The first pot of gold

The next morning, at five o'clock.

Daylight had barely begun to break when another round of knocking woke Tong Hua.

"Coming..."

Still half asleep, Tong Hua shifted Turtwig and Minccino, who were snoring against his face, mumbled a reply, stumbled out of bed, and opened the door, all without fully waking up.

Outside the cabin, his bleary eyes made out two hulking silhouettes...

"Good morning!!!"

"!"

Tong Hua snapped awake, covering his ears with a pained grimace.

"H-hello..."

The dark-skinned, burly man outside seemed completely unaware of how loud he was and addressed Tong Hua with a hearty grin.

"I'm Palmer, a Pokémon Ranger from Windring Town! We received your request, so from now on, the Windring Town Base will handle shipments for the Fairy Tale Ranch!

Do you have any goods to ship today?"

The bearded giant who called himself Palmer had a tuft of purple hair on his head. Grinning with both rows of teeth showing, he pointed a thumb at the Pokémon Ranger badge on his chest. His bulk stretched his red uniform tight.

Even the Machamp beside Palmer looked at Tong Hua with a friendly expression, his four muscular arms folded across his chest. It felt like having two mountains looming right in front of him...

"Um... please wait a moment."

Tong Hua ducked back into his room, hurriedly washed his face, then woke Miltank, who was still drooling in her sleep.

"Milu?"

"Time to get up and milk you. Someone's already here to collect it." Tong Hua pressed a Stress-Relief Plush Toy into Miltank's hands and ushered her out the door, thinking that he needed to buy an alarm clock today.

"Um... Mr. Palmer, right? Could you please wait a little longer? I haven't milked my Miltank yet today..."

"Haha, no problem! If you don't mind, let us lend you a hand!"

"Uh... thank you." Tong Hua nodded like a chick pecking grain and led Miltank toward the Pokémon Cottage. Palmer and Machamp followed behind, making him feel rather intimidated.

"So that's what Pokémon Rangers are like... They were all pixel art in the games. I never realized..."

Pokémon Rangers, also known as Pokémon Guardians, had a completely different profession from Pokémon Trainers.

Instead of Poké Balls, they used a spinning-top device called a Capture Styler to capture Pokémon, drawing on the strength of wild Pokémon to carry out all kinds of missions and requests.

Tong Hua's most vivid memory of this profession was wearing out the bottom screens of two game consoles while playing...

In the anime, a single loop was enough to capture a Pokémon, but in the games, he had to draw dozens or even hundreds of circles. For a while, he had been convinced that Pokémon Rangers were a money-grabbing trap jointly devised by Game Freak and Nintendo...

A few minutes later, Tong Hua began milking Miltank in the Pokémon Cottage.

"First, disinfect all four teats... then squeeze each one in turn... Everything looks normal. Attach the milking machine."

For a first attempt, Tong Hua was actually doing quite well. Still, his somewhat clumsy technique annoyed Miltank, who was already grumpy about being woken up.

"Milu!" Miltank grabbed the milking machine's pump and started milking herself.

"Haha, now that's a Miltank with personality! Excellent! Her Moomoo Milk is bound to taste wonderful!"

Palmer laughed beside him like some hot-blooded fool, leaving Tong Hua no choice but to laugh awkwardly along.

"By the way, Mr. Palmer, will you be the one collecting the milk from now on?"

Palmer stopped laughing and answered a little more seriously, "Of course not. I may not look it, but I'm actually the captain of the Windring Town Base."

With a touch of pride, Palmer pointed his thumb at the badge on his chest again. "Since this is the first collection, they sent me specifically. After this, one of the junior Rangers will probably handle it."

"The captain of a Pokémon Ranger base... That must be tough, having to take on requests like this too."

"Hey, not at all! Our job as Pokémon Rangers is to solve problems for people and Pokémon alike. If there's a request, we'll see it through, whatever it is.

Besides helping ranches ship their goods, our Windring Town Base also handles milk and newspaper deliveries for every resident of Windring Town and Chicory Village. On top of that, we patrol the forest every day, and whenever there's trouble with public safety, we're the ones who have to step in!"

Good grief! Tong Hua thought.

From maintaining public order and protecting the ecological balance to delivering newspapers and milk or finding lost cats and dogs, being a Pokémon Ranger certainly wasn't a job just anyone could do.

He wondered what drove them to work so hard. Were Pokémon Rangers paid that well?

Come to think of it, the games had mentioned Chief Pokémon Rangers. Apparently, only Chief Pokémon Rangers received missions involving Legendary Pokémon or direct confrontations with evil organizations.

Frontline Pokémon Rangers like Palmer still had to handle requests from residents, even after making it all the way to base captain.

"Mr. Palmer, how long have you worked at the Windring Town Base?"

"Oh, me? Hmm... About ten years, since I graduated from Pokémon Ranger School."

"Ten years? Did you join the Windring Town Base right after graduating?" Tong Hua frowned without realizing it. Still on the front lines after ten years-it seemed promotions weren't easy for Pokémon Rangers either.

And Palmer was a formally trained graduate of Pokémon Ranger School. Someone recruited from outside would probably advance even more slowly.

"Hahaha!" Far from getting annoyed by Tong Hua's detailed questions, Palmer laughed and answered with spit flying.

"Of course! I've worked at the Windring Town Base for ten years. Five years ago, our previous captain was promoted to Chief Pokémon Ranger and transferred to Headquarters, so he handed the base over to me.

Pokémon Rangers earn promotions by completing missions and requests to accumulate contribution points. Our previous captain worked incredibly hard to earn enough. I'm still nowhere near him!

After all, becoming a Chief Pokémon Ranger is much harder than becoming a captain. You don't just have to work diligently-you have to deliver results too. But I'm already perfectly happy being a captain! Hahaha!"

"So that's how it works..." Tong Hua nodded after hearing Palmer's explanation.

Just then, Miltank finished milking herself.

Leaving Miltank to graze in the pasture, Tong Hua and Palmer returned to the cabin. Tong Hua kept about five liters of milk for his household and handed all the rest over to Palmer.

After weighing it, there were thirty-two kilograms of Moo-

moo Milk in total, filling several metal cans, which Machamp carried onto the truck they had arrived in.

"Right, thirty-two kilograms of Moomoo Milk at a purchase price of one hundred and fifty League Coins per kilogram. That comes to four thousand eight hundred League Coins. Here you go."

Tong Hua could barely contain his excitement as he accepted the stack of banknotes Palmer handed him!

This was the ranch's first pot of gold!

"Not bad!"

It wasn't even half of what he had spent yesterday, but this was real income earned through his own labor! It was something worth commemorating!

The only thing that puzzled Tong Hua was that, if he remembered correctly, Moomoo Milk cost six hundred League Coins a bottle in the games. A bottle that small couldn't possibly hold a kilogram-it probably didn't even contain five hundred grams, right?

Compared with the retail price, wasn't the price paid to the ranch far too low?

But several possible explanations soon occurred to him. The retail price might include other costs, such as labor and transportation.

Once the Fairy Tale Ranch grew, he ought to build a brand of his own. Then perhaps he could follow the example of the plump woman selling rice at the Market and offer home delivery, bypassing all those middlemen.

At that thought, Tong Hua quickly put away his League Coins, turned around, and poured two glasses of Moomoo Milk for Palmer and Machamp.

"Captain Palmer, Machamp, thanks for all your hard work!"

Palmer and Machamp didn't refuse. They accepted the Moomoo Milk with smiles and drained their glasses!

"Absolutely delicious! That's fantastic!"

"Champ, champ!"

Their movements were perfectly in sync. After drinking, both wiped the milk left on their lips away with the backs of their hands.

"Well then, request complete! We'll be off now."

With that, Palmer left without looking back. He climbed into the truck with Machamp, and they drove away along the rough country road.

"They really don't have it easy... Being a frontline Pokémon Ranger in this world seems even more exhausting than volunteering."

Tong Hua closed the door. It wasn't even six yet. Looking at Turtwig and Minccino still fast asleep on the bed, he fought down the urge to crawl back in.

Since he was already awake, he might as well make breakfast!