The modern-day bizarre Romanesque story follows Sumireko Ogawa, an aspiring novelist who loves mysteries and works at a bookstore with a boy named Ren Adashino. They witness strange occurrences and attempt to solve mysteries.

After his father is killed, young Thorfinn joins the mercenary band of his murderer Askeladd, waiting for his revenge while Askeladd plots politics.

The story is set in the distant future. The land is ruined, and humanity establishes the mobile fort city Plantation. Pilots produced inside Plantation live in Mistilteinn, also know as the "birdcage." Children live there knowing nothing of the outside world or the freedom of the sky. Their lives consist of battling to carry out missions. Their enemies are mysterious giant lifeforms known as Kyouryuu, and the children pilot robots called Franxx to face off against them. For the children, riding the Franxx proves their existence. A boy named Hiro is called Code:016, and he was once known as a prodigy. However, he has fallen behind, and his existence seems unnecessary. Not piloting a Franxx is the same as ceasing to exist. One day, a mysterious girl known as "Zero Two" appears before him. Two horns grow out of her head.

Defeating numerous villains in the abandoned area in Z-City but still having problems with rent money (and continued harassment from the landlady who says he's 3 months overdue), Saitama speaks with a shop owner who is being forced by a local gang to surrender his store's deed. Several other shops have gone out of business and his store is the last one; a conversation between the gang boss and one of his stooges reveal that the boss has had an impulse to buy out all the stores in the area to destroy them.