"Name."
"Caleb Chase."
"Age."
"Twenty-one?"
"Hometown."
"I don't remember."
"Do you recall what happened before you woke up?"
"No," Caleb shook his head.
The police officer stared at him for a moment after this answer.
No one could play dumb better than Caleb. He met the officer's gaze with a blank, confused expression.
The officer adopted a slightly interrogative tone, "You really don't remember?"
"I remember now!" Caleb suddenly exclaimed.
The officer beckoned, "Go on, I'm listening."
"I got transmigrated to another world, an Anime world to be precise..."
"…"
After a brief silence, the officer sighed, "You expect me to believe that?"
"It's true though. It was a world full of cute girls."
The officer chuckled, "Yesterday someone called in claiming to be Ultraman. Guess what happened?"
Caleb played along, "What?"
"Turns out that Ultraman was just a second personality he made up. Fake. All fake. There's no such thing as Ultraman in this world." He gave Caleb a pitying look.
"..."
'Okay, maybe I acted a bit over the top...' Caleb thought, seeing the how the officer looked at him.
Seeing the inquiry yielded no results, the officer turned to the two people who accompanied Caleb, "One last question, what's your relationship with him?"
"We're online gaming friends," Hatsumi answered smoothly, "We heard he was in a car accident and passed away three years ago. We didn't expect to see him on the news yesterday, so we came to check on him."
This was the story the three of them had concocted over lunch. After all, in this information age, checking a person's identity based on facial features and fingerprints was all too easy.
Hearing this, the officer immediately perked up, his eyes gleaming, "You mean he came back from the dead?"
Caleb feigned shock and confusion, "Huh? What? I died? My head hurts. I can't remember anything."
The officer waved him off, "Forget it, let's leave it at that for now. We'll need you to do a facial recognition and fingerprint test. We'll try to help you find your family as soon as possible."
Caleb thought, 'Good luck with that. I don't have any family here.'
The officer was kind enough. Since Caleb had no ID or belongings, he exchanged contact info with Hatsumi, saying they'd follow up later, including help with reissuing identification.
Hatsumi thanked him profusely and escorted him out of the hospital room.
Outside, the officer murmured, "My suggestion is to take your friend to see a psychiatrist."
Hatsumi bit back a laugh, "Thank you, officer. We'll take care of it!"
The officer nodded and left the hospital.
Hatsumi went to pay Caleb's medical bill and handle the discharge procedures. By the time she returned, Caleb had already changed out of the hospital gown and into the clothes Terrence had bought him.
"Ready to go?" she asked, leaning against the doorframe.
Caleb was startled, "Go where?"
He didn't have a home here.
"We're taking you to eat!" Terrence frowned, "You look pale as a ghost."
They packed up. Terrence carried the fruit basket downstairs, handed it to Caleb, and went to get the car.
Caleb noticed it was a flashy Rolls-Royce.
Terrence rolled down the window and called out, "Hop in!"
"Vee!" An Eevee pressed its fluffy paws against the window, excitedly peeking out.
Terrence yanked it back, "My little troublemaker! You can't let anyone see you!"
The Eevee whined... it just wanted to sunbathe.
"Okay, okay," Terrence soothed, "I'll take you to Maldives for some sunbathing later. Be a good girl for now, okay?"
Getting inside the car, Caleb gaped at the Eevee.
Hatsumi rolled her eyes at Terrence and asked dryly, "Did you set your Pokémon to be visible to outsiders?"
"Nope!" Terrence replied matter-of-factly.
"Then why are you so nervous? No one can see it."
Terrence grinned sheepishly, "It's just, there are so many cars outsid. What if she jumps out and gets hit?"
Hatsumi ignored him and explained to Caleb, "When we left Infinite World, our inventories automatically created a Pokémon dimension; a self-contained habitat with mountains and rivers... Hmm, like those personal beast pocket dimensions in those beast-taming web novels you guys read. We can summon Pokémon and put them back in anytime."
She added, "Besides that, we can freely set whether they are visible to outsiders or not."
"Hahaha, ever since I came back, I feel like I'm living a webnovel protagonist's life!" Terence laughed as he drove, "Buying luxury cars, villas, and throwing money around. I finally get why those characters love showing off. It's awesome!"
Hatsumi snorted, "Please. Your classmates probably think you got yourself a sugar mama."
Laughter filled the car. Terrence took them to a high-end restaurant, where a server led them to a private room.
As they waited for food, Terrence and Hatsumi exchanged glances. Then Terrence asked, "So… how did you suddenly return to this world? And at this time?"
They had both restarted from the moment of their deaths.
Caleb wanted to know the answer to that question even more than they did. He thought for a moment and said, "I died, but was revived because of an item. When I woke up, I was back here. You saw the rest."
Sensing his low mood, Hatsumi asked gently, "Can you go back?"
Caleb shook his head, "I don't know."
"Don't worry. There's always a way," Terrence said reassuringly.
Caleb nodded and changed the subject, "How long have you two been back?"
"Not long, just over a year," Hatsumi said, "Apparently, the Infinite World is not bound by the laws of time. That makes it possible for players return to any point in their respective timelines."
Caleb nodded, "And what are you doing now?"
"Staying home with my son. Those who return from Infinite World don't lack money. Extra points get converted to cash; one point is ten thousand yuan. I saved up a lot back then, enough for my family to live on luxuriously for three generations."
Caleb turned to Terrence.
"I'm still a college student!" Terrence grinned, "Pretty sweet, right?"
Caleb agreed with chuckle.
Over dinner, they shared stories about life after Infinite World and some interesting Instances they'd encountered back when they were players.
From their stories, Caleb learned that Terrence was from Shandong and currently attending university there. He'd seen Caleb on the news and driven overnight to find him.
Hatsumi was a Shanghai local.
After the meal, Caleb and Terrence followed Hatsumi home and met her adorable son.
Her son, a quiet bright-eyed toddler playing with blocks, looked up when they entered.
"Say hi to your big brothers!" Hatsumi said, pointing at the two of them.
The boy blinked his big dark eyes and lisped, "Bw... Bwada!"
Caleb dug into his pocket, then pulled an empty (spare) Poké Ball from his inventory. He crouched down and handed it to the boy, "Here, this is for you."
The child didn't take it immediately. He looked back at his mom. After seeing her nod, he accepted it and said, "Thank you, Bwada!"
Caleb ruffled his hair.
'Maybe this kid will grow to love Pokémon too,' he thought, 'Maybe he'll dream of traveling with them in that world… like I did.'