Heavy tactical boots came down on the shattered asphalt with a dull, grinding scrape.
New Eridu, West District.
Deep inside Hollow Zero.
Collapsed buildings hemmed them in on every side, and gray-black Ether Dust hung thick between the broken walls.
This three-man Defense Force squad had been walking through it for two solid hours.
They advanced in an inverted-triangle formation.
At the point was a veteran with an anti-Ethereal rifle shouldered and ready.
In the middle came the captain, a bulky instrument strapped to his back.
Bringing up the rear was the young recruit, standard-issue Defense Force saber in hand, head swiveling at every shadow.
“Captain, I’ve been wondering.
Since when does the Defense Force keep a monitoring station this deep in Hollow Zero?” The recruit finally cracked, hurrying forward to voice his complaint.
“This is a high-risk zone.
And they make us haul the Wistar Society’s newest monitoring gear all the way out here.
We haven’t even seen a single Satyr the whole way in.
It’s uncanny.” The captain held a palm-sized display, its numbers ticking slowly upward.
He was a licensed Proxy, and a veteran of the Lido War besides, which made him the squad’s guide inside the Hollow.
“Stay sharp.
Save your breath,” the captain said without turning, eyes fixed on the readout.
“I’m just bored!” The recruit pulled a face.
“Captain, you think there’s any chance we run into Lord Savior today?” The new device used an entirely new Ether Concentration Rating System: Common, Elite-class, Lord, King, and the most terrifying of all, Calamity.
The faint whir of gears echoed through the empty ruins.
The captain watched the screen.
The numbers held steady.
Getting no answer, the recruit went right on muttering to himself.
“The old-timers back at the outpost have bragged about him a hundred times.
Lord Savior, tougher than a Void Hunter, out here clearing Ethereals in Hollow Zero all the time.
I busted my back getting made permanent and posted to Scott Outpost just for a shot at meeting my idol!” “Captain, you fought in the Lido War!
You must’ve seen him.
Is he huge?
Can he really punch a mountain apart?” The captain stopped at last and looked back.
“Cut down on the trashy pulp novels.
He’s human like the rest of us.
Though his strength really is beyond anything human.” The point man raised a hand and signed a tactical halt.
The squad froze.
“Quiet.” The captain tapped the instrument in his hands.
“The objective’s just ahead.” A short distance on, tucked into a seam between two heaps of rubble, a concealed monitoring station of specialized alloy showed itself.
The site had been chosen well.
It blended seamlessly into the wreckage around it.
The three exchanged a look and started hunting for a slope they could descend.
They took one step.
The monitor in the captain’s hands shrieked out an alarm.
The numbers on the screen spiraled wildly, blew straight past the King threshold, and the background flashed a blinding blood red.
The sky went dark.
A shadow vast enough to blot out everything settled over the three of them.
Loose stones floated up in defiance of gravity.
The air turned sharp with the stink of sulfur.
The young recruit’s legs gave out and he dropped straight to the ground.
Breathing became agony.
An invisible weight pinned his chest flat.
He tried to force himself upright and felt nothing but the shaking in his legs.
The captain’s scalp prickled.
His breath stopped in his throat.
He had felt pressure like this once before, last year, in the Lido War.
A Calamity-class Ethereal.
A body the size of a hill hung above the monitoring station, the air around it twisting violently, the roar of it loud enough to rupture eardrums.
And in that suffocating instant, a lazy voice drifted down out of the air without warning, cutting clean through the noise.
“You really can run.
Am I supposed to be that scary?” It wasn’t loud.
It reached all three of them perfectly clearly.
The next second.
The enormous Calamity-class Ethereal locked up in midair, and dense cracks spidered across the whole of its bulk.
A muffled boom.
A monstrous shockwave burst out of the creature’s chest, and the Ether Domain that had smothered the whole area collapsed at once.
That mountainous body crumbled into a sky full of drifting Ether Dust.
The three men stared upward, slack-jawed and rooted in place.
In the air above them, a figure in a black trench coat hung suspended among the motes.
Before they could make out his face, he was simply gone, without leaving so much as a ripple of ether behind.
Silence returned to the ruins.
Only the monitor’s screen had changed, back to a safe, steady green.
The recruit snapped out of it, grabbed a fistful of the captain’s collar, and shook all over as his voice cracked into a shout.
“Captain!
That was Lord Savior, right?
That was definitely him!” The captain swallowed, staring at the empty sky, and said nothing for a long while.
…
New Eridu system time, seven o’clock sharp.
Epis Harbor.
Sea wind swept across the docks, carrying a faint brine tang.
“Sorry to trouble you again, Granny.
All this, and it isn’t even light out properly.” Miguel took the insulated crate packed with fresh catch and thanked the old woman behind the stall with a smile.
He wore casual clothes, and there was something warm and easy about him, handsome in a gentle sort of way.
“Could you clean these red-spotted fish for me?
Sliced, please.
My wife loves poached fish.
And bag up these scallops too.” “Coming right up!” “Miguel, dear, there’s no need to stand on ceremony.” The old woman waved him off, grinning wide enough to split her face.
“If you hadn’t pulled my grandson back from the Mountain Lion Gang, these old bones wouldn’t have lasted the year.” As she spoke, she aimed a kick at the grandson in question, who was bent over sorting the rest of the seafood.
The young man scratched his head, smiled a simple, honest smile, and threw Miguel a grateful look.
“Miguel, this batch is the best in the whole harbor.
Eat easy!” “Thanks.” Miguel waved back.
He hefted the crate and headed for the harbor gate.
All along the way, vendors leaned out from both sides.
“Miguel!
The cod’s good today.
Want a couple?” “Miguel, fresh top-grade spices just came in.
I’ve been holding some back for you!” Miguel answered each of them, and picked up a few fresh vegetables while he was at it.
Everyone knew this young man spent freely and never lost his temper, so whenever they got something good, they thought of setting a portion aside for him.
Loaded down with bags, Miguel crossed the noisy fish market and walked into a stretch of empty ground where no one else was around.
He stopped, freed one hand, and traced a casual little line through the air.
Pale blue Power of Creation leapt at his fingertips.
This force belonged to Miguel alone, the origin of his strength, and it stood at the highest order there was.
For him, so long as he had enough Power of Creation, and so long as the principle of equivalent exchange was honored, nothing at all lay beyond his reach.
There was no tearing sound of space, no blinding flash of light.
In the next moment, the scenery around Miguel changed entirely.
Sixth Street still held on to a little of its early-morning quiet, sunlight spilling across the clean pavement.
Miguel stood outside his own front door.
Across the road sat that familiar video store, Random Play.
The shutters were still down, which meant Wise and Belle were probably sleeping in.
He turned, reaching for his keys.
Click.
The lock turned from the inside.
The door swung open, and the first thing he saw was a pair of black fox ears, twitching alertly.
Hoshimi Miyabi stood there in loose house clothes, her usual cold edge melted into something soft and fond.
His reflection sat in her crimson eyes.
“Welcome home, Miguel.” She stepped forward and took the lighter bags from his hands as if it were the most natural thing in the world.
“I’m home, Miyabi.” Miguel smiled, freed his hand, and closed it around her soft palm.
The two of them went inside, and the door shut firmly behind them.
A soft clack.
As the gears in the lock turned over.
A brand-new Zenless Zone Zero story begins.
[Author’s Note: The Ethereal ranking system used in this book.
Common-class (three tiers: lower, middle, upper; roughly on par with an ordinary human civilian, and manageable by conventional armed forces.
Representative example: the Satyr).] [Author’s Note: Elite-class (three tiers; the powerful units among Ethereals.
Bringing one down requires a squad of conventional forces equipped with anti-Ethereal firearms, or a single elite soldier.
Representative example: the Dullahan).] [Author’s Note: Lord-class (three tiers; they occupy vast stretches of a Hollow, can command lower-ranking Ethereals within a certain radius, and are individually strong enough to reshape the terrain with ease.
Suppressing one takes an elite Defense Force squad or an anti-Ethereal special operations soldier.
Representative example: one half of the uncontracted Furina Twins).
I’ll save the higher ranks for the next chapter~]