The early afternoon sun reflected off the rusted roofs and broken walls, casting shadows across the narrow paths.
Leo walked through the slum streets. He was holding something that looked like a sandwich and nibbling it.
As he passed a collapsed shack, a group of young slum kids ran up to him. Their cheeks were dirt-smudged, their clothes patched together with scraps of fabric. One of them pushed forward an old, slightly bent bicycle.
"Hey, big bro! Wanna buy this? Only a few Pentas!"
"It works fine! Almost fine!"
"Probably fine…"
The slum kids quickly said one by one.
"What is this? An Altie?" Leo teased. Altie was a nickname for Alt-wares.
Leo glanced at the bicycle. The chain was rusty, the tires uneven, and half the spokes looked like they were held together by prayer alone. Probably made from whatever they got from the junkyard — which explained the low price.
"Nice bike..." Leo smiled. He recalled how he and the kids used to do the same, thinking they could open a shop together. Only to give up the idea after a day.
"Not buying… Also, try to put some RGB lights on it, will give high-tech vibes," Leo suggested seriously and walked off.
The kids shrugged and scurried away. "Let's find our next potential victi— I mean customer!"
Actually, Old Morrow City had once (some decades ago) been a lively city full of Rangers, explorers, and many other professions. They were drawn by the unstable Alt-Zones in the region.
People used to work here to dive Alt-Zones and make money for a living.
But those days were long gone.
Most Alt-Zones here had been cleared, sealed, or collapsed.
Whatever Alt-wares had once been scattered across the territory had been stripped away years ago.
The moment the opportunities dried up, the Rangers, merchants, mercs, small companies, gangs, and many more left.
And finally, the Penta Corporation declared this a Safe Zone and built a wall around it. Now Old Morrow City's Inner District was one of the safest cities in the world.
They even made sure that not even a gun could be authorized outside the city walls without a permit. Now Leo became a Ranger so he could use it as an excuse if he got busted.
There were many abandoned buildings in the slum.
As Leo walked deeper, the buildings became more broken, and the people fewer.
Leo was reaching the borders. Beyond the slums was the wasteland.
Every once in a while, foolish or desperate slum dwellers ran toward the wasteland, hoping to get lucky and find something that could change their life.
Usually, they didn't return.
As Leo turned the corner, the wasteland appeared before his eyes.
A vast, open field of shattered buildings. He saw twisted metal pillars stuck out of the ground like skeletal remains, highways had collapsed into deep trenches, and abandoned towers leaned like dying giants.
According to rumours he heard, Long ago, when this place had been alive, an Alt-Zone had appeared right in the center and poured many things out.
But now, it was just a wasteland. Everything here had already been cleared.
"What was I even expecting? Did I get cocky since I got a gun? Even slum adults won't dare come near the wastelands…" Leo sighed.
He came here just to look around. He had always wanted to see this place where once famous Rangers worked and stopped a gigantic octopus-like mechanical monster.
Leo climbed through the shattered frame of a half-collapsed building, carefully stepping over scattered stones. This place used to be a shopping center decades ago, but now its only customers were dust and stray rats.
He then climbed higher, up the broken interior staircase that still clung to the wall, until he emerged onto the exposed upper platform.
Leo exhaled slowly and looked around.
"Hmm...? Am I tripping?" Leo squinted his eyes.
"Come on, my 20/1.8 vision…" Leo muttered. Like a camera lens used for zoom, Leo's pupils zoomed through the wasteland.
Far in the distance, between the wreckage of two broken skyscrapers, he saw something flicker like a ripple. Something that looked like a distorted image.
His eyes widened.
"…Impossible. Is that a glitch?"
Alt-Zones weren't supposed to exist here anymore. They had been declared fully cleaned some decades ago. If a new one reopened… the value would be off the charts.
Reporting such a discovery would reward him with a life-changing amount of Pentas.
Leo's heartbeat quickened. He hesitated for a moment, then looked at the Harpie gun holstered under his shirt.
"…I need to check it. But I can't walk in the wasteland. I need something faster to move." Leo closed his eyes and tried to come up with a plan. Then he opened them with a not-so-confident plan.
He turned around and jogged back into the slums.
"I told you… no one wants to buy this scrap…"
"Let's just sell it for some bread in the junk shop…"
The kids were sitting on the ground. The bicycle they had tried to sell him was leaning against a broken wall.
Leo sighed and placed a few Penta notes in the stunned kid's hand before riding away.
The bicycle rattled violently with each turn of the wheel, screeching in protest.
"The hell..." Leo mouth twitched.
The ground leading toward the wasteland was uneven and littered with debris, making the ride rough and unstable, but Leo managed somehow. His enhanced vision helped him avoid most of the dangerous spots.
He wasn't greedy. He didn't want to enter the glitch. He just needed to confirm whether it was real. Reporting it alone would be enough to earn a massive reward, maybe enough to buy a small house in the Outer Districts. A very, very small house… just one room.
But it was enough to finally get them out of the slums. That dream alone pushed him forward. Because getting a Job as slum kid is impossible.
Leo stopped halfway. Because it was not easy to go through this broken bicycle anymore. His eyesight was far sharper than normal thanks to the painful experiments from his childhood.
Suddenly, something moved within the debris.
Leo tightened his grip on the handlebars. There was a reason why some people went missing when venturing into the wastelands.
Sometimes people died because of other humans.
Leo slowly reached for the gun…
Sometimes people died when exploring these broken buildings; the structure collapsed on them.
Leo looked around at the debris that was shaking. With his eyesight, he noticed small tremors even from far away.
Sometimes people died because— even though it was very rare — some monster might get lost and wander here.
A creature taller than him burst out from behind the collapsed building. Dust exploded into the air.
Leo froze.
A house-sized giant wolf-like beast emerged, but this was no natural animal.
From its sides grew metallic blades which are not attached, but grown as if the creature's flesh and metal had fused into one form. Its skin already looked torn, and its left eye was replaced by a glowing digital screen displaying shifting symbols.
It turned toward Leo. The screen-like eye flashed red.
Then the creature charged at him.
The blades around its back began to spin with loud chainsaw sound.
"The heck with chainsaw creature…"
Leo panicked, spun the bicycle around, and pedaled harder than ever before. The wheels screeched and the chain rattled. The whole bike swayed dangerously left and right.
Behind him, the metallic wolf's chainsaw sound grew louder and louder. It was gaining speed and getting closer. Its blades scraped against the buildings, slicing grooves into the ground.
Leo noticed that and thought of a plan. "I can't escape, then I can only…"
He darted into the ruins of a massive collapsed building.
"Hey, follow me…!" Leo shouted.
He swerved through fallen pillars, broken pipes, and shattered walls.
The beast followed, its blades slicing chunks out of the walls. The entire structure trembled.
Leo burst out the other side.
A moment later—
CRAAAAASH!
Due to the blade damage on the building walls, the whole structure collapsed onto the monster, burying it under massive slabs of concrete and metal as dust rose like a cloud.
Leo slowed and looked over his shoulder, still panting. The rubble seemed still.
Then the debris trembled. Just a little.
Leo's heart stopped.
He turned forward and pedaled as fast as the bicycle could handle, racing back toward the city.
"A monster… there's a real monster near the city, how the hell did it even arrive here? There is no Alt-Zone here—wait…" he gasped, recalling the Alt-Zone he had just seen. "I have to tell the guards. And that thing I saw earlier… that was definitely a glitch. An Alt-Zone!"
He let out a shaky laugh filled with fear and excitement.
As soon as he reached the slum boundary, the bicycle fell apart beneath him. First the chain, then the pedals, then the wheels. By the time he stopped, it was a pile of scrap scattered across the floor.
Leo stared at it. "…This is why warranty is very important."
He shook his head, dusted himself off, and started hurrying toward the guard station.
But he stopped and climbed the building again.
The glitch was still there.
"That's enough proof," Leo muttered. "I have to report it."