"ROAR—"
A cry filled with pain and fury echoed endlessly through the underground.
"Smack!"
At the same time, faint whipping sounds accompanied the roar.
"So I picked the wrong direction again, huh."
Silas sighed helplessly as he looked at the wild Onix in front of him, which had been beaten into complete submission by Serperior.
Encountering Onix underground was far too normal, but it also meant that this area was not within Lampent's range of activity.
After all, very few Pokémon were willing to live next to something that was gloomy all day long and constantly trying to absorb their souls to strengthen itself.
Getting killed by your neighbor while asleep—just thinking about it was terrifying.
The massive rocky body collapsed weakly onto the ground, kicking up a cloud of dust.
As a quasi-Elite–level Grass-type Pokémon, Serperior was practically invincible against wild Rock-type Pokémon like this.
"Good work. Come back and rest."
Silas took out a Luxury Ball as usual and recalled Serperior.
The little princess was extremely resistant to underground caves. If it weren't for battling, she had no desire to stay outside at all.
"Let's go."
Silas signaled his partners and turned to head in another direction.
Battle after battle, nonstop.
The variety and number of Pokémon living in the underground caves had clearly exceeded Silas's initial expectations.
Geodude, Graveler, Onix, Zubat, Golbat, Rattata, Spinarak, Snubbull…
The underground cave seemed to have perfectly constructed an ecosystem no different from that of the surface world.
However, perhaps because they had gone without sunlight for years, every single one of these Pokémon chose to attack Silas the moment he entered their territory.
Their tempers were far worse than those of their surface-dwelling counterparts.
Of course, Pokémon that were mostly only at the normal level were no more than half a move's worth of effort for Silas's partners. Sometimes they even had to hold back, afraid of actually killing them.
"No need to bother with it. Let's go."
Meeting Blaziken's questioning gaze once again, Silas shook his head and ignored the Pokémon hiding in the darkness, turning around and leaving directly.
"Wobbuffet~"
Behind him, a blue Pokémon hidden in the shadows let out a relieved cry as Silas and his group disappeared.
It was Wobbuffet.
For Wobbuffet—who disliked bright light and needed to hide its black tail, the underground caves were a perfect living environment.
Although it lacked any proactive attacking ability, Wobbuffet had still carved out a place to survive in this region thanks to its hedgehog-like defensive capabilities.
"Something's not right…"
Silas frowned as he continued walking forward over the dirt-covered ground.
More than an hour had already passed since he discovered the first unfortunate victim devoured by Lampent. He had expanded his search area significantly, yet still hadn't found any trace of it.
"Gigalith!"
At that moment, Gigalith spoke up.
It had detected residual fluctuations that seemed to indicate a battle between the target and a Trainer.
Silas's expression brightened.
"Lead the way."
If Blaziken's aura sensing surpassed Gigalith in precision, then Gigalith's perception range—granted by its unique abilities, far exceeded Blaziken's aura detection at its current stage.
With its heightened sensitivity to both sound and stone, the underground caves were essentially a natural home field for Gigalith.
Under Gigalith's guidance, Silas moved rapidly through the underground tunnels.
"Lamp—"
The Lampent, which resembled a medieval oil lamp from Silas's previous life, let out a delighted cry.
A ring of white mist swirled around it.
Upon closer inspection, the mist formed twisted silhouettes of human heads and Pokémon interwoven together, creating a horrifying sight.
Gradually, the white mist was little by little "squeezed" into the flame within Lampent's body.
"BOOM—!"
Just as Lampent was indulging in this extreme pleasure, a deafening roar interrupted it.
A section of the cave wall shattered outright, shards of stone blasting outward through the dust.
"Gigalith, Rock Slide."
Accompanied by a human command, massive boulders shot forward at even greater speed, wrapped in earthen-yellow energy.
"Lamp!"
Lampent reacted instantly, decisively halting its absorption of life energy and attempting to evade.
But it was still just a bit too slow.
Though it dodged the first boulder, the second and third struck it head-on without any suspense.
The flame inside Lampent's body trembled violently, flickering between bright and dim.
This indicated that it was in extremely poor condition.
As a Fire-type Pokémon, Lampent's resistance to Rock-type moves was mediocre at best. Combined with the gap in strength, suffering severe damage from a single attack was completely expected.
As the dust settled, a massive hole in the cave wall was revealed, and Silas's figure emerged from within it.
Looking at the familiar blackened remains not far away, he knew he had still arrived too late.
"Looks like it ate too much and couldn't digest it quickly, otherwise I wouldn't have found it."
Watching the slowly dissipating life energy, Silas silently mourned the unknown Trainer who had died, then came to his conclusion.
If that weren't the case, Lampent would have already finished reinforcing its flames with the absorbed life energy and escaped long ago.
After all, for an Advance-level Lampent, fully absorbing the life energy of a normal human plus their Pokémon would take at least seven or eight days.
Only a few hours had passed since this Lampent's last kill. Being too full to digest quickly was only natural.
"Trying to run? Dream on."
Seeing Lampent's body fade as it attempted to flee after being attacked, Silas sneered.
"Ampharos, Odor Sleuth, then Thunder Wave."
"Ampha!"
Ampharos, acting as the group's lighting Pokémon, cried out and sniffed the air continuously.
An invisible wave of energy spread outward. The Lampent that was on the verge of becoming transparent was forcibly condensed back into physical form in an instant.
"Lampent"
Lampent let out a panicked, helpless cry.
During all its years living underground, it had never encountered a situation like this.
Although it couldn't hide its form as easily as a Pokémon like Gastly, Lampent, being one of the stronger Ghost-type Pokémon, still possessed fairly impressive concealment abilities.
Unfortunately, those tricks were completely inadequate in front of an Ampharos that had inherited the move Odor Sleuth.
Especially while it was already severely injured.
Before Lampent could even react, yellow electrical arcs crackled and wrapped tightly around its body.
…Huh? It doesn't hurt?
For an instant, Lampent thought it hadn't taken any damage.
But in the very next moment, the feedback from its body told it otherwise.
It suddenly realized it couldn't move at all.
"Gigalith, finish it with Stone Edge."
Silas's slightly cold voice echoed through the confined cave.
Within Lampent's agonized perception, razor-sharp stone pillars pierced straight through its body.
"Crack."
The sound of glass shattering rang out.
The Lampent that had just devoured a human and several Pokémon dispersed completely, vanishing between heaven and earth.
Only faint blue-purple flames floating in the air served as its final proof of existence.
Silas would naturally never kill ordinary Pokémon without reason, there was simply no need.
But this Lampent did not fall into that category.
The fact that it had actively killed two people in succession fully demonstrated its brutal nature.
It never had to do this.
After Silas rescued the people and left, it could have continued waiting for prey just as it had before.
If it had merely absorbed the souls of humans who died naturally, Silas would not have wanted to kill it.
Many of its kind living in cities did exactly that in hospital morgues.
But once it chose to attack proactively, the nature of the matter changed entirely.
After killing the first and second victims, there would inevitably be a third, a fourth, and countless more. If this Lampent were allowed to continue, there was no telling what it would eventually do.
The Pokémon League also acknowledged that different measures were justified when dealing with Pokémon like this.
Under Silas's gaze, the life energy left behind by Lampent completely dissipated.
In the next instant, a white glow appeared at the spot where it had just been.
"…This is."
Silas narrowed his eyes. It seemed his luck wasn't bad after all.
"Clatter."
An object fell to the ground.
Silas stepped forward and picked it up.
It was a black, sunglasses-like item.
"I didn't expect this Lampent to actually be carrying Black Glasses."
He was quite satisfied with this unexpected gain.
There were two ways Pokémon items could drop, either the Pokémon willingly handed them over, or they appeared passively after death.
There was no need to think about it. The Black Glasses produced by this Lampent clearly belonged to the latter case.
You didn't need to have seen it yourself—this exact situation was clearly documented in the textbooks.
According to Zero's analysis, these Black Glasses boosted the power of Dark-type moves by 9%.
A pity, but better than nothing.
"Sorry… I arrived too late."
After tossing the Black Glasses into his spatial backpack, Silas bowed silently toward the pile of remains.
This was probably every Trainer's final destination, he thought for no particular reason.
He couldn't help but wonder, if he were to lose his life during an expedition someday, who would mourn for him?
For a brief moment, Silas was lost in thought.
"Blaziken."
Blaziken patted his shoulder with a claw.
"I'm fine."
Silas came back to his senses and smiled at it.
What was he thinking? He wasn't going to die that easily.
He still hadn't become a Pokémon Master and left his name behind in this world.
"Let's go. From here on, we don't need to rush quite so much while searching for the remaining three people."
After carefully collecting the ashes and fragments of items like the wristwatch, Silas slapped his cheeks lightly and continued his mission.
"So that's how it is… I wasn't the only one who got lost. There were four others too."
Inside another cave, Silas prepared to evade the incoming flood together with the first survivor he had found.
"Yes. But aside from you, only two are likely still alive."
Silas replied casually while searching from memory for a "safe point" along their original route.
"So… maybe only two left…"
The unshaven, middle-aged man forced a bitter smile.
In other words, there was also a chance that he alone might be the sole survivor.
From Silas, he had already learned that two others had clearly died at Lampent's hands. All he could say was that his own luck hadn't been too bad.
"This is it."
Silas paid no attention to the man's emotional turmoil. After confirming the elevated terrain of the safe point, he dropped down heavily onto the ground, exhausted.
The energy he had spent searching for the missing people had been immense.
"Here, have some."
The man, who had been trapped for a long time, took out food and water from his spatial backpack.
...
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