The Trash Wants to Live

PR: Naa_chi

“Ah…! No! You crazy bastard!”

“Ki Yoon Jae!”

Jung Yi Joon tried to hold me back when I couldn’t stand it any longer, but I ran and avoided Yi Joon’s hands. Cookie hadn’t actually betrayed his country, moreover, his survival shouldn’t be a reason why he had to die.

When Dietrich saw me rushing forward empty-handed, he looked at Cookie again with his sword raised. There was a large distance between them and me, and running didn’t mean that I could stop them.

‘I have to distract him.’

How could I turn his attention toward me? The situation was so urgent that I spat out whatever came to mind.

“Dietrich, you madman…! Stop talking nonsense when you look like a human!”

Did it make sense if someone you knew was a traitor because he wasn’t dead yet?  Shouldn’t he be grateful that someone he knew was alive? Wasn’t that the normal thing to do? No matter how precious the family member who died, Cookie hadn’t killed them, so why should Dietrich take his anger out on Cookie? ‘Why was he living so well while I’m so fucked up? He must be screwed up like me as well.’ Dietrich’s logic was nothing short of a bastard’s logic.

‘I can’t believe he was a holy knight…’

That God was truly blind. Even the gangsters in the neighborhood weren’t be as bad as him. While I spat those words out on purpose, I became even angrier than before.

I knew; it wasn’t even Cookie’s fault. Had Cookie destroyed the world? Wasn’t it all the invaders’ fault? It was ‘him’ whom the fallen Dietrich served that was the root cause of everything.

“Dietrich, you stupid loser bastard! You cowardly loser bastard!”

Hearing these words, Dietrich’s hand stopped just as he was about to swing his sword. I kept shouting when I realised it was working.

“You loser bastard! Are you taking out your anger on someone else after getting beaten up who-knows-where?“

[…] 

“The one who beat you was ‘him’ the one you serve, so why are you taking it out on Cookie! If you are angry about it, you should go to ‘him’!”

[…] 

“Aha, you can’t do it because you’re afraid of ‘him’, right? That’s why you aren’t even thinking about it. You cowardly loser bastard!”

[…] 

“Your little sister, Dienia, would be so proud of you in the underworld. Sob, my poor big brother. How awesome of him to unleash his anger on someone else! He’s so proud to become ‘his’ tool when ‘he’ was the one who killed him!”

Dietrich’s face contorted at my provocation. The mention of his dead sister seemed to put him in the worst mood.

[

“Why? I didn’t say anything wrong, but why are you so temperamental? You cowardly bastard!”

I raised my middle finger and shouted at him. Dietrich might not have known what my gesture meant since I was from a different dimension, but he would have realised that it didn’t mean anything good.

Dietrich turned away from Cookie and glared at me. It seemed that I had succeeded in distracting him by upsetting him.

[No! Dietrich]

As Dietrich turned toward me, Cookie was startled and tried to stop him. Cookie tried to quickly bite his leg, but Dietrich’s figure disappeared even faster.

‘Ah…’

Had I been too aggressive? As I spoke, I felt I had directed his anger at me and distracted him. When I saw Dietrich in front of me, wearing a hideous face, I reflexively raised my hand and tightly closed my eyes. I thought I would end up dying like this.

“Yoon Jae said the truth. What’s wrong with that?”

[Kugh!]

At that moment, I heard a familiar voice. There was a bang!—The sound of metal colliding with each other. When I opened my eyes slightly, I saw a familiar back.

“Hyung…”

“Hey. Yoon Jae-ya.”

It was none other than Kwon Jae Hyuk who blocked Dietrich and greeted me with a smile.

Jae Hyuk looked up at the sky with a strange feeling of uneasiness. The first time he felt uncomfortable was probably after he realised that this gate had killed a lot of people in his first playthrough.

‘If I had known this was going to happen, I wouldn’t have let him in…’

He felt wretched. He had nodded because he wanted to be helpful to Yoon Jae. Of course, he was confident that he could win no matter who it was. Yoon Jae would be surprised if he found out, but if it didn’t work he thought he could just take him and run away. 

Nothing mattered to Jae Hyuk except Yoon Jae. If he had to kill others just to save Yoon Jae, he could kill a thousand or ten thousand people without batting an eye.

The reason why he failed to transcend into the immortal stage in his last days was because of one person he would never forget in his life. He met God because of that, and he was able to turn back time.

“I think that’s the dimension stone… We didn’t see the boss, right?”

“Yeah.”

Chuck spoke amiably next to him, and Jae Hyuk nodded and answered. After the regression, everyone else looked younger, and he actually did not intend to form connections or make close friends. Of course, only Yoon Jae was the exception among those people.

Although, Chuck was a bit macho, he was a good guy without being racist or white supremist. He was also attracted to Jae Hyuk’s strength, so he was friendly to Jae Hyuk. On the premise that Chuck might not die, Jae Hyuk treated him kindly since it would be helpful to Yoon Jae if he got close to him.

“The boss probably couldn’t have gone that far. It’s instinctively guarding that.”

“Oh, really? Then we can finally get out of this damn place. Why don’t you come over to my place when we get out? I will show you my secret whiskey.”

“Captain, can I come too?”

Isabella, who had been silently listening to Jae Hyuk and Chuck’s conversation, approached with a cold face. She approached Jae Hyuk without hiding her feelings for him and blushed. She looked cute, but Chuck shook his head firmly.

“Oho, aren’t you a minor? Only adults can taste my secret whiskey!” 

“That’s not why I’m going!”

“If not, then what?”

“Th… That…! Jeez! I don’t know!” 

In the end, it was Isabella who ran away when she couldn’t communicate her feelings to Chuck. Chuck laughed at her and tapped Jae Hyuk on his shoulder.

“Isn’t she adorable? It’s fun to tease someone who looks coy.”

“Yes, she’s cute.”

“So don’t hurt her even if she bothers you a bit.”

Jae Hyuk looked at him with a look of surprise. He thought her attention was a little annoying, but it was amazing that Chuck had noticed it. Chuck turned around and stretched as if he didn’t feel his gaze.

“Now, let’s look for the boss who’s gone outside of his territory… What’s that?”

At his words, everyone followed Chuck’s gaze and looked up at the sky. Their faces hardened. The strangely coloured sky had turned blood red. Everyone’s expressions were darkened by the unusual change. It was also the same for Jae Hyuk.

‘Is that why I felt uncomfortable earlier?’

A transcendent’s senses were more precise than clairvoyance in any respect. Ordinary people only had five senses–namely the five senses–but they were able to awaken the sixth sense when they became transcendents. Even though he hadn’t become a perfect transcendent by not attaining immortality, Jae Hyuk’s intuition was still accurate since he had almost reached that stage.

Feeling that he should immediately go to Yoon Jae, Jae Hyuk’s heart became heavy at the second mistake he had made. After all, his first mistake was letting Yoon Jae enter this gate.

‘I shouldn’t have let my guard down due to the low level of difficulty here.’

He let his guard down because it was not yet time for a ‘disaster’ to appear. Jae Hyuk nervously bit his lip and fixed his sword. He had to find a way out soon.

“Oy, where are you going?”

Chuck called out behind him, but Jae Hyuk ran forward without even listening. He sped up, and soon people couldn’t catch up to him. He looked around while running so fast that not even an afterimage remained. 

‘Where? Where is it?’

After several minutes of running around with an impatient face, he finally found the exit—a monster lying dead under a fallen tree with its tongue sticking out. The moment he saw the gate floating next to it, Jae Hyuk jumped into it without delay.

His eyes flickered. The green leaves disappeared, and he stood amidst a stone mountain in the desolate desert.

“Put your hands up!”

As he emerged from the gate in the desert, the waiting soldiers pointed their guns at Jae Hyuk. They were soldiers on standby to prevent monsters from coming out of the open gate.

Jae Hyuk turned around and entered the gate again without even paying attention to them. He chose this method because he could arrive right at the base camp without needing to travel back. He might be late if he chose to run back to the base camp that was close to the entrance.

Jae Hyuk, who entered the gate like that, felt a bit of resistance unlike when he came out. The resistance grew stronger, and sparks flew around Jae Hyuk’s body with a sputtering sound. It was as if the gate was rejecting him.

“Ugh…!”

Jae Hyuk could only groan as he felt the pressure crushing his body. What’s going on here? Jae Hyuk was taken aback by the situation he was in for the first time.

‘I can’t get through…’ 

To make matters worse, there was an evil thought flowing into his head. Jae Hyuk gritted his teeth and shouted at the unknown interference who told him not to enter.

“Don’t interfere!”

But still the gate would not let him enter. Jae Hyuk, who was struggling with his flickering vision, thought he might bounce off into a different dimension.

He wasn’t afraid of being lost in another dimension. What he was afraid of was that something would happen to Yoon Jae while he was wasting his time like this.

T/N: I think updating one chapter per month would be fine for me. It’s better than none right? Thanks for waiting! 🙏🤗