Chapter 275: Computer Warrior

To be honest.

The moment All Baimu laid eyes on this person, he instinctively felt the man was a swindler.

No reason in particular — tricks like this street-stall-style Pokémon prize-guessing giveaway were ones the Rocket trio had long grown tired of playing, yet fools still fell for them constantly.

But after looking a couple more times, he felt something was off.

This person didn't pose questions out in the open directly to one person; instead, he had them put on something resembling VR goggles and sent them into a virtual environment to answer.

More importantly, there was no entry fee, no need to hand over any Pokémon — just put on the VR goggles and answer the questions.

Those who failed to answer didn't show any signs of being hypnotized either, still chatting and laughing with their familiar companions, muttering things like "what a shame."

And the real reason All Baimu realized the other party might not be a swindler was the appearance of the prize-guessing organizer.

"Doctor Akihabara?"

He compared the photo on his phone and confirmed that the other party was indeed the inventor of the Pokémon Transfer System — assuming no one else was in disguise using his name.

The anime version differed from both the games and the special chapters; to bring out a Pokémon like Porygon, a new Doctor was specifically set up to replace Masamune, the original developer.

Who would have thought that the episode where Porygon appeared had its visuals botched, causing the "Porygon Incident," which permanently retired both this Pokémon and Doctor Akihabara together, making them forever a tear of the era, never to appear in the official series again.

But why would a Kanto Doctor appear here?

All Baimu hesitated slightly, then his heart gave a sudden jolt — could the rare Pokémon the other party mentioned actually be Porygon?

He silently began searching online for Porygon and found that entries about it were pitifully few; nearly every appearance was connected to Doctor Akihabara.

Why?

Because in the anime, Doctor Akihabara was Porygon's creator, just like the Pokémon Transfer System.

And in most of those entries, Doctor Akihabara was promoting Porygon, listing a whole pile of its merits. Unfortunately, as a man-made Pokémon, limited numbers prevented it from spreading successfully.

Speculation

Additionally, many trainers said in interviews that they weren't very interested in this dubious Pokémon — not only did it not look cute, but what moves it could learn was unclear, and the fact that it was man-made was hard to accept.

Basically, it seemed only Pokémon collectors would choose to collect this rare Pokémon.

All Baimu felt a bit indignant when he read this far.

Is Porygon really that ugly? Sure, those dead-fish eyes are admittedly a bit creepy, but the evolved Porygon2 — that dead duck — is clearly adorable!

He searched again for the Porygon2 entry and found even fewer. Doctor Akihabara had mentioned that, alas, even Porygon hadn't managed to spread successfully, let alone Porygon2…

Looking at it this way, if the other party wasn't an impostor, the probability that the prize was Porygon was very high.

But after all this time, how come it seemed like not a single person had passed the quiz?

All Baimu peered inside and saw that in just a short while many people had already gone up and many more had come down defeated; at first everyone was still enthusiastic, thinking others couldn't do it but they could.

But as time ticked on bit by bit, after dozens of people went up to answer and still none passed, the crowd grew increasingly restless and uneasy.

Finally.

A rather fierce-looking teenager took off the VR goggles and burst out cursing, "What kind of lousy questions are these! There's no way to finish them at all! You swindler!"

The crowd immediately erupted, and many who hadn't been able to finish the quiz chimed in one after another.

"Exactly, exactly! He's a swindler!"

"Wasting our time!"

The crowd quickly thinned by more than half, leaving only a few still standing in place. But they all looked like onlookers, seemingly curious how the other party would wrap things up.

And Doctor Akihabara, watching this scene, raised his hand as if wanting to say something to win the crowd back, then finally lowered his head helplessly with a sigh.

Then he raised his head again and said:

"Anyone else want to participate?"

"I do."

All Baimu saw that no one around intended to respond, so he decided to go up and try himself; based on what he'd seen so far, the odds of this person being an impostor were slim.

Doctor Akihabara was overjoyed that someone was still willing to participate. "Come, come! The questions are actually very simple!"

"Alright, you're Doctor Akihabara, right?"

All Baimu stepped forward, walked over to the other party, and asked in a low voice.

Doctor Akihabara gave a start. "You know me?"

"The inventor of the Pokémon Transfer System — how could I possibly not know you? But why are you here? And running a paid guessing game of all things?"

He got straight to the point with his question, staring into the other party's eyes.

Doctor Akihabara hadn't expected the young man before him to be testing him at all; he scratched his head sheepishly. "Eheheh, that's a long story. I'm currently collaborating with the Neo Water Fleet, you see."

"Collaborating!?"

All Baimu was startled. "You're collaborating with the Neo Water Fleet? Collaborating on what? A marine-litter transfer device?"

"That's a really complicated story! Okay! You answer the questions first, we can talk after you finish!" Doctor Akihabara urged him on frantically.

Seeing this, he exchanged a glance with Chansey; the latter gave a slight nod to put him at ease.

With safety assured.

All Baimu put on the VR goggles.

In an instant.

The scene before his eyes suddenly dimmed, then flared brightly, and a Porygon — as if assembled from building blocks — appeared before him.

It dragged over a huge dialog box from the side, with the question displayed on it.

【As a trainer you must surely know that every region has many, many Bug-type Pokémon. So what is the evolution of the shadowy Pokémon on the screen? Please write your answer on the answer board.】

A black shadow suddenly popped out from the left, striking various poses with great liveliness.

All Baimu examined it carefully and found that the upper half of this fellow was round and chubby, the lower half looked like a cloth sack, and at the edges many tiny frayed bits could be seen — suspected to be some kind of fuzz.

Very simple.

A freebie question, that's all.

He raised his hand and typed the three characters "Color Powder Butterfly" into the answer field at the bottom of the dialogue box — from its appearance this thing was a Powder Butterfly cocoon, so ask who it evolved into, wasn't it just the Color Powder Butterfly?

Ding!

A large green circle suddenly appeared on the box, the Polygon Beast also cheerfully swung its legs beside it, and the black shadow vanished.

Right after, the second question.

【Still related to Bug-type Pokémon — as a Pokémon that likes to make leaf cloaks and wrap them around its body, Burmy has many varied evolutions. Please write out all the types that might be added after it evolves.】

Burmy, the Leaf Cloak Pokémon. Its evolution differs by gender — the female evolves into Wormadam, and changes according to the different cloaks worn before evolution. In terms of types, it will respectively gain the Grass, Ground, and Steel types.

The male evolves into Mothim, gaining the Flying type compared to before evolution.

So those are the four types.

All Baimu swiftly wrote down the answer.

Ding!

【Congratulations on passing the second question!】

A huge green circle filled All Baimu's field of vision.