Pokémon Detective Case Files

Chapter 384 Guskaf's Melancholy

Chapter 386 Guskaf's Melancholy

At the bar in the Sanyo restaurant's beverage area, Kohn put down a shaker covered in condensation and handed three light green mint milkshakes to three guests who had finished their meal.

Bert was not among the three brothers; he was in the kitchen, cleaning up the dishes and utensils left over from the dinner with the Pokémon.

"Specifically, what kind of flavor are you looking for?"

In the dim light, Cilan, the "food detective" of the Sanyo Gym, asked a question, facing Guscalf, who was sitting on the other side of the bar.

Wearing decorative glasses, he wore a linen trench coat over his waiter's uniform, a deerstalker hat on his head, and carried an open notebook. He looked more like a detective than Azure, the real detective.

"Hmm—." Guscalf's massive figure seemed uneasy on the high stool. "That was a long time ago, so it's a bit difficult to describe the taste directly."

Seeing this, Azure couldn't help but break the awkward silence: "Mr. Guscalf, you must be looking for a special dish, right? But why did you suddenly have this idea?"

He thought for a long time before finally speaking, "The reason I'm looking for that dish is that I'll soon be giving a feature interview to Galar's Outlook magazine as the food editor for the United States region."

"Outlook Weekly? That's a very influential world-class weekly magazine," said Zhimi, who had been interviewed before. "This interview must be very important for the development of your food magazine, right?"

"That's right. Whether it's myself or 'Flying Cloud Culinary Exploration,' if we want to make a name for ourselves and expand into worlds beyond Unova..."

We absolutely cannot miss this opportunity.

Guskaf nodded, placing his thick palm on the bar.

"In such interviews, there are a few questions that are impossible to avoid. For example, what kind of cuisine do I prefer, what is my favorite dish, and are there any restaurants I would like to recommend to readers? But there is one question that I am almost certain to be asked, and I have never been able to make up my mind."

"Oh, what's the problem?" Tian Tong pushed up her glasses, which had no lenses.

"Which dish led you down the path of culinary arts?"—the so-called "soul-roots dish"—is a common question. People asked this usually answer with the food their parents prepared for them during their childhood.

"That's really important," the owner of the Grass-style restaurant said with a look of reminiscence. "Our parents used to run a coffee shop in this area, so we still cherish the idea of ​​simple meals like sandwiches and omelets. Before designing and developing new dishes, we still go to that coffee shop across the street together."

"I'm a self-taught food critic, and my journey has been full of coincidences. So, unlike the members of Sanyo Dojo, I don't have any particularly memorable dishes from my childhood. In fact, I don't remember much from my childhood at all."

He patted his stomach, shrugged, and said, "You see, because of my body type, it's hard not to hear sarcastic remarks when I talk to people my age, right? To protect themselves, people always like to forget those unpleasant memories. For me, childhood is just that kind of thing."

The atmosphere fell silent again for a moment, until Miss Azure stepped forward: "I see. Even in this situation, you still remember that taste. That means the last dish you recalled must have been quite important to you. What was that dish?"

"......"

Guskaf muttered something under his breath.

"What did you say? Which dish?" Tian Tong leaned closer, holding her notebook, her emerald-like eyes blinking behind her glasses.

The food editor, somewhat embarrassed, raised his voice and announced, "It's a stew of potatoes and pork chops."

"I see." The Cilan Pavilion Master stroked his chin thoughtfully. "The Ether Foundation's bionic meat was already being promoted thirty years ago, and the history of artificial protein meat, which served as the prototype for this food, is even longer. If this kind of meat was used, it would indeed be a common family dish in Unova. Did Mr. Guscalf's family make it for you?"

"It was my mother who did it," Guskaf said in a low voice.

"Do you remember what that dish looked like? What ingredients were used? What unique flavor did it have?"

The "food detective" wearing a deerstalker hat kept asking questions, but Guskaf could only silently shake his head and say, "I don't remember at all. I can only be sure that my mother made it herself."

"And your mother?" Tian Tong hesitated, as if she wanted to say something but then stopped.

"She passed away when I was six years old," the food editor replied directly, not shying away from the topic. "A year before that, our family moved from the remote mountain town of Shanlu to Lianyi Town at the foot of the mountain—but compared to here and Feiyun City, those are just rural areas."

"You look to be in your thirties, which means that the time your mother made you potato and pork stew was more than twenty years ago?" Tian Tong asked.

Guskaf glanced up at the calendar in the drinks room and nodded. "That was twenty-eight years ago. I can remember playing with my mother, hiking, and observing wild Pokémon. But I don't remember the taste of the food. I guess a child's taste buds aren't fully developed yet; I only remember that it tasted good back then."

"Hmm—potato and pork chop stew—"

The Grass-type Pavilion Master scratched the back of his head with his pen cap, looking deep in thought, but he had absolutely no inspiration.

"Your deerstalker hat is crying..." Azure sighed, looking at the "gourmet detective," and struck up a conversation with the gourmet again, "Speaking of which, what did Mr. Guscalf's parents do for a living?"

"At that time, my family ran a warehousing company, and my mother was a traditional housewife. My father would often proudly say that we were the richest family in town. I think we were indeed wealthy back then, but in the end, we were just a remote mountain town."

"Will life be the same after we move to Ripple Town?" Azure asked.

These questions may be beyond the scope of a food detective's investigation, but when faced with a clueless search, such persistent questioning is sometimes necessary.

Fortunately, Guskaf wasn't offended by this. He simply shook his head and replied, "The entire company moved there, but it went bankrupt two years later. According to my father, it went bankrupt because the cost of treating my mother's illness kept rising, and they couldn't invest in the new equipment as planned. In the end, they couldn't compete with the large chain companies and lost almost all of their customers."

Ripple Town has now developed into a famous tourist destination in the Unova region. If the land where his father's factory was built could have been preserved, he could probably have made a fortune. But that was more than 20 years ago. No one can predict the future so accurately, otherwise the stock exchange would be full of magicians proficient in superpowers. The gourmet added with a shush.

"Was your mother sick for a long time back then?" Seeing that Bilan seemed to have found a breakthrough, Tiantong seized the opportunity to ask.

"She was bedridden for about a year and a half before she passed away; I think it was a serious illness." The food critic sighed. "Sigh, I really don't want to recall those times."

"Your father must have had a tough time too, he even lost the company trying to pay for his medical treatment."

"That's hard to say," Guskaf said, shaking his head with a slight smirk. "Less than a year after my mother died, my father remarried, marrying the same woman who had been my mother's caregiver."

It might sound a bit... but the adult world is very complex.

"You were only six years old then, right? Remarrying so early, maybe it was to take care of you when you were young?" Tian Tong cautiously guessed.

"Looking back now, that might be possible, but at the time, it just meant that a stranger I had to call 'Mom' had suddenly appeared out of nowhere. Oh, and there was also an older brother who was several years older than me, but he chose to become a trainer, so he was often away from home."

"It's a remarried family."

Bilan shook the cup containing the milkshake, feeling a bit overwhelmed, as if she were back in the pile of premarital investigation requests at the Feiyun City office.

"I'll just tell you what happened after that."

Like someone who had given up entirely, Guskaf tilted his head back and downed the mint milkshake on the table in one gulp. "My father started working like crazy after his company went bankrupt, which eventually ruined his health. He died of a sudden heart attack the year I graduated from elementary school. After that, I lived under the same roof with my stepmother and my brother. It felt like I was the only outsider among the three of us. I felt like I was living in pain every day. Because I couldn't stand this situation, I made up an excuse after graduating from high school and ran away to Feiyun City to make my way in the world."

Both of his biological parents died of illness when he was young, so it's no wonder that Guskaf subconsciously avoids memories of his childhood; it's probably not just because of his physical appearance.

"High school graduation is at eighteen, which means sixteen years have passed since then," Tian Tong calculated the numbers in her notebook.

"Yes, from that naive young man who ran away from home, to a lowly handyman at a newspaper, and now to the editor-in-chief of a food magazine, I can now be considered to have a respectable position. The magazine I host has gradually gained popularity in the United Daily News, and it is at least much more successful than my father's warehouse company back then." The food editor laughed self-deprecatingly, staring at his dark silhouette reflected on the surface of the bar table. "I just never thought that at a time like this, I would run into that bowl of potato and pork stew from when I was six years old again."