A Trash Novel's Only Reader-Chapter 20: Decision

Shu made his way out of the dungeon with two big ass eggs tucked under his arms, and every few steps he had to readjust his grip before one of them slipped.

They were way heavier than they looked, warm too, which only made the whole thing feel weirder. Between the blood on his clothes, the bat on his shoulder, and the giant glowing eggs he was carrying out of an underground parking structure, he figured anyone who saw him right now would have a lot of questions.

’I should have brought the corpse too,’ he thought, shifting one egg higher against his side. ’That would have made proving this mess a lot easier.’

It was a shame, because a whole evolved queen body would have been solid proof by itself. Sadly, dragging that massive thing out had never been realistic, especially not while carrying two eggs the size of small children. 𝗳𝚛𝗲𝕖𝚠𝚎𝚋𝗻𝗼𝕧𝗲𝐥.𝚌𝚘𝐦

’Haaa, whatever,’ he thought, stepping over a broken chunk of concrete near the ramp. ’I got the real core, the fake core, and these two. That should be enough.’

His attention drifted back to the system window that had popped up earlier the moment he touched the eggs. He ignored it at the time because the whole thing felt too absurd to deal with while standing in a wrecked boss chamber.

[Eggs Detected]

[Venom Serpent Queen Offspring x2]

[Would you like to begin imprinting?]

[Imprinting will mix the offspring with the user’s biological signature and establish primary loyalty.]

[Yes / No]

He stared at the remembered text again after pulling it back up, his face twisting a little.

"Mix them with my what?" he muttered, looking from the window to the eggs in his arms. "My biological signature? Bro, just say DNA and stop sounding creepy."

The system, as usual, offered no response.

He kept walking while reading the prompt one more time, though that only made it sound stranger. On paper, loyal monster pets sounded broken as hell, especially in a world where most people were getting torn apart by things a lot weaker than a serpent queen.

Even so, the timing of it felt off.

’This really is some weird shit,’ he thought, clicking his tongue. ’I just killed their mother, and now you are asking me if I want to blend them with my DNA or whatever?’

His eyes dropped to the eggs again, and the annoyance in his face eased a little.

The queen had been tested on, stuffed with some planted demon core, and turned into a monster far worse than she should have been. On top of that, her whole nest got wrecked in the middle of that fight, and now only these two were left.

’Yeah, I know she was trying to kill me and all but still,’ he thought, breathing out through his nose. ’That was a dirty way to go out.’

He sighed and closed the system window.

"Not deciding that right now," he said, adjusting his grip on the eggs again. "I will look at it properly once I get home."

That answer felt safer for now. He still did not know if imprinting was permanent, if it would change the monsters too much, or if the system was conveniently leaving out some scammy side effect again.

By the time he reached the upper levels, the outside light was finally spilling through the broken entrance ahead. It hit his face a second later when he stepped out of the parking structure, making him squint while he shifted the eggs under his arms one more time.

Fresh air should have felt better, but his head was already somewhere else.

’Should I report this to the guild?’ he thought, slowing near the curb. ’No, more importantly, how much of this should I report?’

That part was the real problem.

If he walked in and told them the dungeon was tempered with, the mission file was fake, the boss had an artificial mutation core, and demons were probably already messing with the city, then the very next thing they would ask for was evidence.

And the most important evidence was sitting in his pocket right now.

His expression turned flat.

’Yeah, and then what?’ he thought, shifting the bat on his shoulder while the eggs pressed against his ribs. ’I hand over the demon core, they lock it away, study it, and I lose the most suspiciously valuable thing I found all day.’

That assumed the guild branch was clean too, which was not something he was dumb enough to believe right away.

Zoxhia had plenty of branches, officers, and hunter officials who sold information, skimmed rewards, or worked with worse people once things got bad enough. Some were just corrupt, others were scared, and many were already compromised before anyone around them noticed.

’If demons are already planting cores in dungeons, then I can’t assume everybody in that building is innocent either,’ he thought, jaw tightening. ’Reporting it to the wrong person would just be me delivering the core back to them myself.’

At the same time, keeping everything quiet had its own problems.

If he said nothing, then some other poor bastard might walk into the next rigged dungeon and die because nobody flagged the pattern early. He did not exactly care about strangers in a heroic, self-sacrificing way, but feeding people into a setup and pretending he saw nothing sat badly with him.

’Annoying,’ he thought, ’why does every useful decision in this world come with ten hidden problems attached?’

He kept walking down the street with his pace slower than usual, not because of the eggs this time but because he was thinking too hard. Though, the answer started to take shape slowly.

’I could report the mismatch, that much should be fine.’

’Yeah,’ he thought, nodding once to himself. ’I will tell them the dungeon report was wrong and the boss evolved into something way beyond the posted threat level.’

That would be enough to force an internal check without putting his best piece of evidence on the table.

As for the planted core, he could keep that part to himself until he knew more, or until he figured out who in the guild was actually worth trusting. If somebody pressed too hard later, he could always decide then.

"Mhm, sounds fair," he muttered under his breath. "I report the problem, keep the demon science rock, and avoid acting stupid, I am so smart."

The phrasing was dumb, but the plan itself felt solid enough that his shoulders finally loosened a bit.

He looked down at the two eggs again and let out a short laugh.

"First I got isekai’d," he said, shifting them higher in his arms, "and now I am out here carrying giant snake eggs while hiding demon evidence from the guild, what a life."