“My precious baby girl!”
A middle-aged man whose skin was several shades darker than Nessa’s natural tan—dark enough that it was almost heading toward soy sauce territory—jumped down from the boat and charged straight toward her!
At around 1.85 meters tall, with muscles packed all over his body, it was honestly hard to imagine such a burly man shouting something so embarrassingly affectionate.
Yes, this was Nessa’s father, the captain of Hulbury’s Third Fishing Fleet—Uncle Sam.
“Dad, can you not be so sappy?”
Nessa helplessly pressed a hand to her forehead, though she did not embarrass her father in public and simply endured his hug in silence.
“Welcome back, Uncle Sam.”
Once Sam finally finished hugging his daughter, Blake greeted him as well.
“Good lad, you’ve gotten taller again!
You’re almost catching up to me.
At this rate, you might even end up taller than your dad, huh?
Ahahahahaha!”
Uncle Sam looked at Blake and laughed.
Standing at 1.85 meters himself, he grinned at the sight of Blake, who was already not much shorter than him, and clapped him on the shoulder with enough force to nearly knock him to the ground.
“Haha, maybe.”
Without letting it show, Blake rubbed his shoulder.
He really was tall.
At fourteen years old, he was already close to 1.8 meters, so reaching 1.9 meters as an adult was not impossible.
Unfortunately, he was not from Uncle Sam’s “built like a tank” school of physical development.
He was more the tall and lean type.
He did work out a little, but perhaps because of his constitution, he only had some muscle and never seemed able to bulk up properly.
All he could say was that the genes from his father’s side were simply too strong.
His mother’s genes had already done their best by turning his originally extremely pale skin into something closer to bronze.
“Good lad!
Come over for dinner tonight.
I caught a huge one this time!
Ahahahahaha!” Uncle Sam said it with great excitement.
“Sure, sure.
I’ll definitely be there.” Blake nodded.
He only hoped the man would still be in such a good mood when he learned that Nessa would be staying over at Blake’s house tomorrow.
“All right, you two go have fun.
I still need to unload the catch.
If the fish and shrimp sit on the boat too long, they won’t be fresh anymore.”
Sam smiled and greeted them again before turning around and jumping back onto the boat.
Then he began directing the others with a colorful string of words that would definitely need censor bars if this were on television.
There was no helping it.
Fishermen were just like that.
If you spoke too politely, they might actually find it harder to understand.
“Dad, honestly.
He does this every single time.
Forget it, I’ll let it slide since he worked hard out at sea.”
Nessa shook out her hair, which had been thoroughly ruffled by her father.
“True.
Uncle Sam’s busy, so he must be tired.”
When he had first arrived in this world, Blake had worried that he would no longer be able to eat meat.
After all, he could not quite accept the idea of eating Pokémon.
Later, however, he learned that ordinary animals still existed in this world.
The number and variety of Pokémon alone were not enough to keep an entire ecosystem functioning normally.
Regular animals and plants still existed.
In fact, because powerful predators like Pokémon also existed, ordinary animals in this world had extremely high reproduction rates.
It was precisely thanks to that impressive ability to reproduce that ordinary animals had managed to secure a place for themselves.
However, in recent years, the number of wild animals had been declining year by year.
Most of the meat used in everyday meals now came from livestock raised on farms.
As for certain wild animals, there were dedicated reserves for ordinary wildlife, far away from human society and Pokémon, where they could live their own lives undisturbed.
“Yeah.
Come on, let’s stop watching here and head back to the shop first.
We still need to tidy up.
I think the TV’s still on.”
Nessa grabbed Blake and ran back toward the scenic area.
…
That evening, Blake arrived at Nessa’s house with a bundle of charms.
These charms were for Uncle Sam and his crew.
In fact, most of his family’s charms were sold to sailors.
When some crew members went out to sea, they practically wanted to hang themselves head to toe with charms, and they would also pile them around their bunks and throughout the ship.
Although his family’s charms did have special effects, even Blake felt that they sometimes went a little overboard.
Knock, knock, knock.
“Coming!
Oh, Blake!
You silly child, you didn’t have to bring anything.”
The one who opened the door was Nessa’s mother, Anna.
She was wearing an apron and holding a spatula, clearly in the middle of cooking.
“It’s nothing, just some charms.
Uncle Sam should be able to use them.
Besides, who shows up empty-handed when they’re coming over for dinner?”
Blake scratched his head and smiled.
“Gastly, Gastly.
(ノ∀`)”
Gastly floated beside him, eyes closed as he nodded with exaggerated seriousness, as if all of Blake’s good manners were thanks to his excellent teaching.
“Hahahaha, Gastly is still as funny as ever.
Come in, quick!
Your Uncle Sam caught a big fish this time.
If you two didn’t come, you wouldn’t get to eat any.”
Aunt Anna smiled as she watched the boy and the ghost fool around.
Because they were so familiar with each other, Anna had none of the usual fear ordinary people might feel toward Ghost-type Pokémon.
She was already thoroughly desensitized.
Blake changed his shoes and entered the house.
Then he saw Nessa lying on the sofa in the living room, wearing earphones and playing on her phone, while Uncle Sam watched television nearby.
“Yo!
You’re here!
Come sit, come sit.
Hahahahaha!
The moment Uncle Sam saw Blake come in, he immediately stood up and spoke with great enthusiasm.
“Uh, Uncle Sam, I’m still not old enough to drink.”
Blake scratched his head helplessly.
This man was always trying to get him to drink, but while Galar was fairly relaxed about many things, alcohol was strictly regulated.
Anyone under eighteen was absolutely forbidden from drinking, and getting caught meant a heavy penalty.
“Honestly, why worry so much?
Forget it, sit down first.”
Uncle Sam curled his lip in disappointment.
Fishermen like them had grown up around alcohol, so who cared about so-called regulations?
Still, if Blake said that, it was not as if Sam could force him to drink.
If he did, not only would his daughter probably ignore him, but his wife definitely would not let him into bed tonight.
That would be far too great a loss.
“What are you watching?”
Blake laughed it off and sat down beside Nessa.
“A friend online.
She said she joined this year’s Gym Challenge with her childhood friend, though she’s only going along with him.”
As Nessa spoke, she showed Blake her phone.
The two of them were chatting so enthusiastically that two or three new messages popped up in just the few seconds she held the screen out.
“That online friend called Little Yamper?”
The phone flashed past too quickly for Blake to read anything properly, but he did know that Nessa had an online best friend whose username was Little Yamper.
“That’s her.
Apparently, her childhood friend has a terrible sense of direction.
They’ve already gotten lost several times without realizing it and they barely made it to Motostoke before the opening ceremony.”
As Nessa spoke, she could not help imagining the two of them wandering around the Wild Area like headless Combee and almost laughed.
Blake, however, felt something spark through his mind.
Yamper.
Childhood friend.
Gets lost.
Nessa’s close online friend.
Wasn’t this person’s identity practically obvious?
Wasn’t that Professor Magnolia’s granddaughter, the future Pokémon Professor, Sonia?
That lined up perfectly.
After all, with Leon’s sense of direction, if he had set off alone, one year probably would not have been enough for him to clear all eight Gyms.
“All right!
Stop chatting!
Dinner’s ready!”
Just as the two of them were about to say more, Aunt Anna’s voice called out, accompanied by the rich aroma of food.
“Coming!”
The three of them answered and headed toward the dining room.
At that moment, the dining table was already packed full of fisherfolk specialties—pan-fried, deep-fried, braised, stewed, and simmered dishes of every kind.
Beside it was a smaller table, also piled with food, prepared for the Pokémon.
“Dinner’s starting, dinner’s starting!
Everyone wash your hands properly!”
Aunt Anna, the true head of the household, stood at the bathroom door with her hands on her hips and issued her command.