"Logan, this is my last warning to you. If you still can't pay back what you owe, then get ready to fight for our Blinding Gang. I really don't have the time to keep dragging this out with you anymore. How many times have I given you more time already?"
Getting up from the hard plank bed, Logan rubbed his head and squinted blearily toward the front, only to hear the tall, skinny man in front of him still talking nonstop.
"We grew up together, yeah. But money is money, and friends are friends."
"That's all I'm going to say, Logan. Think it through." The man paused. His tone stopped being sharp and turned a little sorrowful as he continued, "Logan… the days that used to belong to us in the Lanes are over. Joining them… it's nothing. Everyone's just trying to survive. The Lanes aren't the Lanes anymore."
After saying that, he didn't wait for Logan to respond. He turned, took two steps, and pushed open the door. But before leaving, he tossed a pouch onto the table with a clinking jingle.
Logan finally shook himself out of the dizzy haze. Rubbing his throbbing temples, he lifted his head and stared around at the surroundings in confusion.
A small tin shack—just a few square meters at most. Aside from a plank bed and a small table, plus a few pieces of clothing laid on top of it, there was nothing else in the room to be found.
"Zaun…"
"Marsen… the Blinding Gang…"
His memories gradually sharpened, and the migraine-like pain receded. As the memories surged up, Logan's mouth slowly fell open.
"You've gotta be kidding me!"
"I'm in Zaun? Up there is Piltover? This is Runeterra?!"
He shot up from the bed in one swift motion. Logan lowered his head and stared at his own hands.
"I—I was at home playing Riven. How is this even possible?"
"Transmigration?"
"I transmigrated into Runeterra?"
"And I fucking transmigrated into Zaun?!"
The curse slipped out before he could stop it. Logan couldn't keep his emotions in check.
As he finished absorbing the memories, Logan gained a completely new understanding of what "real Zaun" was.
This wasn't the kind of trash talk people joked about online—laughing and swearing, bragging "I'm from Zaun," like some kind of "yo-mama killer." Real Zaun—especially in this period—was so dangerous and chaotic that Logan couldn't think of any other words to describe it. No… maybe calling it hell wouldn't be wrong either.
At the very least, to a young man raised to develop morally, intellectually, and physically in all aspects—life in Zaun… was fucking inhuman.
This place was an abyss. A bottomless abyss. And once you fell in, almost nobody ever climbed out.
But very quickly, Logan showed an absurd level of adaptability.
He picked up the pouch Marsen had left behind and opened it. Inside was a small bag of coins—not much, but enough to keep him going for the next few days.
"Marsen…"
Logan's expression turned complicated.
Thinking back to what Marsen had said earlier, Logan couldn't help feeling a little emotional. The original Logan had even hated Marsen, thinking he'd betrayed their ideals and forgotten Lord Vander. But in reality, Marsen had already done more than enough.
Because if it weren't for Marsen, Logan would've been grabbed long ago by those Blinding Gang bastards and thrown into the Sump to pick through garbage.
Unless you had absolutely no other choice, no one wanted to become a Sump scavenger. Wastewater flowing down from Piltover flooded Zaun's underground world. The poisonous fumes from metal discharge and industrial runoff—if you didn't have protective gear, it could kill you in minutes.
"Hah…"
Logan pushed the door open and stepped outside.
Where he lived was a big rack of tin-sheet housing—his shack and countless other broken rooms all jammed into a single alley. Holding onto a handrail coated in rust, he descended an iron staircase that felt unstable, each step letting out a screechy groan under his weight.
He walked out of the alley.
And then he saw Zaun.
The gray-green smog was choking and foul. Logan couldn't help holding his breath. If not for the flickering neon lights, he could hardly imagine being able to see the road ahead under conditions like this.
Not to mention… there were tiny metallic particles mixed into that smog. When the air got drawn into your lungs, it came with a scorching sensation that was hard to endure.
How the hell did Zaunites survive in an environment like this?!
Did they all evolve a second pair of lungs or something?
The thought flashed through Logan's mind.
But right now, what he needed to think about even more was how to make money.
Just like Marsen said, this was the last time. If Logan still couldn't pay back the gang's money, only two roads awaited him: either become a Sump scavenger by choice, or become the kind of broken corpse scraps Sump scavengers picked up after a fighter lost in the pits.
Taking a deep breath, the transmigrator Logan followed the memories in his head and tried to find a temporary job in Zaun.
Night fell.
Zaun's streets grew even more chaotic.
Ever since Vander in the Lanes died, the entire Lanes had completely plunged into madness. Silco took over this place, bringing all kinds of "nightlife culture" with him.
But that nightlife culture didn't push the Lanes in a better direction—it only made it more chaotic.
On the street, you could see drug addicts getting high. You could also see old drunks—thrown out of bars—getting groped on the roadside by a pack of punks. Beneath flashing neon signs, women dressed in gaudy, provocative outfits shouted loudly at passersby to lure them in.
Logan walked home through a street like that.
No locks. No keys. Just leave the door wide open.
If you locked it, you'd become a target for the gangs. But if you left it open—welcoming them to come in and rummage around—it killed their interest instead. After all, there was nothing worth stealing in the first place.
That was life in Zaun.
Logan lay back on the plank bed, staring blankly.
His adaptability really was terrifying. It took him less than half a day to accept all of this. Even so, Logan still felt uneasy.
The identity of being a transmigrator—and knowing bits and pieces of the future—didn't help him at all.
In Zaun, fists and money did the talking. It was a place ruled by violence and chaos. Wisdom and technology were things that struggled to take root and grow.
Could he really survive in a place like this?
After an entire day, Logan still couldn't find any suitable work.
Zaun no longer had stable jobs. Violence had taken over everything. Industry was beginning to fall behind. Everything was sliding back toward barbarism.
The timeline Logan had transmigrated into was the War of the Two Cities—what the designers had openly stated was the main-world timeline. He'd arrived a few years after Vander's death, in the era when Silco had formally taken control of the Lanes and begun to take over Zaun completely.
As for what would happen in the future—it would be an all-out war between Piltover and Zaun. Anyway, Logan remembered the end of Season 1: Jinx fired a rocket.
That much was enough—what awaited Zaun could only be Piltover's insane retaliation.
Retaliation from Piltover… there was no way Zaun could withstand that. Not a chance.
High tech versus cold steel. The rich versus the poor.
Thinking about it, Logan truly couldn't imagine how Zaun was supposed to win this war.
Maybe… I should run early.
Run to Demacia. If you had to name which country in Runeterra treated ordinary people the best, it could only be Demacia. Strong national power, and it wouldn't squeeze the bottom layer of society dry.
Sure, commoners had little upward mobility there—but at least you wouldn't be forced into becoming cannon fodder and thrown onto a battlefield to die, right?
Logan knew his own limits.
He honestly didn't know how an ordinary person like him—armed only with some champion stories he'd read online and a little knowledge of future developments—was supposed to stay alive in this chaotic, dangerous world.
As he thought about it, sleepiness gradually crept over him.
Lying on the bed, Logan closed his eyes.
He wished more than anything that when he woke up, he'd find that everything he experienced today had just been a dream.
He fell asleep.
And in the middle of his sleep, Logan faintly heard some blurry sounds.
Those sounds gradually grew louder, until they became clear.
[Game loading…]
[Spirit Blossom game loaded successfully.]
[Entering Spirit Blossom—]
[Entry successful!]
[Good luck, Summoner.]
(End of chapter)