Pokémon: Starting with a Dragon Dance Gible [18]

Kaiba was genuinely startled.

A complete stranger, separated by the anonymity of the internet, had suddenly given him such a generous gift.

“!!!”

As they say, there’s no such thing as a free lunch.

To be an influencer or streamer, one certainly needed support from fans.
Simply put, that was how you made a living.

But even free gifts, follows, and likes would’ve been enough to boost Kaiba’s morale.
He wasn’t exactly wealthy—no one’s money grew on trees—and he certainly didn’t expect anyone to go out of their way and spend money on him.

—Although unknown to Kaiba, Cynthia had already tried her best to restrain herself from using her overwhelming financial resources.

She had no intention of using something as superficial as money to pressure him into revealing how he’d taught Gible [Dragon Dance]. Instead, she planned to approach the topic with more subtlety.

Even moves Pokémon couldn’t normally learn through breeding could sometimes be copied via a [Mirror Herb] at a Pokémon Camp.

Ultimately, her goal was still to have her Garchomp learn [Dragon Dance].

But being too direct would make it feel suspiciously like the open ambition of some cartoonish villain.

Patience... you need patience, Cynthia silently reminded herself.

The icon for [Drawing-Water-With-a-Bamboo-Basket] quickly dimmed as the account went offline.

It seemed the mysterious benefactor had no intention of sticking around to hear Kaiba heap praise on them.

“Good people really do still exist in this world, huh… o(╥﹏╥)o”

Kaiba sighed emotionally. Even after platform fees and taxes, a single Super Rocket worth 2000 Pokécoins would leave him with more than 1000 coins—half a month’s living expenses.

Perhaps because the Pokémon world was peaceful, prosperous, and technologically advanced, there were genuinely more helpful, selfless “bros” here.

As the saying goes, “When the granaries are full, people learn manners; when the people are well-fed, they understand dignity.”

People didn’t become kind just because they had money—

Rather, it was precisely because they had money that they could afford to be kind.

...

The next morning, Kaiba woke up early, refreshed and energetic.

Good things happening tended to lift one’s spirits.

Feeling invigorated, he decided to take Gible to the gym again for another training session.

Late-blooming Pokémon like Gible grew slowly, requiring more intensive training and battle experience. Naturally, they demanded more attention and dedication from their Trainers.

Of course—

Once raised properly and given sufficient time, these pseudo-legendary Pokémon, with their base stats eventually soaring to “600,” would reward their Trainers with incredible power and performance.

“Heading to class today, Xiao Ba?” asked Dyson, Kaiba’s roommate.

“Xiao Bai? Who the heck’s Xiao Ba...”

Kaiba instantly felt disrespected.

Isn’t that a name usually reserved for dogs?

“Listen, buddy—I might like your Yamper, but if you start treating me like your Yamper, then I’ll stop recognizing you as my son!”

“Get lost! I was just having a little fun at your expense—who asked you to jump straight into calling yourself my dad?!”

Dyson shouted back indignantly, “—I don’t have a dad like you! Wait, I mean—I don’t have a son like you!”

Mutual father-son dynamics were, of course, a complicated but common kind of friendship between roommates in high school and college dormitories.

“So, seriously, heading to class together or what?”

“Nah, not today. I want to keep training Gible at the gym,” Kaiba replied.

“Kapukapu~”

Gible waved her little fins excitedly, looking energized after a good night’s rest.

“Wow, man. You’re seriously planning on becoming a professional Pokémon Trainer, aren’t you?” Dyson adjusted his black-framed glasses, looking genuinely surprised.

“Of course! What’s the point of living if you don’t have dreams? Might as well be a salted fish.”

Kaiba nodded righteously.

“But if that’s your dream, why didn’t you just enroll in the Pokémon Battle major instead of Business Administration? Were you forced into this major or something?”

“Not really,” Kaiba shook his head.

According to his original life trajectory before rebirth, he’d indeed cluelessly enrolled in Business Administration—a major that sounded impressive at first but practically guaranteed unemployment upon graduation.

What “elite talent” in Business Administration?

It was nothing more than a fast-track program to becoming an “elite wage slave,” a glorified “office assistant,” or, at best, a “natural-born salesperson.”

If you didn’t have connections in your family, you’d be lucky to land a job selling real estate or insurance.

During college: “This place offers plentiful resources, particularly cheap labor…”
After graduation: Wait, the cheap labor was me all along?!

But who’d have thought that after transmigration and rebirth stacked double buffs on Kaiba, the whole worldline would shift entirely to the Pokémon world?

Yet somehow, he’d still ended up in Business Administration instead of Pokémon Battles.

“So, I thought, since the major’s called Business Administration, maybe the ‘administration’ part of it could also apply to managing and training Pokémon… maybe?” Kaiba hesitated.

“Why are you asking me when it was clearly your own reasoning?”

“Because even I think my reasoning sounds totally ridiculous, haha~ <(￣▽￣)/”

Kaiba scratched the back of his head awkwardly, flashing a polite yet embarrassed smile.

“Kapupu...”

Gible activated [Mimic], copying her Trainer’s exact awkward smile.

---

T/N: idk i didnt feel good about the quality of the last few chapters, ill try to improve for the next oens

This is a fan translation of 宝可梦，开局龙舞圆陆鲨 by 眼含泪光 All rights to the original work belong to the creator. Please support them by exploring their original work or sharing it with others if you can. Thank you for reading and supporting my efforts to bring this story to a wider audience!