Chapter 126: Streamer, Your Head is Really Pretty Hard, Huh?

In any live stream chat, viewer comments can't always be friendly forever.

Even though Kairos had just delivered an outstanding performance with Beautifly, directly defeating his rival, there were still plenty of comments trying to bring him down.

[That's how he deals with his rival? Just got lucky. Let's see how the streamer handles the Rock Gym coming up.]

[Yeah, just that Archen alone will probably stop the streamer cold. Rock-type and Flying-type are both hard counters to Bug-types.]

[Exactly! And your Beautifly is Bug/Flying, so it takes quadruple damage from Rock-types.]

[Can't wait to watch the streamer's team get pounded senseless by the Geodude at the gym entrance LOL]

[Didn't the streamer say Beautifly could learn Grass-type moves? Wonder if it can learn them before level 15. If not, what's the plan?]

[Even if it does learn them, it still can't get past that ridiculously tanky Lileep...]

The performance of Pokémon Ultra Emerald's first gym was deeply etched in every viewer's memory, and everyone unanimously rated its difficulty as hellish.

Many viewers who had bought the game on launch day still hadn't managed to clear the Rock Gym and were scouring online forums for strategies.

No helping it—Roxanne's Pokémon were just too overwhelmingly powerful.

Now here was a streamer claiming he'd clear Roxanne's Rock Gym with an all-Bug team. Naturally, they didn't believe it.

But these skeptics only made up a small portion of the chat.

At this moment, Kairos's recent performance had gotten quite a few viewers genuinely excited.

Encouraging and supportive comments flooded the chat while gifts kept appearing in the bottom right corner.

Someone new even showed up out of nowhere and immediately donated ₽20,000 worth of gifts to Kairos. The stream's popularity began skyrocketing under these circumstances!

Meanwhile, in front of his computer screen, Kairos finished battling a roadside NPC and glanced at the stream's viewer count. From the initial 50,000 when that wealthy viewer first sent gifts, it had now climbed to 70,000 and was still rapidly rising.

But this viewer count was obviously still quite far from the system's required 500,000.

However, Kairos wasn't worried. Everything he was about to show the viewers would definitely make the stream's popularity surge even higher.

After all, for someone with his experience, Ultra Emerald was old news.

He controlled his character toward Petalburg City, skillfully picking some wild berries from the roadside soil, then found two reward Poké Balls, obtaining a Great Ball and a Star Piece as item rewards.

Next came the natural progression of helping May catch her starter Ralts, saying goodbye to Norman, and setting off on the journey again.

But after completing the Petalburg City story events, Kairos didn't immediately move on. Instead, like before, he began pacing back and forth in the grass to the left of Petalburg City.

Soon he encountered a wild level 6 Pokémon—Taillow.

As part of an opening starter team, Taillow would undoubtedly be an excellent choice. Its final evolution, Swellow, with the Guts ability, could be incredibly powerful in battle.

Unfortunately, since he was doing an all-Bug team challenge, Kairos could only tearfully have Beautifly take out Taillow with two Gusts.

As the battle ended, he started searching repeatedly through the grass again, and the chat immediately began responding to his actions:

[Is the streamer going to start grinding levels again? Really planning ahead.]

[But if you're grinding levels, wouldn't the forest be a better choice? That's where all the Bug-types are, and they'd be weak to Beautifly's Flying-type moves.]

[True, I don't really get it either...]

[You guys don't understand—this place might be more troublesome for leveling, but it's close to the Pokémon Center. Don't forget what the streamer loves doing most.]

[Got it, got it—running marathons between the grass and the Pokémon Center.]

The chat filled with laughter while Kairos spoke softly.

"Since I'm using an all-Bug team for this playthrough, with the restriction of only catching 15 Pokémon, every early-game Bug-type is extremely important."

"The Pokémon that spawn in each area's grass patches are different, so I want to see if there's anything useful here."

What he said was true, but not the whole truth. As a veteran player and even the designer of this game, he naturally knew what he was looking for in this grass patch.

But since his current identity was that of a streamer playing this game for the first time, not the game's creator, he at least had to put on an act for these viewers.

Kairos's explanation immediately sparked discussion in the chat.

[That makes sense. When we play, we just rush through without spending time in grass patches to see what Pokémon are around.]

[I heard if you encounter enough wild Pokémon in grass patches, you might run into low-probability rare Pokémon.]

[Really? So every grass patch has rare Pokémon? Guess we'll have to spend half an hour in each patch from now on.]

[You can check the forums—I think someone shared info about that.]

Watching the chat, Kairos couldn't help but smile slightly. His efforts to promote the game forum seemed to be paying off, with people mentioning it so quickly.

But speaking of rare Pokémon, that was indeed a feature from the original games, so naturally his game had it too.

Route 101 actually had a rare Bug-type Pokémon with only a 1% spawn rate.

It was the legendary ace of Team Rocket's boss, one of the few Bug-types with mega evolution, with explosive Attack and Speed base stats—Beedrill's initial form, Weedle.

If he managed to find this Pokémon on Route 101, this challenge would be completely trivial. After all, Beedrill was truly unstoppable in the early game, and even in late game with its mega stone, it was terrifyingly powerful.

But if he caught Weedle right off the bat... for Kairos, this challenge would lose its appeal.

The Beedrill matter could wait for players to discover on their own.

As for what he was actually looking for now... that was another common, ordinary Pokémon!

Pidgey...

Zigzagoon...

After several consecutive Pokémon spawns, relying on Beautifly's powerful early-game battle capabilities to easily defeat these Pokémon and gain experience...

When the screen darkened again, battle music played, and a new Pokémon emerged before Kairos, his eyes immediately lit up.

Finally found you!

If he hadn't encountered it soon, he would have started doubting whether he'd set this Pokémon's spawn location somewhere else.

The Pokémon before him actually looked similar to Wurmple, but unlike Wurmple, its eyes were composed of two white membrane-like lenses, and its body was a blue and white spherical shape that looked rather dopey.

[Wild Blipbug, Lv.6, appeared!]

With this Pokémon's appearance, Kairos's chat immediately erupted with comments.

As a Galar region Pokémon, viewers in this world naturally had never seen Blipbug before.

[Huh, who's this guy? Looks like it might be a Bug-type too, but I've never seen it before.]

[Probably another original Pokémon created for the game.]

[I ran into this guy in this grass patch yesterday! I thought it was some rare Pokémon and used three whole Poké Balls to catch it. But after catching it, I discovered its stats were less than half my starter's. It's not some rare, powerful Pokémon at all—seems like they're everywhere in the grass.]

[So regretful. If I'd known, I wouldn't have wasted those three Poké Balls. This game doesn't even let you release Pokémon, so this thing will permanently take up one of my catch slots. Ugh, it brings tears to my eyes. Everyone, don't randomly catch wild Pokémon! I'm already considering restarting.]

[Oh, I see. You had me scared for a second—I thought the streamer's luck was kicking in again.]

While the chat discussed, some ill-intentioned comments began their performance.

[Streamer, streamer! Didn't you say there are no weak Pokémon, only weak trainers? How about you catch one of these and show us how you'd use it?]

[Yeah, streamer! Since you're building an all-Bug team anyway, and this guy's Bug-type too, just catch it real quick.]

However, facing the sky full of taunting comments, Kairos glanced at them and just smiled slightly. He directly had Beautifly use the Tackle move it had retained from before, instantly dropping Blipbug's HP to critical red.

Then, on the second turn, he immediately threw a Poké Ball. The red and white sphere traced an arc through the air, and after three brief shakes, accompanied by sparkling light, cheerful music played.

[Congratulations! Successfully caught Blipbug!]

[New Pokémon data has been recorded in the Pokédex!]

The next moment, the chat erupted in a storm of question marks.

[???]

[Wait, streamer, you really can't handle provocation, huh? Someone says catch it and you actually do?]

[Haha, the streamer's head is really hard as a rock.]

[I support the streamer! Those guys' attitudes are pretty ugly—they don't even know how to respect Pokémon. No wonder they can't become trainers.]

[That's true, but catching a Blipbug as your third Pokémon is just dragging the team down, isn't it? Don't tell me it can evolve into something as powerful as Beautifly too?]

While the chat discussed, some people began speculating about Kairos's motives, while another person jumped out with a prominent comment.

[Impossible! I caught one of these too, and after checking the Pokédex, I found it doesn't reach its final evolution until level 30. By then I could've restarted twice over! I got so mad I threw it straight into storage.]

[Geez, it's clearly a Bug-type but its final evolution comes that late? Even Cynthia's Garchomp only evolved at level 36. This thing has to wait until level 30? What happened to the supposed advantage of Bug-types developing fast early on?]

[This guy really thinks he's some late-blooming pseudo-legendary, haha.]

For a moment, negative discussion about Blipbug filled the chat. However, Kairos glanced at their conversation but said nothing.

After all, Blipbug didn't exist in the real world, and no one knew how useful this Pokémon's evolution would be.

These comments would probably all quiet down soon enough.

He silently led his newly caught Blipbug and Beautifly into Petalburg Woods.

The next moment, he directly controlled his character to walk straight toward a large tree ahead, pressed the interaction button, and immediately a prompt appeared before him.

[Antidote x1 has been placed in your bag!]

Seeing this scene, the chat erupted again.

[The streamer's luck is way too good, right? Even finding hidden rewards like this?]

[So this tree had a Antidote? Holy crap, I actually learned something.]

[What luck—the streamer probably snuck in some practice last night and figured this out.]

...

At this moment, Kairos suddenly snapped back to reality.

In almost every generation, when entering the first forest, there would be a tree that directly provided the player with a Antidote. This was practically encoded in his DNA, so upon entering the forest, he'd instinctively performed that action.

Fortunately, the chat didn't seem to notice anything unusual. He shook his head slightly and controlled his character into the grass on the left.

Just as the chat had mentioned, most Pokémon appearing in Petalburg Woods were Grass and Bug types. Their weakness to Flying-type moves meant they'd be instantly KO'd when facing Beautifly.

This made Kairos's leveling incredibly efficient—he didn't even need to run back and forth to the Pokémon Center like before to restore Beautifly's health. He only needed to make one trip when Beautifly's Gust PP ran out.

Under this highly efficient leveling, both Beautifly and Wimpod reached level 14, just one level away from the current level cap!

And Blipbug's level had also smoothly risen to 10.

As this battle ended, rainbow-like evolutionary light suddenly burst forth from its body!

It had reached the level requirement for its first evolution!