If you want a shot at survival, pay the fee and take the gate. It’s relatively well-maintained, a safer bet.
If you’re ready to throw your life away and don’t want to spend a dime, brave the unregulated passages. Plunge into the Ruins, covered in filth and poison.
Money or life. It’s a cruel, ironic choice that binds body and soul, no matter if you’re from the Lower or Mid-Tier City. Danan, having just bought a concentrated jelly pack for Ruin exploration from a trusted supply shop, slides credits into a payment terminal in place of a human clerk. He gazes up at the sky of the Lower City, sealed off by thick steel plates.
Beyond that steel sky lies another world: the Mid-Tier City. There, murder is a crime, and young boys and girls aren’t forced to work in brothels for meager wages. In the Lower City, where infants are abandoned in alleys and people die like garbage, the Mid-Tier’s sense of normalcy doesn’t apply. No, to survive here, you have to ignore the law entirely—trust only in your own strength.
In the Lower City, ruled by three powerful organizations, you don’t pick fights with the bosses. You prey on the weak and stay strong, or you’re the next to be devoured. The law of the jungle reigns supreme. From infancy, the weak are weeded out, and as you grow, the demand for strength only intensifies.
Danan remembers it clearly now. As he took his first steps and glanced into an alley, he saw three young men toying with an old man, carving out his throat and ripping out his organs. Nearby, a terrified boy cowered, frozen in fear.
“Man, what’s the point of harvesting this geezer’s organs? No one’s buying that trash. We’d make more selling the kid to a brothel,” one of the men sneered.
“You idiot, where’s the fun in that?” another laughed. “Hey, kid, we’re feeling generous. We’ll give you two options: run or get sold. You’ve got three seconds to decide.”
Laughing hysterically, the man hurled the old man’s bloody organs at the boy, and the group raised their guns in unison, counting down.
One. Two. Three.
The boy, trembling, barely managed to stand and stumble forward. A single gunshot pierced his leg, and he collapsed, screaming. The men, high on inhalant drugs, taunted his wound with twisted excitement, their eyes gleaming with madness.
To them, it was just a game. A twisted version of target practice, the kind drug addicts play when their brains are fried. They hunt the weak, torment them, kill them—just to scratch the itch crawling under their skin.
“Get up, you little shit! Run! You’re no fun just lying there!” one of them barked. “Man, this is boring. Maybe we’ll find some pregnant chick to mess with next.”
“Another one of your sick games?” another chimed in. “But we still haven’t made enough for the organization’s cut. Even if the kid’s damaged, we could sell him—”
“Got enough drugs to sell? We’ve still got our stash, plus what we’re using—”
Before he could finish, the man’s head exploded, his skull and brains splattering across the alley.
“What the hell are you Meat Crucible punks doing, stirring up trouble in our territory? You want to die, you drugged-up trash?”
A woman from the violent gang Outlaws, her entire body fitted with mechanical prosthetics, crushed the remaining two men like insects, slamming them against the concrete wall of the residential block. She spat on their corpses, then turned her gaze to the boy, his face contorted with blood and tears.
Relief washed over him. He thought he was saved.
Then her boot crushed his skull, and his body was tossed into a garbage bin like refuse.
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Danan had seen it coming. He knew how it would end, which is why he didn’t intervene. It was just the strong preying on the weak, only for an even stronger predator to step in and kill. In the Lower City, it’s an ordinary scene, a mundane slice of daily life.
Maybe Danan was lucky. Only his right arm is mechanical; the rest of his body is still his own. If he hadn’t been taken in by that old man—a Ruin scavenger feared by everyone—he would’ve died long ago. Brutally, mercilessly, cruelly.
People die, are born, and die again. In the Lower City, human instincts override reason, and violence and desire swirl like a venomous cauldron. This is the city of evil, the lowest level of the Tower. Its chaotic streets shimmer with gaudy neon, crowded with men and women of all ages. Just walking here risks getting caught up in crime. If you don’t show strength and ruthlessness, you’re the next to die.
A boy bumped into Danan’s waist, trying to flee. The young man grabbed him by the collar, flung him into a trash bin, and pressed a gun to his face. “Hand over what you stole,” he growled.
“I-I didn’t take anything! Nothing!” the boy stammered.
“Then die.”
The trigger clicked, the hammer fell, and the boy’s head burst, his brains splattering the wall. Danan plucked a single bullet from the boy’s filthy pants, pocketed it, lit a cigarette, and kept walking.
To Danan, a man who knew of a father sold to slavers after losing his family for stealing a single bullet, this was justice. Showing weakness or hesitation—whether to an old man, a woman, a child, or even a member of the three ruling organizations—was a death sentence. That’s the Lower City’s common sense. Half-hearted kindness has no place here.
Danan reached the gate’s entrance and transferred credits to a security soldier. He scanned the heavily armed guards and the overkill anti-personnel weapons stationed around them.
“Man,” the soldier said, breaking the silence.
“What?” Danan replied.
“I just don’t get you Ruin scavengers. Why are you all so eager to die?”
“Hm.”
“No, seriously, isn’t it weird? The whole Lower City’s messed up. Just today, I’ve killed ten people. Addicts, zealots, vagrants, kids, women, men… It’s enough to drive you crazy, living in a place like this. What about you, scavenger? How do you deal with it?”
“Don’t think much of it. Ten’s not bad. I stopped counting my kills a long time ago.”
The soldier let out a heavy sigh. “I miss my family up in the Mid-Tier,” he muttered, fiddling with the control panel to open the gate.
Danan and the soldier weren’t friends. But to the soldier, Danan was a rare listener—someone who didn’t draw a gun while he rambled, waiting patiently for the gate to open. In his own strange way, the soldier felt a one-sided bond.
“Hey,” the soldier said.
“What?”
“What’s your name? I’ve never asked a Lower City guy before.”
“Does it matter?”
“Why not?”
“Today I’m alive. Tomorrow I might be dead. What’s the point of remembering the name of someone who might not make it?”
“That’s how it is for you Lower City folks?”
“That’s how it is, Mid-Tier soldier.”
Even if you survive today, there’s no guarantee you’ll see tomorrow. Living itself is a gamble, so why bother sharing your name with a Mid-Tier stranger you might never see again?
“Scavenger,” the soldier said.
“What?”
“Stop with the curt replies already. Look, if you run into something dangerous in the Ruins, get out fast, okay?”
“Dangerous?”
“Finally, a real response. Word is, there’s a section of the Ruins where the toxin levels are off the charts. Probably a nest of some new alien creature or an escaped lab experiment. If things get dicey, don’t be a hero—retreat.”
“A Mid-Tier soldier, worrying about a Lower City guy?”
“I’m saying it because it’s you. You actually listen to me. Most scavengers won’t even look me in the eye before they head off. You’re… I don’t know, a decent guy to talk to. It’d suck if you died.”
“…That’s how Mid-Tier folks think?”
“Most of us, yeah. Just make sure you come back alive, alright? Next time we meet, I’ll take you to a good bar up by the gate.”
“…Sure.”
Danan couldn’t understand why this Mid-Tier soldier was being so kind. They weren’t business partners, barely even acquaintances—strangers in a world of predators and prey. Yet the soldier saw Danan as a friend, a connection Danan himself didn’t recognize. In the Lower City, such fleeting bonds were useless. Having lived among the city’s malice and sin since childhood, Danan couldn’t grasp the soldier’s sincerity. He gave the man a fleeting glance, then stepped through the gate.
Friendship. It couldn’t be eaten. It couldn’t buy supplies or credits. An invisible asset with no practical value. What worth was there in something so intangible? Danan didn’t get it. No, it had no worth at all.
Purified by a blast of decontaminant spray in the metal isolation room, Danan passed through the second gate and stared into the abyss below. He stepped into the personal elevator, his eyes catching a larger platform nearby.
There, a group of scavengers preparing to descend stood together. Some buzzed with excitement, others couldn’t hide their fear. One injected drugs to stay calm, while another restrained a comrade on the verge of hysteria. Humans, charging toward death, feared the cold, unyielding darkness, trying to fool themselves to escape the suffocating dread.
the group.
They wouldn’t last. If they were lucky, they’d become food for an alien creature, their guts and flesh torn apart as they died. If not… they’d turn on each other, kill one another, wander aimlessly, and starve, their desiccated corpses left to mummify in the Ruins’ corridors.
Danan lit his cigarette, exhaling purple smoke as the fading light of the Lower City vanished behind him. He descended into the Ruins alone, plunging into the edge of hell where death and madness swirled.
- Cultural Nuances: Terms like “Lower City” and “Mid-Tier City” were used to reflect the hierarchical, dystopian setting without losing the original weight. “Ruins” was chosen for “遺跡” to evoke a sense of decay and danger, fitting the story’s tone.
- Slang and Tone: The dialogue was translated to capture the rough, casual speech of the Lower City inhabitants (e.g., “punks,” “druged-up trash”) while maintaining the soldier’s slightly more formal but still conversational tone to reflect his Mid-Tier status.
- Proper Nouns: Names like “Meat Crucible” (肉欲の坩堝) and “Outlaws” (無頼漢) were translated to preserve their symbolic meaning and gritty vibe. “Danan” was kept as is, as it’s a proper name.
- Atmosphere: The translation emphasizes the bleak, nihilistic worldview of the Lower City, and Danan’s cold pragmatism, ensuring the dystopian themes resonate with English readers.
- Violence and Sensitivity: The graphic violence was retained as it’s central to the story’s impact, but care was taken to avoid gratuitous embellishment, staying true to the original’s matter-of-fact brutality.