Zane couldn't make heads or tails of it.
After dumping the Magikarp back into the river, he returned to the dorm with Cramorant. Before starting his lesson prep, he gave the bird a firm look. "From now on, no more bringing things home."
Things were different now. He had a job. He hadn't been paid yet, but at least he wasn't going to starve.
"GAH?" Cramorant's reaction made it perfectly clear it hadn't understood a single word.
Zane sighed in resignation. Nope. Still nothing.
It wasn't that dopey Pokémon didn't exist in this world—Slowpoke and Psyduck were prime examples. But unlike Cramorant, no matter how vacant they looked, they could at least understand human speech. Cramorant, which had once been nothing but game data, was now a living creature with warm blood flowing through its veins.
So why can't it understand me?
Zane just couldn't figure it out. He thought about the editor templates he'd lost after transmigration. Was it possible Cramorant had gone through a similar process? Had it lost something, or had some part of its data been corrupted on the way over?
He felt the money in his pocket. 330 Pokédollars left. He wondered if that was even enough for a full check-up at the Pokémon Center. It wasn't that he didn't trust the info from his own editor, but he couldn't afford to leave any stone unturned.
This bird was the only companion he'd brought with him from his old life. He couldn't just let it stay like this.
And so, after lunch, he took Cramorant to the Pokémon Center in the middle of the city.
"Excuse me," Zane asked the Nurse Joy at the counter. "How much does a full physical examination for a Pokémon cost?"
Nurse Joy's voice was gentle. "Two hundred Pokédollars."
Zane let out a breath of relief. If it had been any more, he would've had to sell the two empty Poké Balls he'd looted from the hunters.
"Please give it a full check-up," Zane said, handing Cramorant over to her.
"Of course. Please wait a moment." A Chansey pushed a small cart over, and Nurse Joy placed Cramorant on it before heading into the treatment room.
The door slid shut. Zane was about to find a seat in the waiting area when he heard a startled cry from inside the room.
A second later, the door was thrown open, and Cramorant flew out in a flurry of wings. Its face still had that same blank expression, but Zane could see a hint of panic in its frantic movements. He instinctively reached out and caught it.
"I'm so sorry!" Nurse Joy said, hurrying out with a blush on her cheeks. She was clearly familiar with this kind of situation. "It seems you may need to accompany your Pokémon for the examination."
Zane had no problem with that. He carried Cramorant back into the exam room and stayed with it through the entire process.
The results came back quickly. Nurse Joy looked at the monitor and said, "This Pokémon's body is in perfect health. There's nothing physically wrong with it."
Perfectly healthy... Zane was more confused than ever. But he kept his composure, thanked Nurse Joy for her time, and headed back to the school with Cramorant.
No issues on the data scan, no issues on the physical exam. At this point, Zane was completely out of ideas. All he could do was take Cramorant back to his room and continue with his lesson prep; the bird perched silently nearby.
A week later, the school year officially began.
Zane officially started his new career as a teacher.
Since he was new, the school only assigned him two classes. He'd originally thought this Pokémon elementary school would be like, well, elementary school. After his first day, he realized it was much closer to kindergarten.
While he'd never been a teacher before, he'd spent most of his life as a student. He knew what a good class looked like. His first lesson went off without a hitch. After it was over, he packed up his materials and headed to his next class.
As soon as he stepped up to the teacher's desk, he noticed a girl in the front row with a red bandana, dark blue shorts, and a red t-shirt.
Isn't that May?
May, the female protagonist from the Advanced Generation anime and the Hoenn games. Thinking about it, seeing her here made perfect sense. She was, after all, the daughter of the Petalburg Gym Leader, Norman.
Zane wasn't particularly shocked. He gave a brief self-introduction and then started the class by chatting with the kids about what they wanted to do when they grew up. For the first lesson, he just wanted to get to know them.
If things went according to plan, he was going to be here for a long time.
By the end of the day, every student in the school knew they had a new teacher who was about the same age as they were.
...
"You're quite the popular one, you know!"
After some time had passed, Rika and Tsuyoshi started teasing him about it. They'd both sat in on his ecology class and found it so lively and interesting that even they had wanted to stay and listen.
"What's your secret?" Tsuyoshi asked curiously.
"I guess you could call it a gift," Zane replied with a smug, joking tone.
He'd met a lot of people over the past half-month and had slowly gotten to know his fellow teachers. Rika and Tsuyoshi had become his closest friends; both were warm, cheerful, and easygoing.
Hearing his arrogant reply, Tsuyoshi jokingly raised a fist. "I think you're just asking for a beating!"
"You're a grown man, stop acting like a kid," Zane shot back, giving him a weird look.
Hanging out with younger people all the time was, he had to admit, making him feel a little younger himself.
"You little punk!" Tsuyoshi lunged, and the two of them started playfully wrestling. Rika just stood to the side, laughing.
The new "little teacher" was a huge hit at the school. At first, some of the staff who hadn't been at the interview were skeptical of his abilities, but those doubts vanished after they saw the recordings of his lessons. Add to that his "tragic orphan" backstory, and the entire school was a mix of fond and sympathetic toward him.
Teachers in his shared office would leave milk and snacks on his desk. The janitors would cheerfully ask if he had any trash they could take out for him. The cafeteria ladies seemed determined to pile all the best food onto his plate.
Zane had never been treated with such overwhelming kindness before. He'd tried to tell them he didn't need any special treatment, but that only made them treat him with even more delicate, careful goodwill.
He was touched, but also a little ashamed.
He couldn't tell them the truth about where he came from, so he just quietly accepted their kindness, vowing to himself that he would pay it all back someday when he finally had some money.
Right now, he was too broke to even think about catching another Pokémon.
He was so desperate for cash that he'd even tracked down May to ask if trainers got prize money for winning battles on the road, like in the games.
The cheerful and enthusiastic May had just laughed. "Of course not, Teacher! What a strange thing to think about!"
Zane had been crushed. He'd been hoping to earn some money for Cramorant's food budget by hustling a few Bug Catchers.
Speaking of Cramorant, it still hadn't given up on its mission to feed its trainer. It would bring back fish, Berries, and sometimes an unlucky Magikarp or Feebas. When he'd seen the Feebas, Zane had been tempted to keep it in a fish tank—after all, it evolved into the rare and beautiful Milotic.
Unfortunately, he couldn't even afford a fish tank. He'd had to let it go, telling himself he'd reconsider after he got his first paycheck.
It wasn't that he hadn't thought about catching a new partner. But if he did it now, with his current finances, he'd have to choose between a Grass-type, a Magikarp, or a Feebas. A Grass-type could feed itself through Photosynthesis, requiring very little investment. And both Magikarp and Feebas were incredibly hardy, easy to care for, and had immense future potential.
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