Levi lived in the Zaunite community adjacent to Piltover's factory district, which was quite a distance from the University of Piltover located in the wealthy area.
The Zaunite community, as the name suggested, was a neighborhood where Zaunites gathered. Most of the residents were Zaunite apprentices who weren't even Piltovan citizens, along with a few Zaunite immigrants who had bankrupted themselves to obtain Piltovan citizenship and temporarily lacked the funds to move elsewhere—or rather, "New Piltovans," as they preferred to call themselves.
In short, everyone living here was a poor wretch from Zaun.
Piltover prided itself on community autonomy, so when a neighborhood was entirely populated by the destitute, it naturally devolved into a ghost town.
It couldn't even provide the most basic public services. The streets went uncleaned, the roads unmaintained, and there were absolutely no hospitals, schools, or public transportation. Even the Enforcers were reluctant to come here.
The walls along the streets were covered in Zaunite-style graffiti, and the road surfaces were riddled with unpatched, spiderweb-like cracks.
The floor-to-ceiling windows of the shops were boarded up with heavy wooden planks. Shopkeepers sat openly at their doors with shotguns in hand, warmly welcoming regular customers while keeping a vigilant eye on any stranger passing by.
The trash cans by the roadside were all overflowing, spilling various kinds of garbage that spread out like a mudslide.
The heavy, wet, and bulky refuse clumped together and stuck to the ground like a stubborn rash.
The light, dry, and small pieces tumbled and drifted aimlessly across the road like tumbleweeds.
Any Piltovan who came here would frown in disgust.
Naturally, this included Seraphine.
Earlier, she had been so singularly focused on finding Levi as quickly as possible that she hadn't had the time to feel repulsed during her frantic sprint.
Now that Levi was right beside her, walking down the streets of the Zaunite community once more, she inevitably noticed the extremely atrocious sanitary conditions.
"Eek," Seraphine squeaked, walking on her tiptoes with small, mincing steps as she tried her best to dodge the various pieces of trash dancing wildly in the wind.
But even so, bags, rags, and other debris would occasionally blow past her, brushing against her pristine white stockings, gold-embroidered skirt, delicate skin, and even her most cherished pink hair.
This gave her goosebumps from sheer disgust.
As a result, Seraphine walked even more carefully, and much slower.
"Could you walk a little faster, Miss Seraphine?" Levi could not help but urge her.
His teammate's movement speed was so agonizingly slow that he was tempted to buy her a wheelchair.
"S-Sorry... There's just too much trash here, and..." Seraphine said, trying to wiggle her sore, sweaty toes inside her expensive but uncomfortable high-heeled boots. "I really can't walk anymore, Mr. Levi."
"How about..." As she spoke, she suddenly perked up. "Mr. Levi, why don't you carry me on your back for a while? That way we can move faster, and you can 'sing' to me too!"
"No!" This girl was always fixated on the melodies in his head.
But Levi had no desire to be Seraphine's automatic wheelchair and built-in stereo system.
If they made physical contact and his mind wandered to things other than singing... how would he ever have the face to go out and preach his grand ideals to others in the future?
"Just walk faster. Once we're out of the Zaunite community, the environment will be much better. There's a tram station over there; once we reach it, we can take a ride and rest."
"As for the music, we'll talk about it when we get there."
"Alright..." Seraphine replied, sounding a bit disappointed. However, after receiving the promise that she could listen to his songs once they arrived, she still made an effort to quicken her pace, silently following behind Levi.
Yet, after only a few steps, she suddenly widened her innocent, naive blue eyes as if she had discovered a new continent, and tugged at Levi's sleeve from behind.
"Mr. Levi, look—"
"Why is there a person sleeping in the trash pile over there?"
"Huh?" Levi was also a bit curious.
He followed Seraphine's gaze and looked into the "trash pile" by the side of the road.
"That's not a trash pile," Levi said, his mouth twitching. "That's his 'house'."
"H-House?" Seraphine exclaimed in surprise. "Isn't that just a pile of torn cardboard? Can torn cardboard be used as a house? Wouldn't it be cold living in there?"
"Why would he live here?"
Levi didn't even know how to explain it.
Why? Because he was poor, of course!
If they weren't poor, who the hell would live in a cardboard shack?
Unable to hold back, Levi asked in return, "Seraphine, have you never been to the Zaunite community in your entire life?"
"Yeah... My dad never lets me come here. He says only bad people live here, and it would be dangerous if I came..."
Levi was speechless.
He instinctively wanted to make a sarcastic remark, but looking at their surroundings... Mr. Ivern wasn't actually wrong.
If he had a daughter, he definitely wouldn't want her anywhere near this place either.
"Let's go, Seraphine. As for why that person has to live in torn cardboard... walk around outside a bit more, and you'll naturally understand."
"Okay," Seraphine nodded ignorantly.
However, it wasn't long before she curiously discovered something else:
"Mr. Levi, is that a 'house' too?"
"No," Levi said, taking a quick glance. "That's just a trash pile."
"Then why are there people sleeping inside it? There are several of them, lying together..."
Seraphine instinctively wanted to go over and take a look.
"Stop right there!" Levi called out to her, his face darkening.
No wonder Mr. Ivern didn't let her come here. With this young lady's naivety, if she wandered around the Zaunite community by herself, something terrible would have happened to her long ago.
"Don't go near them!"
"Why? They're sleeping in a trash pile, they look so pitiful."
"Pitiful my ass!" Levi cursed with deep disgust. "Do you see those needles and empty vials? That's a bunch of lunatics high on Shimmer! You'd better stay far away from them!"
"Shimmer?" Seraphine asked in surprise. "Is it that illegal drug? I heard my dad say that stuff is really expensive..."
"So what if it's expensive? To use this trash to escape reality for just a little while, these people are willing to sell their wives, their children, and even their own lives."
"But what's the point? Once the drug wears off, all that's left is an even more miserable reality."
"A person can be poor... but they shouldn't live in such a twisted way."
Levi had absolutely no sympathy for these addicts; he merely urged Seraphine to keep moving forward with him.
Seraphine, however, was still weighed down by her thoughts.
Because as she walked, she realized that there were many, many more Shimmer addicts just like the ones they had just seen lining the streets.
Some were unconscious, some stood around blankly, and some were even twitching and crawling on the ground like a horde of infected zombies. But they were clearly still alive, which was the most terrifying part.
"M-Mr. Levi..." A moment later, Seraphine gently tugged at his sleeve again.
"What is it now?" This time, Levi didn't even bother to turn his head. "Don't tell me you saw another 'trash pile'?"
"Yeah..." It actually was. "Mr. Levi, take a look. Is that a trash pile or a house?"
"That is a trash pile!"
"But there's a person sleeping inside it."
"Is there?"
"Yes... there's a foot sticking out."
Levi fell silent.
He took a serious look and helplessly massaged his forehead.
"He's not sleeping in there..."
"He died in there."
"Huh?" Seraphine's beautiful face paled in horror. "A c-corpse?"
"What's so surprising?" Levi sighed. "There are always people here who die of illness because they have no money, die of exhaustion, or get beaten to death by gangs. When they die, their bodies are just tossed into the trash pile, and that's the end of it once they're burned along with the garbage during the regular sweeps."
"How could this be..."
"Don't his family... don't they send him to a cemetery to be buried?"
"Who told you he even has a family?" Levi sighed helplessly. "Family is a luxury in Zaun, do you understand?"
"And even if he did have a family, when a family member dies, we still dispose of the bodies like this... At most, we'd spend a little effort to carry them to the harbor and throw them into the sea, which counts as a 'sea burial'."
"Otherwise, cemeteries, coffins, funerals, memorial sweeps... they all cost money. Zaunites can't afford to spend money on that kind of face-saving vanity."
"This... is it l-like this over in Zaun too?"
"No, no one randomly dumps bodies in Zaun."
"Only Zaunites in Piltover do that."
"That's good, then..." Seraphine released her pale, bitten lip, breathing a sigh of relief, though it was unclear who she was relieved for.
"Good my ass!" Levi cursed. "Zaun has specialized alchemy shops that collect corpses to use as experimental consumables for those mad scientists."
"A perfectly good corpse—wouldn't it be a waste to just throw it away?"
Seraphine was stunned into absolute silence.