Chapter Ninety-One: Savoring the Experience

After spending the afternoon playing with his own Pokémon, Heath finally brought the eager-but-still-unsatisfied group back to the food truck. After paying at the nearby meter, he set the vehicle to autonomous driving and headed toward the officer dormitory district.

Heath felt that this mobile food truck was remarkably easy to use and operate, and its self-driving function was excellent as well. Since the day he received it, he had not been able to find a single fault with it. If not for Maple insisting that he absolutely had to get a driver’s license, Heath felt he might never have needed one in his entire life.

Inside the truck, Farfetch’d was waving a bottle of ink back and forth in front of Zorua, who bared its teeth and looked ready to bite. Heath worried, just a little, that today Zorua might actually take a bite and tear Farfetch’d’s backside clean off.

“Farfetch’d, how’s your stamina training going?” Heath asked, partly to interrupt Farfetch’d’s suicidal behavior. He had noticed that Farfetch’d seemed to have awakened some rather strange predilections.

Perhaps it was because, that day at Little Adams’ home, it had seen what Little Adams was doing inside the Poké Ball, and was deliberately copying it.

“Far!” Farfetch’d cried happily. Zorua glared at it in a puffed-up temper, with no intention of translating.

Heath scratched his head. It seemed Zorua was in a bad mood today. If that was the case, it probably would not be helping him translate any time soon, so he would have to rely on guesswork.

“You mean you think you’ve got it now?” Heath asked cautiously. Farfetch’d nodded with complete confidence.

Heath scratched his head again. Farfetch’d had been training for two or three days now, and although Heath had also been giving it protein powder during that time, this improvement was a little too dramatic, wasn’t it?

“All right, then give it a try. The same tricks as before, so I won’t repeat myself.” Heath nodded and gave up the kitchen to Farfetch’d, watching as it came over to prepare a portion of triple-no-stick jelly.

Farfetch’d looked very relaxed indeed, but as the cooking went on, Heath began to sense that something was off. Farfetch’d was still tossing the pan, but its movements had slowed, keeping to a fixed rhythm.

Heath lifted an eyebrow, but said nothing, merely watching in silence. Before long, Farfetch’d produced a dish that looked rather good, and proudly looked over at Heath.

Heath did not speak. He simply picked up a pair of chopsticks and prodded at it once, whereupon the triple-no-stick jelly clung to the pan at once, leaving behind a yellow smear.

“You failed. You did find a way to save effort, but this method won’t do. The speed of tossing and flipping required for triple-no-stick jelly is what makes it true to its name.” Heath shook his head. Farfetch’d’s expression turned a little downcast.

“Still, the idea was good. A chef also needs to know how to adapt.” Smiling, Heath comforted Farfetch’d a little, then took out the failed dish. He still had to wash the pan.

“Char?” Charmander came over curiously. It had just finished its training, and Heath could smell the sweat on it.

Pokémon have body odor too, which was nothing unusual. It was much like the special dog smell some pets have; the bigger the dog, the more obvious it becomes.

Fortunately, Zorua did not have a musky odor, and Heath’s Pokémon were all fairly hygienic, so there were no strange smells on them. That made things much easier for Heath. After all, being wrapped in odd odors all day long would be a terrifying thing indeed.

Heath had once served a very unusual guest, someone who worked at a bathhouse and was in charge of massaging clients and scrubbing their backs. But the thing that left the deepest impression on Heath was the guest’s Pokémon.

A Mankey.

Mankey was not rare; this species was hardly uncommon. The problem was that this Mankey had an especially overpowering musky stench, and that was truly deadly.

The first time Heath saw the guest’s Mankey, he felt awful inside. He even wondered whether the employee had deliberately released it to fumigate him. Still, standing in that thick reek of musk, Heath somehow managed to finish making a savory crepe.

Only afterward did he feel that the savory crepe had become, in its own way, a musk-flavored, Mankey-limited crepe.

In the end, Heath could not bear it any longer and asked Mankey’s owner about it, only to learn that the owner had rhinitis and could not smell much of anything. Heath could not help but sigh that, at times, rhinitis did have its advantages.

In the dusk of Evergreen City, much of the thick fog had already dispersed, and the streets were now clearly visible. Heath could see pedestrians hurrying by, cars occasionally threading through the streets, and Officer Jennies riding motorcycles.

Heath thought of the inspector he had encountered today, Jenny Quill, a very special woman. He did not know how long she intended to stay here, but he had already told Maple about it.

As a result, the ordinarily kind and gentle Officer Jennies had also grown serious. One by one, they had become swift and decisive, all of them radiating an air that made them hard to approach.

Though it was a bit like doing things merely for show, if one did not even bother with the appearance of doing things, then there would truly be no saving them.

When Heath returned to the Officer Jenny dormitory district and jumped down from the vehicle, he looked around. This time he did not see Jenny Quill anywhere; presumably the inspector had gone off to conduct another covert visit.

After locking the door of the rest room, Heath led his Pokémon toward the cafeteria. Almost every afternoon, as long as there was dinner to be made, Heath was in charge. At first he had worried whether the cafeteria’s head chef would agree, but later he found that the chef had no objections at all.

In fact, the chef seemed quite happy to let Heath do it. Heath guessed it was probably because the chef wanted to return home early to be with his family.

But the moment Heath stepped into the cafeteria, he froze. Sitting there was a familiar figure: Jenny Quill.

She was resting her chin on one hand inside the cafeteria, staring blankly at the sky outside the window, as though lost in thought. This made Heath a little puzzled. Was the inspector here to check the cafeteria too?

“Sister Quill? Are you hungry and planning to eat something?” Heath called softly. Jenny Quill turned around in surprise, and when she saw it was Heath, a smile appeared on her face.

“The cafeteria hasn’t started cooking yet, kid. If you’re hungry, go get something yourself,” Jenny Quill said, waving a hand. Heath’s mouth twitched.

“I’m the chef,” Heath said calmly as he walked over.