Chapter 178

Chapter 178: Chapter 178

After finishing dinner with Gengar and the others, Mike returned to the tent and sat beside Glameow, who was busy playing with her red ball of string.

He spent some time editing the footage he had recorded that day, added a simple narration track, and uploaded the finished video.

[Uploading: The Amber City: How "Gold" Is Made]

Mike looked at the title he had chosen and nodded in satisfaction.

While editing, he had deliberately removed anything that might reveal the Amber City’s location.

Some places were worth showing to the world because of their beauty, but that didn’t mean he wanted strangers finding them and disturbing the peace that made those places special in the first place.

Once the upload began, Mike abruptly scooped Glameow up and walked out of the cave.

Glameow: "???"

She looked back at the red ball of string she had left inside the tent, struggled symbolically for a couple of seconds, then gave up and allowed Mike to carry her away.

"Snivy, grab me some clean clothes. I’m going to wash up."

Mike called over his shoulder before heading toward the nearby stream with Gengar and Beedrill.

Mike carried Glameow, Gengar dragged Beedrill along, while Nidoking walked behind them with Nidoran♀ and Hatenna perched on his shoulders.

The entire group arrived at the stream like some bizarre traveling procession.

Mike stripped down to his shorts, tucked Glameow under his arm, and jumped straight into the water.

Glameow’s head popped back above the surface moments later.

Her normally elegant fur was plastered flat against her body, and she stared at Mike with an expression of complete resignation.

Mike grinned, squeezed some body wash into his hands, and rubbed it into her fur until Glameow became a cat-shaped mass of bubbles.

Gengar jumped in next while dragging Beedrill with him.

Beedrill immediately tried to flap his wings and escape the water, but Gengar planted one hand on his head and pushed him straight back under.

"Bee... blub blub..."

With the enthusiastic assistance of his beloved older brother, Beedrill eventually gave up resisting. He closed his eyes and allowed Gengar to spread body wash over his armor.

At that moment, Beedrill couldn’t help thinking that perhaps staying behind with Vespiquen would not have been such a terrible fate after all.

What kind of bee needed to take baths like this?

After placing Mike’s clean clothes safely beside the stream, Snivy slipped into the water as well and began swimming around with practiced ease.

Nidoking glanced at Hatenna and Nidoran♀ on his shoulders, thought about it for approximately half a second, and jumped in too.

While Mike was happily enjoying bath time with his Pokémon, his newly uploaded video finished processing.

...

The fan group exploded almost immediately.

[Daisy_Peralta_1218: ??? Did he take the wrong medicine today?]

[Kris_rin: Is it New Year’s or something? He uploaded AGAIN?]

[Epictetus: See? I told you. Overtime always comes with compensation eventually. Although this looks more like an educational video.]

[B2567: I wouldn’t call it purely educational. Watching Combee make Honey is actually pretty interesting. So that’s how Honey is produced?]

[Klaus_Zero: ...Damn it! Why don’t I have Combee where I live?!]

[Mimikyu_DCX: Wait, so Combee use nectar to make Honey, not pollen?]

[CoatLoverTL: Did you not listen to Mike’s narration? Nectar gets turned into Honey. Pollen is mainly used as food for newly hatched Combee.]

[Ivan_C_4233: That’s actually amazing...]

[Gholdengo Is Number One: Every time I watch one of Mike’s videos, I learn something new. The more I see, the more I feel that wild Pokémon are every bit as intelligent as we are in their own way.]

[IDontWantOvertime: Agreed. There are plenty of small details about Pokémon behavior that I only learned because of his videos.]

[IDontWantOvertime: Actually, I have some good news. Since Mike started uploading The Wide World of Pokémon, the number of people getting into serious trouble in the Sinnoh wilderness has dropped by more than half.]

[Gholdengo Is Number One: More than half? Doesn’t that still leave over a dozen cases?]

[IDontWantOvertime: To be precise, from the release of the first episode until now, there have been eighteen recorded wilderness incidents.]

[Mat_tokki: That still sounds like a lot...]

[IDontWantOvertime: It is, but it’s much better than before. Most happened after the first episode but before the second one was released. Since the second episode, there have only been three serious incidents in the wild, and one of those involved Pokémon Hunters.]

[Gholdengo Is Number One: When you put it that way, the difference really is huge.]

[IDontWantOvertime: That’s why The Wide World of Pokémon genuinely matters. Sometimes you can lecture people all day and they still won’t listen, but teach the same information through entertainment and suddenly they remember it.]

[The_concession: The wildest part is still that Mike personally experienced the poison from half the Bug-types he introduced...]

[Gholdengo Is Number One: ...Yeah. There’s really no defending that.]

[Not_Wearing_Pants: Absolutely insane!]

[EnragedKing: I still remember him foaming at the mouth while Snivy dealt with it like she’d done it a hundred times.]

[The_warrior: Are you sure it’s okay to casually post official statistics like that in a fan group?]

[ReallyWantIceCream: It’s fine.]

Once his Champion had spoken, Lucian stopped worrying about it.

[IDontWantOvertime: There’s nothing secret about it. We’re planning to release the statistics to the media anyway. Hopefully other Leagues take notice and start doing something similar so they can reduce wilderness accidents too.]

[Madsilence: IDontWantOvertime, I hereby declare that you are my god! Where else am I supposed to find an Elite Four member this responsible? Sob sob. [Crying Squirtle.jpg]]

Lucian adjusted his glasses as the corner of his mouth lifted slightly.

[LightningGodWolf: Aren’t you from Hoenn?]

[Madsilence: ...]

[LightningGodWolf: But seriously... does Mike actually never read his comment section? Thousands of people are asking him about rain-team builds, and instead he uploads a video about Combee making Honey.]

[IDontWantOvertime: Based on how long I traveled with him, I can tell you he really doesn’t check comments much. He barely uses his phone in general.]

[IDontWantOvertime: Most days he just walks around with a camera and Gengar’s group from morning until night.]

[Gholdengo Is Number One: I filmed underwater with him. His patience is ridiculous. If he wants footage of one particular Pokémon, he can stay in the same position for more than an hour without moving.]

[IDontWantOvertime: We should probably stop pestering him. We’re all in this group anyway, so most things can be discussed here without constantly bothering him.]

[Madsilence: Understood!]

Lucian switched off his phone and placed it on the table.

Judging by the wilderness-incident statistics alone, The Wide World of Pokémon had already proven extremely effective for Sinnoh.

That was why Lucian had decided he would stop pressuring Mike to upload more often.

Naturally, that decision lasted only in theory.

...

High above the Mount Coronet range, Cynthia rode on Garchomp’s back while searching for traces left behind by Pokémon Hunter J.

She read through the group messages and, out of curiosity, opened the comments beneath Mike’s newest videos.

Sure enough, Lucian and the others had been right.

A huge portion of the comments were asking Mike to explain rain teams in more detail.

Cynthia put her phone back inside her coat and returned her attention to the mountains below.

Pokémon Hunter J was easily one of the most troublesome opponents Cynthia had ever dealt with, not because J could overpower her in battle, but because she was extraordinarily skilled at escaping whenever the situation turned against her.

...

Mike knew none of this.

After finishing his bath, he returned to the tent, played with Glameow for a while, then closed his eyes and promptly fell asleep.

As for his phone, he didn’t even look at it.

Ever since viewers had started constantly begging him for updates, Mike had become increasingly reluctant to check messages.

If something genuinely important happened, Professor Rowan, Lucian, or one of the others would simply call him directly.

He slept until he woke naturally the next morning.

After washing up, Mike sat down to breakfast and finally took out his phone.

He opened the fan group, scrolled upward for a while, saw that everyone was mostly discussing random nonsense, and backed out again.

Then he opened his conversation with Professor Rowan.

Rowan had sent several photographs of an Ursaring along with a few voice messages.

"Mike, Professor Oak, Professor Kukui, and I ran several tests. Just as you said, using the Peat Block on Ursaring under normal conditions does not trigger evolution."

"We also tried battle stimulation and several other methods, but none produced a reaction."

"So we’ve decided to wait until the next full moon before attempting the evolution again."

Mike swallowed the food in his mouth and sent back a voice message.

"Understood, Professor."

Rowan replied almost immediately.

"Then we’ll meet in Celestic Town when the time comes. And don’t forget your PowerPoint."

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