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Chapter 11: A Fresh Start for the Daycare
🕑 Added 2025-09-06 13:13:58 +0000 UTCAfter Ariel left that morning, no other customers showed up. At noon, Kawaki and Bewear had a simple meal, then used the quiet time to start fixing up the messy grassland in the backyard. The Daycare was starting from scratch now, and there were plenty of things he needed to handle personally.
He picked up and tossed away stones hidden in the grass to prevent any Pokémon from tripping while walking around. This area would become the place for grass-loving Pokémon like Oddish and Ponyta to roam freely.
The forest area didn't need Kawaki's attention. The trees there grew tall and dense, their canopy lush and green, with sunlight filtering through the gaps between leaves and dappling the forest floor beautifully. This spot would be perfect for Pokémon like Treecko, Lotad, and Seedot to make their home.
As for the lake area, it naturally belonged to water-type Pokémon like Magikarp and Feebas.
Bewear stood on the grass watching Kawaki work for a while, quickly memorizing what he was doing. Then it stepped forward, snatched the lawn mower from Kawaki's hands, and pushed his back to make him go rest.
Kawaki was puzzled. "What's wrong, Bewear? I'm working here. I need to get this grassland properly maintained so we can better take care of our customers' Pokémon."
"Guu!"
Bewear pushed Kawaki aside and took over, pushing the lawn mower to trim the messy grass clumps on the ground.
Seeing this scene, Kawaki immediately understood. Bewear was telling him to go rest! This was really... Kawaki felt both amused and helpless. Was this Bewear treating him like a child? It followed him around all day taking care of him. When he was happy, Bewear would be happy too. When he was sad, Bewear would feel sad as well.
Given Bewear's strength, Kawaki knew he couldn't resist. He might as well leave the grass-cutting work to Bewear and go prepare to work on the garden plot on the other side.
"Bewear, I'll leave this to you. I'm going back to the Daycare to see if any customers come by," Kawaki said. "Once you're done with this, we'll take a walk through the forest together this evening."
"Guu!" Bewear readily agreed.
Seeing this, Kawaki smiled and turned to head to the garden. The soil here had already been turned over with help from the Machoke construction crew, so it was ready for planting. He'd call this garden area the herb garden for now! Besides daily vegetables and fruits, Kawaki also planned to plant some essential herbs here to make medicine later on.
Things like healing potions to restore stamina, antidotes with detoxifying effects, burn heals to treat burns, and so on. That way, if any Pokémon at the Daycare got injured, he wouldn't need to go into town - he could provide treatment services right at home.
The herb garden wasn't very large. Working alone, Kawaki only needed a little over an hour to plant all the herb seeds and vegetable seeds he'd bought from Petalburg City. Kawaki divided the field with fencing into three separate areas.
One section was the herb garden, one was the vegetable patch, and the third was specifically for growing berries. Currently, the Daycare had five berry trees total. They were Pecha Berry, Oran Berry, Cheri Berry, Cherri Berry, and Rawst Berry trees respectively.
The variety was a bit limited. Looking at these fruit trees and the empty space beside them, Kawaki decided he'd buy some more berry trees later to diversify the garden's berry selection.
After finishing planting the seeds, Kawaki smacked his forehead, just remembering one more thing. He'd almost forgotten to water them! He quickly grabbed the Psyduck watering can, filled it up, and began watering each plot one by one.
"Looks like besides grass-type Pokémon, I'll need to catch a water-type Pokémon to help with watering too," Kawaki muttered to himself.
Perfect timing - this evening when he went out, he'd keep an eye out for any suitable water-type Pokémon nearby. Now that the Daycare had income and was officially on track, he had the ability to raise more Pokémon.
By the time Kawaki finished his work, it was already 3 PM, and Bewear had just finished up too.
"Take a break!" Kawaki brought Bewear a glass of ice-cold berry juice.
Bewear took a sip and immediately felt refreshingly cool all over.
"Guu!" Bewear was very happy, and its mood, which had dropped from working, began rising again.
Kawaki glanced over. This time it didn't give him any rewards - maybe to prevent him from maliciously farming gifts from the same Pokémon? Or maybe because the happiness level hadn't reached the threshold for the next gift? Either way, it didn't matter. Just having Bewear stay by his side to help was enough to satisfy him.
Kawaki looked at the clock on the wall. It was already 3:30 PM. He decided to go outside and see if there were any more customers. If not, he'd close up now and explore the forest behind the Daycare with Bewear.
But just as Kawaki stood up, a boy around ten years old came running in. Another customer!
"Hello, is there anything I can help you with?" Kawaki asked.
The boy's eyes were bright. He seemed to have run here, with crystal beads of sweat on his forehead from running, looking extremely excited.
"Boss! Do you have any Pokémon eggs for sale?!" the boy asked excitedly.
Kawaki: "...I'm sorry, the Daycare just reopened, so we can't provide that service yet."
"Huh?" The boy was stunned and looked a bit disappointed. "You don't have any..."
But there was only this one Daycare near Petalburg City. If he couldn't buy a Pokémon here, he'd have to catch one himself. But without a Pokémon, there was no way he could battle wild Pokémon. And a small place like Petalburg City didn't have a professor's lab where he could go get his starter Pokémon.
Looking at the boy's expression, Kawaki asked, "Are you from Petalburg City?"
"That's right! My name's Youngster Ryo, and I just turned ten today," the boy introduced himself.
"How did you know there was a Daycare here?" Kawaki was curious since he hadn't advertised yet.
"Officer Jenny told me!" Youngster Ryo answered.
Officer Jenny? Was Officer Jenny helping him advertise? Kawaki was slightly surprised.
"Oh, boss, when's the earliest you'll have Pokémon eggs in stock?" Youngster Ryo couldn't help asking.
Kawaki thought for a moment and shook his head. "I'm not sure yet, but it shouldn't take too long. I'll be contacting some trainers later to receive Pokémon eggs from them. If you need something or want a specific Pokémon, you can tell me in advance and I'll keep an eye out for you."
Besides breeding services, selling unhatched Pokémon eggs to customers was also one of the Daycare's main businesses. Generally speaking, the League didn't allow private buying and selling of Pokémon, but Daycares were an exception. It's worth noting that even Daycares were only allowed to sell Pokémon eggs and baby Pokémon.
Youngster Ryo had been feeling disappointed, but hearing this, he immediately perked up.
"Then can I pre-order a Dratini egg?"
Kawaki: "...That kind of rare Pokémon egg isn't something a Daycare can acquire."
No trainer would hand over that kind of egg to a Daycare to help sell.
"What about Bagon?"
"Don't have that either."
"Charmander?"
"Charmander is from the Kanto region. We don't have them in the Hoenn region."
Youngster Ryo immediately looked dejected.
Kawaki wasn't in a hurry. A qualified businessman needed to enthusiastically serve customers while also understanding their needs in detail, then recommend products that met those needs while also bringing more profit to himself, achieving a win-win situation.
From what this kid was saying, he seemed to really like cool, flashy, dragon-related Pokémon. If we're talking about dragon Pokémon eggs that ordinary people could get, there was probably only one species: Axew.
But the Daycare didn't have any right now, and Kawaki couldn't guarantee anything. He could only say:
"I'll keep an eye out for you. Give me your contact information. When the Daycare has Pokémon eggs, I'll get in touch with you."
"I guess that's all I can do..." Youngster Ryo gave Kawaki his home phone number, and before leaving, he pleaded pitifully, "Please, boss! I really want to have a Pokémon of my own and travel with it!"
This was the wish of every child who turned ten in the Pokémon world. Once upon a time, it had been Kawaki's wish too.
He was stunned for a moment, then smiled and nodded, promising, "Alright."
