The Let's Play Archive

Monster Rancher 4

by FredMSloniker

Part 15: An Exercise in Futility, Part 1

2Yr. 3Mo. 2Wk.

Based on your input, I decided to prioritize iScream, Natsu, and Chucky in that order for entering tournaments. It turned out I needn't have asked you, though, because there weren't any scheduling conflicts to work around.



Oh, and check this shit out.



Some guy dropped by in a freaking pirate ship to visit us.



Apparently Pollock pulled some strings on our behalf and got this guy to give us a loaner. Which is... a nice thought, I suppose, but I don't know how to sail a boat, let alone an actual ship. Don't you need, like, a dozen hearty men of the sea or something?



Besides, the guy kind of freaks me out.



Chucky continues to dominate all opposition in every match he enters. Unfortunately, there are very few tournaments at his rank in this area.



And Natsu couldn't say the same in his first Class D bout.



Poor bastard went up against one of those pumpkin monsters and just couldn't seem to land a hit. The judges gave it to the opponent in a close decision. I've withdrawn Natsu from tournaments until after the next official match to give him more time to train.



I wound up doing the same for iScream, who ran up against a Lesione that kept destroying his Guts.



And then his cohesion. Ah well, they both tried hard and brought home second place.



So all of a sudden I had a bunch of free weekends, so I decided to go visit Ryuwn and see what I needed to do to get into the higher-level tournaments. Ryuwn's a pretty big place, being the capital and all.



Check out the size of their stadium!



And being the capital, it's the sort of place everyone goes sooner or later. Case in point, one of my old classmates was here, having just finished losing a match. He's working as a breeder right out of school.



He wasn't the only familiar face either.



Apparently she's the top-ranked FIMBA rookie, which is no surprise; she always got the best marks in our class. I decided I'd better stop gawking like a tourist and see about getting into a match so I could see how my school of hard knocks stood up.



Unfortunately, we ran into this douche.



He wouldn't even let us past the lobby without filling out multiple forms, in triplicate, just to set up an appointment. What kind of league is FIMBA running, anyway?



Just so it wouldn't be a wasted trip, I swung by the library, meeting this cheery octogenarian...



...and his unfortunately named assistant.



I had the bright idea of having him take a look at those old documents I'd found, and he was able to translate them for me, which was nice of him. There weren't any secret locations of buried treasure--at least, not that he admitted--but maybe you'll get a kick out of them anyway. Any typoes are in the original text:


Anyway, I'm back on the ranch now. The soonest I was able to schedule an appointment at FIMBA was a week later. They don't look that busy to me... ah well. We must persevere.