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Kael felt nothing at all in the face of the dozen or so Pokémon encircling him.
Seriously?
Sure, his current body was only that of a Sobble whose raw strength was still fairly limited, but in a previous life, he had stood against legendary beings head-on. He had seen battlefields far beyond anything this could compare to.
The Pokémon in front of him, if converted into system levels, were probably somewhere in the twenties, maybe not even thirty yet. In a direct fight, some of them might hold a slight edge over the current Kael.
But if anyone expected them to make him feel fear or panic, that was out of the question.
And on the other side of the clearing, the Trainers' Pokémon, once released, had only followed their orders. They had not rushed in recklessly, but instead held position and kept Sobble under watch.
That made it look, at least to anyone watching from the outside, as though they had been intimidated by him and did not dare attack.
And so, because of Kael's sheer calm, the strange and deeply lopsided scene now unfolding on the grass had come into being.
Kael glanced once toward the wrecked touring car. Seeing that the two people inside had already been pulled free and were clinging to each other with pale, shaken faces, he looked away.
Then he turned his attention to the bald man standing in front of the Trainer squad.
Kael's sharp instincts told him immediately that this was the leader of the group, the one calling the shots.
He made no unnecessary move.
He simply watched the man in silence, waiting to see what he would do next.
Feeling the cold gaze from the Sobble ahead, the bald man finally snapped out of his daze.
He patted his head lightly, rubbed at his eyes, and only then seemed to fully regain himself.
There was no helping it.
The absurd contrast of the scene before him had clearly hit the middle-aged man harder than he expected.
He was a veteran Trainer, yes, but the comfortable routine of daily park security work had dulled some of his edge. It had also been a long time since he had dealt with a true wild incident.
So under the circumstances, being a little thrown off at first was only natural.
Without paying further attention to the Sobble still surrounded by his team's Pokémon, he walked over to where Aaron and Hannah were standing. After confirming that they had only suffered light scrapes and no serious injury, he let out a small breath of relief.
Good.
Just as he had predicted back in the truck, neither of them had suffered life-threatening harm.
That meant he, as rescue team captain, had also avoided any serious consequences himself.
Giving the still-shaken pair a small nod, he turned his mind to what should be done about the one who had caused all this.
Sobble.
The way the little Pokémon had remained completely calm while surrounded by enemies stronger than itself made the bald man see him in a new light.
But at the same time, it sharply raised Sobble's danger rating in his mind. He was no longer dealing with just a harmless park Sobble.
As a senior member of Blue Crystal Marine Park's security division, he technically had the authority to authorize lethal force against a Pokémon if the situation truly required it.
But over all the years he had worked here, he had never once exercised that right.
There were two reasons.
The first was simple. The Pokémon in the park were usually well-behaved and rarely attacked visitors.
Even when faced with rude or overly persistent tourists, most of them chose avoidance.
And even when some struck back, it was usually only meant as a warning. Their actions rarely truly endangered human lives.
An incident this bad was the first of its kind he had ever encountered.
The second reason had to do with himself.
He might not have been among the strongest Trainers around, but he was still a legitimate professional Trainer, someone who had earned the trust and recognition of the Pokémon beside him.
And from the bottom of his heart, he cared deeply for Pokémon of every kind, no matter their type.
Unless someone was in immediate and serious danger, he simply could not bring himself to hurt these creatures.
So when it came to this Sobble, who had made such a striking impression on him, his instinct was to handle the matter as gently as possible.
If it could be kept quiet, all the better.
And even if it could not, he had no desire to impose any severe punishment.
In truth, from his personal point of view, he was actually leaning toward Sobble being effectively blameless.
Because on the drive over, in order to understand the situation as clearly as possible, he had already reviewed the surveillance footage of the whole incident.
At the beginning, when Sobble noticed the touring car, he showed obvious rejection.
But he had not done anything aggressive. If anything, he had backed away and tried to retreat into the lake.
Up to that point, everything had been fine.
Then, for reasons the bald man could not begin to understand, the tourist had urged the guide into breaking park rules and driving the vehicle straight at Sobble.
Under those circumstances, Sobble lashing out in fright and attacking the car was, frankly, understandable.
It made sense.
If not for the fact that the attack had been just a little too strong and had left the car totaled, the man would not even have considered it such a serious matter.
"In that case..."
He lifted a hand and slowly rubbed his smooth scalp, his eyes dark with thought.
"What if... I just let him go?"
"No."
He rejected the idea almost immediately.
Because right now, he was not acting as some independent Trainer in the wild.
He was a park security employee at Blue Crystal Marine Park, and that meant he had to think in terms of the park's interests.
If he simply let Sobble go, the fallout could become extremely damaging.
However unreasonable Hannah's behavior had been, she was still a paying customer.
If the matter was handled poorly and she left dissatisfied, then in a society this deeply wired into instant information flow, the headlines would explode by the next morning.
Marine Park Nearly Causes Two Deaths in Shocking Incident.
Visitor Lives Threatened. Park Officials Respond Like This.
Stories like that would spread everywhere, dominate the feeds, and deal real damage to the park.
To avoid a disaster like that, he needed to weigh every angle and find a decision that protected the park while still not betraying what he personally believed was right.
"So what do I do?"
The conflict in his chest made him frown more deeply.
Then suddenly, the sound of another engine rose from behind him.
He turned.
And the expression on his face shifted at once from worry to relief.
A smile spread across it.
"There we go."
"Now I've got a solution."
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~Support with 200 PowerStones = 1 Bonus Chapter
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For early access to advanced chapters on P-atreon:
P-atreon/iamxeno
(Just remove the - hyphen to access normally)
Thank you so much for your support and for reading!