The Trash Wants to Live

PR: Naa_chi

I feel stuffy. Really.

I knew exactly what was wrong with me. I envied Ki Yoon Jae. Why had Ki Yoon Jae become such a mess while surrounded by these people who cared about him?

It was funny. I had struggled for less than a year in fear of death, and I had complained about taking his life.

Get a grip!

I didn’t know if the butterfly effect—caused by me—would put my life in danger again, but I was almost relieved that everyone around Ki Yoon Jae was quite nice to me. My mouth was bitter when Jung Yi Joon looked at me and asked why I looked so uncomfortable since I couldn’t control my facial expression. However, I pretended nothing happened.

“What?”

“No, your face… Forget it. It’s nothing. It’s not because they said something bad about you, right?”

I shook my head at his question. Jung Yi Joon seemed like he wanted to say something, but he kept his mouth shut.

“Are you really not going because of me?”

“I already said so!”

“…Can’t you just go?”

When I sighed and asked this, Jung Yi Joon’s expression turned blank and soon heated up. Then, his misunderstandings suddenly began to surface.

“You… don’t like me being with you?”

“That’s not it…”

“Then why do you keep trying to send me away?”

Jung Yi Joon’s face turned red, but he did not kick his seat or yell, as if he was trying to be patient. Since he had insisted that I should speak—even though I was hesitant to say anything—I sighed again and opened my mouth. 

“They didn’t bring that much water when they came here.”

“And?”

That’s why we have to go secure drinking water. 

Jung Yi Joon snorted and raised his eyebrows as if to ask why I said what he already knew. When he didn’t understand this, I had no choice but to explain further.

“If we don’t secure drinking water soon… We’d run out of water, right?”

“…”

“So what if there’s no water to drink? If they can’t get water from elsewhere, then they’ll use water purification.”

There was no choice but to recycle the water that had already been used in the water purification facility. Only then did Jung Yi Joon understand what I was saying.

“No–No way? That?”

Jung Yi Joon’s face turned white as I nodded silently while looking at his trembling eyes. Ki Hyun Joo and others who were listening to me at the side also frowned.

“So if you can help, you should help because securing water is very important, and it must be first priority.”

“…”

“…Yi Joon-ah. I don’t want to drink that.”

So go get some water. I told him with my eyes. Jung Yi Joon sighed deeply and muttered, “Then I’ll just go.”

“Hey, he’ll go.”

“That’s great. Then we’ll organise it like this.”

And thus, the decision was made on who would remain inside, and who would go outside.

“That’s all for today. Tomorrow morning after we get up at 6am, we’ll eat, and the raid team and the secure-drinking-water team can each go to their respective team leaders to listen to the operation briefing. The raid team leader is Chuck Johnson, and the water-securing team leader is Susanna Powell.”

When the soldier, who was briefing us non-native English speakers, pointed at each team leader, the team leaders raised their hands, smiled, and made eye contact with us.

Hmm… I needed to accompany them to their morning strategy meeting. Both Jang Eui Yeol and Jung Yi Joon were not good at English, so I thought I should interpret for them.

When the briefing was over, everyone rose from their seats to return to their respective barracks.

“We got a chance to work together.”

Chuck approached and reached out to Kwon Jae Hyuk. When Kwon Jae Hyuk reciprocated and shook hands, he smiled.

“Is it okay if I’m the team leader?”

“It doesn’t matter.”

“Hmm?”

“I’m just following orders.”

Chuck briefly glanced at Kwon Jae Hyuk, then glanced at me, before averting his gaze. It was unknown to what extent, but it seemed that Chuck had come over while wondering what he should do if Kwon Jaehyuk, whom he considered strong, was offended by the fact that wasn’t team leader.

However, Kwon Jae Hyuk wasn’t interested in such a position. He seemed to be looking at me when he said he was just doing as he was told. After all, only I could give him orders. Chuck nodded, saying that he understood.

“Then I’ll see you tomorrow morning. Good night.”

He left while waving his hand. We headed back to our barracks. None of us brought any entertainment, so we sat quietly and eventually agreed to go to bed early.

We tried to sleep, but we couldn’t fall asleep. We could all hear each other’s breathing, and tossing and turning.

“Yoon Jae-ya.”

Then Ki Hyun Joo called me quietly. At the same time, everyone’s breathing became softer.

“Do we have to stay here for long?”

Ki Hyun Joo’s voice was already bored even though it hadn’t even been a day yet. This place–where military beds were hard, and they could not use the benefits of civilization–was a difficult place for her to endure when she grew up in luxury. Of course, I was the same.

“I don’t think so.” I answered. 

It shouldn’t take as long as she thought. I didn’t know why, but the boss was already dead. That was why the exit from the gate was open.

That was the reason why a goat was caught by the SNT agents while running around on the street after coming to Earth. If you found the exit, there wouldn’t be much to do afterwards.

Unlike other gates, there is no need to do a boss raid in this place.

I still didn’t know why the boss had died. But within the gate, the boss was the strongest. The rest would only be as strong as the goat that was killed by a gunshot. Those killed by guns weren’t that high in rank.

This raid shouldn’t last too long as long as there weren’t major threats. Except we couldn’t find our way out and went around in circles.

Looking at the pictures they took with the drone earlier, it didn’t even look that vast.

No matter how big it was, it looked the size of a city. Our main goal was to connect the base camp with the exit. It was right to say that we would be half way done once we found the exit.

The road will be made by the workers who came in with us. We only have to deal with the approaching monsters while looking for the exit and guarding the workers.

When I roughly summarised and explained it, Ki Hyun Joo replied, “I understand.” The others didn’t say anything, but they also seemed to understand.

“Tomorrow we have to get up early, so let’s sleep now. Good night.”

“Hm. You too.”

Then there was silence once more. The sound of each other’s breathing, tossing and turning gradually filled the silence, then gradually subsided. My consciousness gradually waned as well.

Thus, pioneering began on the second day of the gate entry. The raid team made a path to and from the centre.

The further away from the camp, the harder it was to return, so raid teams often camped out. After camping for about four days, they had returned to base camp and rested for two days, before setting off again.

If the road was long, they would take the off-road vehicle, they had dragged inside the gate, to get to their previous location.

Ha Eun Seo was worried about Ha Hyun Seo staying out at night and kept worrying about him. Contrary to his sister’s worries, Ha Hyun Seo seemed a good fit for the job.

“I transformed into something new there. I flew over the galloping horses that overlapped with our direction. When I chirped loudly, all the horses saw me and started chasing me. When I changed directions, they followed me in the same direction I went.”

Ha Hyun Seo, who returned from four days of camping, explained what had happened. After closing all his fingers to make a fist-like gesture, he opened his palms wide to exaggerate his explanation.

Everyone listened to him with small exclamations, but only Ha Eun Soo looked worried.

“Isn’t that too… dangerous?”

“Didn’t you hear, Noona? Didn’t I totally play them?”

“But… what if you got caught?”

Ha Hyun Seo looked a little fed up with his sister’s tear-stained face, worrying about the future that had yet to occur. But he didn’t say anything because his sister was only worried about him.

The atmosphere calmed down a bit. Jung Yi Joon, who did not care about such things, sank deeply into his chair with his hands behind his head.

“Ah, should I have joined them too? It’s so boring here.”

At first, he said he was worried about me and didn’t want to go to secure drinking water, but after a few days, he left the camp without looking back when he learned that my safety was assured.

At the first briefing, he got along well with the SNT’s gifted people who made fun of him as a coward. They even shared knowledge of their respective abilities whenever they took a break.

“I heard that the water-securing team will be on the offensive soon.”

“Oh, well… we’ve done the pipe connection. So we just need to install the pump as the last task.”

I nodded as if I had heard something from Jung Yi Joon. Both Jung Yi Joon and Jang Eui Yeol only knew English like Hi, Hello, I’m Fine, Yes, No; however, their listening skills seemed to have become better after talking to SNT people while using body language.

Perhaps the pump installation part was inferred by the word ‘pump’ after they heard the words, “blah blah, pump, blah blah.”