After hearing Leon’s analysis, June temporarily abandoned her plan to relocate the camp.
If that Ghost-type Pokémon really didn’t kill people, then perhaps having it as a neighbor wasn’t such a bad thing.
Just as the two were deep in conversation, a burst of electronic static suddenly came from June’s radio.
“June, one of the buildings in the Starlake Residences complex across the street is on fire! It’s huge!”
Ray’s panicked voice came through the radio.
Hearing this, June and Leon’s expressions immediately darkened.
June was worried that the fire might spread, as well as about the people who might still be trapped inside the building.
Leon, meanwhile, was concerned because Starlake was where he had been living before.
“Let’s go take a look.” Leon shot to his feet.
June grabbed him by the wrist and hurried out of the room.
By now, the windows overlooking Starlake were already packed with people.
No one dared pull the curtains too far open, so most of them crowded around the narrow gaps, peering through at the blaze across the street.
“Make some room! Everyone, make some room!” June pushed through the crowd until she reached the window.
Leon followed close behind and made his way over as well.
The instant he got a clear look at the burning building, Leon’s pupils contracted sharply.
Overwhelming fear flashed across his face, followed immediately by a rush of relief at having narrowly escaped disaster.
“Thank God I came to the mall. Thank God…”
Leon muttered under his breath.
The building on fire was the very one he had lived in.
The flames had clearly started spreading from around the middle of the building.
That meant anyone above the fifteenth floor had absolutely no chance of surviving.
This was already the apocalypse.
Naturally, there would be no fire department coming to put out the blaze, nor would anyone be coming to rescue them.
As for the people on the fifteenth floor, perhaps they still had a chance of making it out alive, but…
Leon narrowed his eyes and stared intently at the cluster of dark shapes gathered around the building’s exit.
The most conspicuous among them was an exceptionally powerful-looking black hound with bulging muscles along its limbs and a pair of horns.
Houndoom, the Dark Pokémon and the evolved form of Houndour.
Even in this apocalyptic world, Pokémon like these were formidable predators.
They were omnivores, but they preferred meat and normally hunted other Pokémon in packs.
Humans were naturally on their menu as well.
Led by their Houndoom, the pack of Houndour had turned the building’s only safe exit into their own hunting ground.
Leon even suspected that Houndoom might have started the fire itself.
Some residents who heard the commotion no longer cared whether it was dangerous outside.
Desperate to escape the fire, they poured out through the emergency exit almost all at once.
Some carried children in their arms.
Others supported elderly family members.
Some hadn’t even managed to put on both shoes.
Terrified, they fled the building.
Just when they thought they had finally reached temporary safety, they ran straight into the Houndour that had been lying in wait at the exit.
The scene instantly became too horrific to watch.
Survivors nearby who had children hurriedly covered their eyes, their own bodies trembling uncontrollably.
Even June couldn’t bear to keep watching.
She abruptly pulled the curtains shut.
“Those bastards!” Ray ground his teeth.
“Those black dog monsters definitely started that fire!”
The others nodded in agreement, but what most of them felt was fear.
What if those black dog monsters came to the mall at night and set it on fire?
Seeing their fear, June quickly reassured them.
“There’s no need to panic. The mall has several emergency exits, and this should be the territory of those rat monsters. There are so many of them that the black dog monsters probably won’t dare invade the mall.”
Leon looked grim.
He wasn’t nearly as optimistic as June.
In the games, Houndour didn’t evolve into Houndoom until level twenty-four.
The rat monsters in the mall, meanwhile, were mostly Rattata.
Even if there were some Raticate among them, they definitely wouldn’t be as strong as Houndoom.
If that pack of Houndour really set its sights on the mall, the cowardly Rattata might not dare fight them head-on.
They might simply abandon the mall altogether.
There was a reason people compared cowards to rats.
Rattata were Pokémon modeled after rats in the first place, and these creatures had always been pitifully timid.
Houndoom, on the other hand, was a dual Dark- and Fire-type Pokémon.
The Dark typing alone was enough to reflect the vicious, ruthless nature of these Pokémon.
But there was no way Leon was going to jump in and contradict June right now.
He wasn’t stupid enough to be that oblivious to the situation.
The screams outside continued for a long time.
Every so often, a few of the braver survivors crept over to the windows to take a look, while most stayed far away, clutching their children tightly as they huddled together.
This was the eternal theme of the apocalypse.
Under the overwhelming pressure of the Pokémon, humanity had already fallen to the very bottom of the food chain.
After much of the crowd had dispersed, Ray said in a low voice, “I’ve seen buildings smoking pretty often these past few days. Thinking about it now, that pack of black dog monsters was probably responsible.”
“When I was still at home, I noticed smoke rising from a lot of places around the city too,” Leon said, sharing what he had observed from his rented apartment.
“I thought they were accidental fires at the time, but now it looks like some monsters were deliberately starting them.”
There was another detail he hadn’t paid much attention to before.
He had never specifically counted them, but looking back on it now, Leon realized that whenever he looked out the window, there always seemed to be some building somewhere belching thick smoke.
“Those monsters seem pretty intelligent too. Do you think they’ll discover us?” Even June had been unnerved by the intelligence the Houndour had displayed.
Leon reassured her, “We should actually be pretty safe. At the very least, if I were that black dog monster, I’d definitely go after residential buildings with more people in them.”
“And don’t forget, the aquarium is right next to us. Normally, that place is a ticking time bomb, but if there’s ever a fire, the monsters in there might actually turn out to be our salvation.”
Leon paused, glanced at everyone’s expressions, then continued his analysis.
“That pack of black dog monsters probably hunts by roaming from place to place, and humans aren’t their primary food source. They should move on from this area pretty soon.”
Seeing Leon lay out his analysis so convincingly, everyone began looking at him with dubious expressions.
They looked exactly like a bunch of gullible laymen staring at some self-proclaimed expert.
Being stared at like that made Leon feel a little awkward, but for the sake of calming everyone down, he accepted their scrutiny without complaint.
Seeing that Leon had managed to ease everyone’s nerves, June gave him an approving look.
“Leon’s right. We’ve already fallen to the bottom of the food chain, while those black dog monsters are at least somewhere in the middle to upper levels. We definitely won’t be their first choice of prey,” June added, taking the opportunity to reassure everyone as well.
With Leon and June reinforcing each other’s arguments, everyone’s frayed nerves finally began to settle, allowing them to break free from the fear of being hunted by Houndoom.
Only after June told everyone to head upstairs and not gather together in one place did she pull Leon into her room.
Once Leon sat down, June thanked him.
“Thanks for what you did just now. I honestly had no idea how to calm everyone down at the time.”
“I was just telling them my analysis. You don’t think I was only saying all that to reassure everyone, do you?” Leon gave June a strange look.
His analysis was entirely based on what he knew about these Pokémon.
He couldn’t guarantee it was one hundred percent accurate, but he was at least eighty percent confident in it.