["Humph."]
Louise is grumpy now, but it's just her way of hiding her embarrassment.
["Aren't you going to do anything?"]
["Naaah, when she's grumpy, she's more like herself."]
["SHUT UP!"]
Her friends surround her, trying to cheer her up while she turns red up to her ears.
Kekeke, suffer, bitch. Make rescuing you worthwhile.
["Whatever… let's go down to the second floor, grab my things, and get out of here."]
["Thinking about it… how do we get down to the second floor?"]
The delinquent asks in a serious tone. I walk over to the edge of the window, pointing down.
["Well, there's a window right here. We go down slowly and get in through—"]
I couldn't finish speaking.
Suddenly, five girls hang onto me as if they were human parachutes.
["Sorry, sorry, sorry!"]
["Don't let go, don't let go, don't let go!"]
["Pi is 3.1415926535…"]
Why is the busty gymnast clinging on too? Not that I mind feeling her boobs.
["It looked like fun."]
I didn't ask you.
............
Upon entering the living room, the atmosphere becomes heavy almost instantly.
All the students are looking in our direction. Not at me, but at the girls I brought with me.
The murmur of conversations died down. It wasn't a silence of respect; it was guilt.
Suffocating, sticky, unpleasant, guilt.
That burning shame of facing all the shit you tried so hard to forget.
All this… for me? You shouldn't have. GYAHAHAHA.
I walk to the table in the center of the room and start gathering my things as if it were any other normal day. Backpack open, papers, bottles.
I move slowly, unable to stop myself from being in a good mood. In fact, I'll move even slower to enjoy every damn second.
Let's accompany the occasion with a soft hum… What song should I hum? It has to be something cheerful, a reflection of my current happiness.
I started whistling the melody of a children's song, one of those stupidly cheerful ones about friendship and never giving up. The contrast was delicious.
This discomfort!
This desperation in their eyes!
If this is the reward for a good deed… I have to do these things more often.
["You look like you're having fun."]
["You know me better than anyone."]
All this misery… Did I do it all by myself? Now I'm beginning to understand the importance of human relationships; live frustration and sorrow definitely have their charm.
["Now I feel like that's true… Both in reality and on the network."]
["The network brought us closer. Aren't you happy? By the way, how did you end up as a rat kid? Was it to get your frustration out for not being able to see me?"]
["I'm not happy at all, and it just happened: I needed money, and you all needed someone who could incite a riot with words."]
["A good tumble is what I need from you."]
["IDIOT!"]
Louise yells at me, but we continue talking as if nothing happened.
A casual conversation in the middle of a thick, desperate silence.
Is this heaven?
["…Kiti… I'm glad you could make it…"]
Four-eyes tries to break the silence. His voice sounds hollow.
But the genius girl just looks away, clinging to the delinquent.
Does misfortune create new families faster than blood?
Besides, others might not notice, but I do. The girl's eyes, the repulsion hidden in their deepest parts when they have the misfortune of seeing this group of hypocrites.
Not hatred or resentment, just disgust.
That girl would rather be alone than follow these morons. I think that's the right choice.
["Girls… I… I'm glad you're okay… and… I'm truly, truly sorry."]
Milia bows her head to the girls. But they don't respond.
There's no resentment in their eyes, only emptiness. The indifference of someone who understands something but decides to draw a clear line.
An invisible clock ticks in the room. Outside, a dog howls.
No one dares to move a muscle.
But as much as I'm enjoying this, I can't waste any more time.
["Alright. Louise, Milia, we're leaving."]
As my grandpa used to say, all good things must come to an end, and since I'm done packing, this rat kid is now leaving.
["My friends are coming with me."]
["Whatever you want, as long as you don't invite any men. Just get moving."]
["I'm going to follow you too."]
["If you don't mind…"]
["Like I said, I don't give a damn. But I don't feed freeloaders: if you're useless, you pay me with your bodies, or you get lost. Don't forget that."]
I'm in a hurry. The night is already late, and I still don't have a shelter.
["This is why everyone hates you…"]
["You want me to lie?"]
["I won't let you do anything with them."]
["So you'll take their place?"]
["OF COURSE NOT!"]
Tsk.
---------------------
JOURNAL ENTRY NO: 372
SCIENTIFIC NAME: Chalybs ossifractus
REGIONAL ALIASES:
Latin America: El Xilófono Andante (The Walking Xylophone)
Industrial Zones (Anglo): The Rust-Rattler
Scavenger Nickname: The Scrapper
NICKNAME (ASTRAD): Hell's Dentist Chair
📊 THREAT ASSESSMENT
CLASSIFICATION: ANOMALY
Its nature is that of an anomaly: a spirit or psychic echo obsessed with the sound of metal and violence, which has built itself a body from scrap and bones. It's not a machine that went mad; it's madness that learned to be a scrap collector so it could crush things.
DANGER LEVEL: ORANGE (5 stars)
A solid 5 Orange stars, and a walking headache. Your bullets and clubs will bounce off its chassis as if they were made of rubber. Its danger is 'all or nothing': either you manage to pass in absolute silence, or it crushes you into a pulp. It's less a fight and more a stealth puzzle with a very, very crunchy ending.
AGGRESSIVENESS LEVEL: REACTIVE
It's an alarm system with a disproportionately violent response. It remains almost inert, a simple pile of junk, until a metallic vibration 'activates' it. It doesn't hunt you out of hatred; it crushes you by reflex. It's the personification of a "cease and desist" order, but with more compound fractures.
🧬 COMBAT FILE (TL;DR)
TYPE: Construct / Spectral
AFFINITY: Earth (Metal) / Physical (Sonic)
🎯 PRIMARY WEAKNESSES:
Absolute silence (deactivates it), Non-metallic vibrations (confuse it), Consecrated liquids (cause accelerated oxidation).
📌 KEY STRENGTHS:
Extreme physical resistance to impacts, Disproportionate crushing strength, Sonic emission that stuns.
📚 ORIGINS AND COMPARATIVE MYTHOLOGY
Urban Folklore: Considered the revenge of recycling, the spirit of all the improperly discarded scrap metal and broken promises of the industrial age.
Occultism: Some theorists link it to sites of massacres with bladed weapons or firearms, a psychic echo that fuses the metal of the weapons with the bones of the victims.
Gamer Culture: It's a scrap Golem. The classic slow, heavy enemy that's immune to almost everything except a very specific weakness, designed to make the player think instead of shoot.
Astrad's Analysis: No one can agree if the bones are a trophy or part of its diet. The answer is yes. It feeds on the energy released when they break. It doesn't eat you; it eats the "CRACK!".
📝 DETAILED ANALYSIS
PHYSICAL AND SENSORY DESCRIPTION:
A grotesque amalgamation of corroded iron, twisted beams, and human bones unnaturally fused into its structure. Its form is vaguely humanoid, with uneven limbs that drag and strike the ground with overwhelming weight. There is no visible head, only a torso from which fragments of metal and ribs protrude. Its movement is clumsy and noisy, a constant grinding and screeching that sounds like a scrap truck falling down a flight of stairs. It gives off a pungent smell of rust, wet metal, and the sweetish odor of old bone marrow.
BEHAVIOR AND ECOLOGY:
It's an acoustic ambush creature. It remains inert and indistinguishable from a pile of rubble until it detects metallic vibrations within its range: the sound of a weapon being reloaded, a can falling, footsteps in steel-toed boots. Once activated, it will move relentlessly and tirelessly towards the source of the sound, ignoring other stimuli. It's not fast, but it's tireless. Its sole objective is to crush the source of the noise. It doesn't distinguish between a human and machinery; it will destroy a noisy generator with the same indifference it would crush a skull.
☣️ PROTOCOLS
RECOMMENDED ENCOUNTER PROTOCOL:
DO:
Move in absolute silence.
Use weapons that don't have loose metal parts.
If detected, create a metallic sound distraction far from your position. Remain completely still and silent for it to "deactivate."
DON'T:
Drop metal equipment.
Reload a weapon near it.
Try to fight it in close combat.
Hide behind a metal door.
FIELD REPORT (Recovered from a scavenger's recorder, SIDOR Factory):
"...it sounded like someone was dragging a piano down the hall. When we peeked, it was... well, not a piano. It had bones hanging from the iron, like Christmas ornaments. It crashed into the wall, and the wall lost. We ran. I swear to God, when my partner tripped and his rifle hit the floor, that thing turned its head... and it didn't have a head. It sped up. No one went back to the station that night."
🎤 ASTRAD'S NOTES (THE ONLY SHIT THAT MATTERS):
Seriously? A gothic abortion version of a Transformer? The Chalybs ossifractus is what happens when a frustrated blacksmith and a cemetery decide to have a baby. It's the revenge of all the screws you've ever dropped behind a piece of furniture.
Imagine the humiliation: you're not killed by an agile predator or an imposing titan. You're killed by something that smells like a rusty nail and sounds like my grandma's washing machine on the spin cycle. But when it grabs you, there's no glamour. It doesn't devour you; it compacts you. It feeds on the crunch of your bones. He's a fucking audiophile of suffering.
Congratulations, if it catches you, you've become a hardware accessory. A rattle in its grotesque walking xylophone. Tip: take out your piercings and pray you don't have any metal fillings.
------------
Rat Kid Network
RatKid4: Who the fuck uploaded this audio? Sounds like someone dragging a damn piano down the stairs.
RatKid7: That's not a piano, you idiot. That's the metal Bonebreaker.
RatKid2: HAHAHAHA, are you fucking kidding me? It looks like the recycling truck in my neighborhood.
RatKid10: Bro, look at this video. That shit moves like my grandpa with a prosthetic… but grandpa doesn't turn you into a human maraca when he grabs you.
RatKid8: Wait, is that the monster that appeared in the abandoned station? The one that left everything smelling like rusty nails and marrow soup.
RatKid7: Exactly. Three guys thought they could take it on with iron crowbars. They bounced off like they were hitting a tank. The result? The three of them are part of the decoration now.
RatKid2: LOL, so the name 'walking xylophone' wasn't a joke.
RatKid4: So… how the fuck do you stop it?
RatKid7: Easy: absolute silence.
RatKid8: HAHAHAHA, so the most dangerous monster in the apocalypse is a boomer who can't stand peace and quiet.
RatKid2: Confirmed. Basically, it's a dude that only activates if he hears heavy metal.
RatKid10: Nah, worse: if it hears you drop a fucking coin on the floor, you're already doomed.
RatKid4: So Rat Kid 1 has an advantage… as long as he shuts his fucking mouth.
RatKid7: Then he's already dead, HAHAHAHA
RatKid7: HAHAHAHA
RatKid4: HAHAHAHA
RatKid8: HAHAHAHA
RatKid2: HAHAHAHA
RatKid10: HAHAHAHA