A Trash Novel's Only Reader-Chapter 50: Cornered

Shu stepped around the corner, bat resting on his shoulder, and whistled.

All four pigs lifted their heads at once, blood dripping from their snouts. Their yellow eyes locked onto him, and the nearest one let out a low, guttural growl.

"Yo," he said, tilting his head. "That’s my breakfast you’re eating."

The first pig charged without hesitation, hooves pounding the cracked asphalt. It was fast, way faster than the ones he remembered from his first day, but compared to the Bloodroot Brutes or the Crimson Tyrant, this thing was moving in slow motion.

He sidestepped clean, letting the pig’s momentum carry it past him, then brought the bat down across the back of its skull. The impact cracked loud enough to echo off the buildings, and the pig dropped mid-stride, sliding across the ground before coming to a stop.

’One hit,’ he thought, staring at the corpse. ’That’s it?’

He flexed his fingers around the grip, feeling the difference. Back when he first fought these things, he needed two or three swings to put one down. Now the same monster folded like wet paper.

’Frame 48 is no joke,’ he thought, rolling his shoulder. ’My body hits harder than before, and I barely felt the recoil.’

The second pig came from the left, lower to the ground, trying to gore his leg with its tusk. He lifted his knee just enough to ruin the angle, then drove the bat sideways into its jaw. The hit snapped its head around and sent it tumbling into a wrecked car, where it lay twitching.

He didn’t wait for it to die. The third pig rushed in from behind the deer, and he closed the distance in two steps, planted his foot, and swung the bat into its ribs. Something cracked inside, and the pig squealed loud enough to hurt before he kicked it away.

’Three down, one to go,’ he thought, already turning. ’This is almost boring.’

The fourth pig was smarter than the others. It backed away instead of charging, circling toward the deer like it was trying to use the carcass as cover.

’Smart pig,’ he thought, watching it move. ’Still a pig though.’

He walked toward it, slow and steady, letting the bat hang at his side. The pig watched him, eyes darting between him and the exit behind it.

Then it bolted.

He threw the bat.

It spun through the air and caught the pig in the spine, dropping it with a heavy thud. The animal kicked twice, then went still.

He walked over, picked up the bat, and looked down at the four corpses.

’Took maybe twenty seconds,’ he thought. ’And I didn’t even use a skill.’

That was the part that surprised him. Living Arsenal was still there, humming faintly through the handle, but even that barely mattered against trash-tier monsters like these.

’If this is what E-Rank feels like against F-Rank mobs,’ he thought, resting the bat on his shoulder, ’then I’ve come a long way from getting chased by goblins in my apartment.’

He turned back toward the corner where Nari was hiding. 𝘧𝘳𝘦ℯ𝓌𝘦𝒷𝘯𝑜𝑣𝘦𝓁.𝒸𝘰𝓂

"It’s done," he called out. "You can come out now."

A few seconds passed, then small footsteps rounded the corner. Nari stepped into view, eyes red, face still a little shaky.

She looked at the dead pigs, then at him, then at the blood on his bat.

"Are you okay?" she asked quietly.

He laughed once, short and dry.

"Yeah," he said. "I’m great."

She didn’t look convinced, but she took his hand anyway.

’Maybe don’t enjoy the killing this much in front of the kid,’ he thought, guiding her around the mess.

Several blocks away, Jin had been running for the last three minutes.

His lungs were burning, his legs were screaming, and the small pouch clutched against his chest was the only thing keeping him moving forward. Behind him, boots pounded the pavement while voices laughed like this was some kind of game.

"Come on, kid! Just hand it over and we’ll let you go!"

He kept running without looking back.

’This is Mom’s and Sua ’s medicine,’ he thought, squeezing the pouch tighter. ’I will not let anyone take it, after all I went through to get it.’

The pouch wasn’t much, just a handful of low-grade recovery herbs and a few credits he’d scraped together doing odd jobs at the transit camp but to him, it was everything. His mother’s cough had been getting worse, and his little sister hadn’t eaten a real meal in two days.

He turned a corner too fast, his foot caught on a crack, and he went down hard. The pavement scraped his palms raw, the pouch nearly flying out of his grip, but he held on, rolling once before scrambling back to his feet.

That half-second cost him.

A hand grabbed the back of his collar and yanked him backward, slamming him into a wall. The pouch slipped from his fingers and hit the ground, and his stomach dropped when he saw three hunters standing over him.

The one holding him was big, easily twice his size, with a scar running down his jaw and a grin that made Jin’s skin crawl. The other two flanked him, arms crossed, looking amused by the whole thing.

"Was that so hard?" the big one asked, still gripping his collar. "All you had to do was stop running."

"Please," Jin said, his voice cracking. "That’s for my family. My mom is sick and my sister hasn’t eaten in-"

A fist buried itself in his stomach.

The air left his lungs in one violent rush, and his knees buckled. The big hunter let go of his collar, and Jin dropped to the ground, coughing, trying to breathe.

"Nobody cares about your sob story," the hunter said, crouching down to pick up the pouch. He opened it, looked inside, and snorted. "This is it? You ran for this garbage?"

"Please..." he rasped, reaching out. "Please give it back..."

The hunter tossed the pouch to one of his buddies, then stood up and drove his boot into Jin’s ribs.

"Gugh!!" He screamed out, the kick folding him sideways and before he could curl up, another one landed in his back.

Then a fist cracked across his face, splitting his lip open, and the taste of blood filled his mouth.

After the third hit, he stopped trying to block. His arms were too heavy and his vision was blurring, all he could do was lay there and take it while the three of them took turns.

’This is it,’ he thought, staring at the ground through swollen eyes. ’I’m going to die here and my family will be left alone to suffer.’

The big hunter grabbed him by the hair and lifted his head off the ground. "Next time someone tells you to hand something over," he said, grinning, "you hand it over."

He pulled his fist back and covered his fist in aura, trying to end it but before he could even attack, something hit the ground between them.

The impact cracked the pavement, sending a shockwave of dust and debris outward that forced all three hunters to stumble backward. Jin’s hair was released, his head dropping back to the ground, as he stared at what had just landed.

’A bat? That looks familiar, could it be?’

The was embedded three inches into the ground, standing perfectly upright, humming with a faint purple glow.

The three hunters stared at it, then slowly looked up.

On the rooftop above them, a figure sat on the edge, one leg dangling over the side, the other pulled up with his arm resting on the knee.

He looked down at them with a calm expression, aura radiating off his body.

"Sup losers," he said, grinning in excitement.