I jogged along the fence line, lost in thought.
What am I supposed to do with the rest of the day? I can't venture far enough from the camp to meet anyone else.
The only place that caught my interest was the metal workshop and the area just outside the camp.
I pulled out my phone, scrolled through the saved contacts, and dialed Cathrin.
"Yeah, what do you want? I'm busy right now." Answered she irritated.
Wow, someone's pissed.
"I was wondering if I could head out to the metal workshop and its surrounding village outside the camp."
There was a pause on the line before she responded. "Sure, you can. But if you see or hear anything there that's not animals or nature, call Erik immediately. Before you go outside, stop by Erik—he's got something for you, so you can defend yourself until he gets there."
"On my way. Thanks," I said, ending the call.
On the way to Erik's container, I passed clusters of children, chased from the general direction of Hans's truck by adults whose irritation barely concealed their exasperation. When I reached the container, the first thing I saw was the barrel of a Uragon rocket launcher pointed directly at me.
"I surrender," I said, raising my hands.
"Don't joke," came the sharp reply. "Thanks to you, Hans is spiraling further into his psychosis. He's tossing around mortar shells and everything else in his truck just to free Betty. And who's left to deal with it? Me and Cathrin."
Is it really that bad?
"If Hans is so unstable, why are you letting him handle the defenses and giving him a tank?" I asked.
"First, even with his quirks, he's good at trapping the fence. Second, he had Betty long before he even joined the clan, so we can't take her away. And third, he's family—no matter how crazy he gets." He gestured, tucking away the Uragon, and pulled out four combat knives, complete with strappings and scabbards, along with the Unity I fixed up yesterday, now fitted with a holster and two magazines.
"The Unity is for stalling whatever you encounter, if anything at all. The knives—well, the first is obvious on your belt, the second is hidden in a less obvious spot so it gets noticed. The third is tucked away in a good place, like a boot, along your back, or concealed in your hair. The last… you can never have enough knives."
Where should I hide the two remaining blades? The sleeves of my jacket seem like the best option for now.
As I sheath the weapons, I turn back to Erik. He's strapped the Uragon across his back and is loading his HMG.
Is that really necessary?
"Is there anything I should know about the abandoned village?" I asked.
"There's been no movement, no cars or anything, in the months we've been here, if that's what you mean. Beyond that, I know nothing except that it was bought by Biotechnika."
"Then goodbye, and sorry I handed Hans the parts."
"Normally, Wade should've informed us that Hans let you make some replacement components. So, don't worry—this isn't the most dangerous, or the last time, he'll go completely crazy," he shrugged and walked away.
"100 Athletics exp gained."
As always, the closer you get, the larger everything seems. What appeared to be a modest-sized building was, in fact, a sprawling complex of interconnected structures. The windows—or rather, what once had been windows—were haphazardly covered with whatever the person who did it could find lying around. Ranging from wooden boards to twisted wire and even a refrigerator. There was no way to see inside from the ground. Whoever did this must have left either an escape route or a hidden entrance somewhere nearby.
Walking around the complex, I found no unblocked way in. Strangely, the area around the factory was eerily clean—no boxes, no wooden pallets, nothing but desert sand stretching out endlessly. Surely, there had to be a way into the factory.
As I circled once more, I spotted a route onto the corridor between the buildings. The windows over the corridor were covered with twisted wire. I took two knives in hand and began to cut a hole through the mess. Inside was dark, and faint tracks in the dust on the floor hinted at past footsteps. I watched the surroundings as I followed the path down a set of rusty stairs.
Halfway down, for a fleeting moment, the world felt weightless, as if gravity itself had momentarily released its hold. Suddenly, the stairs gave way, crashing down from their hinges.
"Ow. This means I need a new exit, but otherwise, it's fine... no, don't raise any flags," I muttered, stepping onto the floor of a vast hall filled with crates of machinery and scattered gas bottles. The ground was marked with numerous traces—some small, others larger than my foot.
Before I ventured further, a piercing squeak echoed through the hall, shrill and unnerving.
I don't like where this is going.
"Why does this place give me horror movie vibes? Even the emergency lights flickering overhead don't help the ominous feeling". I muttered to myself as I drew the pistol from its holster.
Traces on the floor, the faint squeak—better not to dwell on it.
I pressed further into the hall. Sliding quietly along the wall, I tracked the footprints. As I crossed three-quarters of the length, I spotted another opening in the wall opposite me. Whatever creature was making that noise must be somewhere down that corridor. Glancing back at one of the gas bottles, I grabbed it and stepped into the unknown.
Who in their right mind thought a two-hundred-meter corridor between two buildings was a good idea? Hopefully, they were fired after the complex was completed.
The corridor yielded nothing but disturbed dust on the floor and an open doorway leading into another building. Faint light filtered through barricaded windows, illuminating the hall. Inside, a storage space of metal plates and pipes was neatly ordered along the walls. Centered in the hall stood a fork stacker with a reinforced cockpit. Yet, a strange sound broke the silence—like something small biting into something hard.
I ignored it and moved toward the stacker, scanning the hall more closely. As I turned to look back at my entry point, I saw that the corridor didn't end at the hall, but continued onward. The revealed section was filled with various metalworking machinery. Among them, a large, round, ball-like object seemed oddly attached to one of the machines. Silently, I crept closer—feeling that, somehow, the ball was moving.
"50 Stealth exp gained. Skill unlocked."
I froze as the notification flashed, quickly disabling alerts. The tiny red eyes staring back at me made my stomach turn. Then, they swarm the machine—devouring it. The rats' teeth glowed threateningly as they gnawed at the metal surface.
Cybernetic rats? Who in God's name thought up that nightmare, and even worse, managed to make it real?
Shaking my head, I retreated a few steps, still facing the advancing horde. Before I took more than two steps back, I kicked aside a piece of pipe from the floor. The rats paused their feast on the machine and turned laser-focused on me.
If I'm going to die again, I'm taking some of you with me. Gathering my nerves, I hurled the gas bottle at them, aiming. They charged over each other's bodies, a writhing mass of snarling rats.
I shot the gas bottle—but nothing happened. I still looked at the bottle along with the rats who seemed stunned by the shot.
Snapping out of it, I sprinted back to the steel doors and slammed them shut, cursing under my breath.
"Fuck. One damn bottle, and I grabbed an empty one. Couldn't I have found a full one instead?" I dashed toward the remaining gas bottles, hearing the door being eaten away behind me. Fumbling through the containers, I searched desperately for a full one, finally spotting the one of the largest among them. I stood on tiptoes, opened the valve, and heard the hiss of gas flowing free.
Good. Now, how the hell am I supposed to move the damn thing? It's too heavy to lift.
Looking around, I spotted a cap for the bottle, sprinted to it, and quickly screwed it onto the bottle. Then without hesitation, I threw the bottle to the ground, rolling it across the walkway. I pushed the bottle approximately thirty meters before stopping, turning back, and shutting one of the doors to take cover.
I aimed carefully at the bottle, awaiting the oncoming horde.
I tried to call Erik as I waited, but an error message flickered on the screen: "You are currently in a region without a signal. Please try again later." Always when you need something most, it's just out of reach.
Scanning the hall for anything that might be useful, I found nothing that could help me at this moment. Suddenly, I heard the rats forcing their way through the doors.
I took a deep breath, trying to steady myself. As the rats neared the bottle, I opened fire, then swiftly took cover behind the door.
"Boom!" The explosion sent a burning rat hurtling past me as the bottle detonated. The deafening ringing in my ears and the thick smell disoriented me for a moment as I sank to the floor. I scrambled to my feet, taking in the aftermath. Some rats were smashed into the walls, others reduced to mere bits of flesh and burning remnants.
While observing the chaos, I felt a chilly breeze brush my neck and instinctively ducked. A piercing screech, like metal grinding against metal, echoed through the hall. Where I had stood, a glowing tail encrusted with encrusted debris and shimmering within the doorframe.
Before me stood an enormous, cybernetic rat—an abomination that stretched nearly four meters without counting the tail, its back level with my head. Razor-sharp metallic teeth bared from its maw as it strained to free its tail. Inorganic plates covered its vulnerable joints, while its cybernetic eyes burned crimson with wrath.
I froze, glancing at my gun, then back at the monstrous rat, before charging past the writhing rats into the storage hall.
"Fucking hell! What did I do to deserve this?" I cursed, diving through the small hole the rats had chewed in the door.
Frantically, I spun toward the forklift and slumped onto the driver's seat, my eyes locking onto the console. Luckily, no matter the continent or time, if a work vehicle was in a locked building, the keys were always in the ignition.
"Please, let it still work. Please," I whispered, twisting the key with desperation.
It rattled and rattled until, mercifully, the engine finally roared to life. "Yes!!!" The stacker lurched as it powered up just in time.
The cybernetic rat tried to squeeze through the hole. Switching into forward gear, I pressed the gas pedal to the floor. I drove the forklift straight into the creature's maw, ramming through the doors and onto the corridor.
"When the hell will you die?!" I shouted in rage, because the rat still clung to the fork. I strapped the steering wheel with the seatbelt and broke one of my knives to clamp the gas pedal down.
Jumping down from the stacker in this confined space wasn't exactly a brilliant idea. But standing up after crashing into the window frame wasn't the worst thing it could have been.
Suddenly, there was a loud "Boom!"—the forklift collided with a line of gas bottles.
Clutching my side, I tried again to call Erik, this time with success.
Yes, Kassy, is there something wrong in the metal workshop? he asked wearily.
"Not if cybernetic rats the size of small cars are considered normal." I replied with as much sarcasm as possible.
The silence stretched for a moment. "A borg rat with thermal whip-tails, full-body armor, and a signal jammer?" he responded, voice tinged with familiarity.
"Yes, one borg rat and a horde of small ones were feeding on a machine."
"Get out of there fast if there are tiny ones. There's probably a mother rat somewhere in the building. I'm coming over with Hans and Betty," he said, fear creeping into his voice.
"I don't really have an exit I can use," I told him.
He hesitated. "Go into the room with the least metal you can find. And if you see any red lights the size of a head, don't make a sound or sudden move."
He cut the call with that ominous warning.
Was he serious about the eyes? No, better not to think about it.
Where is the room with the least metal in a metal workshop? The office. And where is the office? That's the hundred-million-dollar question.
If they focused on practicality, it should be near the storage area. But then again, it could be anywhere, I thought, slowly making my way toward the storage hall.
Stepping over the remains of battered doors, I headed toward the machine the rats were feasting on. While searching for a clue to locate the office, I found it by chance—on the wall. A map of the complex, framed next to a staircase. Its print was faded, but still legible enough to make out the labels.
So, the office was right next to the staircase on the second floor. First, I inspected the staircase for bite marks or signs of rat activity—thankfully, no damage. I ran up the stairs, grabbed the door handle, and smacked face-first into the wooden door. "Why is it always locked at the worst moments?" I muttered, holding my nose.
Kicking the door open, I stepped inside and saw the most comfortable armchair I'd ever encountered.
Moving behind the table, I sank onto the chair and let myself fall into it.
Whoever left this chair here was a damn fool, if I'd ever seen one.
Glancing around the office, I spotted a small, battered safe tucked beneath the table and an old, three-barreled shotgun hanging on the wall. With nothing better to do but wait for rescue, I grabbed the safe and tried to crack the old combination.
Just as I was fiddling with it, there was a distant explosion, and the building shuddered faintly. Thankfully, the safe was a simple old-school turn lock—easy enough to crack silently in this quiet moment. It took a while, but finally, I got it open.
Inside, there were some yellowed rolls of paper currency and a handful of shotgun shells for the three-barreled rifle. At least it was something—better than a total wipeout on a trash run.
I took the contents of the safe and the rifle, loaded them, and tried to get a feel for aiming.
Holding the rifle, I suddenly realized that if I were up against a netrunner with my current gear, I'd actually be a worse threat than just a regular merc.
Reboot Optics? Doesn't matter—thanks to my biological eye, that's no big deal.
Weapon Malfunction? Not much use, since the rifle's too old to hack.
Cripple Movement? Maybe, if it works like I think, but that effect wouldn't last long.
Sonic Shock should do the trick though.
Damn it, probably every other quick fix would work too. The threat posed by a Netrunner had been seriously underestimated in the game.
The eerie squeaking that once echoed through buildings was now absent. Before I could call Erik, he beat me to it.
"Kassy, where are you? There shouldn't be any rats left. You can come out now. We broke into a hall filled with machinery and the remains of a fork stacker."
"On my way," I replied, heading down the stairs.
As I climbed over the doors into the machinery hall, I saw Betty parked inside. "Squeak."
I looked around, searching for the source of the sound. Beneath the wreckage of the door and beside the corpse of another rat, a small white rat was trapped.
"What am I supposed to do with you?" Killing it outright didn't feel right. Not a good feeling about that. Saving it? That sounded even dumber. "Squeak."
"Cut it out before you make me mad," I snapped at the tiny creature.
Magically, it seemed to shrink a little and quiet down, as if it understood what I was saying.
That's quite interesting.
With a sigh, I shifted the rest of the door off the rat's body. It made no move to attack; instead, it curled into a tight ball and gazed up at me with neon-blue eyes.
The rat was tiny—less than the size of a child's fist.
"Well, it seems you're the last of your kind. Do I really have to kill you too?" I asked quietly. The rat shook its head rapidly, as if trying to say no.
I scanned the area for a box and spotted one nearby on a machine. Picking up the box and gathering some metal shards from the floor, I carefully lifted the rat and looked at her. There were no signs of chrome integration—no bald patches in the fur, nothing at all. It seemed the chrome had always been part of her, growing with her from the start.
Gently, I placed the rat in the box, tucked it under my arm, and headed toward Betty.
"Everything all right? You look like you had a sweet gain mixed with a straight-up disaster," Hans called out as I approached.
"An apt description," I replied. "It's pretty much exactly that. Do you have any idea where those came from?" I showed him the contents of the box.
He hesitated for a moment before responding. "A scientist from one of the major corporations was tasked with developing a new kind of stealth weapon—something no one would see coming. And he or she pulled it off, successfully. I mean, who would even pay attention to rats in an alley back then?The scientist tried to interpret their squeaks, to make them understand human commands."
"Apparently with success," I added, pointing at the rat.
"Anyway, the scientist used a neural link to connect the rat's mind with a rogue AI. What happened afterward? No one really knows. But the research base in which the project was housed was destroyed—not by an explosion, but by a swarm of rats. They vanished in every direction, and you can't predict when or where you might encounter a pack of them, lurking in some ruins. These rats can grow to the size of a large house if they have enough food, with armor tough enough to withstand heavy machine gun fire without a scratch."
"How do you even know about that?" I asked, raising an eyebrow. "I doubt the corporation handling the experiment would let that information slip out."
"An assistant of the scientist left the project once they brought in the rogue AI," he said. "He or she leaked the details before the company could clean up the mess."
"Enough talk," Erik said, stepping closer. "There's no sign of any other rats here. Good job, Kassy. If you hadn't come in, it probably wouldn't have ended well—those rats would have just left after devouring everything searching for new prey which would be us if we were still here."
"Anyway, there's nothing left to do. Let's head back to camp."
Back at the camp, I headed to Cathrin's clinic carrying the box.
Stepping inside after passing through the airlock, I saw Cathrin in the corner, tending to her cybernetic arm.
"Can you help me scan her?" I asked, setting the box down on the ripper chair.
"What do you need scanned?" she replied, glancing over her shoulder at the box.
"There might be no results. They tend to resist scanning, somehow." Gently, I placed the rat in the center of the chair as Cathrin activated the scan.
The beam of light flickered over the rat, and her eyes shifted from a calm blue to an alarming yellow.
A color change coinciding with the emotional shift of the subject?
"Hm. It worked briefly at the start of the scan. She's about a week old — still in her infancy. If you plan to raise her, you'll need organic and inorganic food. But if she starts acting aggressive, be prepared for that." She muttered mostly to herself, loud enough for me to hear.
"I don't want to kill her just because she might turn hostile. If she changes, I'll handle it. In the meantime, I'd like to know the best ways to make some money." I paused, recalling the old currency I'd found. "Does this still have any value?"
"Wow, these are older than I am, but honestly, I don't know if they're still worth anything. I'll ask around—my contacts might know. One quick way to make money is to be a merc, loot the unfortunate fools you pick up on a gig."
"But I can't leave the camp," I said with a sardonic smile.
"Well, yeah. So what do you even need money for?"
"For some biomods, if possible. A bit of subdermal armor, maybe some gun parts. I don't want to be an easy target, if I can help it," I replied, speaking from my heart.
"There are plenty of ways to make others see you differently—less as a target. You could ask Hans for armor schematics. Might not look like much, but he's a skilled engineer. Don't focus only on the dark sides of life, sweetie."
Armor, huh. I hadn't thought about that.
"I'll try it. No promises, though."
I gathered my things and headed toward my camper after stopping by the food truck. Once inside, I suddenly realized I had nowhere to store the weapons. Shaking my head, I set the box on the table and gave the rat some food.
I can't keep calling her rat. She needs a proper name. She has fur that's nearly platinum white.
Shiro? No—that's already taken by more than one character.
Weiß? Absolutely not.
Platin? Nah, too obvious.
Tine? Hmm. Yes, Tine feels right.
Or Laty? No—Tine's better, I think. Maybe I should ask her.
"There are two options for your name: Tine or Laty. If you like Tine, go to the right side of the box; if not, go left."
What am I doing, talking to a— Tine moved almost immediately to the right side.
"Okay. Your name is Tine," I said, my tone flat, watching her reaction.
She darted around the box, squeaking, her eyes shifting—a mesmerizing blend of blue and green.
That's enough for today. I folded the clothes on the floor into a pile on the floor, then placed my weapons and the bow on top. Sitting on the edge of the bed, I re-enabled the notifications.
"150 Athletics exp gained. Skill level up"
"100 Handgun exp gained."
"800 Explosives exp gained. Skill unlocked. Skill level up x2"
"100 Dodge exp gained."
"50 Athletics exp gained."
"100 Driving exp gained. Driving exp unlocked."
"500 Vehicular Assault exp gained. Skill unlocked. Skill level up."
"50 Lock Picking exp gained. Skill unlocked."
"150 Animal Handling exp gained. Skill unlocked."
If I read it correctly, I won't level up at all—only gain skill experience.
It's better than nothing, but leveling up would be even more welcome.
Still, I was damn lucky today. I doubt I'll have such fortune again anytime soon.
It's time to accept reality. I'm not dreaming anymore, which means I shouldn't let anything guide my actions blindly.
What's the goal in this second life? I refuse to be a mere spectator anymore—no longer just letting life pass by while I remain trapped in my own little bubble. This world, though incredibly dangerous, is the place I've always dreamed about—more than any story I ever read.
If the experience scaling is continuous, I should hold off before spending a Skill Point.
"Fuck it. When was I ever the type to wait whenever I had a point to use?" I opened the skill menu and spent a Skill Point on Engineering.
Nothing happened.
Waiting around didn't help either.
Just as I was about to lie down, a sharp headache struck me. My mind flooded with the knowledge of how to use the new skill level.
"Damn it—I was really hoping it wouldn't be this bad," I muttered, massaging my head.
At this point, there's no way out of the camp except to run into the desert on foot—about thirty miles to the nearest town, with the worst of the raffens prowling the sands.
All I can do now is level my skills as high as I can and wait for news on the merc sitch.
From a self-made prison into being grounded, huh? At least the wardens are kind.