If life were a novel, there would be a clear distinction between the protagonists and the extras.
The protagonists are the ones who get the cheat systems, the old overpowered masters, and fateful encounters with beautiful heiresses.
They are the ones who trip and fall into a hidden dimension filled with legendary loot.
And then, there are the mob characters. The background extras.
We are the ones who exist solely to fill the frame. We are the ones who die in a dungeon collapse to establish the stakes. We are the ones who work 16-hour shifts to facilitate those fuckers' comfortable lives.
My name is Adam. And I am, without a doubt, such an extra.
Actually, now that I think about it, that might be giving myself too much credit. Most extras have at least healthy lungs.
…
"Move it, you sick twig! The cement isn't going to mix itself!"
"Ugh…"
The shout from the foreman snapped me back to reality. The day was half-done in the middle of a scorching summer, the air full of gray dust that coated the inside of my throat like sandpaper.
"I'm… on it."
A groan escaped my lips, my face turning pale as I dropped the heavy bag of cement onto the pallet, while my lungs screamed thanks to the jagged pain that made it like I swallowed a handful of glass shards.
*Cough! Cough!*
I hunched over, holding my knees tightly as a metallic taste filled my mouth. It was a rather pitiful sight to see, especially with the dust that coated my ragged clothes.
"Hey, Adam. You dying on us again?"
I paid no attention to the jeering and wiped my mouth with the back of my dirty glove. A streak of red stained the gray fabric.
"I'm… fine."
I stood up, my legs violently trembling. I was clearly weakened, but with the debt hanging over my head, I didn't have the luxury of collapsing.
If I missed even a day, the interest would compound. If the interest compounded, the loan sharks would come.
And they weren't as forgiving as the manager.
"Haa… Haa…"
I paused for a bit to stabilize my breathing, my hand extending into my pocket to pull out a cracked smartphone.
The screen opened, the battery barely holding on, but it was enough to show me the notification I was waiting for.
[Chapter 666: Unknown World]
A faint, rare smile appeared on my lips. This was it. The only garbage hobby I had in this miserable life.
"You reading that trash again?"
Two figures approached me. Dave and Steve. They were big guys, the kind of men who lived their entire lives on a construction site. Muscles built from years of labor, loud voices, and an appetite for cheap beer.
"Leave him alone, Dave. He's probably thinking about getting isekai'd or some shi."
"Hah! Imagine that. Adam, the sick twig, becoming a hero, saving some damsels in distress."
I ignored them, scrolling through the text. 'At least let me read in peace, dammit.'
Walking toward the lockers, my mind drifted back to the past. To the woman who started it all.
My grandmother.
She was a kind, lovely lady. She took me in when my parents died in that car crash when I was six. She fed me, clothed me, and loved me. But she had one problem.
Gambling.
"I have a feeling, Adam. Tonight, tonight is the night!"
That's what she always said. She borrowed money she didn't have. She took loans from people you shouldn't even look at in the eye. She was convinced she would win big.
And the funniest part? She did.
I was eleven years old at the time. I remember the lights of the slot machines. The deafening ringing of the bell. The jackpot.
It was enough money to clear the debts. Enough to buy a house. Enough to heal my lungs.
"We did it, Adam! We—Ueerkh!"
She grabbed her chest. Her face turned pale, her eyes rolling back. The excitement was too much for her old and weak heart.
She died right then and there on the casino floor, holding the winning ticket.
And the casino? They claimed it was a technical error, that the machine malfunctioned. So, they kept all the money.
But the loan sharks? They didn't care about technical errors. The debt passed to the next of kin, good-old me.
So here I am. Twenty-three years old. Chronically ill. Working a job that was slowly killing me even faster to pay off a debt that started before I hit puberty.
"Hey, Adam! We're heading to the bar. You coming?"
Steve's voice shook me out of my thoughts. We were outside the construction zone now, standing near the unfinished skeleton of the skyscraper we were working on.
"No money," I replied flatly.
"Suit yourself. More for us."
Dave and Steve laughed, turning their backs to me as they walked towards the parking lot. They were standing directly under the heavy lift crane.
*Cra-Crack!*
A sound suddenly came from above. It wasn't a normal construction sound. It was the sharp, high-pitched scream of metal shearing under tension.
"Huh?"
I looked up. My heart came to a sudden stop.
High above, a massive pallet of steel rebar was swaying violently. The cable holding it… It was snapping.
*BOOM!*
The sound was like a cannon. The cable gave way.
"Watch out!"
I screamed, but my own voice was hoarse, barely audible over the wind. Dave and Steve didn't hear me. They were too busy laughing about something Dave said.
The metal was falling. It was plummeting straight toward them.
'No.'
My body moved on its own. I didn't think. I didn't calculate. I had spent countless hours reading about heroes. About people who sacrificed themselves to save others. About fuckers who stepped in when no one else would.
'I can save them.'
So, immediately, I dropped my phone and dashed forward.
"Ukh!"
Even though my lungs were killing me, and my legs felt like some paper straws, I pushed. I squeezed every ounce of adrenaline that my broken body had.
"Move!"
I reached them. The shadow of the falling steel was already covering us, a rapidly growing domain of darkness that started to devour our whole world.
I rammed my hands into Dave and Steve's backs.
'Push them away. Just push them out of the area.'
I gritted my teeth, channeling everything into my arms. I expected them to fly forward. I expected to send them tumbling to safety while I took the hit. Like I wanted.
But reality was cruel.
*Thump.*
My hands hit their backs.
But they didn't move.
"Huh?"
Dave turned around, confused. "Adam? What the hell are you-"
I looked at my hands in stupor. I had pushed with everything I had. But I was a sick, malnourished twenty-three-year-old weighing barely 65 kilos. Meanwhile, they were two grown men, each over 90 kilos of muscle.
I couldn't move them. Not even an inch.
'Ah.'
I realized it then. I wasn't a protagonist. I wasn't a hero. I was just a naive fool.
"What are you doing, man?" Steve asked, annoyed.
I looked up. The steel was right there.
"Run-"
But it was too late.
*BAAAAAAAANG—!*
The world turned black.
There was no pain. Or maybe there has been too much pain for my brain to process.
I just felt a crushing weight, a sensation of my puny bones turning to powder, and then… nothing.
I couldn't see. I couldn't hear. But my consciousness lingered for a few seconds longer.
'I failed.'
I wanted to save them. Instead, I just added one more body to the pile. Now three people were dead instead of two.
'If I had just stayed back…' 'If I had just kept reading my trash…'
My final thought wasn't profound. It wasn't about my past, or the debt, or the unfairness of the world.
It was just regret.
'That was… a really stupid way to die, huh.'
And then, darkness swallowed me whole.