Pokémon Detective Case Files.

Jero snorted in displeasure at the sage's unauthorized decision to demote him, but the best opportunity to pursue had been missed, and the matter had to be abandoned.

Under the cover of night, Vio calculated the melting time of the ice wall and figured it should melt before anyone noticed. He then recalled the geometric snowflake into its Poké Ball and casually remarked to his colleague—

"Popularity remains very important for the religious community at this stage. If we still aspire to the sky, there is no need to futilely clip our wings."

"Surely you, a sage who was least concerned about the elven liberation movement, shouldn't be saying this."

The Yellow-Robed Sage also retrieved the exploding Magneton, giving it a disgruntled glare.

"Speaking of which, the mess you made this time has actually given us a sigh of relief. Since that incident at the casino, no one in headquarters has been able to cut our budget. The sage Rhodes, who is now in charge of the purse strings, is different from you. He has a more lenient attitude towards the King's ideals. Even now, with the Order's funds tight, the funds used to liberate Pokémon have not decreased but increased."

The sage Vio retorted sharply: "Being choked by mere money is a sign of your immaturity as supporters of the king. Such things only require creating a stir to achieve the goal; doing more afterward is utterly pointless."

"You are the immature one. A great kingdom cannot be built on a mere illusion. Only when our king personally leads a real revolution can he truly usher in an era for heroes and sages like us."

Gerald opened his arms, looking at Vio with pity and anger at his lack of ambition—

"The thought of how many oppressed Pokémons can be freed, how many stray Pokémons can be helped to return to their habitats, and how many vicious human sadists can be severely punished makes me feel a trembling sense of satisfaction."

The mathematician shook his head repeatedly as if he were looking at something disgusting: "To be honest, Gerald, I sometimes really get confused. As a sage, you know all the things the Order has done, yet you can still say those things without any shame?"

"I should be the one who's confused."

Jero calmly raised his mustache, revealing a shameless smile in the darkness.

"As a sage who has served the king for so many years, do you really believe that the Plasma Group, which we have devoted half our lives to creating, is merely a criminal organization that exists solely to satisfy sinful desires?"

.

Rena was so out of breath from running.

At first, she could run a little faster than the doll, but now, after who knows how much time has passed, the doll is almost pulling her along.

"Huff...huff...I can't go on anymore, I really can't run anymore, let me rest for a bit!"

Out of breath, Rena grabbed her partner, whose swaying speed showed no signs of slowing down, put the bag of tree fruits on the ground, and leaned against a tree trunk to catch her breath.

Wait... a tree trunk?

Looking up and around, all I saw were more dark trees, appearing gloomy and eerie in the night. The ground beneath my feet was no longer the stone bricks of Kagome Town, but loose soil and grass.

"Weren't we just in the city? How did we suddenly end up in the forest?"

Having lived in a metropolis like Hiyon City for a long time, Rena never imagined that Kagome Town's urban area was so small. In her opinion, the idea of ​​running away from the city while running was simply an absurd fantasy.

Seeing that the trainer was in a state of confusion, aimlessly wandering around in the forest at night, the Polito released a pink "Healing Pulse" at Rena.

Amidst the gently rippling supernatural energy, the nurturer finally calmed her breathing—

"Sigh, whatever, it seems there are some advantages to running this far. At least those bad guys who attack without warning didn't catch up, and we didn't lose the fruit we bought. Don't you think so, kid?"

However, her partner did not answer. Instead, he turned his back to Rena and silently looked into the depths of the forest.

"Huh? What's wrong? Did you see something again using the light from the 'healing wave' just now?"

The trainer tugged at his partner's fluffy tail and asked nervously in a low voice.

Almost-Doll has excellent hearing, so generally speaking, even the most skilled stealth Pokémon cannot sneak up near it undetected.

But when faced with that thing deep in the forest, the doll could barely spot it with the help of a light source... What exactly was it?

"Tabu...Nai..."

Just as Ms. Rena was puzzled, the medical Pokémon beside her let out an unusually sad cry, and actually abandoned its trainer and moved towards the direction where the anomaly had been discovered.

"Hey, almost there, wait for me!"

Rena struggled to carry the bag of preserved fruit by herself and followed her partner into the deep forest.

She hadn't walked more than a few steps when she sensed from afar that the air around her seemed a little off.

It's neither the smell of dust and steel in the city, nor the smell of grass and leaves in nature, and it's subtly different from the stench of rotting garbage...

Rena gritted her teeth, hoisted the bag of tree fruit onto her shoulder, and used one hand to take out her phone and turn on the flashlight function.

The flashlight beam pierced through his partner's shadow and into the forest beyond the leaves, the artificial light, countless times brighter than moonlight, instantly illuminating the area in front of them—

In the distance, what unfolded before her and the almost-doll-like figure was a living hell.

Horrible corpses, gruesome corpses, piled-up corpses, clearly murdered corpses, grotesque expressions, blank expressions, desperate expressions, expressions covered in wounds, festering wounds, cruel wounds, blackened, bleeding wounds, wounds beyond healing. Killed Bug-type Pokémon, killed Grass-type Pokémon, killed Flying-type Pokémon, killed Normal-type Pokémon, even Poison-type Pokémon were killed. Cuckoo, Dratini, Little Brother, Heartbat, Cherry, Sunseed, Metapod, Beedrill, Rosaline, twisted, cruel, insane, bloody, perverted, evil. How could this be? How could this be? Killed, killed, killed... all killed...

Snapped.

The plastic bag filled with precious tree fruits fell limply to the ground, making a deafening sound in Rena's ears.

As if startled by the sound, a shadow slowly rose from the distant mountains of corpses and seas of blood.

Overwhelmed by this visually shocking experience that defied common sense, Rena could barely control her movements. She tried to turn off her phone's flashlight, but her hand instinctively shone the light towards the still-moving creature.

The creature was undoubtedly human, seemingly a strange man wearing a baseball cap, covered in blood, and clutching the corpse of a dead Pokémon in his hand...

That would undoubtedly be the perpetrator.

"It's...a serial killer!"

As if awakened by her own scream, Rena finally made her decision—

With unprecedented speed, she pulled a Poké Ball, almost the size of a doll, from her pocket and forcibly retracted it back into the Poké Ball. Then, ignoring the berries on the ground, she urged her legs, which were already incredibly sore from running, to tumble and crawl away in the opposite direction from the mountain of corpses and sea of ​​blood.

Chapter 323 Deadly Poison - An Unsolvable Equation

When Rena opened her eyes again, the hellish, terrifying night had completely passed, and the dazzling sunlight almost made her dizzy.

Has the murderer caught up? Have I been captured by Group Plasma? Am I asleep? Were the things I saw last night just nightmares? Is this Kagome Town? Where is the Doll? Is there still a chance to retrieve the lost berries?

Struggling to calm his confused mind, the berry grower gradually adjusted to the dazzling sunlight and finally saw things clearly before him—

Under a clear sky, there was a stylish, unfamiliar woman.

A black turtleneck vest paired with red and black openwork trousers looks exceptionally chic in this early spring season.

Although the other person had crossed their arms and appeared quiet, wearing red glasses and with their long pink hair braided into two pigtails... compared to their intellectual, bookish air, the bright colors of their clothes and their unrestrained, scrutinizing gaze gave Rena a fiery sense of crisis.

"Oh, you're awake?"

The fashionable woman noticed Rena opening her eyes, walked up to her, squatted down, and made eye contact with her.

The breeder then noticed that she was leaning against a tree trunk with hard bark, with mud and weeds beneath her—she was indeed still in that forest.

The fatigue from yesterday's long run still lingers, but I don't have any painful wounds from the fall I sustained after fainting... However, we can't rule out the possibility that Almost Doll later released another "healing wave" on herself.

She nervously looked away and glanced around, only to see her Pokémon partner, who had been put into the Poké Ball, watching over her with concern.

The pink-haired woman then initiated the conversation—

"When I entered this forest this morning, I found you lying unconscious here. I felt I couldn't leave a girl like you in such a place, so I kept watch over you for a while. Luckily, you woke up not long after, otherwise I don't know how much longer it would have taken."

Seeing Rena open her eyes, the woman in front of her smiled, seemingly relieved.

Her voice was very pleasant to listen to, both generous and fluent, so clear and accurate that it was almost without any accent... just like a news anchor on TV.

No, now is not the time to let my mind wander to such things!

Reina, regaining her senses, was suddenly startled—

Since I woke up in the forest, it means that the villains and corpses I saw last night were not dreams—but real reality.

Doesn't this mean that right now, deep in this forest, there is a major crime scene so bloody that if it were exposed, it would definitely make the headlines on television news?

“Miss, although this may not be the first time we’ve met, this is United States after all, so to avoid any awkwardness, let me introduce myself.”

Ignoring Rena's hesitant expression, the pink-haired woman with red glasses reached out to the breeder and pulled her up from the ground—

"My name is Pachira, and I'm a news anchor from the Carlos region. I recently came to the Unova region to interview a big shot."

"Ah, so you are an announcer... Hello, Ms. Pachira, I am Rena, a berry grower. And this is my partner, Almost Doll."

The breeder looked at Pachira in bewilderment. She longed to tell someone about the things deep in the forest, but didn't know how to begin.

"I really don't recognize her. If Karuni were here, the situation would probably be different..."

The pink-haired woman shook her head and changed the subject—

"It's a doll, isn't it? Although it doesn't seem to be very strong in combat, it seems to be carrying some amazing gadgets."

Miss Pachira looked Rena up and down with a meaningful gaze.

For some reason, my partner seems a bit down today… Rena thinks it's probably because of the corpses we saw in the forest last night. As a healing Pokémon, Almostbean must have been incredibly saddened to see so many Pokémon corpses that couldn't be saved.

Thinking of this, Rena finally mustered up her courage and tentatively spoke to the pink-haired woman in front of her who claimed to be a news anchor—

"Miss Pachira, did you originally intend to enter this forest?"

"Well, I guess I'm just passing through. After all, I have a lot of confidence in the strength of my elves, and when traveling in the wild, I don't deliberately choose the easiest paths. The risk of starting a forest fire seems to be greater than being attacked."

With a casual shrug, Pachira intrigued and countered with a question to Rena—

"You seem quite concerned about what's happening in the forest. Is there a problem there? Speaking of which, why did you faint here, Reina-san?"

"What I'm about to say may sound horrifying, but it's exactly what I saw with my own eyes last night."

The trainer took a deep breath, adjusted his breathing, and said in an unprecedentedly serious tone—

"The reason I collapsed here is because I witnessed a horrific massacre in the forest yesterday. I ran away in a panic and lost consciousness. Believe me, it was no simple case that could be ignored. At least dozens of Pokémon were slaughtered, and their deaths were extremely gruesome. I saw the perpetrator with my own eyes last night, as well as the Pokémon that were killed and abandoned under the trees."

"Oh? That's definitely a case that no journalist can afford to miss."

Miss Pachira said this, but she didn't react much; instead, her face showed obvious suspicion.

“I swear! I really saw that scene with my own eyes, and the doll was almost there with me... and my bag of berries is still there.”

Rena tried to raise her voice, attempting to make her words more persuasive.

She sensed that the woman in front of her had a similar aura to Azure and Douzi, and considering the woman's confidence when talking about her strength, this news anchor was likely also a trainer with considerable skill.

If they could get her to go back to the crime scene with them, even if they ran into that horrible killer again, they would still have a chance to escape once more...

Rena certainly wanted to call the police herself, but right now she didn't even know the exact location of the crime scene, and even if she notified the police, she couldn't describe the specifics of the crime scene. If she dialed the police so recklessly, she figured she'd just be seen as playing a prank…

The pink-haired woman blinked. "Really? But there doesn't seem to be any sign of anything happening on the outskirts of this forest. Could you have been seeing things in the dark? Or were you having a nightmare? And we can't rule out the possibility that it's a hallucination created by a wild Ghost-type Pokémon?"

The news anchor's questioning was flawless, leaving Rena speechless.

Pachira maintained a composed expression, her orange pupils behind her glasses sweeping over the silent doll beside her, before suddenly turning to Reina and saying—

"Fine, since you're so sure, I can take you back to the scene. After all, I was planning to cross this forest anyway, so even if we come up empty-handed, there's nothing to lose."

As she spoke, she took a digital camera out of her waist bag—

"Please lead the way, Ms. Rena. Although photography isn't my forte, I can't be too picky right now. I hope we can really gather enough eye-catching material, just as you say."

"It's eye-catching," Rena thought to herself, but then felt that such a statement might be somewhat disrespectful to the dead Pokémon.

.

Half an hour later.

"No, that's impossible! I definitely saw a huge pile of corpses in this forest before!"

Rena and Pachira set off from the outer perimeter of the forest, heading south towards its center. However, they found no corpses along the way. The entire forest was quiet and peaceful, except for a few spring deer that hurriedly fled upon seeing humans. Nothing unusual happened.

"It seems there haven't been any massacres in this forest that made the news."

Miss Pachira closed the viewfinder of her digital camera and helplessly spread her hands to the guide beside her.

"Please wait a moment, please search the area again. I really saw something terrible here yesterday!"

"I can't believe it," Rena blurted out. However, this was already the umpteenth time she'd said something similar along the way.

“I didn’t give up without a reason. You should have seen the elf I sent out when we set off from the edge of the forest, right?”

The news anchor raised her hand and waved, and a black figure suddenly darted out from the bushes behind her.

“This is my partner, Houndoom. It had already patrolled the entire forest when we set off from the north. Not only that, it also possesses the skill ‘Scent Detection,’ so it can detect anything unusual immediately if there are corpses or the smell of blood nearby. However…”

The canine Pokémon with two devilish curved horns on its head returned to its owner, sat down on the ground without any urgency, and even lazily yawned.

"Houndoom, have you noticed anything unusual in this forest?"

Pachira asked an unnecessary question, while her partner shook his head listlessly.

"Miss Reina, it seems you really did have a terrible nightmare in this forest yesterday. Could you have been attacked by a ghost Pokémon?"

“But… I really saw it with my own eyes…” Even Rena herself began to feel confused.

"Seeing is not necessarily believing, especially in such a dark night. Ms. Rena, there are no traces of blood on you, so there is no substantial evidence other than your statement. After all, it is very strange that someone is killing a large number of Pokémon in the wild."