Kitakami

A bus rolled slowly along a mountain road.

There were no barriers beside the steep cliffs on either side. As the tires crunched over fallen stones that had yet to be cleared away, the bus jolted, drawing complaints from the elderly passengers.

In a window seat near the back, Mingyou woke to their grumbling. He slowly opened his eyes, confusion in his gaze as he looked around.

He was on a bus in motion. Only a few rather short-tempered elderly passengers occupied its fewer than twenty seats.

White plastic bags sat at their feet, with leeks and tomatoes poking out. They had probably been to the city and picked up some groceries while they were there.

A little blue creature bounced nearby. Its pale purple feelers had only one spike on each side of its head: a female Wooper.

The seat in front of him wore a blackened cover, its pattern faded and its fabric torn. Along with the engine's occasional racket, it made clear that this bus had seen better days.

The scene felt both familiar and strange. Mingyou frowned, looking uncomfortable, and instinctively raised his right hand to his forehead.

"Ow..."

A sudden wave of dizziness and sharp pain made his head throb. A flood of memories seemed to awaken deep within him, and the confusion on his face gradually faded.

He had crossed into another world... or rather, he had done so many years ago. But when he was one, his parents, who had no idea how to care for a child, had accidentally dropped him down the stairs. The brain injury had wiped his memory until now...

A bout of motion sickness had brought those memories back. He was not too shocked, though. His life over the past decade had been real enough, and he had already had his moment of shock when he was first born here.

In his previous life, he remembered working at an orphanage, looking after the children and tending the flowers and plants. He had grown up there himself and returned after graduating from university to take the job.

Then one day, while he was sleeping at home, an out-of-control dump truck had crashed into the building and run him over...

And this was the world of Pokémon!

He knew plenty about Pokémon. Games, anime, manga, cards, merchandise... he had bought just about all of it.

He had always longed for this utopian world. Traveling did not appeal to him much, though. What he wanted was to live alongside Pokémon.

From what he remembered of the past decade, life in this world really was fairly relaxed and easygoing. Then again, perhaps he simply had not had much contact with the outside world.

For more than ten years, his injured brain had left him frequently drowsy and muddleheaded. Thinking clearly was often a struggle, making daily life inconvenient, and nothing they had tried had cured him.

Still, his parents and others around him had cared for him. Thanks to them, he had been able to live happily, much like any other child, until he was fifteen.

But two years ago, his parents had gone to the Sinnoh Region for work and died in an aviation accident, leaving him a substantial insurance payout.

Half a month ago, his grandfather in distant Kitakami had also died of illness, leaving him an estate there. That was why Mingyou had traveled all the way from his hometown of Levincia in the Paldea Region to see what it was like...

"From the city straight to the countryside... Ugh, I'm still a little dizzy. Don't I have any motion-sickness medicine in my bag?"

Mingyou searched his backpack carefully. Aside from a few packets of snacks, it held only a Rotom Phone in a Sprigatito case and the key to the estate's front gate that his grandfather had mailed him before his death.

Thinking back, he did not seem to have brought any luggage at all. He could barely remember what he had been thinking at the time. With his head in the state it had been, perhaps he had planned to look around for a bit and then go home...

He took out his phone to check the time, only to remember that he had drained its battery watching videos on the way. He had won it in a televised giveaway during a Rotom Phone Company product launch and had used it ever since.

Fools really do have all the luck.

"My head's still spinning..."

Holding his forehead, he decided to rest a little more before they reached Kitakami. First, though, he needed a snack. He was getting hungry.

He took a bag of Tamato Berry-flavored potato chips from his backpack. As he tore it open, his gaze happened to pass over the vegetables in a plastic bag not far away, and information suddenly appeared in his mind...

〔Leek (C+): An ordinary greenhouse-grown leek, freshly picked today. Its properties are still intact. Rather than using it as a cooking ingredient, dip it straight into sauce for a tastier bite.〕

Am I seeing things?

Mingyou froze. He had just opened the bag, and his hand stopped as it reached for a chip. The instant his gaze shifted, another piece of information appeared in his mind!

〔Tomato (C-): Greenhouse-grown, picked yesterday and kept in storage. It has lost a little moisture and nutritional value, but it is just right for tomato and egg soup.〕

It was no hallucination!

He snapped to attention and stared at the vegetables in the plastic bag. After checking several times, he was certain he really could see information about them.

What's going on?

"Woopa~"

Mingyou was still puzzling over it when the Wooper ran up beside him, drawing his attention. It seemed to be staring at the chips in his hand.

"Want some?"

"Woopa~"

"All right."

He had lived in this world for over a decade and was fairly familiar with Pokémon, but seeing one this close... Wooper really was adorable~

Since Wooper had no hands, he grabbed a handful of chips and fed them to her. She swallowed them in one gulp without hesitation, nodded happily, then turned and ran off.

"Was that a thank-you?"

Mingyou was not sure, but he could not help feeling happy. Perhaps it was because he loved Pokémon so much.

As he watched Wooper run away, information appeared in his mind once more!

〔Wooper: A Water Fish Pokémon. Innocent by nature, she seems fond of everyone. Give her food or play with her, and she will be delighted.〕

A moment after the information appeared, faint motes of light drifted from Wooper in the distance.

The blue particles floated toward him and gradually gathered into a translucent card.

Curving patterns he could not make out ran around its border. The front bore an illustration of Wooper, while the back showed the symbols for her Water and Ground types. It looked rather like a tarot card.

"What's this..."

Curious, Mingyou studied it for a moment before reaching out and catching it. The instant he held it between his fingers, he seemed to hear the clear sound of glass shattering.

The blue particles scattered in his hand, but the card did not disappear. He could genuinely feel it, and more information appeared in his mind.

〔Wooper (lv1): Use on a Jicama Seed to change its variety to a Marsh Jicama Seed. Chance to add a learnable move (Mud-Slap, Acid Spray, Mud Shot).〕

〔lv is the friendship level. The greater a Pokémon's friendship, the better the card's added effects. The same card can be obtained multiple times, but friendship is calculated separately for each.〕

"Seeds... crops?"

Mingyou murmured as he tried to make sense of his sudden ability. It felt extraordinary, like the special power handed to the protagonist of a webnovel.

Just then, the bus slowed and came to a gentle stop. With a slight sway, both its front and rear doors opened.

A breeze carrying fresh air from the fields blew through the doors. Mingyou came to his senses, and the card turned into motes of light in his hand. He instinctively looked out at the scenery... They had arrived in Kitakami!

He slung on his backpack and stepped off the bus. The cool country breeze brushed his cheeks. Looking around, he saw the elderly passengers leave after reaching the last stop, with Wooper following them.

Before him stood a rather simple bus shelter. Beneath its brown glass roof sat three blue benches, their backrests covered in advertisements. The posters looked new and had probably gone up recently.

A white bus-stop sign stood beside the shelter. Its timetable listed two departures a day, at nine in the morning and three in the afternoon, with no service on Wednesdays.

The bus departed from Kitakami, stopped at several villages along the way, and terminated in Iwate City. From there, a train ran directly to Cerulean City in Kanto.

Mingyou had flown from Levincia to Cerulean City, then changed vehicles several times to get here. Luckily, he had known to ask Officer Jenny for directions. Otherwise, he might not have found the place in another month...

Once every passenger had gotten off, the bus engine started up again. It slowly pulled away to park at the roadside. That had been its last trip of the day.

Watching it go, Mingyou adjusted his backpack and walked along Kitakami Street. The scenery on either side soon drew his gaze.

In the early-summer countryside, green trees shaded the fields, and everything brimmed with life. Even the rice seedlings seemed to take on a different look from one moment to the next.

Water pumped from the river irrigated the fields. Wooper lay on its cool surface, basking in the warm sunlight. Eyes closed, they propelled themselves through the seedlings with their tails, sending out ripples as they drifted along in bliss.

A Sewaddle blended in among the leaves wrapped around its body and set its sights on a tender seedling. It crawled closer, only to be scared off by an orange claw rising from the water.

A Corphish slowly surfaced and looked around. Corphish hunted the small fish pumped in from the river and helped guard the fields while they were at it.

A buzzing came from the distance. Yanma beat their thin wings and darted over the fields, using eyes that could see all around them to catch insects resting on the seedlings.

Beside a handcart stacked with sandbags at the edge of the field, several Poochyena kept their distance. As they watched Mingyou, a stranger, approach, they barked repeatedly to intimidate him.

Mingyou paid the barking no mind. The sight of these fields filled with Pokémon had captured all his attention, and he could not help falling in love with the place.

"So this is... Kitakami?"