"The end is coming! The zombies, the giants, the wolves, and even those giant worms are going to kill us all!"
I heard those familiar screams from a distance as I walked slowly toward the source of the commotion. The streets were in a state of squalor, littered with garbage and the remnants of the massive party from the night before. The city I lived in had just celebrated the ninety-ninth anniversary of the Great Day.
In truth, it wasn't a great day at all; it was the dawn of the apocalypse that had ravaged our lands.
My name is Hye. According to my father, my name signified a bright and intelligent man. I was indeed smart, but I was by no means living a bright life. My destiny had been defined long before I even entered this world.
It was worth noting that Earth was not the same planet it was ninety-nine years ago. When the apocalypse hit, it began by merging all continents, shattering every boundary, and sewing strange, new lands into our own.
Since that day, more territories have continued to be added to Nala—the "Great New Earth" we currently inhabit. Along with the apocalypse came the arrival of strange races: zombies, wolves, goblins, monsters, and even evolved insects and worms.
War was inevitable. Every race began a series of brutal, protracted campaigns against the others to dominate Nala, including us, humans. The grim reality, however, was that our conventional weapons were useless against these new threats.
They all wielded various forms of magic, but that power wasn't exclusive to them. Humans began to delve into the path of magic at the very start of the apocalypse. According to the ancient records of that time, we were provided with quests by the "Mighty Judges," facilitated by a System. Anyone who achieved something worthy was granted a Class and power beyond belief.
But many failed to achieve such a status. I, my father, and my entire family descended from a grandfather and grandmother who both failed their quests. People like us were known as the "Classless," or simply the "trash" of this new world.
At the apex of society, those with High Classes rule the human race. We now lived within three Great Kingdoms, each covering a vast expanse of land that exceeded the size of the old Earth itself.
Yet, even this scale was nothing compared to the territories of the other races. The war between humanity and the invaders was at its fiercest during the first ten years; during that decade, most of the human population was slaughtered. Only these three kingdoms have managed to stand tall until this day.
In other words… we lost that war. While the kingdoms provide a much safer environment than the wilds, the safety felt fragile—especially considering what that madman was shouting.
"The end is coming! Prepare yourselves! The Dark Day is approaching! We are all doomed!"
"That man..." I shook my head, sighing as I checked the notification blinking in my peripheral vision.
[Your daily quest has arrived! Help the old foreteller with his daily needs. Reward: 10 Coins]
"Tsk, another boring day," I muttered, clicking through the interface to see if I had finally lucked into a secondary quest. But, as usual, this lowly task was the only one I received.
Systems had become as ubiquitous as the cellular phones of humanity's ancient age. In this era, we all possessed systems that served to moderate and manage our daily lives. For a person like me—one of the Classless—there was no privilege or access to high-ranking quests. Instead, only "trash quests" like this one populated my interface each morning.
Ten coins might seem like a pittance for such a task, but it was enough to cover my modest rent and keep me fed.
"Oh, it is the bright and intelligent man again," the old man cackled. He had noticed my approach. The moment he spotted me, he ceased his frantic shouting at the passersby and turned his gaze in my direction. He wore a smile that didn't quite look like a smile; it was more of a jagged grimace.
He looked the same as he always did, draped in a ragged, tattered black suit that had faded to a dull grey through the passage of time and repeated washings. His long, white hair was a dishevelled mess that spilt over his shoulders, reaching down to the middle of his back.
His face was perpetually stained with black and blue marks—the lingering results of his habit of conducting so-called "foretelling experiments" using volatile, explosive substances. I had nearly been blown to pieces once during one of his proclaimed visions.
"Don't call me that. I'm just another loser in this kingdom," I said, coming to a halt beside him. I couldn't help but feel a flicker of disgust at the sight of his yellowed, saw-like teeth. In truth, if I were to encounter him at a distance, I would likely mistake him for a monster.
The only definitive proof of his humanity came from the System itself; after all, the System never assigned low-grade service quests to humans unless the recipient of that service was also human.
"Come… Come… I have more stories to tell!"
And so, he began again. Although my official task was to attend to this madman's daily needs, he only ever cared about one thing: telling his stories.
Initially, I had been captivated by his words. He would weave weird tales and intricate narratives that felt like genuine legends. I was entranced by his supposed wisdom until the day I realised that everything he said was pure nonsense.
He insisted that he was revealing the "untold truths" of history, yet not a single word he uttered was documented in any record known to mankind. I had once become so obsessed with his claims that I abandoned my other quests for an entire week just to fact-check his elaborate bullshit.
Eventually, the reality set in: the man was utterly insane and full of lies. The events he described had never occurred; the historical timeline of our world followed a completely different path, one that didn't even come close to his ramblings. Even the names he insisted I memorise were nowhere to be found in the legendary tales of human civilisation, whether before or after the apocalypse.
Names like Ji the Brave, Luke the Mightiest, Anna the Wisest, and Cher the Lioness—these were nothing more than fabrications. They were weird nicknames for people who simply never existed.
"Come, I have a particularly good tale for you today," he said, ushering me toward his home with frantic enthusiasm. According to him, he specifically requested that the System issue these tasks only to me. Aside from this old lunatic, I had no other regular customers to provide a steady income.
His home was a jarring contradiction—a literal heaven compared to his ragged, hellish appearance. It was a sprawling mansion protected by tall walls and surrounded by a wide, lush garden. It was a palace, plain and simple. That it belonged to a man who looked like a common beggar was a bitter irony I could never quite wrap my head around.
I once asked him how someone in his dishevelled state could possibly acquire such a luxurious residence. The only answer I received was that he possessed an exceptionally high Class, which provided him with a substantial, passive income that required no effort on his part.
I envied him deeply in that moment, and I still do. In our world, Classes functioned much like the college degrees of ancient human civilisation. I was like a man without a credential. Despite being intelligent, hardworking, and possessing a mastery of various crafts—and despite my willingness to approach any task with total devotion—I was unable to advance in this society simply because I lacked a Class.
I had seen so many others, people who possessed neither my skill nor my drive, living lives of decadent luxury simply because of the status their Classes afforded them. I had grown to hate the Class system more than anything else in existence; it was the sole reason my life had been forged into such a relentless hell.
The most bitter realisation of all was that I did not bring this fate upon myself. I did not fail a trial or refuse a quest; I simply inherited this cursed life. I was a product of the "wrong" lineage, born into a family that failed to secure its place in the new order.
If I were given even the slightest chance to be reborn into a family with a Class, I would be eternally grateful. If there were a way to earn a Class now—even if the path required me to walk through the fires of hell itself—I would not hesitate for a single second. It had become the singular, driving dream of my life, even though I knew, deep down, it was a dream that would likely never come true.
On countless nights, I had found myself imagining what it would be like to travel back in time, to the very moment the apocalypse first befell humanity. In those fantasies, I was there at the beginning, fighting with everything I had to secure my own right to a Class.
The humans of that era made a grave mistake. They were blinded by the immediate terror of the world ending; they believed they were merely fighting for survival, and so they ignored the importance of quests and the long-term necessity of securing a Class. They were tragically wrong. They failed to realise that by making such careless, short-sighted decisions, they were effectively dooming every generation that came after them until the end of time.
Every time my thoughts wandered toward this injustice, I felt a cold, sharp anger rising within me. I wished I could have had a voice in those early days. I wished I could reach back through history and change my current fate, even if the price of that change was facing death itself. Anything would be better than this stagnant existence as "trash" in a world that moved on without me.