Another Magikarp

"Poliwag, Poliwag!" Hearing the call, Poliwag was brimming with energy. The thought of evolving sooner, gaining hands, and helping Yu Hai made it almost unable to wait.

Yu Hai had plenty to do today. After setting down the buckets, he planned to scavenge for trash.

Over the past few days, while replacing the buckets and passing through this rocky beach, he had spotted quite a few useful things on the shore.

He had not scavenged in several days, and his hands were itching for it. He just did not know whether he could find another Poké Ball. Those things were basically natural refrigerators and were quite useful for storing food.

Otherwise, there was no way he could eat every fish he caught on the same day. If he could not finish it all, would that not be a waste?

Ahem, he had not even gone fishing today. He was really getting ahead of himself, already thinking about storing food. He sure dared to dream.

There were no particularly fierce Pokémon on this rocky beach leading to the water collection point, only Caterpie, Spearow, Pidgey, and Weedle.

The most dangerous Pokémon here were probably colony-dwelling insect Pokémon like Beedrill.

As long as one did not enter Beedrill territory, Beedrill generally would not attack first. Beedrill had a strong sense of territory.

It was precisely this territorial instinct that made Yu Hai feel Beedrill were easier to deal with than the Kingler on the other side of the shelter.

His shelter was located right between these two terrifying colony-dwelling Pokémon.

The reason he chose to scavenge on the Beedrill side was that the beach was not Beedrill territory. The forest was.

But for the Kingler on the other side, both the beach and the forest were Kingler territory.

Otherwise, he would not have called that group of Kingler wandering punks, nor would he hate those punks so much.

Spearow and Pidgey were also deadly to him, but humans were not on the menu for either of those bird Pokémon, so he was not too worried.

Actually, the scavenging spot was not far away. It was right outside his shelter. He had merely been too lazy to pick things up before.

"Poliwag, let's go scavenging." Yu Hai called for the little tadpole to follow him, and one man and one tadpole headed to the beach to scavenge.

The most common things in sight were white trash and white foam. There was no use in picking up too much of the stuff, but some foam boxes could be used to hold water.

Then came plastic bottles and plastic buckets. He did not need plastic bottles, but he could keep the plastic buckets. There was no such thing as having too many of those, and they were perfect for holding water.

Clang, clang, clang—

"Oh, nice!" Yu Hai found a metal pot and picked it up to tap on it. There was no rust, so it was probably stainless steel. This was good stuff, perfect for cooking.

He would not have to boil water in that fist-sized iron cup anymore. It was never enough to chug in one go. This time, he could drink his fill of lukewarm water.

The pot had roughly the same capacity as the inner pot of a household rice cooker, and it was of moderate depth. It could probably boil five or six bottles of water at once. Not bad. He kept it.

"A lifebuoy?" Yu Hai spotted an orange lifebuoy. This was not bad either, so he kept it.

He was not going into the sea anyway. It would be nice to hang it up as decoration.

"A small wooden table, a plastic basin." As Yu Hai continued picking things up, he found more useful items and kept them.

"A fishing net?" Yu Hai found one, but it was too damaged and tangled into a mess. It was unusable, so he left it.

"Rope? Now this is good stuff." Yu Hai first tugged on the rope. When he found he could not pull it free and saw that it had not been corroded by seawater, he took out his Folding Knife and cut off the section not pinned beneath a boulder, then kept it.

Yu Hai wandered around the rocky beach near the water collection point several times, but did not find the Poké Ball he had been hoping for.

It was not entirely true that he found none. He only picked up half of a broken Poké Ball.

When there was truly nothing left to pick up, Yu Hai collected some rainproof plastic and scraps of cloth, intending to reinforce the shelter when he returned.

There was no shortage of things like wood on the beach. The wood near the shelter alone was enough to keep his fire going for a long time.

The life of scavenging was simply this plain and unadorned...

As Yu Hai prepared to carry his haul back, he realized that Poliwag, which had been following behind him, was gone.

He had no idea where the little glutton had run off to play. He set down the things he had collected and scanned the beach, but did not see the little glutton anywhere.

However, he saw something else: a rope net wrapped around a foam ball, washed ashore again and again by the waves before being swept back out again and again.

This was good stuff. He immediately dropped everything and rushed to the shore, hauling the foam ball up. After testing the rope net around it, he found it was still quite sturdy.

He dismantled the rope net from the foam ball and got himself a hammock.

It was not his fault. The first thing he thought of when he saw the net was a hammock.

The rope was thick and the gaps were large, making it unsuitable as a fishing net but perfect for a hammock.

Slap, slap, slap, slap—

But just as he placed the hammock together with the items he had found earlier, he heard the familiar slapping sounds. It had to be the little tadpole using Chain Slap.

"Poliwag?" Yu Hai quickly turned toward the source of the sound. The beach there bent at a perfect ninety-degree angle, so he could not see what was beyond it and could only hear the noise.

Realizing that it was likely Poliwag, he immediately dropped everything and sprinted toward that stretch of beach. Reaching the end of the shore and turning the corner, he saw Poliwag whipping a Magikarp with its tail?

"Huh? Magikarp? Why is it this thing again?" Seeing Poliwag's target, Yu Hai secretly breathed a sigh of relief. As long as it was not something Poliwag could not beat, it was fine.

What he feared was Poliwag provoking something it could not defeat. At that point, it might not even know how it died.

Just because no one died in the anime did not mean people would not die in the Pokémon World. As long as it was a real world, people would die. It did not matter whether you were the protagonist or not. If you were supposed to die, you would die.

Once he saw that the target was a Magikarp, he was no longer in such a hurry. This thing did not have much meat, but even a mosquito was still meat. If it was edible, it would do.

He prepared to go over and throw a ball, sealing off Magikarp's struggles first. This Magikarp should be a tiny bit stronger than the last one.

It had been hit by Chain Slap so many times and still had not fainted. It truly deserved its reputation for tenacious vitality; its stamina was indeed plentiful.

Still, Magikarp had already been slapped onto the beach. It was fish on the chopping block and could not escape.

He just did not know where Poliwag had found the Magikarp. The little glutton really did have good luck.

"Poliwag, Poliwag!" Hearing footsteps, Poliwag turned around and saw Yu Hai. Its face immediately lit up, and it kept calling out loudly at Yu Hai, happily showing off its trophy and taking credit.

This Magikarp was prey it had caught all by itself...

Let me clarify something: the protagonist used Poké Balls as refrigerators.

That has made some readers call this story toxic again. Sigh... If you cannot accept the premise of eating Pokémon, or the premise of Poké Balls being refrigerators, there is nothing I can do...

But how did those readers who call this part toxic even make it this far? People who cannot accept it generally would not click into the story in the first place.

If you have made it this far, that means your resistance to poison is pretty good...