Chapter 37. The Honora Joins the Team
By the roadside, thin cooking smoke rose as the three of them rested.
"Teacher Natsume, why does the steel reagent formula use magnetite powder plus Oran Berry extract?"
"I don't know.
Go look it up."
"Teacher Natsume, what's the point of the Thunder Stone shard at 0.3 carats per dose?"
"How should I know?"
"Teacher Natsume, then what is this energy carrier?"
"I already said it.
Go read my book."
"Honestly, how is he supposed to treat an eager, studious Honora like this?"
Misty, who was simmering soup, covered her face, feeling mortified.
Not far away, Natsume rubbed his forehead and looked at the Honora.
"The assignment I gave you is 'The effect of a Pokémon's desire to evolve on its actual evolution level.'"
"Haven't I almost finished today's quota?"
The Honora clutched a terrifyingly large, coverless tome and flipped through it frantically.
Natsume suddenly regretted giving the Honora an internship.
Her learning ability was far beyond what he had imagined.
Even so, he didn't want a zero-foundation assistant.
Too much trouble.
These last few days the Honora had clung to him like a ghost, bombarding him with questions, and he hadn't had any time to work on his Great Ball circuitry.
Annoyed by the hassle, Natsume bundled his years of research routes and important notes together and dumped the lot on the Honora.
Forget it.
A month at most.
The paper direction he'd given her was never going to be accepted by a top-tier journal—its ceiling was set.
In at most a month, he would have a perfectly legitimate reason to send her away.
"Teacher Natsume, you're amazing!"
From the side came the Honora's burning gaze.
In just three days, she had discovered that the books Natsume gave her were encyclopedias in the truest sense.
More importantly, there wasn't only one such comprehensive volume.
Natsume had given her nine!
What shocked her even more was that these books were written by Natsume himself.
Besides the Pokémon General Knowledge in her hands, the other books seemed to include many of Natsume's research lines over the years, his insights, and numerous classic experimental case studies he had collected.
Most crucially, many of the research topics he proposed contained ideas that took one's breath away.
Especially those points that looked inscrutable at first—after reading Natsume's explanations in these books, one could directly feel the ingenuity of his thinking.
Being someone who valued theory above all, the Honora, through these books, felt as if she were gazing upon the god of the theoreticians.
She would be Mr. Natsume's most devout believer!
Sensing the intern assistant's strange stare, Natsume expressionlessly pushed her head back down toward the book in her hands.
"Don't call me 'teacher.'
You're an intern assistant now."
Natsume always felt it was odd when someone only a year younger than him called him "teacher."
As Professor Oak's assistant, even they rarely interacted as master and pupil.
In this line of research, the passing of the torch is more like mutual aid.
I teach you things; you help me with work.
"Okay, Mr. Natsume.
I'll do my best."
Natsume acknowledged her as his assistant, and the Honora got so excited that steam seemed to rise from the top of her head.
Why are you blushing like a bubbling teapot?
Natsume had noticed the shift in her attitude toward him over the past two days.
Mm… it was the common kind of idol-chasing emotion seen in adolescents, even though the Honora had already reached graduation age.
But Natsume felt that, probably because she had stayed in the academy so long, her mental age was on the young side—squarely in adolescence.
This is an extremely important period.
Adolescents' minds grow rapidly and need proper guidance and mental scaffolding!
So Natsume decided to take a few photos, and after the Honora returned to normal someday, send them to her as black history.
"Dinner's ready, you two!"
Misty set down a pot of stew.
"Thanks, Misty.
By the way, aren't Brock and Ash back yet?"
"I don't know what they're up to.
Seriously, that Ash…"
Misty shook her head in frustration.
They were on the road to Vermilion City.
Halfway there, Ash ran into a Bulbasaur.
Yelling that Bulbasaur was the Pokémon of his dreams, he took off after it.
Brock, worried, followed him, and they still hadn't come back.
"Ah, Pikachu's back!"
Misty suddenly spotted Pikachu hurrying toward them in the distance.
"Pika pika!"
Pikachu thumped its chest, as if to say that Ash and Brock were fine.
"You three are lucky to taste my cooking, you know!"
Misty said, ladling out a bowl of meat soup for each of the two people and the one mouse.
Natsume took his bowl, didn't even look, and slurped a mouthful.
"Bang!"
Natsume collapsed.
"Ah—Mr. Natsume, do you need artificial respiration?
I just watched a tutorial."
Natsume suddenly sprang upright again.
Hiss—his poison resistance seemed to have gone up by about 0.1 just now?
In that case, this really was a rare and precious thing.
Natsume stared, eyes blazing, at the bubbling, unknown purple meat soup in his hands.
"Pika—"
After eating, Pikachu walked over to Natsume with practiced ease and raised its rump.
Coach, time to up the dosage!
"Mr. Natsume, can I do it this time?
Please?"
The Honora suddenly darted over and hugged Natsume's arm in supplication.
"Quit pawing me."
Natsume knocked her hand away and handed her a syringe and the reagent.
"You said it.
From now on, all reagent injections are your job."
"Okay, no problem!"
She unconsciously ignored the glint that flashed in Natsume's eyes.
"Mr. Natsume, why inject the steel reagent at the second tail vertebra?"
The Honora asked as she worked.
"Because starting from the third tail vertebra back, it blocks the electrical pathway."
This time, Natsume didn't tell her to read his book.
After all, while this reagent was easy to administer, if injected improperly, it still had a buttload of side effects.
"Then why not inject at the first tail vertebra?
Isn't the electrical pathway larger there?"
The Honora didn't just nod along; she offered her own view instead.
"So you already finished the Pikachu General Explanation?"
Natsume looked at her in surprise.
You really do live up to the name your parents gave you.
"You can try giving a shot at the first tail vertebra.
Then Pikachu will have a steel-egg butt."
No sooner had Natsume finished than Pikachu, held by the tail, stood up clutching its backside and eyed the Honora warily.
"Pika pi!"
Pikachu protested, strongly requesting that Natsume be the one to inject.
"Relax, Pikachu.
Even though the Honora doesn't have much experience…"
Natsume patted Pikachu's ear with a smile, then added,
"…I didn't have any before either."
"Pi!?"
"All right, remember this, Honora.
If you want a harmless administration of the steel reagent, you must split it into twenty-four injections, once every hour."
Natsume yawned as he gave the reminder.
"That grueling?"
The Honora looked thoughtful as she stared at the reagent in her hand.
"If you think it's hard, you're not cut out for this line."
Natsume used Keen Eye.
He glanced up at the sky, estimating that Ash and Brock would have to spend the night outside.
Pikachu had just come back to report that they were safe.
Sleep first.
Meet up tomorrow.
If Natsume remembered right, this should be the point in the plot where Ash catches Bulbasaur.
That Bulbasaur shouldn't be any special Pokémon.
He wondered if that abandoned Charmander would be…
Natsume took out his inflatable tent, crawled in, lay down comfortably, and prepared to sleep.
Not long after he lay down, the Honora's voice came from outside.
"Mr. Natsume, I want to sleep in a tent too.
Even if I don't sleep well, I can still conserve my energy that way."
Outside, the Honora poked her head into Natsume's tent.
After a moment, she withdrew expressionlessly.
Forget it.
Sleeping in a place like this, she didn't even dare close her eyes.
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