"Mom, the reason I went to Viridian City this afternoon was because the Viridian Gym Leader, Mr. Giovanni, had a Pokémon that was extremely badly injured,"
Ash explained calmly.
"He asked me to help treat it with my psychic abilities."
"Viridian City is Mr. Giovanni's territory, so I wasn't worried about any danger. After I finished healing his Pokémon, he wanted to thank me—and in the end, he accepted me as his disciple. I agreed."
"Now I'm officially a disciple of the Viridian Gym Leader. I've already asked my teacher to keep an eye on things. From now on, if you and Aunt Miho open a shop in Viridian City, you won't need to worry about safety anymore."
"Didn't you always want to go to Viridian City to look at storefronts? From now on, you can go with Aunt Miho without any worries."
Ash's tone was steady, as if he were simply stating a matter of fact.
"Mr. Giovanni… accepted you as his disciple?"
Delia froze for a moment, clearly stunned.
What surprised her most wasn't that Ash had gone to Viridian City—but that he had taken the Viridian Gym Leader as his teacher.
Yet after a brief moment of shock, she found it… oddly reasonable.
With her son's Trainer talent, becoming Giovanni's disciple didn't feel out of place at all.
In fact, even if Ash had become the student of an even stronger Trainer, no one would dare say he was unqualified.
And then Delia suddenly realized something else.
A large part of the reason Ash had chosen Giovanni as his teacher…
was probably because she planned to open a shop in Viridian City.
This was his way of protecting her.
Understanding that her son's decision was largely for her sake, warmth welled up in Delia's heart, and her eyes softened with emotion.
"Alright," she said gently.
"Go upstairs and do your own work. Once dinner is ready, I'll have Flabébé come call you."
"Okay," Ash replied.
He went upstairs, returned to his room, and took out the feeding trays, preparing food for Pikachu, Frogadier, Magikarp, and Feebas.
"Splash—"
"Glu—eh?!"
After being released from its Poké Ball, Feebas looked around in confusion.
"Where's Pidgeotto? Why don't I see him?"
"Pidgeotto's mother passed away unexpectedly today," Ash replied quietly.
"He won't be coming back tonight. He and his younger brother are keeping vigil at her grave."
"Valor, Lumina—you two hurry up and eat."
Ash kept the explanation brief, not elaborating further.
What had happened to Fearow was something neither Pidgeotto's brothers nor Ash, Pikachu, and Frogadier wanted to talk about again.
After his Pokémon finished dinner, Ash released the customer Pokémon and fed them as well.
Ever since the Magikarp–Tackle service went live on the shop, the number of Pokémon Ash needed to take care of had skyrocketed.
For ordinary Pokémon, it wasn't too bad.
He accepted only ten orders at a time, every three to five days, sending Pokémon back in batches every one or two days. The workload remained manageable.
But the Magikarp orders were on an entirely different level.
The League.
The major Kanto families.
The Tsuchihara Family.
Even the Lake of Rage Research Institute in Johto.
Under Professor Oak's recommendation alone, the Lake of Rage Institute had placed an order for 100 Magikarp.
Thankfully, the contracts specified batch processing—
ten Magikarp per batch. Only after one batch was completed and sent back would the next batch be delivered.
Even so, Ash currently had nearly 120 Magikarp in his care.
Just feeding them three meals a day took nearly forty minutes.
"Ash," Rotom said as it hovered near the computer, displaying the schedule,
"according to the plan and order priority, today you need to:
—Complete one batch of Magikarp for the League
—One batch for the Tsuchihara Family
—Teach skills to three regular shop Pokémon
—And select two Magikarp from regular orders to learn skills."
After Ash went downstairs and connected a hose to fill the large bathing tubs, Rotom continued issuing reminders.
"Ten Magikarp for the League, ten for the Tsuchihara Family, three regular Pokémon, and two Magikarp?"
"OK."
Ash nodded, took out the large cardboard box of Poké Balls, separated them by affiliation, and fed the Pokémon before beginning skill training.
[Ding! Magikarp learned the move Tackle ×10]
[Ding! Magikarp learned the move Tackle ×10]
Back during the Pokémon Summer Camp, Ash had thankfully shown no bias, copying a massive number of Tackle moves from wild Pokémon.
Since then, every time he treated wild Pokémon at Stone Bridge or Dashiwan Valley—or received customer Pokémon—he would immediately copy their moves.
Tackle was as basic as it got, so he never ran short.
Otherwise, with the sheer number of Magikarp orders, he might have ended up with no skills left to teach.
"Let me try something…"
After finishing the Magikarp batch, Ash suddenly had a thought.
He adjusted his mood, converted his Viridian Power into Source Cleansing, and gently infused it into the Magikarp.
Humm—
As the Source Cleansing flowed into the Magikarp, Ash clearly felt the Viridian Power within his body surge slightly.
"So it really works."
A smile spread across his face.
Because he didn't want to form emotional bonds with customer Pokémon, aside from skill copying and feeding, Ash kept most of them inside their Poké Balls.
Customers paid for skill training—it was a transaction.
Through repeated testing, Ash discovered that whether he used Healing Grace or infused Source Cleansing, he would not receive experience feedback from customer Pokémon.
However, after further experimentation, he realized something crucial:
As long as Rotom handled all shop-related matters, and Ash himself didn't personally manage the accounts or think about profits, over time his subconscious would stop perceiving it as a "business."
It felt like a celebrity attending commercial events—
technically making money, but since all negotiations were handled by the agent, the celebrity remained "pure," untouched by the smell of money.
With that thought, Ash continued his work quietly as the night deepened.
The house grew still.
Outside, the stars hung low over Pallet Town.
And within the calm of that ordinary evening, Ash's path—
as a Trainer, a healer, and a protector—
continued to move forward, one step at a time.
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T/N:
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