Trash of the Count’s Family - Chapter 556

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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But this was no time to merely harbor the flames of rage within my heart.
Kale pushed himself up to his feet immediately.

“Ugh.”

A groan escaped involuntarily as pain radiated from every corner of my body.
One of those looking down at me smirked.

“Hey. Why didn’t you just do what you were told instead of acting up?”

Kale—Kim Rok-soo—let the words directed at me pass through unheeded.

‘This isn’t the time.’

I forced strength into my trembling legs and slowly rose to my feet.
This was when Kim Rok-soo’s body was at its most emaciated.
Because of that, this frail frame had no strength left after taking just one kick from an ability user.

“Tch!”

In that moment, I heard someone’s mocking laughter.

“Ugh!”

A kick to my shin sent me rolling across the cement floor once more.
Sprawled flat on my back, I found myself staring up at the ceiling again.

“Hey.”

One of them crouched down beside me, meeting my gaze.

“Do you know why you’re getting beaten like this?”

I dredged up the man’s name from the depths of distant memory.

‘Was it Park Jin-tae?’

He was the one in charge of this Shelter.

A Shelter.
In the early days after the Great Cataclysm, when monsters could emerge at any moment to unleash hell, it meant a place where monsters did not approach.
People believed that just as ‘some being’ had granted ‘abilities’ to a select few humans, the Shelter too was a gift bestowed upon humanity to fight against the monsters.

‘And the current ruler of this Shelter where I was is Park Jin-tae.’

A tyrant who wielded everything according to his own will.

He made a clear distinction between those with abilities and those without, treating the ability users with considerable favor.
Moreover, even those without abilities received recognition if they possessed sufficient utility.
Those who fell within Park Jin-tae’s standards enjoyed comfortable rest in this Shelter.

Kale—Kim Rok-soo’s early twenties began at the very bottom of this Shelter ruled by Park Jin-tae.
Because he was despised by Park Jin-tae.

“Kim Rok-soo. Aren’t you going to answer?”

Park Jin-tae, whose gentle smile gave him a fox-like impression, gazed down at Kale coldly, his voice deceptively warm.
Kale stared into those eyes and wondered.

‘What is this situation? Is it an illusion?’

Was it one of those dreams that occasionally came when he lost consciousness?
Yet Kale could move as he willed.

He recalled the Crimson-Eyed Being who had called itself solitude and despair, the one who had sent him here.

‘I will make you desire me.’

Those words it had spoken.

‘When you have need of me, call upon me. Only I can shatter your despair.’

It sounded as though the Crimson-Eyed Being was offering to bestow despair upon him.
If he disliked that despair, he should follow it instead.

Laughter threatened to escape him.

The God of Death was like that too.
And this Crimson-Eyed Being as well.

‘Why do they all do whatever they please?’

Irritation flared up inside me.

“Hey, Kim Rok-soo. Didn’t you hear the commander asking for an answer?”

A man behind Park Jin-tae pressed Kale for a response. As he did, he seemed ready to lift his foot again and kick him.

“Phew. That’s enough. You’ll kill him at this rate.”
“Yes, sir!”

Park Jin-tae shook his head side to side and opened his mouth.

“Rok-soo.”

My gaze shifted from the sky to my surroundings.

Buildings came into view.
Structures with collapsed walls, cracked and fractured surfaces—their original towering forms had nearly vanished, barely standing. Many buildings exposed only their skeletal steel frameworks.
Many buildings were barely exposing only their skeletal steel structures.

One of them.
A building roughly three stories tall with one corner collapsed.
The rest of it remained intact.
But there was nothing particularly distinctive about it compared to the other buildings.

Park Jin-tae whispered with a hint of amusement in his voice.

“That’s right. That building you’re looking at. You want to return to the Shelter, don’t you?”

Yes. That building was the Shelter.
A refuge with nothing special about it, nothing impressive—just an ordinary place.

Yet humans had barely managed to discover that Shelter and clung to life within it.

My lips parted.

“…The Shelter that has been maintained the longest in this area since the Great Cataclysm.”
“Yes, and that’s why it’s the most comfortable place we have.”

Damn it all, the location of the Shelter changed constantly.

A Shelter where monsters hadn’t invaded yesterday could become a place overrun by them the next day.
In its place, another building would become the new Shelter.

As if to say there was no eternal sanctuary, even the Shelters drained the blood from humanity.

But that place.
The three-story building that Kale gazed upon had remained a Shelter from the day of the first Great Cataclysm until now.

‘There’s one such place in each region.’

That’s why people called such Shelters the “Central Shelter.”
Park Jin-tae whispered.

“And I am the master of that Central Shelter.”

Kale’s gaze turned toward Park Jin-tae.

‘You were never the master from the beginning.’

Kale retraced his memories one by one, then spoke one fact from within them aloud.
My calm, measured voice—Kim Rok-soo’s voice—flowed out.

“Park Jin-tae is the king of this place now.”

Park Jin-tae’s expression became peculiar.
Normally, he would have been angry at being called by his name rather than his title as commander, but that calm and composed voice acknowledging him as king—Park Jin-tae’s anger subsided.

Kim Rok-soo.
This arrogant and venomous bastard had acknowledged Park Jin-tae as the master of this place for the first time.

“How dare you call the commander’s name so carelessly? Do you really want to die?”

Park Jin-tae met the gaze of Kim Rok-soo, who quietly observed him despite his subordinate’s threats.

“…Jin-tae.”

An elderly woman emerged from the Shelter building at that moment.
At her appearance, the expressions of those who served under Park Jin-tae twisted slightly.
It was discomfort rather than anger or irritation.

The white-haired grandmother approached Park Jin-tae and Kale Heniatus cautiously.

“Why don’t you stop? I’ll have a word with Rok-soo.”

Kale Heniatus’s pupils flickered for a moment.
She was someone from a distant memory, someone he could no longer see because she was dead.

Grandmother Kim.
No one really knew her name. They only knew her surname was Kim, and they called her Grandmother Kim.
She was the only person in this Shelter whom Park Jin-tae could not treat carelessly.

Kale Heniatus averted his gaze slightly from Grandmother Kim’s eyes as she examined me with concern.

More than being kicked in the stomach the moment I opened my eyes.
More than being kicked in the calf.

This hurt more right now.

Then Park Jin-tae’s final voice reached Kale Heniatus.

“…So you’ve finally realized reality.”

The reality that I am a king.
Park Jin-tae did not voice the rest, and I responded calmly to those words.

“Yes. One must acknowledge reality.”

Unaware of the strange way Park Jin-tae was looking at me, I thought.

Yes, let’s think of this as reality.
Whether it’s the trial of the Crimson-Eyed Being or whatever.
Whether this situation will ultimately disappear as an illusion or not.

Kale slowly pushed himself to his feet.

‘Let me cast aside regret.’

I would rid myself of regret in this moment.
I gazed into the eyes of Grandmother Kim, who was watching me with concern.

And I calmly reminded myself of one critical truth.

‘This Shelter will collapse soon.’

I couldn’t know the exact timing, but.
After autumn faded and before winter began.
Like a harbinger of the appearance of unranked monsters.

Around this time, all the initial ‘Central Shelters’ that existed on Earth would lose their function.

That meant the Central Shelters would be attacked by monsters and collapse.

And not ordinary attacks—waves of invasion-level monster assaults would follow relentlessly.
Like a massive tide, the monsters would surge toward the Central Shelters.

‘This means a new Central Shelter will emerge.’

Exactly twenty-four hours after the first Central Shelter collapsed, a completely ‘new form’ of Central Shelter would appear.

I despised Park Jin-tae and his lackeys.
But I couldn’t let the people here die.

Me, Kim Rok-soo.
And Grandmother Kim. And a few others.
The people Lee Soo-hyuk had saved were here.

Before Park Jin-tae revealed his ambitions.
Lee Soo-hyuk had been the representative of this place.

‘Though the Team Leader is gone now.’

Lee Soo-hyuk, who had departed for a more dangerous place, had been the ‘center’ of this Central Shelter before Park Jin-tae.

‘And the Team Leader entrusted this place to Grandmother Kim and Park Jin-tae.’

Back then, both Grandmother Kim and Park Jin-tae were good people.

‘Of course, the moment the Team Leader left, Park Jin-tae revealed his ambitions and began ruling the Central Shelter like a tyrant.’

Under the feet of Park Jin-tae, the second-strongest offensive ability user after Lee Soo-hyuk, the Central Shelter had to establish a new order.
And that order was exactly what Park Jin-tae desired.

‘…But even Park Jin-tae found Grandmother Kim difficult to handle.’

Park Jin-tae couldn’t treat Grandmother Kim, who possessed healing-type abilities, carelessly.
He bowed his head slightly to the grandmother before turning his gaze toward Kale Heniatus.

“From now on, it would be good if you acted according to that understanding of reality.”

Park Jin-tae extended his hand.
Kale Heniatus grasped it and pulled himself to his feet.
Park Jin-tae confirmed that Kim Rok-soo was seated, then immediately released his hand.
He turned around and walked away from the Shelter building.

“Going hunting.”

His subordinates followed in his wake.
Lee Chul-min, his right-hand man, fell into step beside Park Jin-tae and opened his mouth.

“Are we just leaving Kim Rok-soo alone? Shouldn’t we beat him senseless while we have the chance?”

In that instant, Park Jin-tae’s fox-like, elongated eyes sharpened.
Lee Chul-min’s shoulders trembled slightly at that gaze.
Park Jin-tae, who had been quietly observing him, opened his mouth.

“He was the only one.”
“Sir?”
“…Kim Rok-soo was the only original member of this Shelter who still believed that Lee Soo-hyuk, the king of this Shelter, hadn’t returned yet.”

Many people had come and gone through the Central Shelter since the early days of the Cataclysm.
Among them, there were those who had survived until now.

They were called the early Shelter members, and Park Jin-tae had determined that Kim Rok-soo belonged to Lee Soo-hyuk’s faction.

Over more than ten months had passed.
Lee Soo-hyuk, who had left to help other struggling regions, never returned, and Lee Soo-hyuk’s people, including Grandmother Kim, gradually came to acknowledge Park Jin-tae’s authority.
It was inevitable.
They had to survive, after all.

But Kim Rok-soo.
That powerless wretch refused to regard Park Jin-tae as the master of this place.

“No, that bastard simply refuses to acknowledge the ‘King’ itself.”

In truth, I didn’t need Kim Rok-soo’s approval.
He was just another worthless parasite clinging to this Shelter to survive, like all the rest.

But those venom-filled eyes irritated me.

Even now, Lee Chul-min, a capable one, was constantly watching my mood, wasn’t he?
But Kim Rok-soo was different.

“Ha, haha—”

A refreshing laugh escaped Park Jin-tae’s lips for the first time in a while.
I no longer glanced toward where Kim Rok-soo was and headed toward the hunting grounds.

Hunting.
The word sounded grand, but in reality, it was merely scavenging for food—a task that demanded risking one’s life.
It was my responsibility, after all.

Grandmother Kim watched Park Jin-tae disappear into the distance, then placed a hand on Kale’s shoulder.

“Goodness. Why didn’t you just go on the errand and come back?”

Kale slowly recalled why he had been beaten.

An errand. In other words, picking a fight.
Just as Grandmother Kim said, Park Jin-tae always sent errands to Kim Rok-soo, whom he found displeasing because he refused to acknowledge him.
Today, it seemed I had resisted such an errand and gotten beaten for it.

‘Whether it’s an illusion or not.’

I touched my abdomen gently.

It hurt.
If it hurts, then it’s real.

‘I need to change this.’

That was the moment.

-Will things go as you wish?

Flinch. My shoulders trembled.
It’s him.
The Crimson-Eyed Being. The voice of the one who sent me into this situation.

-If you wish to escape despair, find me. Then you won’t have to face these past despairs ever again.

In that instant, I spoke inwardly.

‘…What are you scheming? I need to get back quickly.’

And whether or not he heard those words, the other person responded.

-I am not scheming anything.
‘…Then you’re just going to watch?’
-Yes. I will merely watch. Until you ask me for help.
‘…If I ask you for help, will this situation end?’
-Yes. And if you accept my help, you must accept me.

Accept me?

-It means you must become one of the Demon Race and inherit my will.

My face contorted.
Become one of the Demon Race?

In that moment, the Crimson-Eyed Being’s voice reached me.

-I suppose you dislike it now.
-But will that always be the case? Even if you remain powerless, even if you endure these despairs again and again, will you truly be unaffected?
-I shall simply observe and see.
-I await the day you come to me with eager anticipation.

As the voice faded, Kale Heniatus asked urgently.

‘Is this real? Have I truly returned to the past?’
-I possess no ability to turn back time.

The voice carried a hint of laughter.

-It is merely an endless cycle of despair and trial.

The voice seemed to anticipate something.

-Struggle within the despair. I shall grant you the strength to escape from it.

The Crimson-Eyed Being’s voice no longer reached him.

“Rok-soo.”

Kale Heniatus felt a warm hand covering his own, which rested upon his abdomen.
Grandmother Kim spoke to him with careful concern.

“I appreciate your temperament. But I worry you might become too harsh, don’t you think?”

She knew Park Jin-tae was wrong, yet she lacked the ability to confront him.
She could only tend to the wounded with her healing powers.

Perhaps it was thanks to her that Kim Rok-soo had survived under Park Jin-tae even after Lee Soo-hyuk’s Team Leader departed.
Kale Heniatus opened his mouth.

“For now, I should try to get along well with Park Jin-tae.”

Grandmother Kim’s eyes widened.

“…Truly?”

Kale nodded slowly, his gaze following Park Jin-tae’s receding figure into the distance.

The man was a tyrant who divided people strictly by ability, treating them with extreme prejudice—one moment exalted, the next utterly despised.
Yet on the day the Central Shelter collapsed.

‘He defended this place until the very end.’

Park Jin-tae fought to his last breath.
Because of him, Kim Rok-soo and several others without abilities managed to escape.

‘What are you doing? Why are you so slow? You don’t even have abilities—you should be running! Get out of here! You’re in the way, so hurry up and escape!’

The words Park Jin-tae had shouted at me gradually surfaced in Kale’s mind, growing clearer with each passing moment.

And Park Jin-tae died fighting until the very end.
Grandmother Kim also lost her life in that battle.

Park Jin-tae was a detestable man, someone I despised.

‘In a way, I owe him my life.’

The Kim Rok-soo of the past survived because of him.
Kale gazed at the Shelter.

I’ll repay my regrets one by one.
First, I’ll save this Shelter.

‘Then I’ll go meet the Team Leader and Choi Jung-soo.’

Busan Seomyeon.
That’s where the first unranked monster appeared.

Kale spoke without thinking.

“I wonder if everyone is doing well—”

Starting with Raon, Kale’s comrades’ faces appeared in his mind one by one.

What was his condition in reality right now? Was he still unconscious?

Concern for my companions welled up within me.
They were, in truth, what worried me most.
Which is precisely why.

‘First, I need to find a way out of this place.’

There had to be a way.
There had to be a method that didn’t require taking the Crimson-Eyed Being’s hand.
I recalled the final words the Crimson-Eyed Being had spoken.

‘Struggle within despair. I shall grant you the strength to break free from it.’

The corners of my mouth lifted.
I clenched my gaunt fist.

Struggle within despair?
That wouldn’t be necessary.

‘I simply need to make it no longer despair.’

Vague as it was, I somehow felt that destroying the despair itself would allow me to return.

‘It’s intuition.’

Pure instinct.
Yet there was reasoning woven into it as well.
It stemmed from what the Crimson-Eyed Being had said.

‘I shall grant you the strength to break free from despair.’

Wasn’t it as though they were saying that if I possessed the strength to shatter despair itself, I could escape this situation and return to the original world?
Moreover, they had called it a trial.
I judged the reasoning to be sufficiently sound.
And viewing the current situation from that perspective.

‘It’s worth attempting.’

I could shatter these despairs now.
It was worth the attempt.

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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