A Trash Novel's Only Reader-Chapter 16: Boss

The building looked well kept while the rest of the block rotted. Clean windows, working lights, and armed guards at both gates made it look almost normal from a distance.

Inside the top-floor dining room, a man and woman ate a luxury meal under warm chandelier light. Steak, fruit, wine, and fresh bread covered the table while starving people scavenged below their walls.

The man cut through his meat, chewed once, and watched her face before asking the question he actually cared about. Gold light reflected in his eyes, but no warmth reached them.

"Tell me the core was placed exactly where we planned," he said, setting his fork down beside the plate.

She wiped her lips with a napkin and leaned back without any sign of pressure. One leg crossed over the other while her fingers circled the stem of her glass.

"I placed it in Serpent’s Pit before dawn, because low-rank dungeons get lazy inspections and weak follow-up audits," she said.

He nodded once, then studied her in silence for another moment. Steam drifted between them while distant gunfire echoed outside.

"Any resistance during transfer, or any witnesses who saw your face?" he asked, pouring more wine into his glass.

She took a slow sip and met his gaze with a small smile.

"No one important noticed, our bought clerk changed the mission file before sunrise, and anyone who saw too much is already dead," she said.

The corner of his mouth lifted as he tapped the table twice, satisfaction moving across his face, though his tone stayed controlled.

"Then the field test already started, and sooner or later hunters will walk straight into our product line," he said.

She placed her glass down and leaned forward slightly, keeping her eyes on him while listing the expected effects. 𝒇𝓻𝓮𝓮𝙬𝙚𝒃𝒏𝓸𝙫𝒆𝙡.𝓬𝓸𝒎

"Once the injected core roots itself, mutation speed spikes, aggression rises, and normal drop behavior collapses so evidence disappears with the bodies," she said, her tone emotionless.

"By the time investigators notice the mismatch, panic will already be spreading through the association network and no one will trust mission reports anymore," she added.

He laughed under his breath and picked up his knife again, clearly enjoying the picture she painted. Their conversation shifted into hard strategy immediately after that.

"If tonight succeeds, we seed ten more dungeons in this zone, then we push toward capital routes before they stabilize anything," he said.

She watched him for a second and narrowed her eyes, as even she thought that timeline was aggressive.

"That pace is still conservative compared to what you actually want, so say it clearly and I will prepare the full deployment chain," she said, her fingers tapping lightly against the glass.

He pointed his knife toward her and smiled, looking more pleased than offended by the challenge.

"Mass deployment starts after this test confirms viability, then low and mid dungeons collapse regional defenses, supply lines crack, and safe zones eat each other alive," he said, bare ambition hardening every syllable when he answered her challenge.

’Humans call us monsters, yet their systems break with one smart push,’ she thought, finally letting herself enjoy the moment.

She lifted her glass first, and he matched it without hesitation, their eyes locking onto each other.

"All this chaos is for one throne, and one return," she said, holding the glass steady.

"All this chaos is for the Demon King alone," he said, touching his glass against hers.

Deep inside Serpent’s Pit dungeon, Shu hunted long enough for his shoulders to burn and his breathing to settle into a brutal rhythm. Blood dried across his sleeves, and fresh cracks spread through the ground wherever his bat landed.

He cut through another service corridor when a serpent dropped from a beam, then met it with an upward swing that snapped its neck before it reached his face.

Momentum carried him into a tight turn, where a second serpent lunged from a pipe bend and got split against the wall in the same motion.

[Objective: Kill the Serpents (21/50)]

Hissing rose from both sides at once, so he backpedaled through a narrow bend, baited the lead serpent forward, and smashed its skull into the wall before the flank closed.

A second and third serpent followed low, yet he stepped over one bite, kicked the other into broken concrete, and dropped both with two brutal swings before their coils reset.

[Objective: Kill the Serpents (24/50)]

Only when the tunnel quieted did he slow down, because the hissing no longer came as random noise and instead arrived in measured intervals that sounded almost like signals. Even with Unwavering Spirit keeping panic down, those silent gaps between waves made his shoulders tighten.

’This nest is reading my pace while I keep pushing deeper,’ he thought, wiping venom across his sleeve as he scanned both tunnels. ’If a boss is directing them, it already knows exactly where I am.’

A serpent burst from a drainage opening near his knees, but he clipped it upward on reflex and slammed it into the ceiling before it could coil around his legs.

He landed off-balance after the hit, caught himself on one boot, and kept pressing forward without giving the nest a clean angle.

[Objective: Kill the Serpents (25/50)]

The corridor widened into a chamber where crushed vehicles formed broken cover and thick dust covered the floor until fresh grooves cut through it in heavy arcs. He slowed there when he saw each scrape line ran wider than his chest, nothing he had fought so far could leave marks that deep.

Cold air crawled along the ground and carried a thick stench that scratched his throat, so he adjusted his grip and checked every blind corner before taking another step.

’I have hunted this long, and the waves still come this hard,’ he thought, jaw tightening. ’Whatever waits ahead is bigger than everything I killed so far.’

He kept going, moving through corridor after corridor while wave after wave tried to pin him down in narrow spaces. Time blurred and by the time his breathing turned ragged again, nearly an hour had passed.

Serpents kept dropping from vents, beams, and broken doors, but he cut through them on rhythm and pushed deeper whenever a path opened. Every kill faded into smoke before he could touch it, and that only confirmed he was closing in on the real source.

[Objective: Kill the Serpents (37/50)]

The tunnel eventually opened into a massive chamber where broken support pillars leaned over piles of crushed vehicles and collapsed ground.

He slowed at the entrance, since the entire space felt wrong in a way even constant fighting had not prepared him for.

Air pressure changed around him before any sound reached his ears, and the system hit him with a red flash so sharp it made his eyes twitch.

[Warning: Extreme threat detected in current zone]

[Emergency Mission Triggered: Survive]

[Objective: Stay alive]

[Failure Condition: Immediate death]

He froze for a moment, then tightened his grip and forced himself to scan the chamber even though he still could not see what triggered the warning. Cold sweat crawled down his back while the darkness in front of him started to move.

Something enormous rose from behind the collapsed pillars with a slow scraping sound that made the floor tremble beneath his feet.

Before he could step back, the massive serpent loomed above him, its glowing eyes locked onto his face.

’W-what in the fuck!’