The Trash Collector Of The End World

What the hell?

Janitor Class...? So I can evolve right now if I kill that Heloxian Queen?

His heart thumped once. He hadn't felt this alive since the day he saw his brother vanish into a Rift without looking back.

He stared past the Rift Portal humming before him.

I need to do this. This might be the only chance I'll ever get. If I want to change anything—about myself, about this cursed role—I have to step in now.

But just as he was about to move, a thought stopped him cold.

Serefine.

His little sister was still home.

Damn. What if something happens while I'm inside that Rift? What if I don't come back right away?

He turned sharply to Kara, who was still chewing a stick of red candy like she hadn't just shattered his worldview.

"Take care of my sister for a bit," he said. "I mean it."

Kara raised an eyebrow. "You're going?"

He looked back at the Rift, eyes focused.

"I have to."

Maybe this is it. The moment things start to change.

Unlike standard Rifts, which spawned within buildings or ruined zones and created distorted dungeon-like copies filled with monsters, Dimension Rifts were entirely different.

Sometimes they existed within the core of a regular Rift, hidden behind a deeper layer of spatial fold. Other times, they manifested independently—gates to real places.

A Dimension Rift didn't mimic reality. It was reality. A fractured doorway to the world that had caused the Rift to spawn in the first place.

If a normal Rift was like diving into a haunted replica, then a Dimension Rift was like breaking through the illusion and stepping into the origin world—the very planet infected by whatever monster or corruption had spilled over.

It wasn't just a dungeon.

It was an entire scenario.

And if the Heloxian Queen was there, ruling over her original world, then that was where Ash had to go.

If I kill her… I can evolve.

He stepped closer.

Let's see what trash I find on your corpse, Your Majesty.

"Why so early?" Kara asked.

He didn't bother answering her. There was no point. The real answer was buried in years of dust and failure, ever since that day at the academy when he was twelve.

That day when his system had finally activated, and his class had been revealed.

[Trash Collector]

That name alone had been enough to drag his future through the dirt. While others received flashy, noble-sounding titles—Sword Initiate, Flamebound Acolyte, Spirit Tamer—he got the one job that everyone mocked behind closed doors and laughed at in front of his face.

And so, he left the academy. Not because he was weak, but because he believed that he couldn't get stronger with that class.

But even after walking away from the lectures, drills, and constant ridicule, he never stopped learning.

His intelligence was the only edge he had.

His class didn't make him strong. His obsession did.

And now, with this opportunity in front of him—this Rift, this Queen, this evolution—it was finally within reach.

He had to do this.

Somewhere beyond all this, he knew his brother was still alive, walking through rifts much deeper and darker than this one.

But more than that, he had to become strong enough to face the one who murdered their parents.

He took a breath, heavy with decision, and waved goodbye to Kara without a second thought.

"Take care of her. If you don't… just see what happens."

Kara smiled casually, twirling a lock of her hair. "Sure."

But as he turned, walking toward the swirling portal that awaited him, Kara let her hand fall to her side.

From her sleeve, something small and metallic slipped out. A narrow pocket knife, sharp and clean, gleamed for only a moment before she tucked it away again.

She watched him enter the Rift without a word.

The knife rested lightly against her palm, like a secret she was in no rush to tell.

While thinking, he finally stepped forward and entered the Dimension Rift.

His hand brushed the glowing surface of the portal—then his entire body vanished into the light.

There was no walking through.

There was no tunnel, no corridor of stars or strings of data.

There was only the feeling of falling in every direction.

His breath caught, and the air was gone. Up was down. His heartbeat echoed like a drum across a sea of mirrors.

In one reflection, he saw himself as a boy. In another, a man wrapped in bloodied bandages. In another, a silhouette surrounded by wreckage.

Then, darkness rippled.

A pulse like thunder.

A faint ring of bells.

And then—

ENTERING DIMENSION RIFT…

[Planet: Xerath'Mora]

Classification: E-Rank

He opened his eyes.

And the sky was no longer blue. It was lime green with some spores in the same hue. He was right, he was now in a different planet.

The world looked nothing like Earth.

The sky hung heavy with strands of mist that glowed faint violet, and the air itself seemed to shimmer with spores that floated like golden dust in every breath of wind.

Fungi the size of trees towered far into the haze, their stalks bent with weight, their caps wide and soft like woven cloth.

Strange coral-like roots jutted out of the earth, pulsing slowly like lungs. The ground was soft and spongy beneath his feet, almost too alive.

Ash stood just at the mouth of a cave, one hand on the outer stone wall.

The stone here wasn't normal.

It was marbled with a copper-like sheen, warm to the touch, as though it remembered heat from a long-dead sun. The entrance was round, carved not by nature, but perhaps the inhabitants.

Inside, the cave was exactly as expected.

The kind of dark that seemed to eat sound and scatter thought.

Only a faint shimmer from phosphorescent lichen traced along the walls, just enough to show the uneven floor and the narrow descent deeper in.

Rain began to fall outside. Thick droplets that clung to the moss and rolled down the stalks of the fungal trees.

He took one step back into the shadows, exhaling.

There were no monsters. For now, the cave was safe.

"I need to find the Heloxian Queen and kill her for the sake of my evolution and the weapon."

He clenched his fists, gripping the determination burning inside his chest.

The quest was clear.

As soon as he killed the Heloxian Queen, he would receive not only a new class but also a weapon bound to his ascension. There were no vague conditions, no hidden riddles—just one brutal, straightforward task.

As he stepped out of the cave, the air greeted him with a chilling stillness. A single droplet of rain landed on his exposed forearm.

In the same instant, a sharp sting flared across his skin.

His eyes widened in horror as the flesh on his arm began to hiss and melt away, evaporating in a thin wisp of smoke before he could even react.

The pain was sharp and immediate, like searing steel pressed into his skin.

"What the hell is this...?"

He took a quick step back into the cave, gripping his arm as the raw.

Looking out from the entrance, he finally realized what was happening.

The raindrops that fell from the sky weren't water. They were acid.

The rocks outside bore the marks of long-term corrosion, and the fungi scattered across the landscape were riddled with holes and blackened patches.

Even the trees appeared mutated, warped into strange shapes by years of chemical erosion.

He narrowed his eyes at the sky.

"So even the weather here is trying to kill me..."