I was, as always, taking care of my life. Today, I decided to stop by a small bookstore again, hoping to find an interesting novel.
'I hope there's a sale.'
When I entered the shop, the first thing I noticed was the dirt. Dust covered every corner, books stacked haphazardly… but I didn't care. All I wanted was my book, then to go home and continue my routine. I was tired from kendo practice, but now came my favorite moment: reading novels.
"Hey, Aron! You again?"
The shop owner, a man in his fifties, recognized me immediately.
"Good morning, old man. Anything new today? The last one wasn't as good as you said."
He frowned.
"Hum, you don't know how to appreciate anything good!"
'Did he really get angry over so little?'
I walked to the back of the store, passing by the dusty shelves, but nothing caught my attention. Until something did…
"Hey, old man! What's this purple book? It says…"
'The Last Adventurer – Beyond the Horizon.'
A hardback, purple book was hiding among piles of forgotten works. Large letters, fonts unlike any other. Normally, novels have few pages, but this one was as thick as a phone book.
"Hey, old man! How much is this book? There's no price…"
The old man, still reading his newspaper, just glanced over his glasses:
"Strange… I've never seen this book. Maybe it was bought years ago. Take it for free; it's just taking up space."
I stared at the book intrigued and flipped through the pages one by one. No illustrations. Just words that seemed to catch my attention. I thanked him and left the store. Sunlight reflected on my face. There was no wind, just an unexpected warmth. I boarded a bus and let the music from my headphones distract me during the ride. When I got home, night was already falling. I went straight to the bathroom to take a shower.
Silence engulfed the house; living alone for years due to college had its pros and cons. After getting ready, I sat on the couch, too curious to wait, and opened the book.
The letters were large, rustic, a little hard to read, but I couldn't stop. In the first minutes, the story completely drew me in.
"A powerful protagonist, surrounded by women, fighting an evil demon? Typical. But… what the hell is this?"
Something really annoyed me. Why the hell was a girl being humiliated by a hero?
'I know she can be ignorant at times and obsessed with the hero, but her story is much deeper than it seems. She's not the monster everyone says she is.'
I frowned.
The world of the book was fascinating: only two types of mana — light and dark — shaped humanity and other races. Four continents, powerful clans dominating the economy, and an academy training new hunters and distributing hunting classes.
After my shower and dinner, I went straight to bed, but I couldn't put the book down.
"The story is good, but this villainess's fate… is infuriating."
The villainess, besides being engaged to the hero, was in love with him, but her love was unrequited. Her proud demeanor, flaunting her noble family and inherited power, disgusted the hero. And as a fan of redheads, my interest in her was immediate.
Her name was Elara Dusk, daughter of a great human duke. Long red hair down to her waist, eyes as red as her hair. A noble family with centuries of military influence. Her grandfather had fought in the last imperial war against the old Shisui clan, now extinct.
The book stated that the Shisui vanished after the empire's abolition and the implementation of the representative system. The former empress had also disappeared after the fall of the empire.
'Strange… the book says the Shisui won the war, so why did they disappear without a trace?'
A hundred pages read, and not even fifteen percent of the story was complete. Yet, the villainess had already been condemned to exile and transformed into something evil. Sleep began weighing down my eyes, and I soon fell asleep with the book in my hands.
For some reason, my alarm clock, sitting next to my bed, hadn't gone off.
"What the hell?"
I jumped out of bed in a hurry, but something felt off…
"Huh???"
My house felt different. Even the air seemed heavier, thinner, as if I were hundreds of meters above sea level. I tried to get up, but my body was lighter than usual, and my clothes felt like rags.
"What the hell happened?"