"One, two, three... seventeen, eighteen, twenty... Whoa, that many?!"
Naoki was a bit shocked.
He turned his head to look at the hen that, after laying so many eggs at once, seemed to be in a state of exhaustion. It was wobbling as it walked, looking quite spiritless.
After wobbling for a while, the hen walked over to the feeding trough and began devouring the chicken feed inside like crazy.
Seeing this, Naoki felt a bit worried.
Could it be that he broke the hen?
Naoki watched for a moment, then recalled in his mind the effects of that special chicken feed:
When fed to a rooster, it speeds up the fertilization of the eggs. When fed to a hen, it causes it to lay a large number of eggs in a short time.
However, after laying eggs, the hen would enter a 15-day cooldown period during which it cannot lay eggs or consume this feed and requires a lot of food to replenish its energy.
"So, it's now replenishing its lost energy." Naoki felt relieved in his heart.
Thankfully, the effect of this feed doesn't completely drain the hen. Based on the description, it should be something like borrowing from the future, laying the eggs that would have been laid over the next 15 days all at once.
Once the eggs are laid, the hen enters a state of exhaustion and needs to consume a large amount of feed.
Naoki stood by and observed the hen's actions.
He saw that after the hen finished eating its portion of the feed, it started to eat the feed of the other two hens as well.
It didn't stop until it finished all the feed in the trough, then it returned to its nest, lay on the pile of eggs, yawned, and quickly fell asleep.
Naoki stood up and began calculating in his mind.
From the original owner's memory, he knew that eggs in this world were very cheap. A box of 10 eggs sold for just 250 League coins in the market.
And Zack bought eggs from the ranch at wholesale price, so the price he sold them for was slightly lower than the market price.
This meant that the entire pile of eggs in front of him was worth less than 500.
After deducting the cost of the feed the hen consumed, there was hardly any profit.
Thinking about it this way, the effect of this feed didn't seem that outrageous.
Naoki took half of the eggs to keep for his own use, and left the other half for the hen to hatch.
At the same time, he opened the door of the Chicken House and let the other three hens out to bask in the sun and get some fresh air.
After finishing all this, Naoki went to water the crops in the field.
He only had a little over four thousand left, and it would be over half a month before this batch of crops matured.
Relying on selling eggs couldn't earn much, so today Naoki planned to explore Casseroya Lake to the north of the ranch.
To prevent any wild Pokemon from causing trouble on the ranch while he was away, Naoki planned to leave Cyclizar to guard the house.
Back at the cabin, he took out six Poke Balls he had bought from a store in Porto Marinada Town. Ever since he bought these, they had been left in the drawer.
Because they weren't needed on the ranch, his original intention was to take Pokemon with him during his future outings.
Thinking of this, Naoki glanced at Koraidon by his side.
Koraidon was also looking at him.
"Have you seen this thing before?" Naoki asked.
"A-ga-si!" Koraidon nodded its big head.
Seeing this, Naoki thought: It must have seen this when it was in Zone Zero with Professor Sada.
In the game, Koraidon was always Professor Sada's Pokemon.
After Professor Sada passed away, it lost a territory battle with another Koraidon and met the game protagonist by the sea after fleeing the Paldea Giant Pit.
Then the game protagonist got Koraidon's Poke Ball from Professor Sada's son, Arven.
So, Koraidon's Poke Ball should be in Arven's hands now?
Naoki fell into thought.
Arven, nicknamed Batman, because his parents, Professor Sada and Professor Turo, also passed away like Batman's parents.
As the son of Professor Sada and Professor Turo, Arven once lived with his parents and Koraidon for a long time.
But later, due to Koraidon's deep-seated wildness and fighting spirit causing it to attack other Pokemon,
Seeing that Koraidon's existence was about to be known to the world, and to prevent more Pokemon from being attacked by Koraidon, Professor Sada had to take it back to the Paldea Giant Pit and has lived there ever since.
This made young Arven feel that Koraidon took his mother away from him, and coupled with Professor Sada being busy with experiments and neglecting Arven, led Arven to hate Koraidon and his parents, disliking it when others mentioned them.
"Forget it, I'll deal with this later!"
After all, Koraidon's Poke Ball is with Arven, and once a Pokemon is captured, it can't be captured again with another Poke Ball.
Because when the Poke Ball first contains the Pokemon, it marks it with something like a tag.
In such cases, trying to capture it with another Poke Ball won't have any reaction.
If Naoki didn't remember wrongly, regular Poke Balls seemed to work like this.
To test it, he placed the ball against Koraidon's body.
But after a few seconds passed, Koraidon did not get drawn into the Poke Ball.
Seeing this, Koraidon looked down at the Poke Ball, appearing somewhat puzzled.
"So, it really won't work."
Naoki put away the Poke Ball, abandoning the idea of capturing Koraidon with it.
He packed drinking water, berries, Poke Balls, and other items into his travel backpack, then slung it over his back, ready to set off with Koraidon to explore Casseroya Lake and check out the information about the fish there.
Just then, the sound of Cyclizar's growl came from outside the door.
Naoki, with his travel backpack on, walked out the door to check and saw Cyclizar looking toward the ranch entrance, barking loudly, "Ga-ow!"
"What's up?"
Naoki followed its gaze, and then saw two familiar yet unfamiliar figures.
In the front was a valiant woman, wearing a white lab coat with a primal-styled fur outfit underneath, accessorized with a fang necklace, exuding a wild charm from head to toe.
Behind her was a small boy, about eight years old.
He had the same light brown short hair as the woman in front, and from their appearance, they seemed like a mother and son duo.
They stopped at a distance, their gazes falling on Naoki and Koraidon standing under the eaves.
The woman's eyes were full of confidence, her gaze lingering on Koraidon before she politely inquired of Naoki:
"Hello, did you save this Pokemon?"