Crashing the Joint! My Joint!

The waiter led Xin Mu and Meownei to a windowside table, as Pokémon of Meownei's size, which approached that of humans, were the most welcomed kind in restaurants of this sort.

There was no need for a specially customized seat, nor any extra arrangements made for anything else; they just needed to be treated like ordinary guests.

If a guest brought along a Pokémon like a Snorlax, it would certainly mean a hefty profit, but things like having to replace chairs would also leave the waiters feeling bothered.

The chopsticks in front of Meownei were swapped out for a set of knife and fork, and the cutlery used by Pokémon inside the restaurant was all of this color, appearing to be exclusively for Pokémon.

"We're The Cooking Master Boy themed restaurant, and today's recommended dishes are the Great Magic Panda Mapo Tofu and Blazing Ice Fresh Sea Bream Mountain, with the Spicy Stir-fried Shrimp Risotto as the main dish."

"Just those for now, and bring a Berry platter as well."

"Certainly, please wait a moment."

Glancing at the dish pictures on the banner, at least judging by appearance, those dishes were replicated quite well, though how the flavors tasted remained a mystery.

According to the waiter's introduction, their restaurant had several Pokémon head chefs who rotated daily, and the dishes were also decided based on the chef on duty.

Take today's head chef, for instance-Chikorita.

A four-legged, relatively petite and adorable Pokémon overall.

At this moment, Chef Chikorita was wearing a special little apron while standing on a mobile cart, live-demonstrating knife skills for the guests at every table.

They only saw the assistant place a piece of chub mackerel meat onto the cutting board in front of Chikorita.

Then Chikorita lowered her head and flicked it, the leaves atop her head brandishing a blur of afterimages as she sliced the thick fish meat as thin as cicada wings, arranging it with vine whips onto a prepared iceberg platter.

The knife-skill demonstration earned the applause of the diners, and when they reached Xin Mu's table, Xin Mu discovered that there was a small loudspeaker beside Chikorita.

Inside it, some gags were synthesized using Chikorita's vocal profile.

Chef Chikorita specializes in this craft, and her customized Leaf Blade can preserve the vitality of fresh fishing to the maximum degree, while the refreshing fragrance inherent to the leaves will also blend into the fish meat...

Xin Mu was well aware that Chikorita's leaves carried their own fragrance, but this string of scripted lines...

Whether it was fake or real he didn't know, but either way it could sell for a higher price.

"Chiko-ri~"

Chikorita finished making Meownei's portion first, bringing a small iceberg mountain over to Meownei, and then prepared to make Xin Mu's portion.

However, before Chikorita could even begin, she was stopped by Meownei.

"Chika?"

"Meow~ (Miss Chef, if you wouldn't mind stepping aside first.)"

Amidst the puzzled gazes of Chikorita and the assistant, Meownei stepped up to the mobile kitchen, and then picked up a disinfectant wipe to clean her paws.

Afterward, she tossed the remaining portion of sea bream high into the air, and with a flash of cold light, three claw blades snapped out from her right paw.

Before the fish meat could even fall, Meownei let out a flurry of swishing swipes toward the front.

The entire chunk of fish meat was thus sliced by Meownei into identical thin slices, after which another ice platter was pulled over by Meownei.

Not only did she catch all those fish slices without missing a single one, but she even arranged them into the shape of a heart.

Clap, clap, clap...

The familiar sound of applause rang out, except that Chikorita's world seemed to have collapsed.

"Chika!! (Crashing the joint! You're crashing my joint! You can't just brazenly steal my rice bowl like this!!)"

What Meownei was actually thinking, Chikorita didn't know; Chikorita only knew that, as a master of knife skills, someone was showing off their techniques right in front of her!

The most crucial part was... this cat had better skills than her!

Feeling like she had been subjected to a taunt, Chikorita acted like an angry little beast, almost leaping over to launch a Pokémon battle to defend her dignity, though she was held back by the assistant on the side.

They called them assistants, but in essence, these assistants were the Pokémon Trainers, and having Pokémon serve as head chefs was more of a marketing strategy.

"Chikorita, calm down, that's a guest, you can't do that! Sorry about that, guest, our head chef might not be in a very good mood today..."

"It's fine, I can understand. Chikorita must be a little girl, right?"

"Yes, guest, I can't believe you managed to tell."

"It's nothing, you guys go on to the next table, just leave this place as it is."

Discerning a Pokémon's gender was actually quite a troublesome matter as well; aside from those Pokémon with obvious sexual dimorphic traits, trying to tell apart a Pokémon's gender was genuinely difficult.

Common Pokémon were one thing, and it wasn't easy for Xin Mu to tell at a glance either.

In truth, Xin Mu had figured it out by listening. It was probably because Xin Mu had also been applauding earlier when Chikorita demonstrated her knife skills, which had stirred up jealousy in Meownei, prompting her to compete with Chikorita.

"Alright, thank you for your understanding, and we hope you enjoy your meal."

Since they were all running a business, normal people didn't want to argue over anything with customers, and avoiding any serious trouble was already a pretty good outcome.

"Meow~ Phantom Meow~ (We should make it at home next time, I can do it too.)"

"We aren't going out every day either, so it's pretty nice to relax once in a while. You should eat this first, let the rest cool down for a bit."

Meownei's cat tongue made her much more sensitive to temperature, meaning she couldn't eat things that were too hot; the fish slices and cut fruits were her main courses.

After finishing her performance, Chikorita had also retreated into the back kitchen and didn't come over again, though Chikorita's Trainer did drop by for a visit.

The main purpose was to inquire whether Xin Mu and Meownei had any intentions of coming to work over here, seeing as Meownei genuinely outperformed that Chikorita when it came to showing off skills.

In a sense, Chikorita's "joint-crashing" utterance had half come true, since someone wanted to invite Meownei to become Chikorita's coworker, complete with free lessons provided.

However, Pokémon wanting to become chefs at this kind of restaurant required additional advanced training, meaning they had to leave their Trainer for a period of time, and they also had to serve other people.

Upon hearing about such a thing, Meownei's head shook like a rattle-drum, and she simply had no desire to do it at all.

The restaurant ultimately failed to acquire a new chef, though Xin Mu did leave the place with a coupon in hand.

After wandering around the shopping mall for a bit and letting the evening rush hour pass, Xin Mu successfully avoided the crowded streams of people, boarded the subway back home, and then browsed the internet to see if there was anything suitable to do.

At this point in time, there wasn't really much going on at school; it was mostly just waiting for graduation certificates and degrees.

Some people who had already signed employment agreements were already interning at companies, and Xin Mu was still one of the few tough nuts on the employment rate records.

Without having planned out specifically what to do yet, he was browsing strategy guides for nearby Gyms, preparing to find a suitable time to "make a withdrawal."

In a world with a highly developed internet age, there were quite a few strategy posts online concerning Gyms, except for this particular Gym... the negative reviews seemed a bit numerous lately.

The main source of the comments appeared to be related to the Gym's successor. The new Gym Leader wasn't a Trainer specializing in Ground-type, but rather excelled at Flying-type, and because they hadn't officially inherited the Gym yet, the Gym was still listed on the official website as Ground-type.

This caused quite a few well-prepared Trainers to suffer a Waterloo, leading them to denounce the place one after another online...