Nathan Hale had thought that running into A Quan was the only surprise he’d encounter that day.
He had clearly underestimated his luck.
“Good morning, Teacher Nathan Hale.”
When he arrived outside the classroom, he found Steven, Roxanne, and another red-haired girl waiting for him with their textbooks in their arms.
“You three?”
Seeing them, Nathan Hale was somewhat surprised.
He remembered that neither Steven nor Roxanne had originally enrolled in Pokémon Psychology.
“Teacher, we both felt that we still didn’t understand our Pokémon well enough, so we added your elective afterward,” Steven explained with a smile.
Added it afterward?
Nathan Hale glanced at the two of them.
Does Rustboro Pokémon Academy even have an ‘add an elective afterward’ option?
He shook his head.
The world of the rich was beyond his understanding.
He turned his attention to the red-haired girl with the bright appearance and well-proportioned figure.
“And this student is…?”
“Hello, Teacher Nathan Hale.
My name is Flannery, and I’m from Lavaridge Town.”
Before Roxanne could introduce her, Flannery stepped forward and cheerfully introduced herself.
Lavaridge Town…
Flannery?
Wasn’t this the future Gym Leader of Lavaridge Gym?
The red-haired girl whose passion burned as hot as fire?
Another person whose background was anything but simple.
If Nathan Hale remembered correctly, Flannery’s grandfather had been one of the previous Elite Four of the Hoenn League!
“Nice to meet you.”
Nathan Hale smiled and nodded, but couldn’t help grumbling inwardly.
One future League Champion and current heir to Devon Corporation.
One Gym Leader’s daughter from Hoenn’s largest city, who will become the next Gym Leader.
And one granddaughter of a former Elite Four member, who will likewise become the next Gym Leader.
Wonderful.
This really is a ‘perfectly ordinary’ elective class…
The group didn’t linger outside for long.
After exchanging a few simple greetings, they entered the classroom one after another.
The bell rang at that moment.
Standing at the podium, Nathan Hale took in the entire classroom.
Aside from the three unexpected students, Pokémon Psychology was, overall, a fairly “normal” class.
Even though the classroom was small, it had forty or fifty seats.
Yet even with Steven, Roxanne, and Flannery included, only about half the seats were occupied.
Moreover, aside from the three of them, most of the students had deliberately chosen seats toward the back, creating an awkward “Mediterranean” of empty desks in the middle of the classroom.
To most of the students present, Pokémon Psychology was simply an unpopular elective that was relatively easy to pass.
As long as they attended class on time and didn’t skip too many sessions, the participation marks would make earning the credit fairly easy.
In fact, that was how Pokémon Psychology had always been.
The academy didn’t place much importance on the course, leaving the actual teaching methods largely up to the instructor.
That was also one of the reasons Nathan Hale, despite being a native of Hoenn, had chosen to attend Silver Academy in Kanto.
After briefly introducing himself, Nathan Hale picked up his textbook and began the lesson in an orderly fashion.
Although “Pokémon Psychology” had the word Pokémon in its name, it was fundamentally still psychology.
And psychology was a subject filled with theoretical knowledge that required a tremendous amount of memorization.
It was, frankly, boring.
Not only did the students in the back, who had already planned to slack off, find it dull, even Steven, Roxanne, and Flannery in the front began frowning after listening for a while.
Flannery in particular.
As the “girl whose passion burned like fire,” she was currently yawning so much that there wasn’t a trace of passion left in her.
To be honest, these tedious, monotonous, and sometimes downright redundant theoretical concepts had once tormented Nathan Hale as well.
Memorizing everything in the textbook could only be considered possessing the key to opening the door to psychology.
If you didn’t truly digest and understand the material…
You might as well have learned nothing.
Still, as freshmen attending their first Pokémon Psychology class, the students were relatively restrained.
No one openly collapsed onto their desk and went to sleep.
As for the few students whose eyelids were beginning to droop and who were clearly about to fall asleep, Nathan Hale decided to give them a little help.
“Whoa!”
A tall, thin boy sitting in the very corner suddenly shot to his feet.
Cold sweat covered his forehead.
His pupils were dilated, and he was breathing heavily as though he had just encountered something terrifying.
“This student, do you have a question?”
Nathan Hale didn’t seem surprised by the boy’s reaction at all.
Instead, he asked with a smile.
“N-no.
I’m sorry, Teacher.”
The boy seemed to finally realize that he was still in the classroom.
He hurriedly sat back down and wiped the sweat from his forehead.
His reaction left several students nearby bewildered.
After quietly asking what had happened, they learned that the boy had nearly fallen asleep just moments ago.
The moment he closed his eyes, he’d experienced an incredibly brief yet terrifying nightmare.
It had scared him wide awake.
And this wasn’t an isolated incident.
The exact same thing happened to two other boys.
As a result, the first Pokémon Psychology class went surprisingly smoothly.
Not a single person fell asleep.
For a psychology teacher, that already counted as a success!
When the bell rang, Nathan Hale snapped his textbook shut.
“Class dismissed.”
Then he turned around and walked briskly out of the classroom without looking back.
Right on time.
Questions after class?
Don’t even think about it.
This was university.
If you wanted to learn something, you had to take the initiative.
Knowledge wasn’t going to crawl into your head on its own.
For most of the students, this was a huge relief.
But for Steven and Roxanne, who had genuinely become interested in the subject…
This is Pokémon Psychology?
Flannery let out a long yawn, squeezing two tears from the corners of her eyes.
She pursed her lips.
“Roxanne, this is that really amazing teacher you were talking about?
He seems just like the other teachers to me…”
She paused.
“No, actually.
He’s even better at ‘hypnosis’ than the others.
I’m exhausted.”
Roxanne closed the notebook she had been filling with notes throughout the entire class.
She pursed her lips slightly.
“You’ve only seen the surface.”
Steven clearly agreed.
“Didn’t you notice?
We were all incredibly sleepy, but not a single person fell asleep during the entire class.”
“Yaaawn—”
Back in the counseling room, Nathan Hale closed the door and let out a long yawn.
He couldn’t blame those students.
Even he, the teacher, had nearly fallen asleep while explaining those tedious theoretical concepts.
He decided to make himself a cup of coffee.
“Ko-gee~~”
Amid the huffing and whirring of the Onix coffee grinder, Gastly floated out from Nathan Hale’s clothes with a mischievous grin.
Want me to wake you up?
Nathan Hale gave it a sideways glance.
“Using your Hypnosis?
Are you sure you’d be helping me wake up?”
“Ko…
gee!”
Gastly’s face paled.
It remembered what it had seen inside Nathan Hale’s dream the first time it had hypnotized him.
It hurriedly shook its head, awkwardly indicating that it had only been joking.
Nathan Hale shook his head as well and sighed inwardly.
It had only been a few days.
The Energy Cubes he’d bought not long ago were already nearly gone.
And then there was the gas bill at home…
His expenses had already exceeded a thousand Alliance Credits.
On his salary, raising even a single Gastly was beginning to strain his finances.
So he’d already begun considering whether he should open a private psychology clinic outside the academy.
It was perfectly normal for academy teachers to have side businesses.
Take Dr.
Solas next door, for example.
Despite looking dusty, disheveled, and perpetually worn out, he actually owned a company!
Unfortunately, in a place like Rustboro City, opening a psychology clinic wasn’t easy.
Setting aside whether he’d even have any clients, the cost of renting a storefront alone was enough to make Nathan Hale reconsider.
Knock, knock—
A teacher from the Academic Affairs Office suddenly pushed open the door.
He placed a sheet of paper on the desk and left without another word.
“Teacher Nathan Hale, here’s your teaching schedule for this semester.”
“Ko-gee—”
Gastly immediately brought the paper over to Nathan Hale.
He took a sip of his hot coffee, perked up slightly, and glanced over the schedule.
Nothing unusual.
A perfectly ordinary schedule.
He was just about to set it aside when he suddenly picked it back up.
Hm?
Autumn outing?
Destination…
A trip to Mt.
Chimney and the Lavaridge Town hot springs?
No distinction between boys and girls?