The burn scar on his right hand throbbed again today. Kain ignored the sensation and slung the worn work jacket over his shoulders. His black hair stood up haphazardly from sleep, and his brown eyes narrowed in the cold air. He wasn't tall, but his lean, nimble frame was built for slipping through the gaps of ruins. His white shirt had long since stopped being white, and his slacks bore chemical stains in several places. Everyone living in Zaun's underground streets looked pretty much like this. Another day had begun. He walked south down Last Drop Street. From the cracks in the broken pavement beneath his feet, a greenish liquid seeped out slowly. More than half a year had passed since the war ended, yet repairs on this street hadn't progressed at all. Bullet marks scarred the walls. Thick pipes jutted from the crumbling buildings here and there, occasionally belching steam. The war between Piltover and Zaun. Eight months long, ending in Zaun's defeat. Over forty thousand dead. Some of the people Kain knew were among them. Looking up, he could see the Bridge of Progress in the distance, high above. The only bridge connecting Piltover and Zaun. Now it was lined with checkpoints manned by Enforcers—Piltover's armed forces—making it nearly impossible for ordinary people to cross. Before the war, they said eight thousand people crossed daily. Now there weren't even twelve hundred. The "Closure Decree" issued by the higher-ups, that law prohibiting Hextech components from being brought into Zaun, continued in various forms to this day. Well, it didn't matter to him. Kain had no business up there. His destination today was elsewhere. ───── The Salvage Market—nicknamed "Salma"—sat in a cave plaza about eight hundred meters south of Last Drop Street. It was the largest black market in Zaun's mid-levels. Kain shouldered his cargo bag and pushed through the crowd. Shouts and price negotiations flew from every direction. The charred smell of fried chemical potatoes mixed with the scent of rusted metal, stinging his nose. He deftly avoided puddles on the stone pavement where vendors lined up, making his way deeper in. Torg's shop was at the market's center. Big. That was the first thing anyone thought upon seeing Torg. His weight was well over a hundred kilos, and his left eye was hidden behind an eyepatch. Just sitting with his arms crossed on a wooden chair, he radiated a sense of pressure. The market's kingpin. The man who took eight percent of sales as transaction fees. "Yo." Kain said this while setting his cargo bag on the counter. He spread the contents out roughly. Seven Hextech components. Stuff he'd collected over a week of salvage work. Two power conversion coils, three connection terminals, one illumination lens. And one small unit he didn't quite understand but was probably Hextech-related. Torg didn't move his face, just scanned it with his one eye. "...One hundred eighty Chem." "Huh?" Kain's voice came out involuntarily. A week's worth of work. "Three people brought connection terminals this week. We're overstocked. Same with the power coils. The illumination lens is cracked." "It's not cracked. I checked it carefully." "The edge is chipped." With that, Torg lifted the lens with his thick finger and rotated it. Sure enough, the edge was slightly chipped. He'd missed it. Kain scratched his temple. "...At least two hundred fifty." "Don't need it, then." Other salvagers around them glanced over. All dressed similarly—protective gloves, worn jackets, chemical removal cans hanging from their belts—their expressions varied, but they were all thinking the same thing: "Getting lowballed again." They knew because it happened to them too. Kain started to say "fine," then stopped for some reason. His mouth moved. "...It's like a keepsake from my family. That illumination lens. So at least..." Silence fell. Torg raised an eyebrow. Every salvager in the vicinity turned to look at Kain at once. (Oh. That's bad.) He didn't even understand what he'd just said. A keepsake? An illumination lens? Something he'd picked up in the ruins a week ago? "...You feeling alright?" Someone snorted. "He came to sell a keepsake?" said another voice. "That's rough," said yet another. Snickers spread through the crowd. Kain felt his face heat up. "N-no, that's not what I meant—" "One hundred eighty good?" It was a voice that brooked no argument. Kain looked down and replied, "...Yeah." One hundred eighty Chem. Payment for a week's work. At two Chem per meal, it was barely enough. Chemical painkillers cost fifteen Chem a bottle. He needed to repair his protective gear, and his workshop floor was leaking too. Kain took the Chem and pushed through the crowd. He could feel the weight of stares on his back—"the keepsake guy." ───── Thinking about his next move, Kain left Salma. He shoved his hands in his pockets and did rough calculations in his head. He had enough to get by for three more days. But after that? Salvagers could get paid by clients if there were jobs. But there'd been no jobs this week. Working only on self-salvaged materials was honestly rough. Component prices were dropping, and most of the easily accessible ruins had already been picked clean. Something caught his eye on the ground. A small metal screw, rusted and useless. Kain picked it up and stared at it for a while. It was good for nothing. But he couldn't bring himself to throw it away, so he pocketed it in his jacket. A weird habit, he thought. So, next move. Vander's Old Inn came to mind. A ruin on Last Drop Street where a man named Vander had once run an inn-tavern hybrid. Vander had disappeared during the war. Nobody went near it now. The first floor's ceiling had collapsed—too dangerous. But he'd heard there was a basement. An older salvager he sometimes saw at Salma had mentioned it. "There might be Hextech equipment down there," he'd said. "But it's too big to haul out." If it was too big to haul out, why was it still there? That meant nobody had actually confirmed what was inside yet. It was worth checking. Kain started walking. ───── Vander's Old Inn was more destroyed than he'd expected. The three-story building's first floor was nearly collapsed, with the second floor's floorboards exposed and hanging in midair. Countless bullet marks pocked the outer walls. Every window was shattered, frames alone remaining. For about two hundred meters around, similar half-ruined buildings stretched out. Kain ducked through the collapsed entrance. Rubble was piled at his feet. A beam lay diagonally across the space; he crouched and squeezed under it. The smell of dust. And something else—a faint metallic burn smell. Like the scent that came when Hextech was nearby. (Is there really a basement?) As he pushed deeper, he found a section where floorboards had been torn up. Below it, stairs descended. But they were buried in rubble partway down. Kain pulled a small crowbar from his cargo bag. He pulled on work gloves with both hands and began carefully prying away the debris. It was heavy. Chunks of stone and collapsed wood came out in turns, sweat pouring out with each one. His right hand's burn scar throbbed again. He ignored it and kept going. Five minutes. Ten minutes. He rolled up his jacket sleeves and wiped sweat from his forehead. The stairs were becoming visible. Just a bit more. Three more large stones to move and— Then a faint vibration came from beneath his feet. Kain stopped moving. What was that? The entire floor was trembling slightly, rhythmically. Not so much a vibration as a pulse. Thump, thump, thump. Slow but steady. (Hextech energy.) When a Hextech device was active, you could feel this kind of vibration through your skin if you were close enough. After doing salvage work long enough, you learned to recognize the sensation. But why was it still running? Nobody had been here since the war ended. Kain hurried to clear away the remaining rubble. ───── At the bottom of the stairs was a door. A heavy metal door, its surface rusted. But the hinges still worked. Kain wedged his crowbar into the gap and threw his weight against it. Giiiiing—the metal made an awful sound. Again. With all his strength. Bang—the door fell inward. Light poured out—a pale blue light. Kain's eyes narrowed for a moment. The basement was larger than he'd expected. Maybe six or seven tatami mats in size. Stone walls with cracks running through them. And in the center of it all, there it was. A machine about a meter tall. Several spheres and tubes arranged in complex configurations, its surface etched with fine patterns. An old-model Hextech device. But its shape was different from any Hextech device Kain had ever seen. Blue light flowed through the tubes, and one of the spheres rotated slowly. The thump, thump, thump vibration came from here. Beautiful, he thought. Unsettling too. But beautiful. Kain stared at it blankly for a while. Then, as the device flickered, the shadow on the floor changed shape. The shadow was human-shaped. Kain's gaze dropped. On the far side of the device, against the wall, a person was huddled on the floor. A woman. Long purple hair spread across the ground. Her shoulders slumped, her back against the wall. Looking closer, her right arm was wrong. Wrong didn't even begin to cover it. From the elbow down, her arm was fused with metal—the kind of hard metal used in Enforcer armor, embedded directly into her skin. The boundary between skin and metal was melting. The fusion point was a mess, and it seemed to be slowly progressing even now. Her face. The profile lit by the device's glow was impossibly serene. Her eyes were closed. Golden lashes cast shadows. Was she dead? Or— "Are you dead!?" The words came out reflexively. At the same time, Kain's body was already moving. He circled the device and knelt beside the woman. He reached for her wrist to check her pulse, but he was afraid to touch her right arm, so he grabbed her left one instead. There was a pulse. Kain felt relief wash over him. At the same moment, the woman's eyelids slowly opened. Golden eyes looked at him. ───── Sharp eyes. Despite her body's condition, those eyes held Kain's gaze clearly. They were focused. Conscious. But deep in those eyes was something—a weariness from somewhere far down. Resignation, you might call it. The eyes of someone who'd given up on everything and was just waiting for time to pass. "Leave me alone." Her voice was hoarse. But clear. "...Huh?" "It's pointless." With that, the woman closed her eyes again. Kain remained on his knees, frozen. Pointless. Pointless how? Trying to help her? Living? How long had she been here like this? If her arm's mutation was progressing, that meant it had been getting worse slowly over time— Something stirred in his head. He remembered something old. From when he was much younger. Before the war started. Back when he was living at the bottom of Zaun. His family had disappeared one by one. Chemical contamination. Starvation. Kain had been helpless each time. He couldn't speak to them, couldn't help them, couldn't do anything. He could only watch. This woman's face overlapped with those memories. (I have to say something. Anything. I have to say something.) Kain rummaged through his cargo bag. He pulled out a metal water flask. "At least some water..." The woman turned her face away. The flask hung uselessly in the air. She wouldn't take it. A complete refusal. Kain stood there holding the flask, not moving. A hissing sound came from somewhere. The device's thump, thump, thump vibration traveled through the floor into his body. The basement was dim, lit only by the gently swaying blue light. He couldn't say anything. Honestly, he didn't know what to say. "You'll be fine" was a lie. "You'll be saved" might be too. Kain wasn't a doctor, wasn't a Hextech expert, didn't know how t