Video Battle! A Super Lazy Day in Zenless Zone Zero
A silly kind of peace has arrived in New Eridu. It all started with a single poster brought in by Billy. "First Annual Pair Video Grand Prix! Grand Prize: 5,000,000 Dennies!" With stars in his eyes, Billy is promptly dismissed by Nicole, who sighs, "Yeah, right, you're thinking of something stupid again." But when she hears the prize money could clear their debts, Anby silently presses the 'enter' button. Thus begins the laziest, most chaotic video battle in history, starring the oddballs of the
Video Battle! A Super Lazy Day in Zenless Zone Zero - Big Chaos!? An Outrageous Plan and the Great Fish Phone Operation
An afternoon at the Random Phone shop.
The counter is littered with half-empty mugs and countless junk phones.
Only the second hand of the wall clock ticks uselessly, *click, click*.
"[excited]Alright! Let's get this planning meeting started!"
Billy slams the counter with a bang.
His messy brown hair bounces, and the old scar on his left cheek twitches.
His sparkling brown eyes are shining even brighter than usual.
Across from him, Nico looks up, still holding a thin screwdriver.
The furrow between his brows is three times deeper than normal.
"...A meeting for what."
"[excited]Isn't it obvious! A video project, a project!"
Nico's sigh echoes through the shop.
His narrow, sharp eyes become half-lidded.
"You caused all that ruckus yesterday, and you're still going on about this?"
"[excited]Of course I am! It's five million dennies!"
Billy pulls a crumpled poster from his pocket.
Fluorescent pink, reading "1st Annual Pair Video Grand Prix."
Every time he sees those words, his excitement spikes even higher.
"[excited]Listen up! I've been thinking!"
Billy energetically holds up one finger.
"[excited]We blow up the whole shopping district!"
Silence falls over the shop.
Nico nearly drops his screwdriver, and from the shadow of a shelf in the back, Amby looks up for just a moment.
"...Huh?"
Nico's voice is low, and trembling.
"[excited]Okay, listen! First, we set up fireworks all over the shopping district! A super flashy BOOM!"
"Wait, wait, wait."
"[excited]Then I make a dashing entrance from the mountain of rubble! Holding a phone I just fixed! I show it off and yell, 'It'll work out somehow!'"
"...First of all, where are you going to get permission for the explosions."
Nico's tone is far too calm.
Which somehow makes it scarier.
"[excited]Permission? That's what we're gonna go get now! City hall, the fire department, and... the landlord!"
"Every single one will be denied."
An immediate answer.
"[excited]Okay, next! We fix phones while water-skiing on the Kudari River!"
"You've never skied before."
"[excited]I just need to practice starting now!"
"You'll drown during the shoot. The camera will be ruined too. That's a dead-on-arrival project if I've ever seen one."
Nico rattles off his retorts at high speed.
He's always like this when he's playing the straight man.
"[excited]Then how about this! A collaboration: a durability test throwing phones off Teppen Hill, and a speed-repair showcase!"
"That's not a video anymore, that's a crime."
"[excited]It'll work out somehow!"
"Like hell it will!"
Nico's yell makes the shop windows subtly vibrate.
In front of the back shelf, her gray hair swaying gently, Amby silently flips through an account book.
She hasn't participated in this conversation at all.
"...Hah. The stuff you come up with is always completely insane."
Rubbing his temple, Nico sinks back into his chair.
A faint blue vein is visible on his left temple.
"[laughing]Well, yeah, 'cause doing normal stuff won't go viral, right?"
"Before we go viral, we'll get arrested."
That's when it happened.
With a light *clink-clank* of a bell, the shop door opened.
"You kids making a racket again? I could hear you all the way next door."
Peeking in is a petite old woman in a white apron.
In her hands, she's carefully holding a paper bag, steam still rising warmly from it.
It's Tae, the owner of the neighboring taiyaki shop "Karimochi-dou" in Torino Street Shopping District.
With her usual gentle smile, she looks over the three of them.
"[excited]Auntie Tae!"
Billy's face lights up as he rushes over.
Like he's turned back into a kid.
"[gentle]Here, I made some taiyaki. Why don't you take a break? You're having a planning meeting or something, right?"
Tae gently places the paper bag on an empty space on the counter.
The sweet smell instantly fills the shop. Mixed with the scent of machine oil, it's a strangely calming aroma.
"[excited]You're the best, Auntie! How'd you know?"
"Because you're so loud, I could hear everything."
Tae laughs heartily.
Billy doesn't hesitate to take a taiyaki from the bag.
The crust is baked crispy, and it's packed full of red bean paste right to the tip of the tail.
"[excited]Hafu, hot... but, so good!"
With bean paste smeared around his mouth, Billy grins happily.
His double canine teeth are visible.
"[laughing]You haven't changed a bit since you were a kid, the way you eat."
Tae gazes intently at Billy's face, her eyes narrowing nostalgically.
Nico silently munches on his taiyaki, watching the two of them.
Amby, at some point, has taken a taiyaki from the bag and is eating it neatly from the edge, expressionless.
Suddenly, Billy's face turns serious.
His voice drops slightly.
"[gentle]...When I was little. My parents were always gone for work."
Nico looks up.
"[gentle]At night, when I was home alone, I was so lonely. I'd just stare out the window. Wondering if someone would come home."
In Billy's hand, the half-eaten taiyaki trembles just a little.
"At times like that, Auntie Tae would always bring me freshly baked taiyaki. And she'd play 'taiyaki party pretend' with me."
"...Taiyaki party pretend?"
Nico can't help but ask.
"[excited]Yeah! We'd line up the taiyaki and play house! This one's the daddy taiyaki, this one's the mommy taiyaki, the big one is grandma... and at the end, I get to eat them all up deliciously!"
"Hey, that ending is terrifying."
"[laughing]Back then, I wanted to see your smile so much, I tried all sorts of fillings every night. I even made cream, chocolate, and curry flavors."
Tae fidgets with the edge of her apron, looking a little embarrassed.
"[excited]Yeah, yeah! The curry one was awful, but somehow that made it even more fun!"
Billy takes another mouthful of bean paste.
His eyes look a little moist, and it's surely not just from the heat.
"[gentle]...So, that's why. Even now, when I'm in trouble, I feel like it'll work out somehow. When I remember the taste of that taiyaki, I naturally smile. Auntie, thank you so much for back then."
"[embarrassed]...You still remember something from that long ago? You're such a good kid, really."
Despite her words, Tae looks truly happy behind her smile.
Nico quietly swallows his taiyaki.
Then, he mutters under his breath.
"...I feel like I understand, just a little, why you're such a good-natured, carefree idiot."
Nico's expression softens slightly as he turns to Billy.
"[sarcastic]So, do you still think it'll work out somehow? This completely broken project."
"[excited]Of course I do! Auntie, just watch! We're definitely gonna win with our video! It'll work out somehow!"
Billy gives a firm thumbs up.
Tae laughs, saying "I'm looking forward to it," and returns to her shop.
The shop falls quiet.
The steam slowly drifts up and disappears into the ceiling.
"...So, what's the actual plan."
Just as Nico opens his mouth to drag them back to reality.
A rustling sound comes from the back of the shop.
It's Amby.
She's dragged out a dusty, thick file and a worn-out account book from the storage room in the back.
Her waist-length gray hair sways softly with her movements.
Her large purple eyes betray absolutely no emotion.
"...What are you doing?"
Amby doesn't answer.
She spreads the file open in a corner of the counter.
Inside, the inventory list of junk phones bought by the shop is written in dense detail.
Her slender fingers trace each item at an unbelievable speed.
Her perfect movements even make Billy stop in his tracks.
From the mountain of inventory, Amby casually pulls out several old, water-damaged waterproof model phones.
Then, she takes spare repair parts from a drawer and starts lining them up on the desk.
"What are you planning, Amby? Those are the ones we haven't fixed yet, right?"
The moment Billy tries to peek at the screen from behind, her phone emits a clear notification sound.
'Your order has been completed. Total amount: 80,000 Dennies.'
"WHAAAAAAT!?"
Billy and Nico's voices overlap perfectly.
"[excited]E-Eighty thousand!? Did you just say eighty thousand!? What did you buy!?"
When Billy snatches a look at the screen, it displays the order history for the latest high-end phones.
Three of them, no less.
Models equipped with the newest high-resolution cameras, specialized for video recording.
"[cold]Recording equipment. If we don't use the latest phones with high-res cameras, we'll lose to other creators on video quality."
Amby continues her explanation flatly.
"...Are you serious. What about the budget? The shop's money is barely enough to pay last month's rent."
Nico protests, his face pale.
Amby lightly taps the inventory file.
"[cold]I will sell the junk items I've just listed at the flea market in the Old Underground City. The boards from waterproof models are in demand even if water-damaged. If we dismantle them, they'll yield approximately twenty thousand dennies in cash."
"T-Twenty thousand...? Wait, wait, the math doesn't add up!?"
Billy starts counting on his fingers but quickly gives up.
"[cold]I will cover the difference."
Amby states it bluntly.
"[cold]I will use the pooled money for shop repairs that I've saved up over half a year."
"Y-You..."
"[cold]Calculations show this is the fastest route to victory. Image quality determines everything in terms of visual appeal."
The shop falls silent, as if a bucket of water had been thrown over it.
Both Billy and Nico are at a loss for words.
Amby is a girl who is always quiet, and you never know what she's thinking.
But her ability to act is always more pragmatic, and bolder, than anyone else's.
"[whispers]...Amby. Aren't you actually the most aggressive one out of all of us?"
Billy murmurs.
Amby keeps her eyes on the account book, unresponsive.
Except, she seems just a tiny bit conscious of the colorful striped knee-high socks on her left leg.
Nico lets out a deep sigh and scratches his head.
"...Fine. I get it. If the equipment is somehow taken care of, then next, well... at the very least, maybe we could use a mascot for the video. Something with impact that no one else could imitate."
Nico scratches his head, looking troubled.
That's when it happened.
"[excited]Whoa!? What the heck is this!?"
Billy pulls a strange object from the back of a parts shelf.
It's definitely a phone, but its shape is unmistakably... a fish.
A result of misplacing the board layout, shifting the battery position, and cutting and pasting the cover, it coincidentally ended up with a protrusion like a tail fin.
On top of that, the operation light sparkles oddly, making it look just like scales. On the screen, someone had programmed a swimming animation along with the handwritten words "mogu mogu" (nom nom).
"[laughing]Wha-what is this!? A fish!? The phone's turned into a fish!!"
Billy doubles over laughing.
Nico's face turns progressively redder.
"S-Stop! Don't touch that! Don't look at it! Forget you saw it!"
"[laughing]Nico! You made this!? This is your work, right!?"
"[angry]It was an accident! Last week, late at night, I accidentally shifted the board when I was soldering, and it turned out like this! It's my dark past!"
Nico reaches out to snatch it back, but Billy deftly dodges.
"[excited]This is it! We'll make this the mascot! The Fish Phone! Let's call the video 'Adventures of the Fish Phone Shop'!"
"[angry]Stop it! Absolutely not! If you put that online, I won't be able to stay in this town!"
Nico lunges at Billy, teary-eyed.
The two start grappling, crashing into the wall in a tangled heap.
The shelf shakes, and junk phones cascade down in an avalanche.
That's the moment.
A pale hand reaches out, *yoink*, and smoothly plucks the fish phone from Billy's hand.
"Ah."
"Hey."
It was Amby.
Silently, she gently lifts the strange phone with both hands.
Her deep purple eyes stare intently at the fish shape.
A misshapen fish, with screws sticking out, wires protruding, forcibly held together with adhesive.
The words "mogu mogu" fain
Novelia is an AI-powered platform where you can create and read original light novels and fan-fiction, and chat with the characters as if they were real. Stories update daily, and you can start reading and creating for free.