Pokemon: Reborn Rich Alternate Earth

Chapter 371: Something Huge

It took Julian over an hour of riding on Dragonite to fully survey the entire swamp. He had paid extra attention to the central area, making sure to check every possible clue.

And the result? Nothing.

“This is some serious 'bullshit'... there's not even a single red dot.”

Julian frowned as he looked at the Dowsing Machine. He had kept it on the whole time while scouting the swamp, expecting it to pick up at least something, but from start to finish, not a single red dot had appeared.

At first, he thought maybe the swamp just had very few treasures, so the lack of a red dot wasn’t too unusual.

But after covering the entire area and still finding nothing? That didn’t make sense.

Even if the swamp wasn’t particularly rich in treasure, it was impossible for there to be absolutely nothing—especially not in a place this huge.

A swamp of this size 'had' to contain at least some fragments of the Toxic Orb, yet the Dowsing Machine refused to show anything.

Thinking that the Dowsing Machine might be broken, Julian even pulled out Heavy Water from his system’s storage as a test. The moment he did, the Dowsing Machine instantly lit up with a red dot.

So, yeah. It wasn’t broken, which meant this swamp, roughly the size of a mid-sized city, was truly devoid of any treasure.

No treasures, an eerie atmosphere, Celebi’s earlier warnings... Anyone with half a brain could tell something was off.

Julian’s curiosity was fully piqued. He 'had' to figure out what was going on here, but he had no idea where to even start.

So he turned to Celebi. "You’ve been looking at this swamp just as long as I have. Did you notice anything unusual?"

For once, Celebi actually looked serious, its eyes locked onto the swamp below.

As a guardian of the forest, and nature's spirit, Celebi should be able to sense what made this place so... unnatural.

But after a moment, Celebi shook its head. "I don’t know, this place just... feels bad. But not the kind of bad that makes me want to escape."

Julian sighed: "Wow, what a deep and insightful analysis."

So much for hoping Celebi would be useful, this thing had definitely been eating too much fried chicken—its brain was probably clogged with oil.

"Dragonite, hit it with a Dragon Pulse," Julian said.

With a roar, Dragonite fired a Dragon Pulse straight into the swamp below, Julian’s eyes locked onto the impact zone.

BOOM!

The pulse slammed into the swamp, causing a deep crater to form, the crater was over a hundred meters deep, and yet, he still couldn’t see the bottom.

As Dragon Pulse’s energy dissipated, the swamp’s black-purple sludge surged back in, quickly filling the gap and restoring the surface to how it was before.

"...It’s 'that' deep?"

Julian was genuinely surprised, he hadn’t expected the swamp to be this bottomless.

"Let’s try another spot," Julian said.

Perhaps it was just this spot that was unusually deep, the rest of the swamp might be shallower.

After testing ten different locations, not a single Dragon Pulse managed to reach the bottom, which overturned Julian's previous hypothesis.

"Meta~"

Metagross: "I can go down and take a look."

With its Steel typing, Metagross wasn’t afraid of the swamp’s toxic fumes, it could dive in without much risk.

But Julian shook his head: “Forget it.”

This swamp was just too weird, he wasn’t about to send one of his Pokémon in without understanding the situation first.

Sure, Metagross was strong—its power was enough to rival a peak Elite Pokémon, but against something unknown and potentially dangerous? Strength alone wasn’t enough to guarantee safety.

Having confidence in yourself and your Pokémon was good, but blind confidence was a different story. That kind of thinking could get both killed.

“Let’s return to the swamp’s edge.”

It didn’t take long for Julian to arrive back at his starting point.

“It got bigger again.”

Looking down, he noticed that there used to be a three-meter-tall rock right below him, but now it was gone, replaced by the swamp.

Julian put on a gas mask and suited up in protective gear before landing at the edge of the swamp.

A thick layer of purple toxic mist floated above the swamp’s surface, roughly seven to eight meters thick. The closer you got to the swamp, the darker and denser the mist became.

At the edges, the poison fog had spread outward by over ten meters, Julian carefully made his way through the mist until he reached the bubbling swamp.

Then, still wearing his protective suit, he reached in.

One… two… three seconds.

Julian immediately pulled his hand out, the glove of his protective suit had already started corroding.

At this rate, if he had left his hand in for a full minute, the entire suit would have melted away.

“Damn, that’s too toxic.”

Even through his gas mask, it wasn't hard to hear his surprise.

Most of the swamps were toxic, but there were still a lot of Poison-type Pokémon living…

Wait Pokémon.

Julian’s eyes suddenly widened, a swamp this massive, and yet… not a single Poison-type Pokémon?

Poison-types thrived in swamps, Pokémon like Grimer, Muk, Weezing, Swalot—they loved places like this.

But not only were they absent here, there wasn't even a single Poison type Pokémon present.

That was beyond strange.

At this moment, a puff of black smoke suddenly rose from under his feet. Looking down, it turned out that the swamp had crept up to his boots, and the black smoke was coming from his protective gear being corroded.

Without hesitation, Julian leaped back immediately, the protective gear wouldn’t last much longer.

Once he left the range of the toxic mist, he swiftly removed his protective suit and gas mask.

Celebi flew over to him.

Celebi: "Did you find anything?"

Julian: “Something huge.”

Celebi's eyes lit up, the feeling of unraveling mysteries was way more exciting than treasure hunting.

Celebi: "What is it?"

Julian paused for a moment before saying, "I found out that there's no Poison type Pokémon in such a huge swamp, which is absolutely abnormal."

Julian swore he was being serious—he wasn’t just messing with Celebi.

Celebi: "You think I’m blind? I noticed that during the inspection."

Such an obvious thing, was it so difficult to notice? Really treating it like a fool.

Julian showed an embarrassed expression. When he was inspecting, he was only thinking about the weirdness of this swamp, and he really didn't notice that there were no Pokémon below.

Unexpectedly, this little green pig had caught it before him.

Celebi circled around him, then suddenly asked: "Wait… don’t tell me you didn’t notice this at first?"

Julian kept his face completely neutral: “What do you think?”

'Stay calm. Stay calm.'

If Celebi found out, he’d never hear the end of it.

Luckily, Celebi couldn’t see through his expression. So, after staring at him for a while, it gave up.

If it was Lucario, he would have immediately noticed that Julian's Aura was a mess, and if Celebi had kept pressing him, there was no way he would’ve kept a straight face for long.

Julian: 'Phew… dodged that one.'

*****

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