It was an exceptionally ugly Pokémon.
Its blue fins looked ragged and tattered, while its body was mostly muddy yellow and blue, covered in pits and irregular patches.
Its eyes had a permanently vacant look.
Feebas—a peculiar Pokémon with a base stat total of only 200, even lower than Magikarp’s.
Apparently, there was always something weaker.
Feebas was obscure enough that Leon had almost forgotten it existed.
It had virtually no combat ability and ranked among the weakest Pokémon there were.
Its eyes remained vacant as its mouth opened and closed.
For the past few days, it had probably survived by drinking the filthy water in the trash can and eating whatever garbage it could find inside.
Even when exposed to the light, Feebas remained completely listless.
It ignored Leon entirely, seemingly indifferent even to whatever might happen to it next.
After hesitating for a moment, Leon found a fishbowl at the front desk, about twenty centimeters in diameter.
The aquarium might be short on everything else, but water was one thing it had plenty of.
The water had long since gone stagnant, but Leon didn’t particularly care.
After filling the bowl, Leon suppressed his disgust, wrapped both hands in two garbage bags, and carefully lifted Feebas out of the trash can.
Feebas didn’t resist.
It didn’t even struggle.
Once he had transferred Feebas into the bowl, Leon set it on the front counter and opened one of the storage cabinets underneath.
Aquariums generally kept plenty of fish food on hand.
If ordinary fish could eat it, then Water-type Pokémon should be able to eat it too.
The supermarket had attracted so many Raticate precisely because it contained plenty of food.
If humans could eat that food, then an omnivorous Pokémon like Raticate could eat it as well.
Leon tentatively dropped a handful of fish food into the bowl.
Perhaps Feebas had “smelled” the food.
Its previously vacant eyes seemed to brighten slightly.
Its mouth opening and closing, Feebas quickly devoured everything Leon had dropped into the water.
Seeing this reminded Leon that these Pokémon never seemed able to fill their stomachs, so he simply emptied the entire packet of fish food into the bowl.
Feebas continued frantically devouring the food Leon had given it.
Holding the fishbowl under his left arm and carrying a bag of fish food in his right hand, Leon turned and left the aquarium.
Maybe this was fate throwing him a lifeline.
Leon certainly hadn’t expected to find a Feebas in a trash can.
And Feebas certainly hadn’t expected that, after lying in a trash can waiting to die, it would suddenly be taken in by a human.
“What a beautiful Pokémon. This has to be the prettiest Pokémon I’ve ever seen.”
“How can a Pokémon possibly be this beautiful?”
“This Pokémon is exactly my type.”
As he carried the fishbowl, Leon showered Feebas with praise.
He didn’t care whether Feebas could understand him or not.
He was going to compliment it until it worked.
In the anime, Feebas needed its Beauty raised.
Raising Beauty itself wasn’t necessarily that difficult, and appearance was also influenced by confidence and bearing, so Leon decided to try building up Feebas’s self-confidence.
Leon knew perfectly well that he might as well be talking to a brick wall.
Feebas might not understand human speech at all, much less realize that Leon was praising it.
But what if it could understand him?
What if?
Besides, it wasn’t costing him anything.
All he had to do was tell a few shameless lies.
Leon returned to the camp with Feebas and immediately ran into the chubby guy.
The chubby guy’s eyes widened when he saw Feebas in the bowl.
“Huh? Why’d you bring that ugly fish monster back with you?”
“You’ve seen this monster before?” Leon asked curiously.
The chubby guy nodded.
“You found it in the aquarium’s trash can, right? June and I saw it there yesterday afternoon when we went to check the aquarium.”
“You’re planning to keep this monster?” the chubby guy asked nervously.
Leon nodded.
Seeing him actually admit it, the chubby guy exclaimed, “Are you crazy? What if that monster suddenly attacks you?”
“I want to observe one of these monsters up close. This one hasn’t shown any aggression so far, which makes it our best opportunity to study them,” Leon replied with a perfectly serious expression.
“But…” The chubby guy continued staring uneasily at Feebas in the bowl.
“What if it uses one of those large-scale destructive attacks inside the camp?” he asked worriedly.
Leon fell silent at that.
The survivor camp probably wouldn’t be willing to accept him if he insisted on keeping what they saw as a ticking time bomb by his side.
But there was no way Leon was giving up Feebas.
It was his only hope of turning things around.
In fact, it might even be the only hope the entire camp—or humanity itself—had of turning things around.
Leon gave him a pleading look.
“How about giving me a room of my own?”
The chubby guy looked at Leon with a complicated expression.
“You’ll have to talk to June about that yourself.”
With that, he pulled out his radio and contacted June.
A short while later, June hurried over.
The moment she saw Feebas in Leon’s fishbowl, her pupils contracted.
“Leon! Are you insane?” June demanded.
Leon answered seriously, “June, I want to keep it with me. I want to use this little guy to learn more about these monsters.”
“But…” June hesitated as she looked at Feebas in the bowl.
As far as they knew, these monsters were incredibly dangerous creatures.
Even the ones that looked like ordinary insects could be as destructive as a bomb.
In a normal food chain, a fish should be stronger than a caterpillar.
By that logic, the monster Leon was holding was basically an electromagnetic bomb, and no one knew when it might go off.
“I’m responsible for keeping this camp safe.” June’s stance was firm.
There was no way she was allowing Leon to bring such a ticking time bomb into the camp.
Leon understood her position, which was why he had already thought of a solution.
“June, you can give me a separate room. I remember there’s a small storefront near the aquarium. I can stay there. I can even serve as a lookout and warn the camp if any of the monsters inside the aquarium try to attack us.”
June let out a frustrated sigh.
“You researchers… I really don’t understand you.”
The corner of Leon’s mouth lifted slightly.
From her tone, he could tell she was willing to compromise.
“I’ll have someone move a bed over for you later. You can come to the camp for meals, but you’re absolutely not allowed to bring that monster with you.”
June had indeed relented.
Leon finally breathed a sigh of relief.
All that talk about research was nothing but a cover.
From beginning to end, he had only one real goal: to catch Feebas.
And the first step toward catching a Pokémon was naturally to build a bond with it.
Leon nodded gratefully.
“Thanks for understanding, June.”
“You’d better make sure no one else in the camp finds out about this,” June warned him.
“They’re extremely wary of these monsters, even if you’re only trying to study one.”
Leon nodded.
If he hadn’t been a transmigrator, he would have been wary of these Pokémon too—perhaps even hated them.