章 5: Time Skip
The week I spent waiting for my trip to the library was torturous. All that knowledge, all those books, just on the horizon, and I had to wait a whole week for it. The week was just more of the same, but now I didn't have the distraction of reading and writing lessons.
My one and only saving grace was the book Jenny had given me for my birthday. Sure, it wasn't the most interesting book, but it at least gave me something to read. I was always a pretty quick reader, and I would have probably finished the book within a couple of days if it was written in English, but as it was, it took me almost the full week of waiting to finish it due to my unfamiliarity with the native language.
I did get one nice little reward, though, for completely finishing the book. After I read the book all they through, I got awarded 1 gacha ticket for "reading a total of 1 book." I hoped this would be some type of repeatable task, but it was more likely some time of milestone tracker, and I would only get rewards for an exponentially increasing number of books.
Even though it felt like forever until I could go to the library, the time did, eventually, come. After yet another boring day at kindergarten, the matron eventually got me from my room, and we soon left the orphanage.
You know, I had always thought Oreburgh was a town. Turns out, it's not. My memories of the Sinnoh games were a little blurry, but it always seemed more town like to me, or at least suburban, with spread out homes and not much notable to it. My walks to school were relatively short, but I always thought that was due to the town being relatively small. Turns out, the school is just nearby.
In actuality, I soon found out that Oreburgh was a bustling city. Both the orphanage and school must have been located on the outskirts of the city because as the matron and I walked, it got more and more busy around us. It wasn't as large as a mega city like New York, and it may not have had huge skyscrapers, but it was clear to me that Oreburgh was a city all the same.
Watching the sights going on around me captured my attention and made me feel like I was in a whole new world again, after the relatively few people I had seen around the orphanage and school.
Before I knew it, I found the matron slowing down and myself coming to a stop behind her, almost bumping into her. It seemed we had arrived at our destination. Turning around, she faces me and starts to talk.
"There's a couple of things I need to explain before we head inside. First off, I don't have much free time so you'll only have about half an hour to pick whatever books you like. Secondly, this is your citizen ID. It'll act as your library card and determine what you can access in the library."
Having finished her sentence, she reaches into her coat pocket and pulls out a metal card, and hands it to me. Looking at it, it seems to act as some type of social security card. It has my name and date of birth on it and also a random string of numbers. In the top left corner, it has the letter and number C1 embossed into it. As I continue to examine it, Patricia starts to speak up again.
"Don't lose that. If you do, it will take forever and be a very costly thing to replace. Everybody's given one at birth, and I hold onto all of the ones for the orphanage kids. You're only getting yours now because I can expect you to not immediately lose it. It acts as your ID no matter where you are and is probably the most important piece of metal you'll ever hold. More importantly, for our current situation, it will also act as your library card."
That seemed a little silly to me, having something so important being used for something as mundane as a library card, but I could see it being a way for a government to keep a very close eye on people, by tying literally everything to one card. Or I could just be paranoid. Maybe I should be a little freaked out about it, but I honestly never cared for my own privacy in my previous life. What could the government or corporate agencies possibly gather from me that is actually important?
On a more pressing matter was something the matron mentioned about having my ID influence what I could actually access in the library. Asking the matron about it doesn't get me a great response.
"Certain knowledge can be dangerous or used for dangerous purposes. That's why it's restricted. Don't worry, you should be able to find at least some interesting things in the library, and your citizen ID class will naturally increase as you age and pursue a career. Now, the more time we spend talking, the less time you have to get books, so get a move on."
Great, just when I thought things couldn't get any worse, I'm actually being restricted on what I am allowed to learn. This isn't giving me a huge hope on how the government is run, but let's hope it's not as bad as I'm thinking it might be.
As I wait for her to start leading the way into the library, she doesn't and just looks at me. Eventually, she breaks, "Well, what are you waiting for? Head on in!"
Standing there in a little bit of shocked silence, I respond, "Do you want me to go in all alone?"
She responds, seemingly getting angrier by the moment, "Of course, I do! You see all those stairs, you think I would make that climb unless I had to? If you need any help, just ask someone sitting behind a desk. Now, get a move on! Clocks ticking. Unless you wanted to just go back to the orphanage?"
Worried, I respond in a hurry, "No, no! This works. Thanks so much, head matron, I'll be out as quick as possible." And I break off into a sprint towards the library. After all this time, I wasn't going to get turned back now because of some spiteful old woman. Although I was still in shock that she would actually let a five year old off on their own, especially in an unfamiliar place. Either it was just like that in the pokemon world, or she had a probably unreasonable amount of trust in me.
Getting a better look at what I can only assume to be the library as I approach it, I can definitely see why Patricia didn't want to enter. Although the library itself wasn't huge, big yes, but not huge, the stairs leading up to it seemed unnecessarily many. With a sigh, I begin my trek up.
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I might have been exaggerating a little with how many stairs there were. The hike up really wasn't that bad, but it seemed very daunting to my small five year old body at first.
Once I actually got into the library, it took a while to explain to the receptionist that I wasn't lost and really was there to read some books. She eventually reluctantly believed me once I showed her my citizen ID, something I assume most kids my age wouldn't have on them. She took my card, scanned it, and one of the many doors opened up behind her. I soon entered and heard the door closing behind me.
I'm guessing that was to check what class of citizen I was, and then the appropriate door for my class would open. The section I've been allowed into seems pretty small, much smaller than the library was from the outside. As I look through the books, I feel a slight sense of nervousness overcome me. It seems like a lot of the books are simple children's books and don't hole anything of value.
That would make sense if your citizen class increased with age. If only the youngest were considered C1 class citizens, then what value would they get out of more advanced books. Luckily, not all hope is lost as I travel deeper into my small section of the library, and the books slowly grow more advanced.
By the time I reach the back of the room, it seems that the books go up to what I would guess is about a fith graders level. Although not as high a level I would have hoped, it would have to be enough for now. Deciding to start off small, especially since I don't have the most advanced reading vocabulary, I grab a couple of childish books that seem to start going over the topic of history.
Although I would love to immediately start reading books about pokemon, I think it is probably more important to learn about the world I find myself in, so I decide to pick up some history books at what I think is the first grade level.
'This is it! The start of my journey for knowledge and eventual world domination!' I think to myself. 'Well, probably not, but it at least sounded cool in my head.'
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6 Years Old
Life's been moving slow, but it seems like that just comes with the territory of being a kid again. The books have certainly helped, but they don't paint a super pretty image of what the world is like. Of course, things seem to be pretty vague, but from what I can understand, this isn't a super happy go lucky pokemon world. It definitely isn't all doom and gloom, and it seems to have been worse in the past, but I really can't get a full picture of the current world from the books in the library.
Basically, there is a lot of mention of war without any specifics, and also, what seems to me attempts to hide PSAs and other such things about various dangers in the pokemon world and what to do in certain situations as colorful children books. Sadly, even these don't really show any depth to pokemon themselves, and are more based on dangers you may find in your average town or city.
I tried to find if the internet or an equivalent exists to get more of an exact idea of the current times. The internet does exist, but it seems to be locked behind my citizen ID, and I'm not high enough of a class to access it. Very annoying and trying to get the matron to give me access has gone nowhere, as from what I've gathered, it's very illegal.
As a result of some of my findings, I have started to work on grinding my stats up. Partially because if this world is really as dangerous as my paranoid brain is making it out be, I'll probably need it, but I also figured no matter what I would want to at least have a pokemon and having the physical fitness to keep up with them would probably be important. Plus, it was probably important to keep in good physical health because I owe it to my body... or something like that.
School has still been a slog. Even after moving on to first grade, it seems the teachers still don't like me. This time I have no idea why that is, considering they should have no relation to my kindergarten teachers, unless they've been communicating for some reason. Maybe they have been? It's not like I have any idea what teachers get up to.
The teachers ignoring me has led to some benefit on my part. While I haven't found a way to skip school entirely, since the teachers don't care about me, I've found I can openly read in the middle of lessons, and they won't care. Probably not the best for my reputation, but if they won't put in the effort to be cordial, neither will I.
Throughout the past year, I've also managed to gather some more gacha tickets, primarily this has just been from reading, with me getting 2 for reading 10 books and 3 for reading a hundred. I also got some from exercising, one ticket from exercising once, two for ten times, three for a hundred. Seems to be the trend for these easy repeatable tasks but it probably wouldn't be till I'm around 10 that I get the next set of rewards, in the mean time I'll have to try and find some more of these types of tasks.
The one other thing I get rewarded for, and probably the most interesting, was bringing a life into this world. No, I didn't have a child, but instead, I grew a little berry bush in my plot of the garden. Interestingly, I didn't get the tickets when the bush first grew in, but only after successfully produced some delicious looking, and tasting, berries. Once I did get the prompt, it put heavy emphasis on the life I brought into this world being successful and rewarded me with a wopping three tickets.
Makes me wonder if the bush didn't produce berries if it would have been deemed unsuccessful and given me fewer tickets. Food for thought... heh.
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7 Years Old
Turns out everything in the world of pokemon has been heavily competisized, even the school system. I found out after I apparently got first place in the year for first graders at the end of well... first grade. I had been doing the best I could on tests and the like, considering I hadn't seen a reason to hold back and may still want to be a scientist at some point in the future. This caused me to easily get first place, considering I was competing against a whole bunch of actual 7 year olds.
Not that I had been actively trying for first place, considering I didn't know it existed, but after getting a whole 4 tickets as a reward from the system, I knew I would be actively trying for it in the future. Additionally, I would have to keep an eye out for any similar opportunities in the future.
School was still slow. Perhaps the only new development was that my fellow peers had stopped running away from at the drop of a hat. That didn't mean they were suddenly nice to me, though, no, instead, I was now just a social outcast for being different instead of for being a monster. I mean, I guess that's progress?
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8 Years Old
Life was still slow, and I was still on the grind. I would like to say my stats were increasing like crazy, but it turns out that when ten is considered peak human and you're only eight years old, there's only so high your stat points can go. That's not to say I haven't been growing stronger, just that the results weren't always readily apparent on my status screen.
A nice little treat was finally being deemed old enough by Patricia to walk to the library on my own, which probably wasn't the smartest of her considering I was just 8, but I think she had long ago realized I wasn't a completely normal 8 year old.
This did allow me the chance to go on little adventures through the city, but trying to approach any wild pokemon had them quickly running off, and any trained pokemon were often busy with work and just ignored me. A real shame I would love a chance to study one up close, considering I couldn't exactly find anatomy books in my section of the library, but it simply wasn't meant to be.
Probably the only other thing of real note was that some kid tried to bully me in school. He was probably about a year older than me but wasn't all that much bigger, considering I was a pretty big kid after all my exercise. I don't think there was an exact reason for it, just a kid picking on someone different, but as soon as he tried shoving me down, I punched him in the face, and he feel to the ground then ran off crying. An overaction? Almost definitely, but I've always been a fighter at heart, and something about bullies just got my blood boiling.
I got called to the principals along with the other kid, and Patricia eventually came to pick me up from the orphanage. I think there was supposed to be a punishment somewhere in there, but it turns out there isn't much you can punish an 8 year old with when they don't actually care about you removing their playtime or making them take extra classes.
In fact, I was quite grateful for the kid as he gave me another thing to grind. You see, for winning my first ever fight, the system rewarded me with 2 tickets, but maybe more importantly, it also rewarded me with a single ticket for winning a total of 1 fight. How hard could it be to goad some children into having more fights with me?
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9 Years Old
Very hard it turns out. Apparnetly, knocking down one of the biggest kids in school give you a bit of a reputation of somebody to not mess with, so no matter how much I try to goad the other kids into starting a fight with me it doesn't work. At some point, I realized I probably shouldn't be trying to goad children into picking fights with me anyway, as that was probably pretty messed up of me and just gave up completely. I figure that I'll eventually be able to get those tickets in the future.
Sadly, even after all these years, I still hadn't found any repeatable tasks that I could complete, so my ticket gain had slowed down after I got the 8 tickets total for reading and exercising a 1,000 times.
Luckily, I had found one more avenue for gaining gacha tickets, the school science fair. I wasn't able to do it in previous years as it is only open to fourth and fith graders, but now that I could participate, I planned to win. If my theory was right, I should get at least some tickets for winning competitions and the likes considering how many I get for being first in my year at the end of every school year.
After learning about this, I had tried to find out about any other competitions the school had going on, but for some reason, it seemed like this science fair was the only one. Though it almost made sense when you considered there were no extracurricular things offered and the stuff taught in school was so basic, a science fair was pretty much all you could have with what they taught in the schools.
I had then tried to find other tournaments or the like to enter around the city but had no luck. There were no sports or card games to be heard of, and things seemed a little dead culturally. That was probably because I was still so young, though, and had no access to things like the internet or TV.
I did end up winning the science fair and scored myself a cool two tickets from my efforts. However minimal, I wasn't too upset considering that I was once again competing against only fourth graders.
Other than those events, I was simply waiting for the every approaching allure of reaching ten years of age and getting to finally role that ability wheel, that has been tempting me for oh so long. After all, who could resist having literal superpowers?
And although it may have felt like forever, time does eventually pass, and before I knew it, I was finally 10 years old.
クリエイターの想い 
Firehawk81
Firehawk81 Who expected to see this story again? I sure didn't but here we are. I sort of just stopped writing because of school and work, I awlays had a couple chapters held back, but just never posted them, but I'm back now, we'll see how long it lasts this time! Next chapter should be soon... we hope, maybe even today, who knows?
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