Looking at the Pokémon gathered below, Edward revealed a faint smile. Then, he pulled the curtains shut, and in an instant, the entire room dimmed significantly.
Headmistress Lillian didn't pay too much attention to this action. After all, with the curtains open, the lighting would be too strong and would indeed affect the experience of watching a short film.
Kirlia gently patted her close companion, Poochyena, who was curled up in a corner and glanced at Edward with a somewhat suspicious gaze.
Where exactly was this uneasy feeling in her heart coming from?
Before Kirlia could think any further, the sound of rain—soft and continuous—instantly captured all of her attention.
In the video, after nightfall, a house bathed in rainlight was shown with its lights still on. Then, Kirlia saw a Jigglypuff push open a door and walk out of a room. Its body was damp, and it was wiping its head as though it had just taken a shower.
Jigglypuff began humming a little tune as it walked down the corridor and turned off the lights.
Suddenly, a strange piece of music began playing, and at the same time, Kirlia saw a peculiar shadow emerge in the corridor behind Jigglypuff. Her breathing involuntarily became a bit faster.
But Jigglypuff merely looked puzzled and turned the lights back on.
Under the bright lighting, there was nothing there.
'Was it just a hallucination? Or a ghost-type Pokémon?' That was the thought that flashed through Kirlia's mind, and then she felt her good friend Poochyena inching closer to her.
Headmistress Lillian cast a glance at Edward.
You brat—so this is the short film you were talking about? Jigglypuff kept turning the lights on and off, and the shadow lingered constantly in the dark corridor, making the Pokémon present pay even closer attention to the screen.
Once again, Jigglypuff turned off the lights, and the eerie music suddenly grew louder. At the same time, what appeared in the darkness was a grotesque, twisted silhouette—something the Pokémon couldn't even begin to comprehend. Immediately after, screams echoed throughout the entire room—each different, all full of fear—but none louder than Jigglypuff's scream in the short film.
The lights came back on, and the silhouette disappeared, but the Pokémon watching were now panting heavily, their faces filled with terror.
Edward was very satisfied. It seemed Pokémon, too, could experience fear. Now the question was—could that fear be harvested as Fear Value? He decided to wait until the end to check.
Soon, the plot of the short film progressed.
After Jigglypuff returned to bed, the horror element continued to build slowly, gradually gripping the audience's emotions. The music, immersive and realistic, only served to draw the Pokémon deeper into the scene.
'It should be over now, right?' Kirlia thought to herself, relaxing slightly after seeing the ghost hand vanish the moment the power plug was inserted. The strange music in the room had faded, and the lights in the hallway were now bright.
Just as Kirlia's tension began to melt away, Jigglypuff turned to glance at the table lamp—and then a terrifying ghost face suddenly appeared in the frame. It smiled creepily, reached out, and hit the lamp's switch. Instantly, the entire screen went black—"You son of a—!" A sharp, piercing scream rang out, followed by the sound of the screen shattering.
Edward froze for a second, and then saw that a chair had been embedded into the screen. It had been hurled using psychic power—by none other than Kirlia. At that moment, Kirlia seemed to realize she might've overreacted and lowered her head in embarrassment.
"Ahem..." Headmistress Lillian cleared her throat, her expression a little awkward as she looked at Edward.
She had just been startled too.
Even though the actors were Pokémon, the illusion created by Gengar was terrifying. It had frightened not just the Pokémon but even her—a seasoned Trainer. At that moment, her heart had been pounding as hard as when she once challenged the Elite Four.
"Well, now we've got an excuse to replace the television," Edward chuckled, completely unfazed. It was just a TV, after all—he wasn't concerned about something so trivial.
What really mattered was the Fear Points.
[Fear Points Acquired from "Lights Out": 45]
The number appeared before him, and Edward was visibly pleased. He glanced around the room. This large, lecture-hall-style room currently seated a total of 156 Pokémon. All the Pokémon from the care center were here.
He had collected 45 points of Fear Points. While it wasn't a huge amount, it was still something—definitely not bad.
To this day, Edward still didn't know how the system calculated Fear Points, but as long as he could gain some, it was enough.
Providing Pokémon-specific versions of movies was a viable plan.
Even though screening movies for Pokémon didn't yield any profit—at least not at the moment—Edward wasn't doing it for profit. What he wanted was to accumulate Fear Points.
As for the cost of producing short films and movies?
Dead Silence hadn't even finished screening yet, and the money it had already made was more than enough for Edward to experiment with this concept for quite some time. Furthermore, horror films were known for being low-budget productions. One of the defining traits of horror films was high risk but massive return.
Some horror movies, in fact, had extremely simple sets, minimal actors—sometimes only a handful—and a total production budget of less than $100,000. Yet, the profits could run into hundreds of millions.
That was precisely why, even though horror was considered a niche genre in his previous life, someone was always willing to invest in it. The return on investment was just too attractive.
Investors only needed to spend a small amount, and if the film happened to explode in popularity, the returns would be astronomical.
"Edward, this is a horror film, isn't it?" Headmistress Lillian opened the curtains again. After watching the short film, she still had the lingering feeling that something was hiding in the dark, making her skin crawl.
"Yeah. Just a little short film," Edward nodded. Now, what he had to consider was how to get this short film in front of more Pokémon audiences.
Although there were quite a number of domesticated Pokémon, compared to the vast number of wild Pokémon, they were simply a drop in the ocean. For Edward, wild Pokémon were his main target.
But he couldn't just randomly go out and screen films in the wild, and his company didn't have enough staff to run around the entire world showing movies. So, if he wanted to collect more Fear Points from wild Pokémon, he'd need to cooperate with the Pokémon League.
Only the Pokémon League had the massive manpower base needed. Rangers, for example, were all League employees.
If he could form a partnership with the League, his Fear Points collection rate might increase dramatically.
"Headmistress Lillian, if I remember correctly, the Pokémon League's 'Wild Pokémon Environmental Improvement and Maintenance Department' is usually pretty tight on funding, right?" Edward asked with a bright smile. Headmistress Lillian nodded as she recalled that fact.
As a former Gym Leader, she still remembered a fair amount about the League's inner workings—especially departments like that one. The Environmental Improvement and Maintenance Department was always short on money. Every year, around the New Year, the department would perform its traditional "we're broke" routine.
They'd send Rangers out wearing hand-me-down uniforms, carrying rusty shovels, standing in front of the whole League to declare with pride that they would absolutely work hard to maintain the natural living environments of wild Pokémon, and other such grand statements.
(End of Chapter)