Early the next morning, Nathan Hale was jolted awake by Gastly’s excited cries.
“Ko-gee, ko-gee!”
He saw it clutching his battered old laptop, apparently watching a live Pokémon battle on the screen.
Nathan Hale rubbed his head a couple of times, got out of bed, poured himself a glass of water, and took a sip.
Feeling considerably more awake, he walked curiously behind Gastly.
But when he saw what Gastly was watching…
“Pfft—”
Even though he had already prepared himself for the possibility that Gastly was watching some terrifying horror movie to learn new ways of frightening people, or a battle livestream so it could complain about how boring the fights were, or perhaps listening to Elite Four Member Agatha ramble on about the art of ambushes…
He had never expected…
On the screen was actually a milkmaid milking a Miltank!
“Ko-gee!”
Gastly cried out in surprise after Nathan Hale had “ambushed” it from behind and splashed water all over it.
The power of what comes from behind again!
It glared viciously at Nathan Hale.
“No.” Nathan Hale wiped the water from his mouth.
“You have this kind of hobby too?”
“Moo—”
Miltank’s blissful cry came from the laptop.
For several seconds, time seemed to freeze.
“Ko-gee!
Ko-gee!”
Gastly pointed furiously toward the corner of the screen, where a line of text read:
Moomoo Milk—Keep Your Pokémon Healthy!
It was an advertisement for Moomoo Milk.
“Uh, sorry.
Didn’t notice.”
Nathan Hale paused.
His tone contained absolutely no remorse.
Even if it was just an advertisement, why were you getting so excited?
Gastly looked indignant.
It clicked the refresh button and made the advertisement play again.
Since it didn’t have a membership, it had to sit through advertisements every time it watched a video.
Gastly had just reached an important moment, only for the episode to end and the advertisement to pop up.
“Ahem.” Nathan Hale coughed lightly.
“You know, it’s kind of strange.
People with money pay for memberships, while people without money have to watch advertisements.
Isn’t it a waste of time to show advertisements to people who can’t afford the membership?”
“Ko-gee, ko-gee!”
Gastly was successfully distracted and nodded solemnly.
Exactly!
Exactly!
But the little rascal was clever.
It quickly brought the topic back around.
“Ko-gee!”
It mimed spitting, furiously “condemning” Nathan Hale for not brushing his teeth before spitting water all over it.
“Fine, fine.” Nathan Hale raised both hands in surrender.
“You just want to try this Moomoo Milk, don’t you?
I’ll order some for you, okay?”
After living with Gastly for so long, how could he not understand its little schemes?
Gastly: |ω)
Nathan Hale helplessly shook his head, picked up his phone, and quickly browsed through his information.
His finger stopped for several seconds over the bank account section.
“I praised Daigo for nothing.
He couldn’t have made that hint any more obvious.”
Yesterday, he’d even praised Daigo for understanding other people.
Daigo running off without paying the bill was obviously a hint that Nathan Hale was short on money—even to the point of struggling to afford dinner.
“Ko-gee?”
Why didn’t you just tell him directly?
“Heh.” Nathan Hale chuckled.
“I’m a teacher, after all.
Talking to a student about money would be an insult to the profession.”
Gastly rolled its eyes.
It couldn’t decide whether Nathan Hale was too proud or simply shameless.
“Morning, Nathan Hale.”
“Good morning, Teacher Nathan Hale!”
“…”
After arriving at the academy with Gastly, Nathan Hale was somewhat puzzled.
There were clearly more people greeting him than usual this morning.
Still, he smiled and returned every friendly greeting.
When he returned to the consultation room, his confusion only deepened.
He had a very clear understanding of his own position.
As a Pokémon psychology instructor at Rustboro Pokémon Academy, he was essentially a half-transparent teacher—someone whose presence was neither particularly important nor particularly noticeable.
He didn’t even know that many people.
So why were so many people greeting him today?
Unfortunately, returning to the consultation room did nothing to immediately answer his question.
Gastly clearly had no idea either.
But Gastly didn’t care.
The moment they returned to the consultation room, it began excitedly floating back and forth around the room.
That morning, after a combination of coercion and inducement—or rather, acting cute, complaining, and begging—Nathan Hale had ordered an entire crate of Moomoo Milk right in front of it.
It would be delivered home that evening.
Now Gastly’s only wish was for time to pass faster.
“Ko-gee, ko-gee—”
Nathan Hale, meanwhile, made himself a cup of coffee and sat down at his desk.
He opened his computer.
After skillfully entering the Pokémon League’s official website and briefly browsing the latest news, he logged into his account.
He wanted to see whether Mewtwo had replied.
However—
The moment he logged in, the computer began frantically making a series of ding ding ding notification sounds, as though it had frozen.
“Ko-gee?”
Gastly couldn’t help poking its head over.
Nathan Hale was surprised too.
Could Mewtwo really have come crawling through the internet to find him?
But when he opened the notifications, he discovered that they weren’t replies from Mewtwo at all.
They were comments on one of his research papers!
“Hm?”
Come to think of it, Nathan Hale had published that paper quite some time ago.
It had always been lukewarm at best, with practically no comments.
That was only natural.
After all, he wasn’t some famous professor.
He wasn’t even a registered researcher yet.
Naturally, there weren’t many people paying attention to his papers.
But now, the notification counter was showing 999+, and it was still climbing.
Nathan Hale was completely bewildered.
What happened?
He immediately muted the computer’s notification sounds.
Only then did the endless ding ding ding finally stop.
Still confused, he didn’t dare click on that frightening 999+ notification count.
Instead, he went directly to the researcher channel.
Soon, on the very first page, he found his own paper among the pinned and featured research papers.
It was ranked sixth.
The Potential Correlation Between Pokémon Personality and Ability Values
Did someone just top up my account?
Otherwise, it was difficult to explain how a paper that had barely attracted any attention could suddenly become one of the hottest papers on the site.
It also explained why so many people had greeted him that morning.
Most likely, this paper was directly responsible.
He opened it.
Scrolled down.
And soon found the comment with the highest popularity, which had been pinned to the top.
“A very interesting direction.
However, the paper lacks actual numerical data to support the hypothesis.
If the problem is insufficient equipment, perhaps I can provide some assistance.”
— Professor Yukinari Okido
Hm?
Nathan Hale froze.
Professor Oak?
No wonder the paper had become so popular.
Professor Oak himself had commented on it.
And not only was it a fairly positive comment, it had sparked a massive discussion among the researchers and Trainers below.
As one of the world’s foremost authorities on Pokémon, Professor Oak’s influence was enormous.
Even a simple comment from him could cause this kind of reaction.
And the sudden popularity of his paper had also brought attention to the Nathan Hale’s Pokémon Psychological Counseling Room, which, until now, had received only one visitor in an entire month—
Mewtwo.
Now, quite a few new inquiries had appeared.
[Little Growlithe]: Excuse me, if a Pokémon can’t eat anything, could that be a psychological problem?
[Eevee Eats Cabbage]: Hello, sorry to bother you.
What should I do if my Pokémon has an extremely strong inferiority complex?
[Mathematical Magician]: Should humans really coexist with Pokémon?
And questions like these had suddenly multiplied.