Rudo (definitely not Rudolph, despite the trauma and red nose situation) is running for his life—but the trash monster he just escaped isn’t playing solo. Within moments, it calls backup, and two more walking heaps of household horror show up. Rudo is still struggling to believe what he’s seeing. Since when could literal garbage come to life and start throwing hands?
But belief or not, this mess is very real. When he spots a human skull on the ground, reality hits harder than any horror movie jump-scare. If he doesn’t act fast, he’ll become part of the scenery.
Just then, the trash pile beneath his feet collapses, sending Rudo tumbling to a lower level like a smelly game of Chutes and Ladders. The fall knocks the wind out of him, and to make things worse, the air smells like a gym sock that’s been fermented in curry for two weeks. Breathing becomes an extreme sport.
He realizes he needs to find a hiding spot—but bad news: there’s nothing but trash for miles. No walls, no shelters, no “hide behind this conveniently-placed barrel”—just garbage. Rudo starts to lose hope, convinced this is where he dies.
But then… he remembers Regto’s words before he died.
And just like that, Rudo snaps back. He won’t let himself die—not before making them all pay: the people who called him trash, the sheep who stood silent as he was thrown into the abyss, and most of all, the scumbag who murdered Regto in cold blood.
One of the trash monsters tries to sneak-attack him mid-revenge-monologue, but Rudo’s rage gives him strength. He grabs a metal pipe and smacks the beast’s head clean off (or at least, as clean as a head made of garbage can be).
Meanwhile, a mysterious man is watching this chaos from a nearby trash pile, clearly intrigued.
Rudo keeps swinging, but metal pipes don’t do much against sentient compost. He gets swatted like a fly and ragdolls across the floor. Eventually, he grabs a broken stop sign and hurls it like an Olympian. It actually works—somewhat—and deals decent damage. But the toxic air is making it hard to keep fighting. It’s hard to look cool when you’re wheezing like an asthmatic walrus.
The two remaining trash monsters see him struggle and charge in. But just before impact, Rudo grabs a piece of sheet metal and slices one of them in half like he’s in a garbage-themed anime version of Demon Slayer. The trash beast explodes in a glorious trash-splosion.
Rudo breathes a sigh of relief—until an even bigger trash monster spawns right in front of him like a boss battle he didn’t sign up for.
This time, it’s too much. He runs.
The monster body-slams the ground and sends Rudo flying—right into the feet of the man who’d been watching him.
Rudo is confused—partly because of the man’s sudden presence, mostly because he still can’t breathe with all this garbage funk choking the air.
The man’s reaction? Pick up Rudo, kick him across the ground like a misbehaving dog toy, then casually put a gas mask on his face.
Rudo, understandably mad, starts to complain—until he realizes he can finally breathe. He begrudgingly thanks the man and starts bombarding him with all the questions: “Where am I? What are those things? Is the whole world like this?”
All very fair questions.
But the man, clearly not in the mood for Q&A, tells Rudo to shut up. No sugarcoating. Just—shut up.
Rudo, still full of adrenaline and confusion, refuses. He starts yelling—understandably demanding answers since he was literally thrown into this nightmare world.
The man yells back.
He explains this is one of many toxic dump zones, created thanks to “spirits” like Rudo—and yes, he was planning to explain eventually, but Rudo wouldn’t stop yapping.
Now, because of all the noise, they’re in even deeper trouble.
Those monsters? They’re called trash beasts, and they’re attracted to sound. Also, you can’t hurt them with normal weapons—so swinging pipes around is like fighting a tank with a pool noodle.
The trash beasts in this zone are particularly nasty, and the man had hoped to avoid their attention. But now that the “Rudo Alarm” has been set off, it’s too late.
Suddenly, energy surges from the man’s arms into the umbrella he’s holding (yes, an umbrella). Right in front of Rudo’s stunned eyes, it transforms.
As the new monster lunges, the man unleashes a flashy move—slicing the trash beast to pieces with his weaponized umbrella like some trash-themed anime butler.
Rudo is stunned. The man destroyed the beast like it was nothing. But judging by the ominous growling in the distance, this is far from over.
There are plenty more monsters where that came from.
The mysterious man gets serious—charging forward with his trusty umbrella—and within seconds, he takes down a dozen trash beasts like he’s just sweeping up after a toddler with too many Lego sets.
Rudo watches in awe, practically star-struck. That umbrella wasn’t just a fashion statement—it was a weapon of mass trash destruction. If he had a tool like that, maybe he could finally make those jerks back in the Sphere regret ever treating him like yesterday’s leftovers.
Suddenly, one of the trash beasts hurls up a stream of purple, putrid goo that looks like it was brewed in Satan’s blender. The man doesn’t flinch—he parries it effortlessly with his umbrella, then drives it straight through the beast’s head. Done and dusted.
Once the carnage is over, the man returns to Rudo, takes off his mask, and introduces himself as Engine—a Cleaner. He immediately regrets this bold move, though, because the air still smells like compost that’s been insulted and left to rot.
Moments later, Rudo finally crashes—his body gives out from the earlier beatdown. As he fades into unconsciousness, he recalls a memory of Regto.
In the flashback, a younger, muddier Rudo comes home, and Regto asks what happened. Rudo explains that some kids pushed him into the dirt. Why? Because he told them that if you care for an object long enough, it can grow a soul. The kids didn’t agree—they just laughed and bullied him for it.
Regto, feeling a bit guilty, admits that story did come from him, and maybe it’s not something most people believe. But he still holds onto the idea that objects can have souls. That makes Rudo’s eyes light up like a kid on Christmas morning. He eagerly asks if everything in the room has a soul too—including his gloves.
Regto smiles and says yes. Even those gloves could have a soul—as long as Rudo keeps cherishing them.
Back in the present, Rudo regains consciousness and finds himself being dragged across the floor like a trash bag with trust issues. He starts yelling at Engine, demanding to know why he’s been chained up.
Engine, rolling his eyes behind that mask, reminds him that they’re still total strangers. No way he’s bringing a mystery boy back to base without some safety precautions.
Rudo squirms like a fish on land, shouting that he needs to return to the city ASAP. But Engine explains that the place Rudo calls the city is known down here as the Sphere—and it’s not exactly pinned to a map. It drifts around the sky, and without wings (or, say, a rocket launcher), there’s no way back up.
There are other factors too, but bottom line? Rudo is stuck. So, he should zip it and deal with it.
Naturally, Rudo refuses to shut up. He’s on a mission of revenge, and no bad air or weirdo umbrella man is going to stop him. He clings to the one phrase Engine used—“for now”—which clearly means there is a way back to the Sphere. And Rudo wants to know everything.
Engine, officially sick of the yelling, decides it’s time for a reality check. If Rudo really wants to understand what this world is like, he’s going to live it.
So, he keeps dragging Rudo along and eventually drops him off at an old service station, complete with two busted trucks out front. Tossing him on the ground like unwanted delivery, Engine wishes him good luck and strolls off.
Seconds later, Rudo notices five men staring at him like he just dropped out of the sky—which, to be fair, he did. They’re astonished by his clothes, whispering that he might be a Spirit. To confirm, they ask where he came from.
When Rudo says he fell from the Sphere, the men all rip off their masks in surprise. They’ve never seen a living Spirit before and find it hard to believe anyone could survive that kind of fall.
Judging by Rudo’s beat-up face, though, they start to believe it.
But Rudo, understandably annoyed by all the face-touching, pulls away. The men apologize, saying they don’t mean any harm—they just got a little too excited. After all, it’s not every day a human meteor lands at their front door.
At first glance, the leader of the scavenger crew seems almost sympathetic. He notices how uncomfortable Rudo looks in those chains and kindly offers to adjust them. For a second, Rudo—still clinging to the idea that not everyone in this trash heap is evil—actually thinks the guy is decent.
Big mistake.
Instead of being released, Rudo ends up even more tightly bound, this time shackled in the back of a grimy old truck. The scavengers laugh heartily, openly mocking him for being so naïve. One of them remarks how trusting a bunch of masked weirdos in a literal junkyard was possibly the dumbest move of the week. As they tighten the restraints, the leader tells them to be careful—this isn’t just any prisoner. He’s their newest product, and products must be kept intact for premium resale value.
Apparently, people down here deal in “Stroates”—a term they use for Spirit-world folks like Rudo. And it’s not a metaphor. These guys are in the business of selling body parts: eyes, fingers, and even special Spirit-infused clothes fetch a pretty coin. But a living Spirit? That’s practically a golden goose with extra stuffing.
The leader, slipping into full evil-villain monologue mode, leans close and explains the economics of hate. People down here despise the Spirits who live above in the Sphere. Why? Because the Sphere-dwellers constantly rain their trash down onto the lower world—poisoning the air, corrupting the land, and creating the monstrous trash beasts that plague the surface. In the eyes of the underdwellers, the people of the Sphere are murderers by garbage.
So when they find out Rudo is one of them? It’s not going to be pretty. He could be tortured, dismembered, or worse—covered in baby oil. (The scavengers laugh a little too hard at that one, which makes it infinitely creepier.)
But the leader doesn’t care what happens to him after he sells him off. Before cashing in, he wants a little fun—so he starts forcing trash into Rudo’s mouth, thinking it’ll be poetic punishment. “Bet the little Sphere prince has never had to taste garbage before,” he sneers.
What he doesn’t expect, though, is Rudo biting down on his fingers like a wild dog, tearing skin clean off the bone. The leader screams and recoils in pain, but Rudo just keeps chewing… and swallows. No hesitation. No flinching. Just rage.
Turns out, Rudo had been eating trash his whole life. Back in the slums, meals weren’t served—they were scavenged. He’s been disrespected, discarded, and dehumanized more times than he can count. This is just another day in hell.
But today… he’s done.
Fueled by hatred, Rudo breaks out of the chains. Something inside him has snapped—his eyes burn with fury, and the only thing running through his mind is murder. Every scavenger in that truck is suddenly in deep, deep trouble.
From a cliff overlooking the carnage, Engine watches silently, impressed. He had a feeling Rudo had potential—but this? This is something else.
In the chaos, Rudo recalls Regto’s words—how if you care for something deeply enough, even a simple object might gain a soul. As he reaches out to the broken chain, it suddenly begins to glow bright red, pulsing with energy. The scavengers freeze. They know what this means.
Rudo is a Giver—just like Engine. One of the rare individuals who can bring objects to life and awaken their true power.
The chain transforms, wrapping around Rudo like an extension of his body. Some of the scavengers panic, but the leader barks at them: “Don’t be cowards! Just get the chain away from him! Without it, he’s powerless!”
And so, they rush him. They manage to knock the chain out of Rudo’s hands… but it doesn’t help them one bit.
Rudo grabs a nearby tire and wields it like a battle club, using it to absolutely demolish every one of them. One after another, they fall. Bones crunch. Screams echo. The once-cocky scavengers are reduced to a pile of broken pride and regret.
Only the leader remains, trembling and cornered. Desperate, he starts hurling insults, trying to bait Rudo or shake him off his game. But it only fuels the fire. Rudo is ready to finish him off—one final swing with the tire and it’s over.
But just before the blow lands, Engine intervenes, appearing behind him in a flash and stopping him cold.
The rage drains out of Rudo, and the tire crumbles to dust in his hands. Whatever power he unleashed is now gone. Drenched in sweat and panting, Rudo stares at his own hands, confused. He doesn’t know what just happened, but he’s sure of one thing—it has something to do with the gloves Regto gave him.
Engine apologizes—not for watching, but for dropping him into this situation. He had to be sure of Rudo’s potential. And now that he’s seen it, there’s no doubt: Rudo is a Giver.
He offers him a deal.
“I’ll tell you everything you want to know,” he says. “But in exchange, you work with me—and with the rest of the Cleaners.”
After everything—after the lies, the betrayal, the baby-oil threats—Rudo doesn’t even hesitate.
“Nope.”And with that, Episode 2 ends—leaving Engine half-laughing, half-sighing at the boy’s stubbornness, and Rudo, already neck-deep in a world of filth and fury, still refusing to bow.
