Invisible Hollow Incident | A Zenless Zone Zero Fan Story

Chapter 2: Sudden Assignment

A weary face peaks out of the covers as an alarm starts blearing. Reaching out she picks up her phone, switching off the alarm before checking to make sure she hadn't received any messages throughout the night.

One Unread: Rina

"Just when I thought today was going to be a relaxed one..."

Her mind already running what excuse she would have to use for not showing up to school today, Ellen opens the message. To her surprise, it only contains a single sentence.

Get ready a little early today, I need to brief you on something before you go to school, I'll be waiting outside your place.

"That's... strange."

Traditionally, when there was a commission Ellen was required to participate in, she would receive all the info in the first message from Lyacon, the message coming from Rina and not offering up any information had her brain buzzing with questions. Ellen quickly rushes to get ready, hastily throwing on her school uniform before grabbing her bag and riffling through her pantry for a box of candy, grateful that she had taken the advice of Corrin to pre-organise more so she could get ready faster and set her alarm later. While normally Ellen wouldn't be in a rush to start a mission, the annoyance of having a question she desperately wanted an answer to overrode her usual feelings so before long, she was stepping outside to greet Rina.

"My my, you were quick, excited to start work for once?"

"You wish."

"Well, we will have to walk and talk."

"Rina, why are you dressed like that?"

Rina had shown up not in her customary maid outfit, but rather in some... normal looking clothes..? A simple plain grey sweater with a long black skirt and black high heels, though if you knew what you were looking for you could still spot the gear hidden underneath for her to control her two Bangboo through. She almost looked like...

"I'm going to be coming to your school under the role of a substitute teacher."

"WHAT!?"

"Shhhh, keep it down, that's what this whole brief is about, let me explain. Have you already heard about the 'Invisible Hollow' incident?"

"It's been the only thing anyone has been posting about on Interknot since it happened, how could I not know?"

"Well..."

Rina goes onto explain what had been kept hidden from the media. The general population was aware that there were survivors, but for the most part their identity had been kept hidden for their own safety. Most of them had family around that the defense force had managed to get into contact with or they simply received some funding and a job to get them back on their feet, but there were a few fringe cases where that couldn't happen for one reason or another. For those few the force put out a call to everyone in their network to see if anyone could provide a place for them to stay.

"Our good friends at Phaethon were one of the people to accept."

"I'm not following."

"Stick with me, I'm almost done explaining, then you can ask questions. You remember the video store Wise and Belle are based in?"

"Of course I do, it's in Sixth Street, it's not really that far from here."

"Exactly, and the kid they took in would still have to do things like go through school."

"You're not saying..."

"He'll be in the same grade as you, you won't have to do much except keep an eye on him. Many of the people who were evacuated from the Hollow still lost their life to corruption, the Ether levels that were present were more intense than anything that's been recorded before. The Defense Force knows about Victoria Housekeeping, especially with you already attending the school, they hired us to monitor him for the time being. Here, they gave me a file to pass on to you."

Ellen takes the file and gives it a quick scan over.

"Cyrus huh? He doesn't seem like he'll be too much trouble, why the need for you to go as well?"

"It's not just me."

"Hold on, EVERYONE? The entirety of Victoria Housekeeping is going to be in... why? How have they even gotten you in?"

"Both me and Lyacon are coming in as substitute teachers and Corin is enrolled as an exchange student."

"It just seems... I dunno... excessive?"

"It's what was asked of us."

"Alright than, it just seems strange for the defense force to be contracting us. Don't they have their own people that could do this?"

"They must have their reasons."

"Okay okay, I'll stop asking about it."

The rest of the discussion was filled with what was happening with the two's day to day lives, Rina excitedly relaying how she had been working on a new recipe at which Ellen had to stop her multiple times to ask if the ingredients Rina had been listing were safe to consume.