Hero's Quest: World's End
That's the name of the novel I read—a book I discovered after finishing another that was probably my favorite.
I won't lie: the story gripped my attention from the very start. I don't know why, but I found myself drawn to it despite its abysmal rating of 2.1, the lowest I'd ever seen. People literally bad-mouthed the book relentlessly. Even though it was free, the comments made it seem as though the author owed them some sort of debt for wasting their time.
But I still read it.
The story initially appeared to be another cliché—a commoner getting admitted into an academy alongside his childhood friend. However, the narrative began unfolding in ways more twisted than any other novel I'd encountered. Those who seemed like allies at first became major enemies, the most shocking being his own childhood friend. He ultimately had to kill her to stop her from carrying out her devastating plan.
Perhaps that's why the story received such a low rating. People probably never expected such dramatic reversals, and what made it more frustrating was that the characters who eventually switched sides were heroines in the first volume. The story contained more villainesses and villains than heroes and heroines—at least in the early volumes.
Things began changing dramatically from the second volume onward, after the tournament where the first major attack occurred.
According to the author, the world of Hero's Quest is tragically small. More accurately, only a tiny part remains habitable after the catastrophic final battle between gods and demons destroyed everything else. The rest of the world lies poisoned, saturated with abnormal mana that causes mana pool combustion—a condition where the mana core becomes overloaded and can no longer filter mana properly. Unfiltered mana accumulates and clogs the mana valves, leading to explosive combustion if the victim attempts to circulate mana.
What dooms this world is the spreading corruption. Even the small surviving continent can only remain safe for so long before becoming uninhabitable.
This is why all races are at war—they're desperately trying to reach the safer parts of the continent before corruption consumes their territories.
The humans control two empires, though they're more like kingdoms with multiple territories than true empires. These human domains sit at the continent's center, surrounded by three other races:
The Vampires grow more desperate each day as corruption closes in on their lands.
The Gyrods prove even more dangerous and volatile than vampires, driven to extremes by their proximity to the approaching corruption.
The Elves remain mysterious. Throughout the novel, they're barely mentioned. Their borders stay sealed, and they refuse all interaction despite being closest to the corruption—closer than anyone else. No one knows what they're planning.
Having read the novel extensively, I know exactly what those bastards are hiding, and that's what I planned to use to my advantage when I found Renay.
Well... that's what I had planned.
But now everything's messed up.
I sighed and put on the uniform.
At this point, I have no reason to be here. I should just leave.
Yes, that's the secret the elves guard so jealously: they're not actually in this world anymore. There's a way to escape this dying realm, but that path lies within the elven empire.