mouth.

Thoughts drifted through his mind.

The food on the table was actually cooked food he had found for himself in the refrigerator.

Keep in mind that it had been over a day since Luyun escaped from the facility.

Logically speaking, even for a Pokémon, going without food for so long would induce a strong sense of hunger.

Yet Luyun felt not even a hint of hunger in his stomach, nor any appetite at all, which couldn't help but make him feel a bit strange.

Actually, back in the underground facility, Luyun had already discovered this bizarre aspect of himself,

but because of the researchers' frequent experiments,

Luyun had formed the notion that "the lack of hunger was due to the replenishment of Ghost-type energy injected during the surgery,"

and thus paid it no further mind.

Little did he know that even after escaping the facility, this peculiarity still persisted.

What Luyun did not know was that

the Machop body he possessed was originally cloned from a human.

To facilitate experiments more conveniently,

modifications had been made to his body to a certain extent right from the design stage,

maximizing the efficiency of nutrient utilization within Luyun's body.

Even a tiny trace of external energy could be broken down by Luyun and converted into the nutrients his body required.

Now, based on the massive reserve of Ghost-type energy essence hidden within Luyun,

combined with his ability to absorb sporadic energy from the air post-surgery,

Luyun had attained the extraordinary ability known in his past life as "Inanition"—fasting.

He could obtain enough energy for bodily activities from various other sources without needing to eat.