ANTAL LORE: WHY HE TELLS TERRIBLE JOKES

Antal tells terrible jokes because people once told him he had no sense of humor, and he agreed. He calls it “my defect” and trains to fix it five times a week. His success rate is zero, and he measured it.

He is also the Savra engineer on Operations Team Z7 who once disintegrated a Landbreaker’s swinging greatsword with his Originium Arts to save a hostage. His files tell the story of a genius raised in his grandmother’s repair shop, a graduation that left his academy with “quite a psychological trauma,” and a long, sincere campaign to become someone interesting.

How we checked this. Everything below comes from Antal’s profile records, voice lines, text messages and other operators’ files in the official English localization, checked against the current game data on 12 October 2026. Where the files only hint at something, or where we read between the lines, we say so. The images are scenes from our own Short about him, built from those files.

Endfield Hub is a fan-made resource and is not affiliated with Hypergryph or Yostar.

Short version first: Antal’s story in under three minutes, staged as an open-mic night at a comedy club, from our YouTube channel. The full story with every source follows below. More backstories are on the Endfield lore hub.

TL;DR - Key Points

• His joke success rate is zero. He told the commander it “has flatlined at zero for quite some time now,” and wondered if he should train daily instead of five times a week.
• He thinks humorlessness is a fault to fix. “During my schooling days people complained about my lack of humor. I agree with them. My defect must be corrected.”
• His graduation was a finger salute. As valedictorian he waved at his doubting professors with a robot arm strapped to his back, and its hand folded down four fingers.
• His best pun was told mid-ambush. “They can’t stop piping into others’ business,” followed by an explanation of the pun, while Catcher held off Landbreakers.
• He wanted to give the commander laser eyes. Captain Akekuri made him write a 6,000-word self-examination essay and read it aloud.
• He is far stronger than he thinks. He calls his Arts “unacceptably unstable” because his area control exceeds one square meter.
• His grandmother is the heart of it. She told him a life of science is lonely without friends. Now he wants his next comedy show filmed so he can mail it to her.

Who Is Antal?

Antal is a Savra born on April 10, authenticated by Endfield Industries, and Oripathy negative. His physical strength, combat skill and tactical acumen are all rated Normal or Standard. His Originium Arts Assimilation is rated Outstanding. In battle he is a 4-star Electric Supporter with an Arts Unit, and his talent heals Amped teammates when their skills deal damage. His kit and builds are on his operator page. Jacob Craner voices him in English.

He belongs to Operations Team Z7, the squad Captain Akekuri rebuilt with Catcher, Fluorite, Estella and Antal. His HR summary says he worked on Endfield’s Originium machine automation research project before he “transferred to the Specialist Tech Division following Operator Akekuri’s special recommendations.”

His introduction says most of what you need to know: “Antal of Op Z7 reporting for duty. I’ve studied Originium automation and occasionally help with modifying or repairing Originium devices. You may approach me for such tasks… And I have a question for you. What is the material of your mask? Carbon fiber?”

The Grandmother’s Repair Shop

Antal was born in a normal household in the Free City of New Wrankwood, a city known for its entertainment industry. He had no interest in movies. He spent his childhood in his grandmother’s Originium appliance repair shop, lying on the table and watching her work: swapping the Originium starter in a faulty refrigerator, or restoring a television with a shattered screen “to mint conditions.”

She had jobs every day, his file says, but “she never neglected her grandson.” She designed toys for him, including mini sports cars and “powered combo-puzzle cubes,” and “Antal grew up very much loved and never felt lonely.” Years of watching her gave him “an outstanding talent for assembling and taking apart Originium devices,” and he won a full scholarship to an academy to study Originium automation.

She also made him something more important. He tells his teammates that his grandmother could take apart and reassemble large metal machinery with her Arts, and that she crafted him a small staff as a child “to make up for his lack of power.” In a trust line he says it is the device he misses most, and he still remembers what she said when she gave it to him: “It shall accompany you as you modify this world.” Her verdict on him stayed with him too. “Your talent lies elsewhere. That is what my grandmother told me. And I have absolutely faith in her words.”

The Graduation Salute

The academy was “known for its conservative atmosphere,” and Antal “was not an adherent to the rules.” When his inventions failed to win over his professors, he kept building them in private. He still graduated top of his class and became the valedictorian.

At the ceremony, “he mounted his latest invention on his back, an automated Originium-powered robot arm, and enthusiastically used it to wave at the professors who once scoffed at the idea. And then suddenly, the open hand of the robot lowered four of its fingers, save for one that remained still and fully extended.”

The incident “left quite a psychological trauma to members of the academy’s administration.” He was still allowed to graduate, but “no one in the academy was willing to offer letters of recommendation to his potential employers.” When Endfield ran a recruitment drive near New Wrankwood, its “advanced technologies and pioneering spirit” won him over, and he applied.

The files never say whether the gesture was a joke, a protest or a malfunction. Given everything else we know about him, it may have been all three.

The Three-Hour Interview

His HR summary was written by Martin Marvin Malen, the HR assistant, who is a machine. Asked about his academic background, Antal “provided a comprehensive list of courses he took in every semester as well as his academic achievements.” As the interview wound down, “which Antal had extended to nearly three hours, he curiously asked me if I have a humor-appreciation system. He also offered to test the system for me, if I did not mind.”

He came for the R&D Center, but Akekuri was his interviewer. “She believes that modified Originium devices should be taken out of the lab and subject to actual combat scenarios. This will better identify their issues. I concur, therefore I joined her team.” A note on his employment contract reads: “Operator Antal is indeed a suitable teammate, given his talents in the Originium Arts… But Kjersch is a very cold place. His bad jokes will only make it worse.”

Why He Tells Bad Jokes

One profile file opens with the mystery. “No one expected this stern-faced dude obsessed with Originium technology and sciences to be equally passionate about lame jokes!” When you look at “his expression-less face and realize that he’s doing his best to make you laugh, you might also find it difficult to determine why you end up laughing anyway.”

He gives the answer himself, plainly: “Why do I obsess about bad jokes? During my schooling days people complained about my lack of humor. I agree with them. My defect must be corrected.” His file says “being someone interesting” may have become “a lifelong pursuit,” and he treats everyone around him as an instructor who can review his performance. His training entry in the game reads: “Antal believes that constant practice will make him the Master Guru of Lame Jokes.”

He runs his jokes like experiments. One of his Dijiang lines: “I have a joke based on Fluorite’s personal experiences. How should one respond to a threatening message from an antagonist? Answer: Unsubscribe. You laugh. This joke is proven humorous. But why didn’t the others laugh as you did?” When idle he tells you, “I am trying to compose a bad joke for you.” And when the commander tells him one about Savra needing vitamin D, he laughs: ”…Hrra-Hrra-Hrra. I did not mean to insult, Endmin. Such is the sound of a Savra’s genuine laughter.”

Akekuri is optimistic about it. “At least he’s sincere. Though there are times when he fails to read the context. For example, he may get a sudden urge to show off his sense of humor in the face of hostility. Unfortunately, the enemies often think otherwise.”

The Pun He Told Mid-Ambush

His first text thread with the commander is a performance review he runs on himself. “I’ve noticed a significant decline in my deadpan humor skills lately. My joke success rate has flatlined at zero for quite some time now.” He is considering “increasing from five times a week to once daily.”

Asked for an example, he describes the last mission, a Landbreaker ambush. “While Catcher was holding the line, I revealed the answer to my earlier riddle: Why do Bonekrushers always cause trouble? ‘Because they can’t stop piping into others’ business’. I then explained the double meaning, how ‘piping’ refers both to the Landbreakers’ pipes and their meddling tendencies.”

The commander points out the issue is timing and delivery: “Few people have the mental bandwidth for deadpan humor mid-combat … let alone a joke with its punchline explained.” Antal disagrees. The timing was deliberate, because Catcher’s stress levels had hit a new high, and Catcher once told him a relaxed mind improves combat efficacy. And the joke worked: “Based on my observations, the corner of his mouth exhibited approximately 1 millimeter of displacement post-joke.”

The commander suggests that might have been “twitchy mouth syndrome,” or Catcher getting ready to “jaw” with the Landbreakers. Antal takes it as a lesson in method. “Eureka. The critical variable is timing. I must deploy jokes at maximally inconvenient intervals!” He also suspects Catcher “likely pre-calculated my humor intervals.” Only when the commander suggests simply asking Catcher for feedback does he agree to try that.

Laser Eyes and a 6,000-Word Essay

The commander, his file says, is the one person who listens to everything he has to say, “ranging from eureka moments of inventive ideas to hour-long science lectures that he suddenly initiates when he finds an opportunity to do so.” The file even wonders if the commander laughs “even before Antal finishes his bad jokes.”

That patience has limits. “In a particular memorable moment, Antal tried to persuade the Endmin to take off the mask. His excuse was to apply certain mods like a pair of beam-firing eyes…” Akekuri happened to be nearby and “fiercely reprimanded” him. “The Operator was forced to write a 6000-word self-examination essay and read it aloud before the Endmin on the following day.”

“Of course, this punishment was hardly effective to Antal. It would only take a few days before his creative mind starts to formulate other interesting ideas.” His first question to the commander, after all, was what their mask is made of.

The Card Game

Fluorite came to Z7 from the Bander mercenaries. One Z7 member admits they distrusted her at first, until “Fluorite started discussing techniques for throwing Originium Slugs with Antal.” Antal calls her “a fellow scaley friend of mine, to some degree.” He finds her “strong, powerful tail attractive but she forbade me from making tactile assessments.” He also rates her “an artful conversationalist. I can learn much from her.”

So he did. “Fluorite taught me a card game for passing the time. She also told me that the loser must do anything for the winner. We played five games. She is now obliged to give me five one-on-one sessions on ‘quickly becoming a joyful partner in conversations’.”

His training entry for puzzles says “Hardly any riddles can beat Antal,” and another says he “never cared about winning or losing, but he always ends up winning.” Another teammate’s line suggests the lessons are not his only outside help: “Antal’s asked me twice now for ‘how to make Catcher laugh’ tutorials…”

He Is Stronger Than He Thinks

An instructor’s training notes judged that Antal “lacks direct combat capabilities.” He provides fire support with his customized staff and orbiters and “seldom casts his own Originium Arts.”

A restricted log tells another story. On one operation, Op Team Z7 watched him step in front of a hostage and use his Arts “to instantly disintegrate the greatsword swung by the attacking Landbreaker.” If he had failed, “Antal would immediately lose his life,” and yet “he himself remained extremely calm throughout the entire incident.” His teammates came away seeing him as “an extremely kind and courageous individual.” Asked about it, he said he had not mastered his Arts and that destroying a Landbreaker’s weapon “was the most he could do.”

His second text thread makes the gap almost funny. He has turned down an Originium Arts showdown, though the organizer showed the commander his scores, and he “cleared the benchmark months ago.” His reasons: humor training “demands excessive temporal and cognitive resources,” and his Arts are lacking. Asked for an example, he lists his flaws: “I still cannot pre-calculate debris trajectories when disassembling enemy weapons mid-combat… My Hervorrufung Originium Arts area control remains imprecise. I consistently exceed the one-square-meter threshold…” The commander decides sitting out might be best. “Wouldn’t want the other participants to get hurt…” Antal answers that the risk is “statistically negligible,” since the rules make every Arts Unit harmless. The commander means psychological injuries, which Antal takes as a reference to Sarkaz witchcraft.

Life in Z7

The rest of Z7 has learned to live with him. One teammate recalls Estella casually asking “Why do long-ears have such long ears?”, after which “Antal decided to spend the rest of the day giving us a lecture on ecobiology.” It only ended back on Dijiang, “And he said he only gave us a summary that left out seventy percent of key contents.” Another operator remembers him offering to turn their staff into a portable prospecting tool, and says he would have explained it all day “if Miss Akekuri hadn’t pulled him away after three hours.”

He notices things about his team in his own way. He says Catcher “wields kitchenware better than how I wield my orbiters,” but goes silent when it rains, and Antal finds this “rather perplexing.” He worries about defending Estella in battle because “We both share reflective and conspicuous skin tones.” He notices Akekuri pacing at night and asks the commander why. He shares his Selection of Extreme Sudoku Challenges with the team, and “reception was negative.” One teammate notes, “After I told Antal that I didn’t like his math games, he stopped sharing them with me.” Another says the secret to keeping Z7 running smoothly includes “laugh at Antal’s jokes.”

The small details are the best ones. Lifeng’s notebook from their first days at Endfield records: “Just ran into Antal. Told me he’s using the molass I brought from home as shoe polish… It’s alright, I guess. We’re buddies.” He was once banned from late-night canteen food for hunting down an Aggelos “without reporting to my Captain.” Chen Qianyu’s file notes that she is always first on Dijiang’s invite lists, and that it “is not an alphabetical issue. Otherwise, Antal should be the first name on the list.” And he cheerfully reports a mission as “a walk on a cake.”

Grandma

His last profile file is a letter home. At the academy, she sent him movie plushies, classic costumes and limited edition posters to give his classmates, “so that I can use these to befriend other individuals.” The classmates “simply stashed the collectibles they received inside their closets.” He told her not to be sad. “I really wasn’t, grandmother.”

In his third text thread he explains the method. With “zero overlapping interests with peers,” he picked New Wrankwood cinema as “the optimal conversation vector” and did “mandatory research.” It did not work: “Even if they accepted my gifts, my classmates still wouldn’t talk to me.” Now his grandmother mails care packages to Z7 “as ‘gratitude for tolerating me’,” and he finally gets to use his film trivia on the commander, about a limited Chubby Lung plushie and a replica stage costume.

She wanted this for him. “My grandmother told me she was happy I left home for Endfield. She treated this as an opportunity to get me off the reading and Originium devices. She hoped I would learn about getting along with teammates and even … make a friend.” Her warning is the line he quotes in a trust dialog: “spending a lifetime to answer a scientific question may be romantic, but lonely is a life without friends. I did not understand what she meant. Then came a time when I wanted to share the joy of a new discovery, but you were not around. This incident taught me about loneliness.”

His letter tells her the worry is over. Endfielders “never turned me down nor rejected my ideas,” his communication skills “have vastly improved,” and “It is not about taking and giving, but mutual sincerity to explore and discuss everything about each other… I believe I have completely understood the true meaning of ‘friendship’.” She sends a message back for the commander: “a certain young Savra may be quite stubborn, albeit in a good-natured way. Please bear with him. I hope to share some tea with you and tell you more about how I raised that little scaley kid.”

In return for the care package, the commander asks what Antal wants. “Endmin, may I formally invite you to attend my next deadpan humor showcase? Could you also record it for me. I promised grandmother I’d send her a copy.” The commander promises to make sure “ANTAL’s performance gets ANT-IRELY captured,” and Antal declares them “the undisputed genius of deadpan humor,” with the pun marked for “Immediate inclusion in my compilation.”

So Why Does He Keep Telling Jokes?

His stated reason is simple: people said he had no sense of humor, he agreed, and he decided to fix it the way he fixes everything, with data and practice. That explains the zero percent success rate, the training schedule and the pun explained mid-fight.

The files never say outright that the jokes are about friendship. But they sit right next to it. His grandmother sent gifts so he could make friends and they failed. She warned him that a life of science is lonely. His jokes are the first thing he has found that makes people stop and pay attention to him, even when the response is a 1 mm smile. And the one show he wants filmed is the one he can mail home to her. That is our reading, not a line from the files, but it fits a man who once told the commander, “I began to tentatively accept the existence of unconditional social bonds.”

Related Reading

• Antal operator page: kit, stats and his full profile records
• Estella lore: her sad backstory at the Landbreaker camp
• Xaihi lore: why she hides behind a chat bot
• Chen Qianyu lore: the six-word job application
• Arcane lore: why she can’t take a break
• Endfield lore hub: every operator backstory and our story Shorts