Night had fallen. With it, the temperature dropped, causing the mist that was already covering the surroundings to get even more opaque.
But it was kept at bay by the roaring fire from the makeshift firepit that Rin dug, filled, and lit all by herself.
"Ta-dah~" Rin struck a victory pose and said, "Fire, get!"
Erie stared blankly at the roaring fire and slowly said, "Do I even want to know how you can do all of this, Senpai?"
"Oh! I just like outdoorsy stuff! It's fun to go on adventures and look for treasure! One time, I found a rusty gun in the woods!"
Hope choked on a soda she was sipping and quickly looked at Rin. "SENPAI! You can't keep those!"
"Huh?" Rin blinked. "Why not?"
Erie covered her face and groaned. "Because it's probably a murder weapon, Senpai..." She lowered her hands and looked at her phone. "Chat, are you hearing this too? ...Yeah, she's not joking..."
Rin puffed her cheeks and said, "It's just a rusted gun! And even if it is a murder weapon, Mister John has murder weapons!"
John, who had been setting up a tent nearby, suddenly stumbled and looked at Rin. "What? No I don't."
Rin rolled her eyes. "I saw the giant rusted cleaver in your basement when I was with Aneue to help babysit Rory last time."
"That's Alphy's."
Silence.
Rin placed her hand on her chin and murmured, "...That explains a lot."
Erie snapped and said, "It explains nothing! What do you mean Alfi-senpai owns a giant rusted cleaver?!"
John shrugged. "She's terrible at weapon maintenance. I keep telling her that things rust faster here since we're by the ocean and the air is a bit salty, but she keeps ignoring me and not coating the blades with oil."
While Erie, Rin, and John kept chatting, Hope took the moment to take a look around.
Juliet was still fast asleep in the car, headphones blaring music while she hugged a teddybear.
Hana was missing because she wanted to go collect some souvenirs from the basement for 'research purposes.'
Which meant that it was just Hope, Rin, Erie, and John around the campfire.
As Hope took in the barren courtyard around them where they were setting up camp, she chuckled and said, "This reminds me of another time I went camping."
Erie visibly cringed and said, "Oh god, not another story."
Rin tilted her head. "Another story?"
Erie nodded and pointed at Hope. "Your kouhai there has the best worst stories. Best as in they're incredibly ridiculous drops of lore. Worst in that they're absolutely out of left field."
Hope rolled her eyes and said, "My stories aren't that ridiculous!"
"You went to high school with Haley Masters."
"A lot of people did!"
"Technically. But you aren't 'a lot' of people." Erie sighed. "What's next? Are you going to say you know Jackie Chun or something?"
Rin's eyes lit up. "Oh! I do!"
Erie froze. Then she slowly turned to Rin. "What?"
"Mmhm! Since, um... Kuromi-chan." Rin nodded. "Yeah, let's use her name. Since Kuromi-chan is running that martial arts studio, she went to go meet with him and some famous martial arts action stars! I didn't get to meet Donnie Yang and Jecht Lee, but I got to meet Jackie Chun!"
Erie slowly tucked a strand of her red hair behind her ear. Then she said, "I am living in a sitcom. I have accepted this fact."
John chuckled as he pulled out some slabs of steak from the cooler before spearing them with bamboo skewers. After that, he set them up by the fire to cook and said, "You aren't in a sitcom, Erie. You're in a slice of life anime."
Erie rolled her eyes. "If I was in a slice of life anime, Hope wouldn't make sense. Nobody drops lore like that out of the blue on a slice of life. Also, the tone would be way too grim dark."
"...That's true. I'll take it up with the creator." John's eyes twinkled as if in on a secret joke.
Erie sighed, brushing off John's weird behavior. Then she looked at Hope and said, "Are you still good to do some ghost hunting after we eat, Hope?"
"Mmhm!" Hope sipped on her soda and said, "It'll be fun!"
Rin set a whole venison steak to grill on a flat rock she found before garnishing it with gathered herbs. Then she looked over at Erie and said, "I'll come too! Your senpai here will keep you safe from ghosts!"
Erie looked amused and said, "Isn't Hana supposed to be the strongest imouto?"
"She is! I'm the strongest senpai!"
Hope giggled. "She's got you there, Erie."
Erie laughed too and said, "Well, I guess if a ghost can be scared off by you, it'll be fun to listen back to on the replay... right Chat?"
Rin glanced at Erie's phone and said, "You know, Erie-chan, for a normal phone, that has really good battery life!"
Erie paused. "Wait. ...That's true." She quickly looked at her phone battery bar and noticed it was still at 100%. "...I've been streaming this whole time, right? So why is my phone still at full?"
Hope blinked. "Huh? But your phone's been dead this whole time, Erie."
Erie froze.
Hope stuck out her tongue. "Just kidding- OWOWOW! MY TON!"
Erie pinched Hope's tongue and said, "You cheeky woman!"
Rin giggled and then looked at John. "Mister John, is that because of you?"
"Oh, right." John nodded. "I forgot to mention it, but since you guys wanted to go ghosthunting, I replaced all your phone batteries with special Myth Incorporated battery packs. Ghosts and spiritual areas tend to drain normal battery life quickly, so I swapped out the standard lithium ion batteries with some solid-state batteries that use a special ceramic and mithril alloy."
Erie paused. "...Did you just say MITHRIL alloy?"
"No. I said material alloy."
"I swear to god, Pops, if you are gaslighting me right now..."
John smiled.
Erie glared at him.
Hope frowned and said, "Wait. If you replaced the batteries... when did you do that, Dad? I don't remember giving you my phone..."
"Oh, I just changed it when you guys were all charging them earlier. It didn't take long. But anyway." John handed Hope a kebab and said, "It's around 7 PM right now. The spookiest time of day is around 1 AM, so it'll be a while. Did you girls want to sleep, or are you just going to hang out?"
Hope took the kebab and nibbled on the meat before saying, "Is there anything we can do around here?"
Rin's eyes lit up and she said, "Ooh! We can go hunting! I saw some deer in the forests behind the hospital!" She pointed at her venison steak. "That's how I have this! I killed one!"
Erie stared at Rin.
Rin stared back. "What?"
"...Okay. I understand why you get along with Zen. You both have a switch that flips on and you become a different person. Zen has her fangirl mode, and you have your murderhobo mode."
Rin puffed her cheeks and said, "I am not a murderhobo! I just like hunting! And getting loot!"
"Ah." Erie nodded. "I stand corrected. Loot goblin mode."
"Yeah! Loot goblin!"
Hope giggled. "Maybe we should go back to America during the winter then! Hunting season opens up, and Rin could try hunting some bears there."
Rin's eyes sparkled. "That sounds amazing! I'll practice my English!"
John looked concerned and said, "...Please learn more control first, Rin. I don't want you to end up on the news because you ripped a grizzly bear apart and people think it's a murder scene."
Rin blushed and said, "That was one time! And that's why I use blades now!"
Hope looked at Erie, a smug look on her face.
Erie was confused. And then she understood and rolled her eyes. "You still have crazier lore. Rin just has crazy lore. Emphasis on crazy. YOUR lore is crazy because of how random and unlikely it is."
Hope puffed her cheeks and said, "I still think it's not that ridiculous!"
Erie raised an eyebrow and said, "Really? Bet. I'll say a random topic and you have to tell me if you have a story related to it or not."
"Okay! I mean, we have time, so that should be fun!"
"Basketball."
"..."
Erie stared at Hope.
Hope blushed.
Erie stared harder.
"...Okay, fine. I was that mascot who did a no-look shot on a ladder in that viral clip."
"SEE! SEE CHAT?! Oh, wait. You can't see. But you hearing this?!"
Hope puffed her cheeks and said, "I had to work a lot of odd jobs, okay! It's hard when you don't want to sell... you know!"
"There's working a lot of odd jobs and there's having enough lore that every dad in existence would be envious."
Hope looked at John and said, "It's not that weird, is it, Dad?!"
"Weird? No. Unexpected, absolutely." John chuckled as he set up more kebabs. "Anyway, more food?"
"...Yeah." Hope pouted as she took another offered kebab.
===
Time passed as the girls chatted a bit more, doing an impromptu just chatting livestream.
"...I still can't believe there's over ten thousand of you still here." Erie stared at her viewers count and said, "Even if it's Saturday, that's still pretty crazy. Are you that entertained?"
Hope giggled and said, "I bet it's morbid curiosity! It IS audio only. And we still need to upload the footage later!"
John gave a thumbs up and said, "I'm processing all of that as we go. The moment we head back, it'll go live for the internet to analyze. Then you guys can rest up and review it with chat later."
Erie paused and looked at Hope. "Wait. How are you still so energetic? I thought you were an introvert?"
Silence.
Hope stared at Erie.
Rin tilted her head, confused.
John looked like he wanted to laugh, but kept a poker face on.
Erie noticed all of that and slowly stared at Hope. "...H-Hey. It's not funny-"
"Į̷̙͐́ ̶̣̼̔s̸̉͐͜ḩ̷͐̈́ô̶̘u̶̼̎l̷̗͎̉͛d̴̨̉̾ ̴̞̑ȟ̷͇á̷͓̱v̸̝̇͝e̸̱̞̓ ̷͙̝̂̽b̸̠̀̊ẹ̴͝ḛ̷̞̅͒n̸͐ͅ ̷̲̗̒͒m̶̼̺͝o̶̪͛r̴̳͗e̴̢̓̓ ̵̮̗̃c̵̰͗͛ã̵̖̏r̴̪͌e̴͇̍́f̶̥̂ṳ̵͒͊l̷̮̽.̶̀"
"KYAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!"
Juliet woke up with a scream too. "AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!"
Hope giggled and then winked. "Scared you! Did you know I can do a distorted voice without a filter? It's a neat trick I learned while working night jobs! It makes all the creeps go running!"
"Why you little...! Get over here!" Erie lunged at Hope.
Hope laughed and started running away. "Nooooooo!"
"STOP RUNNING AND LET ME STRANGLE YOU WOMAN!"