"Hey, Chimecho. We'll accept these."
"Good morning, Team Omnipotent Travelers! I see you're doing the usual again."
"Yup, just the tasks in Beach Cave."
Early in the morning, on the 2nd floor of the Wigglytuff Guild, Dante, Mawile, and Riolu stood before Chimecho's station to accept a task for their team. Since they had a pretty tiring day in the human world, they chose a simple one.
Pikachu, Azumarill, and Ursaring are on the 3rd floor, checking Croagunk's list of Exclusive Items and exchanging them if they are useful to the team. In addition, they are tasked to inquire with Chatot and the other guild apprentices about Exploration news.
"All done! By the way, Dan, there's an update about the task you posted. Two of them, actually."
"Really? Which ones?"
"Here."
Chimecho rang her bell, using her psychic power to lift two pieces of paper in front of Dante.
Among the two, one of them was the usual Gummi commissions he posts, which basically states he was willing to buy 20 Gummies of any kind for 11,000 Poke.
A Gummi in Kecleon's store cost 500 each. Therefore, Dante's offer is the same as buying them at an additional 50 Poke more for each piece. Of course, they also bought the Kecleon brother's stock everyday before heading to the Guild, leading to the amount of Poke their team spends for Gummies being quite astronomical.
However, this was also the reason how Ursaring reached his current strength in just a month from the infancy stage. Besides, they also had more sources of revenue for Poke now.
Without worrying about the 90% tax from the Guild, their Team occasionally accepts tasks for 2 or even 3 star dungeons with Poke rewards. With its difficulty, the corresponding rewards are much higher too.
For 2-star dungeons, the minimum to even commission such tasks are 20,000 Poke or equivalent items. Of course, the Guild can lend money for the clients if the situation is urgent.
With Dante and his team's strength, not only can they easily accomplish such tasks, they could also earn more money from selling the items they found in such dungeons.
And that's not mentioning the products from the human world Dante is selling right now. Using the Kecleon Brother's as a proxy, he is able to earn at least 30,000 every day from selling Pokeballs, Pokemon Treats, as well as consumable Trainer items.
Dante wanted to buy more items in the human world to sell, but it's a pity he had no stable source of Alliance Credits. He was already contemplating selling items from the PMD world to the human world.
After all, he was strong enough among humans that he could handle any threats. But here, with Gods raging and the world about to end, he needed himself and his team to gain strength as quickly as possible.
Dante shook away his spiraling thoughts and focused on the second piece of paper. Seeing what was written there, his tail wagged in excitement. It was his commission about 1-star or above Mystery dungeons containing Teddiursa or Ursaring.
"Nice! Thanks, Chimecho! Where should we meet them?"
"Hmm, unfortunately, they applied for anonymity and just left this letter. They said they wanted 5,000 Poke for this information."
"Again?"
Dante scrunched his eyebrows. When accomplishing tasks, Exploration Teams normally want to talk to the client in person to establish a connection for future tasks.
Remaining anonymous has almost no benefits, since the Guild itself knows the Team's identity. If the client complained and proved that the task wasn't done well, the Exploration Team would still face sanctions from the Guild.
The reason why Dante said 'again' is that, when they first went to Mt. Thunder, the way the information was delivered to them is the same.
"Is it usual for tasks like these to be anonymously accomplished?"
Dante asked Chimecho while taking out 5,000 Poke from the bag. Although their method of accomplishing the task is weird, as long as the information is valid, he'll take it.
"No… Dan, please be careful. As a former Guildmate, I can tell you that the Team who accepted this task is the same as the previous one who gave you the location to the Legendary Pokemon Zapdos."
"Is that so…thanks for the tip, Chimecho!"
"You're welcome, Dan~"
After paying the fee, Dante led Mawile and Riolu towards a corner of the room where they agreed to wait for Pikachu and the others.
"Are we gonna change our destination today?"
Riolu asked, staring curiously at the sealed paper in Dante's hand.
"Hmm, it depends."
Dante tore off the sticky sap and unfurled the letter. As he read what was written, his eyebrows became more and more furrowed.
"What's wrong, Dan?"
Mawile asked.
"…see for yourself."
Dante turned the paper. With the two's basic reading skills, they weren't able to make sense of many of the words. However, they still understood the most important info.
"One, two, three…five. 5 stars! Is this a map to a 5-star dungeon?!"
"Hmm. A 5 star dungeon named Mystery Jungle."
Dante inspected the paper, which contained simple information as well as a map to said dungeon.
He couldn't help but be curious and wary. What is the identity of this team that can casually give out the location of dungeons like Mt. Thunder and this Mystery Jungle?
"So, will we go there today?"
Riolu and Mawile stared at Dante with apprehension.
"Of course not! If this is really a 5 star dungeon, we'll need to strengthen the both of you first."
"I'm plenty strong!"
Mawile protested, making a chomping motion with her jaws. And even though Riolu didn't speak, his gaze conveyed the same meaning.
"Really? You two could barely keep up when we accepted the 3-star dungeon task last week."
"T-t-that was then! I'm stronger now!"
Mawile refused to budge. She won't let anyone call her weak, not even if it's Dante!
"Mawile, do you trust me?"
The cream-colored Pokemon had been prepared to argue further. So, when Dante asked a question instead, she was caught off guard.
"I-Of course!"
"Then please trust me when I say this; I'm doing this because I don't want the two of you to get hurt. Pokemon in this dungeon are no joke…"
Mawile blushed, automatically filtering out some of the words Dante said. S-so, Dan doesn't want her to go because he cares about her?
"Dan!"
Unable to contain her excitement, Mawile glomped Dante. And right at this moment, Pikachu and the others arrived.
"We're back! What's up with her?"
"*Sigh* Nothing. Just Mawile being Mawile. Did you get anything useful?"
Pikachu nodded in understanding and then shrugged.
"Croagunk had no Exclusive Item useful for us. However, Azumarill got some news from Sunflora."
"Hmm. She said a Swellow came to Treasure Town yesterday, talking about how there was a powerful Psychic energy outburst in Fogbound Forest."
Dante frowned. Fogbound Forest and powerful Psychic…it should be Uxie. Has Grovyle finally taken action?
"And? What else did Swellow say?"
"…and that's it. Swellow said he flew away and didn't check any further. Although he didn't say the reason, Sunflora mentioned that Swellow was trembling when he told them that part."
"I see...Thanks. If it only occurred yesterday, we would have to wait for news from the Exploration Federation to know what really happened."
Afterwards, Dante also told them about the 5-star dungeon. Hearing they finally found a reliable method of obtaining his Exclusive Items, Ursaring jumped in joy. He didn't care what Dante said about the difficulty of the dungeon.
Anyway, with his Dad, all of them are sure to become strong enough to tackle it soon.
With the debriefing done, their team proceeded to accomplish their task and swept through Beach Cave. And as they returned to the human world, questions still lingered in Dante's mind.
Was Grovyle able to steal the Time Gear as in the original game? Or had Uxie stopped him? Also, what is the purpose of the mysterious Team for providing information about the dungeons?
A/N: For those who know Mystery Jungle, I'll say this first. No, it won't be Mew that would appear there.
Also, sorry for the delay. I got a high fever the day before yesterday. Fortunately, it subsided after a whole day of rest.