Mechanical Instinct

Self-Published

Community Rating

Description

Everything was just fine. She was just lending a hand to her brother and not at all doing anything unlawful or morally questionable. In fact, she would dare say that she never did anything wrong in her entire life. So it came as a shock when wretched spectres targeted her. With no escape in sight, Mara did the only thing available and jumped into the maw of what she would become. No longer human, Mara hadnoother choice but to bend to the rules and instincts of the accursed construct that she now inhabited. Twisted into an abomination and given a ‘friend’ she never asked for, she had to navigate the world after remaining locked away for years. To do so and find the one who left her to rot, there is only one thing she can do:Upgrade and evolve. What to expect: -A sprawling, confusing world -A MC who does not know the concept of accountability is violently unhinged, could be the big bad in a slasher movie, and also hates children with a passion -A nice system -Madness

Information

Status: Ongoing
Year: 2025
Author: DoctorBird

Royal Road Stats

Rating: 4.3/ 5.0
Followers: 1,625
Views: 530,455

What readers say about Mechanical Instinct

“I have to say, it's hard to find a villainous protagonist, where they just plain don't have a bottom line. Part of it, is that they always attract bad reviews by people who just want anti-heroes, but I've always found it entertaining to watch someone spread…”
toddRoyal Road5.0 / 5
“Very enjoyable. Love the protagonist already. Although I typically don’t enjoy first person writing style, I’m enjoying this one. It has a grim feel, nice wit and sarcasm, and the dark humor is ALWAYS a plus. The grammar is pretty much perfect, I didn’t see…”
Chaotic luckRoyal Road5.0 / 5

Reviews

No reviews yet. Be the first to share your thoughts!

Community Reviews(10)

toddRoyal Road
★★★★★ 5.0
I have to say, it's hard to find a villainous protagonist, where they just plain don't have a bottom line. Part of it, is that they always attract bad reviews by people who just want anti-heroes, but I've always found it entertaining to watch someone spread bad times with the same zeal and persistence that a great hero provides good times to their found-family or harem-of-competent-yet-strangely-helpless-women.
Maya Nebulo is a monster. She is a terrible, narcissistic, violent psychopath, on top of rudely judging men for appreciating muscle mommies. And she's actually a lot of fun! It takes a little while for her to get into the groove of being a horrible creature of nightmare, but once she does, she starts building out elaborate setups to play with her food and protect herself. On top of that, for as much as she looks down on the world, she isn't consumed by hate or madness or obsession. Instead, she's pretty much just a happy go lucky mass-murderer.
Just vibing. Living her life. Horrifying the world.
If you like villains or monster fics (plus evolution!) this is an easy rec. But to be a hundred percent clear, Maya has no redeeming qualities. She's just a cheerful girl living her best life, at the expense of everyone else's best life. Or just life in general.
Chaotic luckRoyal Road
★★★★★ 5.0
Very enjoyable. Love the protagonist already.
Although I typically don’t enjoy first person writing style, I’m enjoying this one. It has a grim feel, nice wit and sarcasm, and the dark humor is ALWAYS a plus.
The grammar is pretty much perfect, I didn’t see anything at first glance, and the author seems dedicated and put great effort into the story.
The protagonist the best part. One would think that she went crazy after merging/getting trapped inside the “mecha”, but nooo, we can tell from chapter 1 how she was already a little crazy and violent. Lovely addition. It’s like handing a baby a huge hammer it can use, it will most likely go have ‘fun’ and by that I mean curiously destroy everything. Although this symbolism is a little far off, we can see that giving strong power to an already violent person is simply a recipe of exceptional taste. Moi, chef’s kiss!!
The people who put her in this situation will have a hell to pay, and we will enjoy watching them squirm like the little worms they are, when it happens.
Let’s hope it only gets more violent from here.
FuriozeRapidaRoyal Road
★★★★★ 5.0
This story is dark, creepy and good. We get to see the other side of the "creepy monster scares kid" trope—through the eyes of the MC. She's a bad girl and the author doesn't try to justify her actions. She's genuinely monstrous, and the story doesn't flinch from that.
The prose does a good job picturing the world, and the nightmares concept was excellent. The chapter where the MC terrorizes a kid in her own house is one I'll remember for a long time. The story focuses on showing the torment from the monster's perspective, and it's beautifully done in the early chapters.
The MC's voice is very creepy and distinct—a real strength. However, around chapter 90, the narrative lost momentum for me. The balance shifted too heavily toward magic system exposition, and the MC's voice, while initially compelling, became exhausting over that length.
I'm setting this one aside for now, but this is strong story worth experiencing. I still give it 5/5 and recommend it.
Pudding EmperorRoyal Road
★★★★★ 5.0
Enjoying this so far!The writing has a witty edge to it, it immediately pulls ye in with the narration, a mix of dark humor, unsettling imagery, and a somewhat creeping sense of dread? that makes it feel different than usual creepy novels.Our main protag got spring trapped and became one, cough, with a steel skeleton. So for those who love unhinged characters, where violence is always the answer... enjoy~Lookin forward to how the story escalates~
Seeking PolarisRoyal Road
★★★★★ 5.0
On mobile, my phone randomly clicks on the wrong spots on the screen(only on royalroad, no idea why) and I spent half an hour writing a review and making sure it was as fair and good as I could, and then oh hey that delete button doesn't have a confirmation and reviews have no recovery option despite comments having it? great Yaya!
Alright so anyways here's the very very abbreviated version because my pc broke and I'm not dealing with filing a support ticket on mobile
Style: good, slasher, descriptive but lacking good pure emotion = less bad icky feeling
Story, looks nice, thumbnail clue = good, starting point not bottom so no doormat mc arc = good
Grammar good, 5 stars, I have to be asleep in 10 minutes so me no clever, royalroad devs stole all my time for clever with bad mobile website design
Character score was 4 then 4.5 and now 5, because crazy done good = less cringe than other crazy mc stories and spiteful evil is better than cunning evil. Occaisonally funny/relateable
Other notes: litle world building, but with how evil the mc is it's alright because the world around the mc is decidedly temporary
If my review is at all lacking in detail, please I beg of you, contact some kind of support person and get them to replace it with the review I accidentally deleted, as it is leagues better than this one and I'm out of time for writing reviews for at least the next week
ToomblerRoyal Road
★★★★★ 5.0
It’s a monster/villain story, the mc is like a cursed animatronic and acts like a horror movie monster when she kills people. I find it pretty funny and entertaining, I think mainly because of the personality of the MC: she’s completely egotistical, narcissistic, and confident, to the point where she can do no wrong in her mind even when she’s literally hunting people down in tunnels or the nightmares of children - the narration is just quite funny to me. She also makes fairly smart, if often very bold plans though. The world/magic system also seems pretty cool.
TsarPikachuRoyal Road
★★★★★ 5.0
I love unique MCs, I especially love villainous characters who are unapologetically selfish. This story takes it a little further and has an MC who is an irredeemable killer who enjoys preying on the weak and slaughtering the innocent, all while firmly believing that she is doing nothing wrong. I love it, and if you love evil MCs you will love this too.
Mahar BotRoyal Road
★★★★★ 5.0
It's certainly edgy and the protagonist is a psycho with no empathy, but I am quite enjoying it. Looking forward to seeing where it goes since it feels like it's setting something up. The upgrade pacing feels a little slow considering the body count but maybe it's more of a backloaded evolution.
jdvdinoRoyal Road
★★★★★ 4.5
The main character is like William Afton when he gets spring lock, but doesn’t die and possesses the corpse and that spring lock suit and it’s also in the back of a diner like Freddy Fazbear’s pizzeria is where I think it happened to William Afton in conclusion, I think the author got inspiration from Fnaf
JackygoatRoyal Road
★★★★ 4.0
This is a different story then normal, the best way I could say if you would like it is if the idea of springtrap (kinda) in a system fantasy world sounded interesting to you. If the answer is yes then you will probably like this story, just be aware that this is not fanfiction, there are references but it does not use names or setting just ideas like haunted animatronic. As to the quality of the story, it's all over the place, the start is flat out not good as the worldbuilding just dosen't explain itself and the characters are either hyper extremes or side character nobody's. The goods are there, like the visual descriptions and the unique insanity of the mc. I had fun with it, and despite the negatives (like missing a plot most of the time) I still think that if the idea intrigues you then give it a read.