Seeing that Ash seemed to have truly let the matter go, Professor Oak finally felt the heavy weight in his heart lift.
He secretly let out a sigh of relief.
Fortunately, this kid did not continue pressing the issue.
After all, that was the Tentacruel Ramen King.
It was a limited edition he had gone through great trouble to get his hands on.
He had not even been willing to eat it himself, so how could he possibly share it with someone else?
It could be said that after being reborn and returning to the past, one of the things Professor Oak was happiest about was being able to once again eat this type of instant noodles that had already been discontinued in the future.
After calming down, Professor Oak prepared to answer Ash’s question.
He casually opened his eyes and leaned slightly closer to the screen.
But the moment he clearly saw the feather in Ash’s hand, Professor Oak’s eyes suddenly widened, and his entire body froze in place.
“Bang!”
After a brief silence, Professor Oak suddenly slammed his hand onto the table and sprang up from his chair.
He completely forgot about maintaining the demeanor expected of a professor.
His body leaned forward sharply, and his entire face pressed right up against the camera lens.
His already wide eyes were magnified several times on the screen, making the sight rather unsettling.
“That’s disgusting, Professor Oak!” Ash was startled by the suddenly enlarged face on the screen and shouted in disgust, “Your saliva, it’s all over the screen!”
Snapped back to his senses by Ash’s shout, Professor Oak hurriedly pulled himself back.
He quickly returned to a normal sitting posture, but the excitement and shock on his face had not diminished in the slightest.
Under Ash’s disgusted gaze, Professor Oak forced himself to calm down and sat upright with an unusually serious expression.
Then, in a tone more solemn than ever before, he asked, “Ash, where did you find this feather?”
Seeing that Professor Oak had returned to normal, Ash also roughly realized from his exaggerated reaction that this feather must be extremely valuable.
So Ash answered honestly, “I picked it up on the plains on the way to Viridian City. It fell from a Pokémon that I had never seen before.”
“What kind of Pokémon was it?” Professor Oak asked instinctively.
But the moment he said it, he realized that Ash was asking precisely because he did not know.
So Professor Oak quickly corrected himself, “I mean, what did it look like?”
Ash tilted his head and thought seriously for a few seconds.
Sure enough, there really was no more fitting description than that one.
With a very serious expression, Ash gave his conclusion.
“A colorful giant Fearow!”
Professor Oak fell silent.
Hearing that answer, the veins on Professor Oak’s forehead twitched uncontrollably.
“What are you talking about?”
He could not help covering his face.
Communicating with this guy was really exhausting.
At the beginning, Ash really was quite exasperating.
Though to be fair, Professor Oak himself had not exactly been innocent of teasing Ash back then either.
Just as the situation fell into an awkward stalemate because of Ash’s unique description, Ash’s gaze suddenly drifted and landed on a stone relief embedded in the wall of the Pokémon Center lobby.
His eyes lit up immediately.
He pointed at one of the carvings and shouted, “That’s it! That’s the one! That’s exactly what that Pokémon looked like!”
Following the direction of Ash’s finger, Professor Oak shifted his gaze toward the corner of the screen.
The moment he clearly saw the relief Ash was pointing at, Professor Oak’s breathing stopped.
The Pokémon carved into that stone relief was none other than the legendary Ho-Oh.
And at the instant he recognized the image, a long-buried memory surged into Professor Oak’s mind like a tide.
He remembered.
At this same point in the past, Ash had also pointed at that relief and told him that he had seen the Pokémon depicted on it.
But back then, in Professor Oak’s eyes, Ash had only just set out as a rookie trainer.
How could he possibly have truly encountered the legendary Ho-Oh?
It was far more likely that he had mistaken some other Pokémon, perhaps a large Fearow glinting in the sunlight, for Ho-Oh.
Yet now, as Ash held this genuine rainbow-colored feather in front of him, Professor Oak finally realized that he had misunderstood Ash all along.
Thinking of this, Professor Oak could not help letting out a long sigh, his tone carrying a trace of apology that was difficult to detect.
Slowly, he said, “This is the feather of the legendary Pokémon Ho-Oh. According to records, it has been a hundred years since Ho-Oh last appeared in the human world. I truly did not expect that you would encounter Ho-Oh near Pallet Town. That is quite remarkable.”
Hearing Professor Oak finally reveal the name of that Pokémon, Ash silently repeated it to himself. Read this novel at g.com for the best experience.
“Ho-Oh?”
He blinked, then asked a question that nearly caused Professor Oak to choke.
“What is that?”
Professor Oak fell silent again.
He raised a hand and covered his face, feeling a wave of helplessness in his heart.
But looking at Ash’s face on the screen, filled with pure curiosity, Professor Oak patiently explained in the simplest terms he could, slowly telling Ash the legend of Ho-Oh.
Ash listened in complete fascination, his eyes filled with longing and admiration for Ho-Oh.
He had never imagined that he would be able to come into contact, at such a close distance, with a Pokémon that existed only in legends.
He had even…
Been tapped on the forehead by it.
Looking at Ash’s expression, as if he had only just realized what had happened and was now filled with astonishment, Professor Oak could not help sighing inwardly once again.
This kid’s luck was truly beyond belief.
What kind of trainer gets to meet a legendary Pokémon on the very first day of their journey?
Countless people spent their entire lives searching, yet might never even catch a glimpse of Ho-Oh.
But then again, thinking about Ash’s future experiences, perhaps encountering Ho-Oh on the first day of his journey was not such a strange thing after all.
“Alright, Ash.”
Professor Oak interrupted Ash, who was still immersed in his thoughts, and spoke seriously, “You must take good care of that feather. According to legend, those who possess a Rainbow Feather are people recognized by Ho-Oh, and one day they will meet it again. Perhaps someday in the future, you will encounter Ho-Oh again because of this feather.”
After saying that, Professor Oak did not wait for Ash to ask anything further and decisively hung up the call.
The sound indicating the call had ended pulled Ash back to reality.
He lowered his head and looked at the feather in his hand, which still emitted a faint rainbow-colored glow, and fell into a long silence.
Ho-Oh…
I really want to see it again and have a proper conversation with it.
Such a wish quietly took root in Ash’s heart.
(End of Chapter)