Chương 1: The Day I Did Not Learn My Lesson

Today, rain was pouring. It was loud. It was cold. It was unpleasant to an infuriating degree, but even the dastardly elements, who most certainly willfully bring themselves down to be annoyances–Even those foul things could be useful sometimes. Yes, I just need to think real hard about it, and I can find a good thing to say about rain…

Before a compliment could come to mind, there it was, that old crusty building, that awful stain in my sight, decrepit and abandoned, it had gotten what it deserved, and today, I would get the honour of pillaging what little of value this rancid architecture possessed. It was like robbing from an old lady whose knees creaked more than a millennium-old door. Entirely satisfying without the shadow of doubt.

Those ancient vultures deserved much worse, but the pesky anti-people troops- Whoops, I mean, the guards, they did not like it very much. Looking up at the wooden sign, currently being swung around like a loud baby, the words upon it were barely legible. I remember them still.

'Harvey's Diner For The Whole Family!' Accompanied by the obnoxious visage of some sort of elephant beastfolk smiling without teeth. By the gods, how had this place not been erased from this world already? Had no lunatics passed by and thought it a good idea to torch it to the ground? Where were the insane and unwell in the head when you needed them?

"You're dead today, Harvey!" spitting at the ground, under the cover of the torrential rain, I walked around to the back of the abandoned diner. The door, wooden and withered, eaten away and turned feeble by rain, warmth and cold alike, had somehow not been kicked into pieces already. It truly was a wonder what a year could do to a place like this, wasn't it? With a kick containing a fraction of my distaste for the place, the door was breached, but it did not fly off its hinges like I had hoped.

Instead, crumbling into pieces and dust. Looking down at my work, I could not help but scowl. How unsatisfying, it was like punching a water elemental. There was no impact, there was no fun. Fitting. Stepping inside, the stale air attempted to grab me in a chokehold. Nice try, but I breathed way worse. Kicking a piece of wood across a long, empty corridor, I grabbed the lantern at my waist, and after diplomatically convincing it to do the job it was created to perform with the use of my fist.

The interior was illuminated in all its ghoulish glory. The walls, once covered in noxious-coloured wallpaper, had long since shrivelled up and taken on the shades of dead rats- This too, was far more fitting. Shining the pale blue light around, I naturally looked for anything of value I could pocket for myself, but as should have been expected, there was nothing of the sort. Somehow, only the stuff of value that held no interest to me was left, and they were exactly where I had expected.

Passing through a hallway, stepping upon drawings that collapsed into apparent nothingness, past a kitchen where rusty cooking utensils had been left in disarray, there was even an old hat just lying upon a rotten stool. Just as was remembered, this place had been closed in a hurry, only the coins had been taken away, and with no hope of starting another business, the furniture and the like were left to be feasted upon by the elements. It's curious… Where are the rats? Where are the cockroaches?

Where are the endless amounts of moths that desire nothing more than to fly into my face? Where are all these despicable critters? Was this place so filthy that even they preferred to stay away from all this free estate? No, that makes absolutely no sense. They are inferior, stupid little creatures that flock wherever they can.

"The place must have been sealed up better than I thought…" speaking aloud to the walls and ceiling, I continued forward, arriving in the dining area, the tables and chairs were all left in place- Or not, in the middle of the room, a table had been flipped, and the chairs that should have surrounded it were to be found in the form of splinters all over the place. I narrowed my eyes. The front door had been tightly sealed.

As a matter of fact, it was right in front of my eyes right now, the locks were all in place, the windows were all barricaded, planked up, that was something else that had been checked… Lastly, the back door had been broken by none other than my delightful self, so what? Had the owner flipped a table in his rage and thrown the chairs around? What sort of limp-shafted wrath was this? Am I supposed to believe that your frustration was quenched with just this? Really? That made no sense.

If the idiot whose name I had forgotten had really been so uncontrollably mad as to do this, he certainly wouldn't have stopped at that…

"A squatter with a spare of the keys, perhaps?" I whispered, but not too low, I would rather let them know that I wasn't oblivious. … No answer, no sound, no nothing. Strange, that usually works. I guess Mister Owner's anger was as unimpressive as his charisma. Turning toward the stage, it was through the door hidden on the left side that the good stuff was to be found. This was the room where equipment, spare parts, maintenance tools and crystal batteries were kept.

And currently, this was also where the stars of the run-down diner had retired to.

"Just as ugly as I remember… Sorry, I guess the mould has beautified you guys somewhat" Talking down to inanimate objects served no purpose, but I felt quite good about it, and that was all the reason required. The batteries had long been pulled out. They had been inactive for a while, so the joints of the so-called 'New Age Golems' were done for, messed up by humidity, squalid conditions and an utter lack of maintenance. They were just piles of scraps, unable to perform their little show any longer.

A blessing from the heavens, as what those things did was nothing short of auditory abuse. How this place had once seen success was honestly beyond me, but at least, my time working here had allowed me to have the privilege to render them to silence forever, a little benefit from receiving torture for weeks, morning to evening, without it ever stopping. Just thinking about it was making my blood boil! Unauthorized reproduction: this story has been taken without approval. Report sightings.

And before I even knew it, I had picked up a crowbar that had been propped up against the wall and smashed Harvey's face in. That damned elephant was the worst one of them all. Its voice was annoying, the way it looked was a crime, the way it moved was enough to bang your head against the wall-"You dirty piece of metal…" After taking some 'me time' insulting the deactivated golems, I went to work.

Frankly, calling these things golems was a stretch, only named as such because they were once intended to match, or even surpass, said golems. In the end, things had turned out into sophisticated automatons, steel skeletons wrapped in pretty suits whose purpose was limited to entertainment for the young and inept of mind… Whatever the difference between those two things was.

Bit by bit, and with much glee despite the sweat dispensed, I took them apart, ripping away their shells and disassembling their grey bones into neat arrangements. No one was spared. I worked quickly, but carefully as well. Taking apart these things was difficult. The bolts and screws keeping them together held strong, to the point that I had to ditch my coat as the sweat kept accumulating, but after a while, things were done.

All of the artificial bandmates were turned into pieces of steel, their shells torn and discarded in a corner. The precious steel making them up was ripe to be collected. Honestly, I had no real understanding of why the steel was so precious. I went through the trouble of making sure this place was shut down, and then came back months later to collect it on behalf of my brother, but apart from the fact that it was really good stuff, I never bothered to inquire.

This was all stuff I did not care about, for the fat-skulled who fancied themselves as intellectuals despite not understanding the most basic things of life.

"Ah, crap! When did those damned things get all over my chest?!" Somehow, a black sludge of sorts had gotten on the front of my shirt, what a tragedy! This thing was so nice… Touching it, I realised that it was blood.

"Mmh? That doesn't make sense, it-" And then, multiple sets of footsteps made their presence known. A cold sweat ran across my spine, and a frown formed upon my face. Gripping the crowbar tightly, I listened for a few seconds, but hearing nothing and worried about my blind spot, I spun around and moved backwards in one swift motion. Standing on the stage, just outside the storage room I was in, were a handful of greyish figures of varying sizes, but none reaching up to my stomach. Their forms looked like gas.

They had no features, only being vaguely humanoid. Spirits? Ghosts? Spectres? I couldn't tell.

"What the hell? Are you haunting me?! Me?! Screw off unless you want to test how incorporeal you are!" The intimidation tactic was meaningless. The figures began to slowly float forward, and the whole structure seemed to tremble. The sound of wood being smashed emerged from seemingly all directions.

"IT WAS YOU""YOU ARE TO BLAME""YOU DESERVE TO ROT""YOU DESERVE HELL""YOU GET WHAT YOU DESERVE" They began to scream, their voices distorted and melded together.

"Like hell I am to blame!" Without a smidge of hesitation, I slung the crowbar straight at one of the apparitions. It phased right through the ghostly being, but for a moment, that one stopped moving, falling behind the others.

"Oh" I retreated further into the room, ending up next to another door, although I had worked here before, never had I stepped into there. The owner claimed that there was no key to it and that no one should bother about it. But right now, it was clearly halfway open. Knowing that it would certainly only lead to a dead end rather than a miraculous exit, I instead hatched a plan. A simple one, really. Since physical items seemed to immobilise those things for a few moments, they were slow.

All that I needed to do was attract them to one side of the room, throw some stuff at them, and swing around them through the exit. Bonus point, those spectres seemed to be idiots and weren't even considering the possibility that I could do that. Just as I was smirking to myself, feeling very satisfied with my superior wits, something just had to ruin everything, namely, more ghosts that phased through the wall, ensnaring me where I stood.

"Damnit" I hurled a few more profanities at them, and seeing no gap that could be taken advantage of, decisively chose to take my chance through the mystery door, shutting it behind me as I illuminated the place with my lantern. There was no exit. There was only… Another automaton. I had never seen this one before, and it appeared incredibly ancient, as though predating the other ones by years, if not decades, but that made no sense.

It looked a lot like them, and they were something invented only relatively recently. This one had a shell that resembled nothing that could be recognised. The head shape implied that it was meant to look like some sort of humanoid wolf or fox, perhaps. And most curiously, there was an opening within it. That thing… Is it calling to me, or something? In any other circumstances, my response would have been a big, fat no to this nonsense.

But right now, vengeful spirits were after my skin, and since there was nothing else in the room… Unbelievable! That has no chance of working… Still, I put the lantern down and walked toward the automaton, putting it on like a suit, or rather an armour, considering that it was made from steel for the most part. There were no batteries inside it, nor was there any equipment associated with those types of automatons.

No device to mimic speech, no boxes to play music from- Nothing, just a steel skeleton and a shell that looked like nothing. The ghosts phased into the room, and the suit came shut with me inside of it.

"... Are you dimwits scared already?" I asked. My usually soft and charming voice muffled. The ghosts marked a pause, as though hesitating. It's actually working? And that's when I heard a low 'ting' noise, like a screw or bolt had come loose. The steel skeleton, which had been expanded enough to allow an adult woman like myself to fit inside seamlessly… Closed. It closed onto me, pressing and grinding into my flesh. The pain was blinding, my nerves were ground down alongside the rest.

But the pain did not last long. The steel was quick, destroying everything and soon crushing my bones as well. Blood exploded outward as though an explosion had gone off inside my guts. I screamed like I never did before. The vengeful ghosts showed an expression, but surprisingly, it was not one of glee.

"W-What's the matter?! Did you not want to get me?! I am right here!" For some reason, as the pain faded away due to my body having become unable to even feel such a thing anymore due to the extensive damage, I exploded into a laughing fit. The spectres appeared terrified. They tried to turn around and go away, but they were dragged toward me. Ah… What the hell is happening? I fell back against the wall, leaving a vibrant bloodstain behind as I slid down into a sitting position. There was no cutting it.

This was death. I did not deserve this. I did nothing wrong. I did nothing wrong… I did nothing… I did… I… …