Check out my new translation!
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The moment Nicole's sudden visit was announced, the Legendary Proxy: Phaethon siblings were completely bewildered. By all logic, she should have been on the airship heading to the Supreme Tribunal—so why was she standing here in their parking lot with the entire Cunning Hares crew?
"What are you all doing here? Nicole, weren't you supposed to board the airship today?" Wise stared at them as they climbed down from the truck, confused. From oldest to youngest, the whole household had mobilized—what major event was happening?
"It should have gone that way." Nicole pulled her phone out of her pocket. "But there's something I need to discuss with you first, or I won't be able to concentrate in court."
Belle poked her head out of the house, waving at everyone before turning to Nicole. "What happened? What do you need to talk about?"
"Remember some time ago, when you asked me to connect you with the hacker Rain to crack that storage unit from Belobog Heavy Industries?" Nicole said, lifting her phone. "Something strange has been happening. Rain—and a few people who know her—have been sending us blank messages."
"At first nobody thought much of it, but it's been going on for half a month." Nicole opened the messages and showed the siblings. "Aside from these messages, Rain has vanished like she evaporated from the world. And today is especially wrong. Before, it was one message every few days, or once a day. But this morning onward—she's sent a ton."
Wise tapped the keyboard and scrolled up the chat log. Sure enough, starting from this morning, the messages had poured in continuously.
"Hmm. That's definitely odd." Wise returned the phone to her. "You want to use our HDD to analyze the source of these messages?"
The mistress of the Cunning Hares nodded, and Belle immediately shouted toward the house: "Fairy! Can you check the messages Rain sent? Are they really blank, without any encryption?"
Soon, a synthesized female voice came from the RandomPlay shop's speakers—Phaethon's smart assistant had woken up. "Understood, Master."
After a brief pause, it spoke again: "Master, analysis shows the messages contain no additional data. However, the sender's address was not encrypted. The decoded coordinates are located in New Eridu, near a building called [Ballet Twins Tower]."
Hearing that name, Nicole's expression froze, and she instinctively took a step back. Ignis found that unusual—it was rare to see Nicole startled. Not even the Dead End Butcher in Dead End Hollow had scared her.
"Wait—what did you say? Ba… Ballet Twins Tower?" The Boss of the Cunning Hares was stuttering.
"What's wrong? What's with that reaction?" Ignis asked, puzzled.
"Ignis, looks like you're not very into urban legends." Anby calmly explained. "The Ballet Twins Tower is the name for a pair of twin buildings. Their ghost stories are pretty popular lately. Supposedly…"
To the Salamander, ghost stories were child's play. He had fought actual daemons, been targeted by multiple Chaos Gods. Whatever ghosts the Ballet Twins Tower had, they'd need to be pretty impressive to measure up.
But Nicole clearly didn't want this topic spoken aloud. She hurriedly cut off Anby: "Stop! Anby, cut it! A-anyway, the point is—the twin towers were swallowed by a Hollow years ago."
She turned toward the Phaethon siblings. "How could Rain's messages come from a place like that?"
Wise almost immediately followed up. "Given Fairy's capabilities, she shouldn't be wrong." He then looked at his sister. "Belle… since this is making Nicole anxious, and we're also waiting for Rain's decryption results—how about we check the Ballet Twins Tower?"
Belle instantly lit up at the mention of a mission. "You mean actually going to the site? Big bro, your courage has seriously grown. Must be thanks to my horror movie collection!"
Wise's expression twisted in pain. "Belle, can you please stop bringing up how you forced me to watch horror movies?"
He had absolutely zero resistance to horror films. Ignis thought, IF there were tech that could extract my memories, they'd make incredible horror movies. But it wasn't possible—those hellish battles carried the taint of Chaos. If he actually showed them, the Emperor would probably smack him senseless.
Wise turned to Nicole. "If we're going to investigate Rain's whereabouts, we may have to enter the Hollow. Can we borrow Anby and the others?"
"Of course. It's not like they're going to be helpful in court anyway." Nicole smiled. "I also had Ignis suit up in armor." She then pulled a photo from her shorts pocket. "Right—take this. You'll need it to find her."
It was a photo of Rain: a pink-haired girl with a backpack walking down the street, hoodie up, blowing bubblegum.
"Huh? This girl is Rain?" Wise looked stunned.
"Yeah? What about it?" Nicole asked.
"She's a regular at our shop." Belle chimed in. "Guess this is what they call never judging a book by its cover."
"You're no different—Phaethon, proprietors of a video store." Ignis muttered, which explained perfectly why Rain had chosen Sixth Street as a meet-up point.
"In any case, I'm leaving Rain's issue to you. I'm heading to New Eridu Public Security to catch the airship." Nicole said, pulling her suitcase away.
"Proxy, we'll take your Bangboo with us then?" Anby stared intently at the Phaethon siblings.
"No problem. I'll prep Eous, then we can go." Belle headed into the house. "Give me just a moment!"
After only ten minutes, Belle had Eous loaded onto the truck. This time, Eous was not wary of Ignis like before. It even waved cheerfully and ran toward him, curling up at his side.
As the truck engine roared, Ignis entertained the little smart unit. After quite a long drive, a sudden hard brake sent Eous flying—only for the Salamander to catch it with one hand.
Once they disembarked, Eous immediately complained at Billy, forcing him to apologize repeatedly.
The truck had stopped near the metro station by the Ballet Twins Tower. A small plaza sat there, featuring a famous Thinker statue. By the time they arrived, the sun was setting. Somehow, the entire day had passed without them doing much of anything.
"Phew… finally here." Billy stretched his arms and twisted his waist—the long drive had worn him out. "So where exactly is the Ballet Twins Tower?"
"Should be inside the Hollow across the river." Anby walked to the edge of the plaza railing and pointed toward the inverted black hemisphere across the water.
"That hacker's messages really came from inside the Hollow?" Billy still couldn't process it. Weren't only Proxies capable of tech like this? He shielded his eyes and looked toward the Hollow—then suddenly pointed. "Wait—look! Up there, above the Hollow!"
The Salamander followed his line of sight. From beyond the Hollow's edge, the rooftop of a tall building protruded outward—like a steel branch breaking through shell.
"That's the Ballet Twins Tower rooftop. Makes sense." Belle's voice came through Eous's body. "I heard the Companion Hollow here has been shrinking recently. That would explain why the top of the building is exposed."
Billy and Nekomiya Mana leaned on the railing, the latter's twin tails swaying. "So that means the messages Nicole received might have come from that spot nya?"
"But even so… why would Rain go to a place like that?" Belle asked, full of doubt. "Everyone, let's figure out how to get to the rooftop first."
Bangboo waved its little hand and took the lead. The employees of the Cunning Hares followed behind it. To be fair, Billy still raised a hand to his forehead and made a dramatic "move out" gesture. Honestly, if this robot never opened his mouth, he'd actually look pretty cool.
What ruined him was the fact he had a mouth—once he spoke, his goofy nature was exposed instantly.
Crossing the road bridge on one side, the Hollow was finally within reach again—bringing with it that clingy, plastic-wrap-on-the-face sense of pressure. Once they stepped inside, the warm, golden slanting sunlight vanished, plunging everything into darkness. It didn't matter to Ignis, of course; even in pitch black, he could see clearly through flame vision.
Passing through the ground floor entrance, the first thing they saw were two Bangboo statues standing side by side. Their raised hands seemed to be gestures welcoming guests. Judging from the interior layout, this place must have once been a massive commercial complex. Paintings hung on the walls—mostly oil paintings—and the whole space had once appeared refined and elegant.
But now, the damp chill and darkness twisted the oil paintings and the statues into eerie, unsettling silhouettes.
"So, this is the Ballet Twins Tower…" Nekomiya had curled herself into a tiny ball, arms wrapped around her chest as she frantically rubbed her arms for warmth.
"What a grand place." Billy's voice was trembling. Ignis didn't get it—sure, Nekomiya was flesh and blood and thus sensitive to the cold, but Billy, a robot, was shivering too? Did his super-alloy body seriously have temperature sensitivity built into it? What kind of robot installs that?
Then again, considering this robot could eat, drink, and even "catch a cold," the Salamander decided not to question it further.
Clearly, he wasn't a serious robot to begin with—might as well treat him as someone who actually felt cold.
They walked past the two statues. The darkness deepened further. Ignis felt something staring at him from above. When he looked up, however, all he caught were faint traces of residual heat. An Ethereal?
The only sources of light were the statues' heads—each fitted with a dim, yellowish bulb—glowing weakly in the dark.
These strange sights made Billy shudder violently. He crossed his arms tight, glancing left and right like he expected the shadows to swallow him.
"Ugh, this place is really cold…" The robot hugged himself and trembled. Ignis could only hope it was the cold, and not fear messing up his combat functions.
"Agreed…" Nekomiya wasn't faring better. Her tail was ramrod straight, ears perked high. "Even though this place looks kind of luxurious… I feel really uncomfortable."
An intelligent Construct and a Thiren trembled side by side, scanning their surroundings as if something might leap at them from the dark and drag them away.
"Relax. I'll watch your backs." Ignis unlatched the autocannon from his waist and chambered a round with a heavy click.
With heavy firepower backing them, the two immediately regained some courage.
Still, could physical ammunition even kill invisible ghosts?
Nekomiya yelped and latched onto Anby's left arm, hiding behind her. Ignis blinked—when had the two of them become this close?
Anby looked equally surprised, but quickly focused on the mission again. "Stay sharp. The fog in here is thick—there may be threats nearby." Indeed, aside from the ink-black darkness, a heavy, damp fog filled the building.
Suddenly, a noise came from behind them, making Billy and Nekomiya jump straight into the air.
The group turned. One of the Bangboo statues had toppled over.
Something was wrong. Ignis hadn't heard a thing—not even with his Lyman's Ear gene-seed. That was far too unusual. But he had seen a streak of heat haze vanish into the darkness. Something had just moved through at high speed.
Seeing only the fallen statue, the robot and the cat-girl both exhaled in relief.
"Man, that scared me." Billy tugged at his jacket collar, trying his best to look composed, forcing out a dry laugh to hide his embarrassment.
Eous stepped forward, wiped sweat off its forehead, and turned back to them. "I don't think we should stay here long. Let's hurry and find her."
Bangboos could sweat? Why? What possible purpose did that serve? Why did New Eridu's robots always come with such bizarre, pointless details? For what reason, exactly?
Watching the tiny smart unit hop forward, Ignis had nothing but question marks in his head. He glanced back at the fallen statue again, recording the heat signature he had seen earlier.
The Salamander had grown tense. He could feel numerous gazes watching them from the darkness—yet flame vision detected nothing.
Too strange. But considering this was the interior of a Hollow, maybe some special variant Ethereal was hiding within spatial crevices, observing them?
That thought made Ignis's skin crawl. The last time he'd heard of such eerie abilities, it belonged to the Necron Deathmarks.
Surely, they weren't about to run into that nightmare here… right?