Chapter 11 - Retainers and Resistance

Walking out of the cave I saw three people with their faces planted in the dirt. As me and the pokemon neared them they began to tremble.

Are they really this scared? Why even come here if you are this scared? How did these people even get here anyways?

"Hey! Get up. What are you three even doing, don't you kowtow to me!"(Grey)

Yet the three just kept trembling even more fervently. The man in the middle hesitantly spoke up in a muffled voice, with his head still in the ground.

"We dare not get up Great One, we dare not even look, we would not wish to disrespect you in any way. We wish only to serve."

I could not help but let out a sigh in exhasperation. Dramatic idiots like this really exist? I didn't even do anything to be worshipped like this, did I?

"Just get up! Get up already! How exactly do you expect to serve anyone without standing on your own two legs. Your legs look fine to me, use them! And I'll tell you, I would never let anyone work for me, who cannot even dare look straight at me."

The three stand up and raise their heads. Surprise flashes through their eyes as they see Grey standing in front of them, then fear overtakes it as they see his spectral-like pokemon standing around him. Their bodies quiver again, and with slight bows and tilted heads, "We greet the masters." they say.

As they raise their heads he realized they look different than the average person. Definitely human, but unlike any genealogy or 'race' from earth. They had grey-black skin, a skin color unseen on earth.

Their skin was abnormally fair, even when compared to the actors in movies, with all of their make-up. Their gray-black skin had a healthy glow to it, with each of their facial features like the finest stone sculptures.

Each had a red array symbol imprinted onto their forehead. Rather than a tattoo, it looked more like the symbols were fused into their heads. Nevertheless, each array was alike a work of art, as though it came not from man but nature.

Were it not for their ears being similar to his own he would suspect they were the infamous Dark elves from the stories. However, they looked very human as far as he was concerned, and he was inclined to think as such.

In his moment of pondering, a question comes again. This time, from the girl with brown hair.

"May we ask for the grace of the Masters?"

'What fucking masters, all that is here is me and my pokemon.' He thinks, 'Wait.'

He looks behind himself to confirm, and yes. There is only a cave, and his pokemon, NO masters.

'These fellows are surely delusional. No, I'm sure they think they have a good reason to act this way, I just can't imagine what it is.'

He adopts a 'dignified' posture and proceeds to answer them.

"There are no 'masters' here. I am Grey, these are my Pokemon."

'I can't believe I just said that in a serious tone.'

"In a way, you could say that I am their master, but I don't typically treat those under me in the way a 'master' would.

If you want to follow me, perhaps I can allow that, and I will show you what I can. When your abilities are enough, you can do your best to help me where you can."

'No reason to let these guys wander around the forest acknowledging random people, I'll take free underlings where I can get them.'

The girl with red hair, concealing her own confusion, stepped forward to talk.

"Forgive me Master, but your form looks so much alike a human. We humans have always been among the Lesser Races, that master would deem our form worthy to assume and deem us worthy of teaching, we could never ask for more."

The statement left Grey stunned,

'I feel like there was too much information in that statement to take in at once.'

That one statement made him need to stop and think for a moment before he formed an idea of how this world might be to them.

"Which Race are you currently under right now?"

"Master, we currently live within the territory of the Demons.. the Therious!"

"Oh? And what do they do exactly, that you would call them demons? Do you not serve them?"

Anger flashed through their eyes.

"Master, we do not serve them willingly. Only a few traitors of our race would do so, the Demons are our natural enemy."

"I see."

"Yes, they keep us alive only so they can kill us. They fatten us up and feed from the negative energies released at death, or they use our bodies as fertilizer for their mines."

"I understand."

"Master, things have always been this way since times of old, but.. I believe, anything would be better than this! Please, let us serve you! Let our people break away from this horror that is our lives!"

A smoldering anger appeared in Grey's eyes, listening to their story. But he suppressed his emotions.

"Then, I will give you another proposal."

Their eyes lock onto him.

"I will lead you."

They bow down again.

"Thank you, master!"

"But I will do so in my own way, and I will have very specific expectations of you as such."

"Yes master, you may demand of us, anything."

"My expectations are this: Learn all you can, and for now just follow my lead to the best of your abilities. A proper leader does not train others to follow. I will gradually train you to where you can even train others to lead.

Someday, you will lead others to lead as well. They will then train those after them in the same fashion, and so on. This is how the Human race will rise, how they will never again be considered a lesser by any being.

Now rise, raise your head up, act with a bit of pride. Don't ever let me hear you call yourselves one of the Lesser Races again.

I will show you how to kill the Demons."

In a daze from the speech they recieved, they stood up in unison, "YES MASTER!"

They shouted with vigor, but Grey could tell from their eyes they had not understood. They showed obedience and subservience toward him. There was not a trace of the pride or ambition of a Human, more like the loyalty of dogs towards a sincere master.

He sighed inwardly in disappointment, you obviously cannot break a lifetime of ingrained fear with an impassioned speech. He suspected they would not fully comprehend or believe what he meant, at least not for a long time.

However, that is to be expected. As most all people know, words are cheap. He would show them with his actions and teach them with their own actions. They would learn, with time, and the words would sink in.

He only wished to reflect his intentions at the outset. This was the planet he made home on now, he would not see humans being oppressed anywhere on this planet. He would need to build a force if he wanted any semblance of a life here.

Why not start with these three? Even if they seemed somewhat hopeless on first impression, he had seen plenty pathetic fellows be whipped into shape in the past. These fellows would be no different.

Well, even if one or two were no good, they could still be used as fertilizer for the next try. An impassioned speech is still enjoyable anyways, even if it doesn't serve a purpose.

'But then again, how on earth did they end up here? Did Meditite bring them over? It isn't like people just go randomly acknowledging people and begging to serve them. Just what exactly was he doing while I was gone?'

"Good! I look forward to working with you three in the future. 'Cough' So, um... what are your names?"

The girl with brown hair, "Seran".

The girl with red hair, "Gina".

The sole man of the group, "Horus".

Talking to them I got to know of the nearby 'village' of humans. The nearest village was at least a 4 days walk, the Demon in charge of this region was apparently killed recently, so we did not need to worry about encountering any resistance on the way there.

I asked them if they knew any cultivation methods and it seemed, more or less, that their cultivation was dependent on those formations on their heads. Considering how weak they are, I wasn't all that interested in learning their cultivation method.

Considering the situation, these things may even have some sort of hidden purpose, a trick left behind by the Demons just in case. Even if it did hold greater potential, I wasn't willing to delve into the matter until I better understood the formations themselves.

Still, these formations held little to no similarities to the ones I had learned in the Pokemon world. They didn't even seem to use the same type of energy system. So for now, I had no idea where I would even begin.

For now, I figured the best option was to teach them mental cultivation methods from Pokemon World. I showed them a condensed form of Mental Energy, telling them to envision the star between their brows and focus on trying to draw energy from it.

They were already accustomed to Qi cultivation, which would make it awkward switching over, but this was a very simple method to pick up and they did so after a short lesson.

Their talent seemed to be nowhere near as good as his however. Though, the system had indirectly given him numerous boosts in terms of abilities that influenced his growth, so that's likely to be expected.

They now had much greater hope in breaking through to higher levels using this method than they did before. At the very least, they should all reach the level of a pokemon trainer with a few months.

Considering those in the pokemon world would take a few years of training, this was actually rather fast.

Still, 'This is too slow, I need to find a way to gain strength faster. I need to hurry and find a world where I can gain in strength even faster. I need to hurry to the pokemon trainer level.'

I allocated out work to them for while I was gone.

Meditite would serve as my bodyguard, per usual, and he would also assist in the training of Drowzee while I was gone. The constant presence of Mental Energy from those two would also stimulate the growth of the other three.

As for those three, they would take turns in hunting and preparing food for the group, and then train in off time. I made sure to plan it out so they still got the appropriate amount of sleep, but they would be very busy still. I didn't have time to deal with all those sorts of things after all.

Every waking hour of mine was already filled with work after all, and even every sleeping hour for that matter. Even one less thing to worry about was a great relief.

Finally, I decided it would be best to just bring machop along with me. After all, as a fighting type, the only way to get experience was to fight and he would get plenty of that following me around.

When I returned to the Pokemon World all I could see on the road was a few metal scraps, small remnants from the original Bus wreckage. From the scraps I managed to determine what direction it was the Bus was originally headed, telling me which way I needed to go to get to the Tauros Ranch.

'Ugh, paying so much for a Bus ticket, yet now I'm still running.'

I brought out Machop and told him he had to run along with me. I called it training, but really, I just didn't want to suffer the long-distance run alone. Besides, it was partially his fault the Bus was destroyed, he can bear the consequences together with me.