It's just a mention, but there's a Kitakami reference/spoiler, so don't read it if you didn't finish the Teal Mask.
Recently I'm using chatGPT to correct my grammer, but there still can be errors!
One semester of the Treasure Hunt was over, and now it was the week before vacation. The teachers at the academy decided to send students on a field trip to those who wanted to apply, as a reward for their hard work during the semester. The theme of this school trip is camping! The concept was to heal the mind and body by gazing at the starlight in the night sky in a large field.
"Tent!"
"Check!"
"Sleeping bag!"
"Check!"
"Curry powder!"
"Curry powder...?"
"We have to eat curry at camping trips, you know." Ah, Penny was so Galarian.
"I've never been on a camping trip..." And of course, Arven had never been.
Anyway, after many twists and turns, the students packed all their supplies and gathered at the camping site. Thanks to the teachers who encouraged close friends to engage in activities together, Juliana and her three friends even got to prepare dinner together.
"Arven, you usually cook for us a lot, so don't get a drop of water on your hands today!" Nemona shouted, excited.
"That's right! I'll show you the Galarian spirit!" Penny was enthusiastic.
"Galarian...? I'm scared..." Arven didn't seem thrilled, not at all.
However, contrary to Arven's worries, the weird curry-like dish that looked like it had berries thrown in unsophisticatedly was surprisingly delicious.
"No, this is... It's not that I don't trust you... But why is this delicious? I can't believe it..." Arven said, munching on his curry. Beside him, Mabosstiff had been licking the curry warily, but now he was sticking his face to the dish and wolfing it down.
"That's because we put LOVE and DEVOTION into it at the right timing!"
"What does that even mean..."
After eating dinner and doing the dishes, it was already getting dark.
"Wow! It looks like the stars are really falling! So pretty..." Juliana admired the stars.
"It'll be romantic to battle under the beautiful sky like this!" That was typical Nemona.
"Then, if the campsite is destroyed, the teachers will be upset..." Juliana was sensible.
"Too bad..." Nemona looked up at the stars again, wistfully this time.
"Hey! Isn't that the constellation Cassiopeia?" Juliana recognized the constellation and said, looking at Penny. "You know, that was your—"
Penny blushed. "Ahh! Don't you dare say anything! I want you to forget that dark past now..."
While they were chatting and watching the stars for a while, they heard Jacq's voice. "Everyone~ It's time to go inside the tent and sleep~ If you get caught talking loudly or wandering around after the last roll call, you're on duty for breakfast~"
Arven, who participated in group activities together but unfortunately had to share the tent alone due to being of different genders, winked at the his friends. "See you then... like we planned."
"Careful, don't get caught!"
Arven headed to his tent, holding tightly to Seviper's Poke ball, which he had borrowed from Juliana.
Time passed quickly, and it became the 'time for action.' Arven slightly unzipped the tent and looked for any security personnel. All clear. There was no one in front of him. He crept out of the tent and summoned Seviper. Perhaps because it was a Dusk Ball, all the light coming out when the Pokemon emerged was also blocked.
"Haze."
Haze surrounded him. Perfect. It was quite a distance to the girls' tent. Although Haze blocked other people's vision, he was not allowed to make a sound. Even if he couldn't see the security personnel right now, there would definitely be some personnel left in the central department to prepare for students like him. He moved stealthily, imitating Seviper's movements of crawling on the floor.
-Crisp!
"Hpp!" Arven covered his mouth in surprise. He hadn't seen the dry tree branch and stepped on it.
"Who's there!" The teacher he saw for the first time, while standing guard, turned in the direction of the sound. Arven was frozen in place and could do nothing, but at that moment Seviper stuck his head out of Haze's shield.
"Huh. That was just a wild Seviper," the teacher remarked, no longer interested. If it had been Jacq instead of him, he would have immediately realized that Seviper does not live here and would have attacked him. Fortunately, Jacq had returned to his tent early for some reason. After that, without accidentally stepping on or brushing against anything, Arven safely joined his friends.
"You came earlier than expected?" Juliana welcomed him.
"You're also good at the stealth action genre..." Penny smirked.
"So shall we get started? Hey Rotom, a faint flash and a spooky BGM please." Juliana's Rotom Phone started playing something. It was the perfect atmosphere for a ghost story.
"The best part of field trips is telling scary stories secretly at night!"
"Who will tell first?"
"Nemona? I'm most curious about Nemona's scary story. She doesn't seem to be afraid of anything in the world."
The three of them focused their attention on Nemona at the same time. Nemona laughed and scratched her head. "Like you said, I didn't have a particularly scary experience... Ah! There is one, though. I told my sister this, and she screamed..."
"That sounds great! I don't have a clue what that is about..."
"Hmm! Then let me begin. I once heard a rumor that there was an abandoned house with a very powerful Ghost Pokemon residing in it, so I went there in person because I wanted to fight that Pokemon."
Nemona was interrupted by startled Penny. "Wait," she said. "If I were your sister, I would have screamed right away, smacking you on your back."
"She didn't! Let me finish. Anyway, I went into that abandoned house. There was no one inside, no people, no Pokemon, and it was deserted. Well, it's a neglected house, so it's natural, right? But I thought there would be at least one person like me who came after hearing the rumor. I was feeling a bit disappointed and looking around to see where the ghost was, when I met a person in a room! He showed up without any sign so I didn't even know he was there. I said 'Hello! Have you also come to meet the rumored Ghost Pokemon?' He didn't answer. His face was pale, like a dying person, and his eyes were unfocused. I wondered if he was like that because he was exhausted from staying up all night looking for that Pokemon for several days. I decided to bet that a Pokemon battle would help him regain some of his energy. But this person still didn't respond. I thought he might be deaf, so I gently placed my hand on his shoulder..."
"And...?"
"And then my hand passed straight through his body!" Nemona announced happily.
"Eeeeek!"
"AAAAARRRRGGGGGHHH!"
"Arven, quiet. What if someone hears?"
"He was a ghost!" Nemona finished her story, laughing. "It was really disappointing. Ghosts can't grab Poke balls because they pass through objects... In the end, I couldn't see any Ghost Pokemon and only saw a Ghost Human!"
"I'm now more scared of you..."
The eerie background music that had been atmospheric before now started to become really scary.
"Next, Juliana's turn!"
"Uh... all right." Juliana cleared her throat and began her story. "You know I went to Kitakami a while ago, right? This is what happened there."
"Now that I think about it, I've never heard anything about that."
"Sorry, I was busy..." Juliana said apologetically. "Anyway, there was a festival there, and I saw a strange kid. At first I thought she was an ordinary child because her face was covered with an ogre mask. Oh, it was the Festival of Masks. But when I looked closely, the legs looked a bit strange... to be human. And it was even more spooky because I heard the legend of a scary Ogre living in the mountains a moment ago from a friend who lived in that village. This masked kid stayed still when I approached, but ran away when another friend of mine approached! The kid did an artistic back tumble and ran away, but the impact of the landing knocked the mask off her face. And it was that face... that face...!"
"What about her face? Oh, don't tell me... that she didn't have a face at all...?"
"AAARRRRRGGHHHHH!"
"Arven, I didn't think you were such a wimp!" Juliana laughed out loud. "Anyway, her face... was extremely CUTE!"
"?"
"?"
"?"
"Sorry, I told you this just to get your attention." (*) Juliana then showed them Ogerpon's photo saved in her album.
"Hey! She's so cute!"
"Oh, no way... were you hiding it away just to talk about it today? It's really dedicated... In a way, I respect it..."
"Hehe... Anyway, I'm done! Arven's cowardly reaction is so funny, so Penny next!"
"I'm not a coward!"
Everyone's attention was on Penny now.
"Uh... It's not ghost stories or a creepypasta... I'll tell you about an experience that was scary in a different sense. I have a few secret SNS accounts that I use for fangirling. Among those secret accounts, there are many that I haven't even told you about. But one day..." Penny flinched as if the memory itself was very creepy. "Someone sent a DM to one of those secret accounts... and the first word was... ugh..."
"What first word that's making you so jumpy?"
Penny closed her eyes. "It was... Hello, Miss Penny? It's me, Geeta."
"Argh!" This time, it was Juliana who screamed, not Arven.
"I contacted you simply to see if I could push the security update schedule, which was scheduled for the end of the month, to midnight today. You can do it, right?"
"My gosh, that La Primera..."
"This is indeed so scary in another way..."
Penny shuddered. "How on earth did La Primera know about this account... and what was that crazy schedule... it was really scary. I deleted that account that very day." She still got goosebumps all over her body when she thought about that time.
"So, now it's Arven's turn!"
Arven nodded. "Um... It was that time, uh... I was alone with Maschiff in the lighthouse lab, waiting for my mom. I was young at that time, it was raining outside and there was thunder and lightning, so I was scared and turned on all the lights and monitors in the house. Then suddenly..."
"Suddenly?"
"There was a power outage with a loud thunderclap! and..."
And suddenly, as if reacting to Arven's story, the Rotom Phone's screen and the background music that was playing turned off.
"Hey, this Rotom certainly knows how to deepen the mood!" Nemona laughed happily.
"Hold on, it's a bit scary. Turn it on again, quick." Arven looked scared.
Rotom remained silent. Instead, it came out of the phone as if it was being pushed out, and shook its head.
"I guess that means it can't go back in. Did something go wrong? Maybe an error?" Penny suggested quietly. "But then again... Isn't it strange that all four of us have the same error?"
As Penny said, all four Rotom Phones had their Rotoms disconnected and would not turn on. While the children were unable to do anything, an incredibly loud scream was heard from the tent next to them. and...
-Eeeeeheeeeeeeheeeee
-Huuuuhhhuuuuu
-Gimme back my leg... gimme back my leg...
"AAAAAARRRRGGGGGHHHHHH!"
"EEEEEEEEEEKKKKKK!"
"...hiccup."
"Someone must have lost a leg!"
"Does that matter to you?!"
The whispers of the ghost persisted. They attempted to ignore it and continue talking, but they were too nervous to do so. They decided to just unzip the tent and see what was going on outside.
The moment they opened the zipper, they were confronted with a pair of red eyes.
-Found you.
"AAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHH!"
If they had been a little more level-headed, they might have realized that the voice wasn't actually coming from a ghost's thoughts, but was instead a recorded voice. Unfortunately, the children, who had been enjoying their late-night entertainment at the expense of sleep, were too overwhelmed to make such a realization. They fainted on the spot. The ghost's red eyes glowed... as it gently placed the children into their warm sleeping bags and slowly vanished into the next tent.
When Arven woke up and realized he had fallen asleep in the girls' tent, he almost screamed again.
'No, it's early, so the teachers are probably all asleep. This is my chance,' he thought.
Arven emerged from the tent, being careful not to wake his friends. The early morning air was refreshing. Unfortunately, the sun was already up, so he could no longer conceal himself with Haze. He walked quietly without receiving help from Seviper. Then, a shadow fell in front of him.
"Mr. Arven? Congratulations~ You are the winner of breakfast duty~" It was Jacq.
"Sigh..."
Where did he get that strength? Arven suddenly started running. But Jacq was riding Cyclizar at some point, and he ended up getting caught.
"I want to try your famous sandwich~ Stop resisting and follow me~"
"Yes, sir..."
Over breakfast of sandwiches made with Arven's sweat and tears (actually, the teachers gave some help too), Jacq gave them the lowdown on last night's events.
"The teachers all knew that you would stay up late and not listen~ So we secretly finished talking with your Rotoms in advance. At the appointed time, they will use up all the electricity in the smartphone and escape! Of course, the ghost's cries were played from the speakers. Ms. Raifort's Gengar did a great job in forcing you to sleep. It was fun, right?"
Only then did the students think, just a little more... to listen to Jacq carefully.
The End.
(*) Korean meme, '미안하다 이거 보여주려고 어그로 끌었다'. If you're interested, please Google it!
AN
I omitted it for the sake of flow, but for those who are curious, here is the full version of Arven's scary story.
"Um... It was that time, uh... I was alone with Maschiff in the lighthouse lab, waiting for my mom. I was young at that time, it was raining outside and there was thunder and lightning, so I was scared and turned on all the lights and monitors in the house. Then suddenly..."
"There was a power outage with a loud thunderclap! And then someone started knocking on the door! At that moment, my mind went blank... I was so scared that I hid under the blanket with Maschiff, trembling. But they kept knocking on the door! Without saying anything! I continued hiding and shaking... But I still got a little curious... I finally mustered the courage to unlock the door and open it slightly. But as soon as I did, the person outside pushed the door open and came in! I screamed and ran away without looking back. Then, a familiar voice called from behind, 'Arven...'. I looked back and saw my mother... with rainwater dripping all over her body... 'I left my keys elsewhere... and suddenly it started raining... the communication network stopped... and my voice was drowned out by the sound of the rain...'"
"It's not actually a scary story, but I was so scared back then."