After lunch, it was still drizzling.Reiji couldn't go anywhere. No sun to dry things, no way to cook outside. He had no choice but to stay in the treehouse and keep an eye on Caterpie's Confusion training.
Poliwag, after a nap and a full belly, was assigned to gather dinner.
Which basically meant picking up seaweed and shells. On rainy days , it could work on its Swift Swim Ability while also doing laps and fetching food.
Meanwhile, under Reiji's supervision, Caterpie's Confusion had made noticeable progress. From barely being able to hold one leaf aloft, it could now easily keep two leaves floating for half an hour.
That was decent progress—still limited, of course. After all, Caterpie wasn't a Psychic-type. Training Confusion wasn't exactly a walk in the park.
Reiji didn't expect miracles. He just wanted to raise it as best as he could using the knowledge from his past life.
"Caterpie, time to keep working on Confusion," he called as Caterpie lazily stirred from its nap—clearly trying to skip out on training again.
"Buu-buu..." Caterpie let out a huge yawn. The moment it heard "training," its entire body deflated. Not even a sliver of motivation left.
"Come on, no whining. Unless you want to get eaten by some dumb bird, get up and train," Reiji said, lightly patting its head with a sigh.
Caterpie had great potential, but it was seriously lazy—nothing like the hardworking Poliwag.
With Caterpie back to work on Confusion, Reiji recalled Magikarp and emptied the plastic basin. He figured it was a good time to soak his feet and wash off the sweat.
Last night's heat had left them clammy. Better to clean up now.
While Reiji was scrubbing his feet, Poliwag came back with the first round of "dinner"—a plastic bottle filled with seaweed and some shells.
After dropping it off, Poliwag headed out again, splashing through the rain toward the rocky shallows.
But this time, it returned much faster—and it wasn't carrying a bottle. It had a fish in its mouth.
"Wishiwashi? Where'd you get a Wishiwashi?" Reiji took the fish from Poliwag's mouth and gave it a puzzled look. Where the heck did this thing come from?
"Wag wag! Wag wag!" Poliwag stomped on the sand inside the treehouse, then smacked the fish with its tail, followed by a smack on the pile of firewood—then turned to Reiji, still chirping.
"Huh? Sand? Wishiwashi? Firewood?"
Reiji tried to piece together the wild game of charades. Poliwag seemed to be saying that there were Wishiwashi on the beach—lots of them. As many as the stack of firewood, maybe more.
"What the... Are the Wishiwashi insane? Or were they chased by some predator and had to beach themselves to survive...?"
"No, I need to check this out. If this is real, it could solve our food problem for days. This kind of gift from the heavens doesn't come often..."
Realizing the situation could be huge, Reiji grabbed his makeshift raincoat made from plastic sheeting, propped himself up with his crutch, and left the treehouse.
"Caterpie, no more training today. Stay here and watch the place. Poliwag and I are heading out," he called back. If Caterpie was exhausted from training, it wouldn't be able to defend itself.
The second it heard it could skip training, Caterpie instantly perked up—like a school kid hearing the final bell.
Seeing that Reiji and Poliwag were about to head out, it even nodded seriously, as if saying, Don't worry, I got this. "Buu-buu! Buu-buu!"
"Let's go, Poliwag." Reiji, still favoring his leg, shoved on his cloth shoes again and headed to the beach to investigate. Foot soak could wait.
Even through the drizzle, Reiji could only think one thing: jackpot.
If they didn't scoop them up, these Wishiwashi would die from dehydration. And letting that much food go to waste? That'd be a sin. Lightning-worthy, even.
The beach outside the treehouse was crawling with Wishiwashi. So many that he couldn't even count them. So many he couldn't possibly collect them all.
Everywhere he looked, the beach was covered in flopping fish. They stretched all the way to the rocky tide pools where he'd been scavenging. Absolutely teeming.
The ones on land were flopping desperately toward the sea, while the ones in the sea were trying to get out, surging toward the beach.
"What the—? Wailmer?!"
Following the spout of water, Reiji spotted a massive creature on the water's surface—like a small mountain—with a blowhole jetting water into the air.
If he could catch just one, they probably wouldn't have to worry about food for a year.
Wailmer, the Ball Whale Pokémon, resembled a baleen whale. Dark blue back, cream-colored underside, huge white teeth, and beady eyes like mung beans.
They swim with mouths wide open, swallowing food and seawater together, then blasting out the unwanted water through their blowholes. A single Wailmer eats a ton of fish like Wishiwashi every day.
They also loved to spook people, suddenly blasting stored seawater from their blowholes to startle others—humans and Pokémon alike.
With all that water inside them, they could bounce like balls on land. The more water stored, the higher they could bounce.
Gulp. Reiji swallowed hard.
There weren't just one or two—he counted seven or eight. A whole family of Wailmer.
Official stats said a Wailmer weighed about 130 kilograms. Reiji had his doubts.
They were based on baleen whales, after all—and even a calf could weigh a thousand jin (about 500 kg). Adults could go up to two tons.
Forget it. Better to just stick to picking up fish. No way he could take on even one Wailmer, let alone a whole pod.
Farther out at sea, there were probably Wailord too—up to 14 meters long.
Yeah, no way was he messing with those. Maybe one day, if he got strong enough, he could catch a Wailmer. One day.
For now, this was a blessing. Pick up as many Wishiwashi as possible.
If they let these fish die from thirst or oxygen loss, that'd be on them.
"Poliwag, I'll stuff the fish into bottles. You carry them back and dump them in the water buckets."
And so the great fish-gathering mission began. Reiji collected fish while Poliwag transported them.
Eventually, even the buckets couldn't hold any more. So Reiji found a muddy pit outside the treehouse filled with rainwater, and had Poliwag dump all the fish there.
[100 Power Stones = Extra Chapter]
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