The hotel manager nodded, about to lead Nathan upstairs to find him a room where he could rest.
But before the two of them had even gone up, someone hurriedly rushed in from outside.
"Manager Kerry, good thing you're here—something has happened!"
The man, panting heavily, spotted Manager Kerry just as he was preparing to head upstairs.
The moment those words reached his ears, Manager Kerry's heart sank with a bad premonition.
"Another child has gone missing. Right now, everyone is out searching for that child. Quickly, get the people in your hotel to join the search as well."
After taking a few quick breaths, the man continued urgently.
"I understand, Village Chief. I'll immediately send my staff into Dream Valley to help with the search."
Manager Kerry nodded, then turned toward Nathan with an apologetic smile before hurriedly calling on his hotel staff to go outside and look for the child.
Watching the manager and the village chief rush off, Nathan decided that he too should join the search.
One missing child could be chalked up as an accident, perhaps a case of wandering off. But this was already the second child to disappear. That could no longer be explained away as coincidence.
There was a chance that something truly strange was happening inside this Dream Valley.
Nathan stepped out of the hotel and immediately released his Flygon, mounting it and flying swiftly toward the depths of Dream Valley.
From the skies above, he could still see Pokémon playing happily, frolicking without a care. Now and then, he also spotted a few villagers in groups, combing the area in search of the missing child.
At first glance, Dream Valley did not seem to hold anything unusual at all.
Could it be that those two children really just disappeared into thin air?
That unsettling thought flickered across Nathan's mind, but almost instantly he rejected it.
The reasoning was simple: if something like this happens once, it can still be written off as an accident. But when it happens twice in the same place, in such a short span of time—that is absolutely not an accident.
For the entire day Nathan searched throughout Dream Valley, but no matter how hard he looked, he found not the slightest clue.
This left him frustrated and disappointed. Truthfully, he was deeply worried about the two children.
The longer the delay dragged on, the greater the danger would be for them.
By nightfall, Nathan returned to the hotel. Most of the searchers had already come back as well, their expressions weary and defeated. Only the parents of the missing children were still out in the mountains, desperately continuing their search.
"Nathan, you're back. You were out in Dream Valley searching all day too, weren't you?"
Manager Kerry, who had been speaking with the village chief, noticed Nathan return and greeted him.
Nathan nodded tiredly. This was the first time he had ever encountered such a difficult and draining situation.
To be honest, in the face of two children vanishing, he felt utterly powerless.
He had scoured Dream Valley from morning until night, and yet he hadn't uncovered a single lead.
"I'll have someone bring you some food. Get some rest tonight, then tomorrow we'll continue the search. Your health comes first."
Seeing the exhaustion written across Nathan's face, Manager Kerry tried to console him.
"Ah… I suppose that's all we can do for now. I just hope those two children haven't run into misfortune."
Nathan sighed and nodded. He was still human, not a god. He too had limits, and he too grew weary.
Soon after, Manager Kerry brought him a simple dinner.
After eating his fill, Nathan lay down on the hotel bed, but his mind kept churning over the children's disappearance.
The idea that they had simply wandered off was almost impossible.
Dream Valley was not a particularly complex terrain. It didn't have dense forests or twisting labyrinths.
On top of that, both children had been under the watch of their parents. Even if the parents were careless, there was no way that in the same place, within just three days, they would lose track of their children.
Eliminating all those possibilities, there was only one explanation left—Pokémon interference.
Or perhaps… something even stranger. Ghosts?
But that second possibility Nathan quickly dismissed.
"Ugh… my head hurts. I can't sleep like this…"
He lay tossing and turning on the bed, the issue gnawing at his mind, refusing to let him rest.
After two hours of fruitless restlessness, Nathan finally got up, put on his shoes, and walked outside.
If he didn't resolve this, he wouldn't be able to sleep at all.
If he hadn't known about it, it would have been fine. But once he knew, there was no way he could just ignore it.
Taking his Poké Balls, Nathan left the hotel. By now it was already deep into the night—one or two in the morning.
The front desk clerk was fast asleep.
Once outside, he mounted Flygon again and flew into Dream Valley.
But the late hour made visibility from the air poor, so Nathan landed and proceeded on foot.
In his haste he hadn't brought a flashlight, so he had no choice but to release Volcarona. The moth Pokémon's blazing wings gave off a warm glow, immediately illuminating the area around him.
"Come on, let's go look for those two missing children."
With that command, he set out searching through the valley once more.
Not long after, Nathan suddenly realized something. How could I have forgotten about this?
He had Xerneas with him!
As a Legendary Pokémon representing life itself, Xerneas should be far more capable of sensing living beings than he was.
Without hesitation, he released the majestic stag.
"Hm? Humans aren't supposed to be awake at night, are they? Why are you calling me out when you should be asleep?"
Xerneas blinked at the dark sky and then at Nathan, curiosity written across its face. In its understanding, humans were meant to sleep at night. Was this human dragging it out just because he couldn't fall asleep?
"Yes, normally people should be sleeping. But I'm looking for two children who went missing here in Dream Valley."
Nathan's tone was exasperated. He hadn't expected Xerneas to start with a question like that.
If he had found those children already, he would have been asleep ages ago—he certainly wouldn't be out here exhausting himself in the middle of the night.
"Two children went missing? What exactly happened?"
Xerneas asked in puzzlement.
In response, Nathan explained the strange events of the last two days in Dream Valley.
He laid out everything he knew in detail.
By the time Nathan finished, even Xerneas had grown silent, deep in thought.
"…Very well. Let me try. Perhaps I can locate the children you speak of."
After a pause, Xerneas finally spoke.
As Nathan watched, a seven-colored radiance began to shine from Xerneas's body. In the dark of night, the glow was gentle rather than blinding.
With its eyes closed, Xerneas radiated a dreamlike beauty, ethereal and otherworldly.
The rainbow light gradually broke apart into countless motes, which then scattered outward.
Soon, every corner of Dream Valley was dotted with these luminous specks.
From above, the valley would have looked like a star-studded sky inverted upon the earth.
After three or four minutes, the motes drifted back, merging once more into Xerneas's form.
When the light faded and its eyes opened, the Legendary spoke with calm certainty.
"No. Within Dream Valley I detected only the life force of Pokémon. There were no human presences."
Nathan's heart sank with bitter disappointment. Could it be that the two children really had met with disaster?
"Not even… their bodies?"
His voice carried grief as he asked the question.
Even if tragedy had already struck, finding their bodies would at least give the parents some closure, a final chance to say goodbye.
But finding nothing at all—that was the cruelest outcome.
"No. I sensed no trace of human life, nor any corpses."
Xerneas repeated firmly.
This only deepened Nathan's sorrow.
Two children—two living, breathing lives.
Their disappearance here in Dream Valley was no longer a matter of whether the valley could continue operating in the future.
This was about two human lives.
It was about two families, and the grief that would tear them apart.
Nathan could not even bring himself to imagine how those families would endure such pain.
"Keep searching! Alive or dead, I refuse to believe that two children can simply vanish without a trace!"
Nathan's voice rang with determination. With Volcarona's light guiding him, he pressed forward once again into the valley's darkness.
People always said: With greater power comes greater responsibility.
Now that he possessed such strength, how could he call himself a Champion of the World if he couldn't even find two missing children?
And so, Nathan searched the valley for the entire night without rest.
At dawn, he returned to the village, weary but resolute. He immediately sought out the parents of the missing children.
"Where exactly did your children go missing?"
He asked the grieving families.
"Our child vanished near a small stream."
"Our child disappeared in a grove of trees."
The two families gave their answers, and Nathan's heart grew heavier.
Two children had gone missing in two completely different locations.
He had the village chief bring him a map of Dream Valley, and he asked the parents to mark the exact spots.
Looking closely, he saw that the two locations were separated by at least ten miles.
Still, he committed them to memory. When he searched again, he would investigate those areas carefully.
"Did your children have anything on them when they disappeared? Anything special? A Pokémon, or perhaps something that Pokémon would be drawn to?"
Nathan suddenly shifted his line of questioning.
Since the children had vanished in different places, maybe a different angle would lead to an answer.
Perhaps he could uncover a useful clue.
"No. My child only had a small backpack with him. It was filled with his favorite snacks."
The father of the first missing child said heavily.
(End of Chapter)