## Chapter 65 – [Side Story] F-Rank Adventurer Kim Katt
I am a vagrant, unprotected by the law. As an unidentified Earthling, I often receive unfair treatment, working without proper pay. Even if they cheat me out of every penny, it’s not considered wrong. There is no morality. There was no morality in this world. Therefore, there was no reason, making it savage and barren. This is what this world was like.
I always think that when I open my eyes, the same morning as always will come. I think that this is an illusion, not reality, and someone will whisper to me and pull me out of this dream. I just huddle in despair, hoping that someone will reach out a hand of salvation. Of course, someone will save me. Some kind person will reach out to me. It’s only natural for people to help each other. I believed it, and believed it, and believed it until the very end.
However, there is no salvation.
There is no salvation in hell.
Isn’t that why it’s hell?
“Ah, fucking cold!”
Lena and Winia, those bitches, didn’t pay me, so today is a forced night out. Cold, hungry, and my body aching, all sorts of fucked up thoughts came to mind. The saddest thing was that there was nowhere to complain about my unfairness.
The temperature is dropping, but I can’t sleep in the stable tonight because I didn’t get paid. I should have saved money for days like this, but I don’t have a single penny saved. If I had been paid properly, I would have had some money in my pocket.
But how could that be possible? All those bastards steal my money! Is it a sin to have black hair? What? Barbarians can’t understand human speech? Tell me the king doesn’t understand the hearts of men! Then I’ll understand all the rebellions! Bitches. I’ll kill you all someday.
Anyway, it’s a night out. I decided to sleep inside the blood-soaked sack that I had been using to carry goblin heads until recently. This sack was the most valuable thing I owned. I picked it up from the junkyard, but I could use it to carry things and use it as a sleeping bag when it was cold. The problem was that it was always covered in blood, but it had been quite a while since I stopped caring about that.
I took the sack and found a suitable corner.
Even vagrants and homeless people have their own rules and etiquette, so you shouldn’t invade someone else’s territory. You have to be careful and act accordingly. Otherwise, a bloody battle might break out. Nobody cared if a beggar died in the street, it wasn’t a big deal.
Not exactly a prime location, dark, damp, and always with standing water, so nobody ever settled there, but that was my spot. I went from a beggar to an F-rank adventurer, but nothing had really changed. F-rank and beggar are the same thing. A true adventurer starts from E-rank.
So I close my eyes, exhausted. The cold seems to seep into my bone marrow. Cold, hungry. Fucking sucks. I had to suppress these negative emotions to sleep. It was the hardest task of the day.
I want to go home, go back home.
Mother, my mother. Father, my father. I want to go back to my warm home, my hometown.
My bones ache. I wanted to see my parents’ faces, I missed the smoggy air of the city, and I wanted to eat cheap fast food overflowing with grease. Now that I can’t reach them even if I reach out my hand, they shimmered so brilliantly…
But there is nothing.
ㅡLike the visions seen by the Little Match Girl.
There is nothing here.
Neither me, nor that place.
“…”
I was grateful for the accumulated fatigue. I felt strangely drowsy and sleepy. Tears poured out with the drowsiness, and the starlight seemed to know my heart and poured down with me. Thank you, but don’t twinkle, I’m going to sleep now.
***
“Wake up.”
Waking up and getting out of bed was like waking up from the dead, very awkward, painful, and terrible. Most humans would be ecstatic to be resurrected after death, but I wasn’t.
Because the sensation of the dead body remained vivid. It was an unpleasant feeling as if a soul had been forcibly shoved into a dead body.
I got up feeling like I wasn’t myself. I’m going crazy. I’m going crazy. Even when I open my eyes, it’s still this world. What was the trigger? If I came here suddenly by satisfying some condition, then I should be able to go back in a similar way.
But it doesn’t work that way.
With a depressed heart, I moved.
My destination was the city’s junkyard. Yesterday’s hunting assistant and porter work was about forming a party in front of the Adventurer’s Guild, and what I was planning to do today was cleaning the junkyard. The city constantly generates garbage, and there was always a need for someone to clean it up.
Yesterday’s betrayal still stung, so I didn’t even think about going to the guild, and my legs headed mercilessly towards the junkyard. The pay was low, but I wouldn’t get beaten up. Of course, I wouldn’t be able to earn any achievements at the guild either…
“There are a lot of people…”
The junkyard, reminiscent of a dawn labor market, was indeed. Workers in ragged clothes like me were wandering around. When the staff came to work, they would select us and take us away.
“It would be nice if they would at least let us eat breakfast before we start.”
I had no money.
As the sun was about to rise, a clean-cut, bearded employee came out.
“Here, those who want to work today, line up over here.”
The vagrants began to slowly form a line. One, two. Three. I stood in the fourth spot, being observant, and looking at the three unfortunate-looking people in front of me, I thought I would be able to work today.
I came to work, but of course, not everyone can.
“You’re missing an arm. Then you can’t work.”
“What are you talking about! I can do this kind of work too!”
“Are you yelling? If you don’t get out of here right now, I’ll rip off your remaining arm.”
“…Keuk!”
The one-armed man in front of me got rejected. Poor guy. I worry about what those guys eat to live, but that’s it. I’m most worried about myself in this world. Anyway, it was a morning to be grateful for my intact limbs.
“A barbarian? It’s hard to see you living in the city. You look like you have some strength, so you’re hired.”
“Thank you.”
“Next.”
That’s how I was able to get a job.
I moved to the workplace with the selected people. It was a junkyard in the literal sense. The city’s garbage gathers, and trash like us also gathers. There was nothing that wasn’t trash here.
“Wow, there’s a lot. The smell is fucking awful, seriously.”
The job from now on was to clean up those things. First, the garbage collected in the city’s junkyard is dumped outside the castle walls in the undeveloped area. Krassheim is right next to the undeveloped area, so they disposed of garbage in this way.
I received a shovel and shoveled garbage into a wheelbarrow. I had to fill the wheelbarrow to the brim, watch the supervisor’s eyes, go out through a small passage to the outside, and dump it.
“Huuup!”
A rotten smell vibrated. All sorts of things were thrown away. Except for the absence of things like plastic, it didn’t seem that different from modern times. In particular, the garbage from the magic tower was the worst. Mountains of rotten flesh of all kinds of monsters and things that gave off unknown odors.
“Hooo!”
So I filled the cart to the brim and pulled it. I can’t take my time and slack off. The moment I get caught cheating, I’ll be told to get out right away, regardless of the pay.
I worked diligently.
“Purpose.”
“I’m going to throw this away.”
The guard stopped me as I left the passage with tired eyes. He formally checked the cart. Of course, he didn’t touch it or look at it closely. He wouldn’t want to look at smelly things.
He looked really comfortable. I want to be a guard in the future.
“Ah… fuck… it’s hard…”
I worked without eating breakfast or even taking a lunch break. I’m starting to lose my energy. The sun is in the middle of the sky, so it was very hot and the smell seemed to be getting worse. I was worried that I might die from some kind of poison gas. You never know. Maybe if I die, I’ll go back home.
“That’s bullshit.”
As I endured the time of suffering and endlessly shoveled, something caught my eye.
“Oh, this is.”
Interested, I grabbed it and pulled it out. It was a handle.
“A sword?”
What was pulled out of the pile of garbage was an old, rusty short sword. It seemed to have been thrown away without a scabbard. If I removed the rust, it would be a usable sword, but I didn’t have that kind of skill.
“Hmm…”
But it looked pretty good. There was a lot of rust, but the blade wasn’t too damaged, and there were no broken or damaged parts. For some reason, I thought it would be useful, so I decided to take it.
If I had a weapon on my waist, it would at least give me some swagger. There would be a big difference between walking around empty-handed and being armed. I don’t know, but if I get stabbed with this, I might die from tetanus.
I was going to put the sword in the sack I had on my back, but I thought it would be better to just hang it on my waist, so I picked up a string nearby, wrapped it around my waist, and hung the sword there.
Anyway, time eventually passed. From morning to evening, I endlessly shoveled garbage and threw it outside without a single break, and before I knew it, dusk had fallen.
“Workers, come this way.”
The supervisor called the workers. He counted the workers and paid 3 coppers per person. Gratitude welled up in the hand receiving the copper coins. After doing all that shitty work, it was only 3 coppers. But with this, I could eat a meal and sleep in a place with a roof. If I wanted, I could even wash once.
How could I not cry? Even though I felt unpleasant because of the shitty smell all over my body, I felt good. If Lena and Winia had given me all 5 coppers yesterday, it wouldn’t have been like this.
Hatred rose.
I left the junkyard. The surroundings were crowded with adventurers who seemed to be returning from work. They were wearing armor or armed with good-looking swords. I was so envious of that sight. If I could at least reach that level, I wouldn’t live so miserably.
I walked down a back alley, feeling intimidated.
“That beggar smells fucking awful.”
“Isn’t that a barbarian?”
“Huh? That’s right? Hey, you, come here.”
But I was harassed again. Seeing that there were two of them, I ran away with all my might without looking back. If I got caught here, I could lose the day’s earnings.
