"Is this room D–9?" the man asked.
I glanced up at the wooden board nailed clearly above the door—BUILDING C, BLOCK 2, D–9—then back at him.
(Just look at the board… can you even read?) I thought, biting back the comment.
"Yes…" I replied instead.
Without waiting for anything else, he stepped past me and entered the room.
"Ah—hey," I said, startled. "Are you my roommate?"
He didn't answer.
He dropped his bag neatly beside the wall, leaned some of the staff carefully against the bedframe, and sat down as if the room already belonged to him.
His movements were precise.
(What's his deal?) I thought.
Curious, I glanced at the badge clipped to his uniform.
NAME: ISERA
RANK: C – HEALER
FORTRESS RANK: 7th
My breath caught slightly.
Rank 7…
That placed him far above most Initiates—and even some Adepts.
Before I could speak again, he turned toward me.
"Rules," he said abruptly.
I blinked. "Rules?"
"Not allowed to be naked in the room," he continued flatly.
"No shouting."
"No bathing."
"No snoring."
"No touching my things."
"And don't speak to me randomly."
Each sentence felt like a warning or a bully.
"Hey—" I started.
But before I could finish, he turned away, lay down on his bed, and closed his eyes.
Within seconds, his breathing slowed.
He had fallen asleep.
I stood there, stunned, the door still half open behind me.
"…What?"
I slowly closed the door and sat on my bed, staring at him.
(He's one of the important characters…) I realized.
Isera.
In the novel, he wasn't a main hero—but he appeared repeatedly during key events.
A high-ranked healer, neutral, distant, rarely taking sides. Someone who always survived.
(So this is how we meet…)
I leaned back and exhaled quietly at the notes.
I sat quietly on the chair and I pulled out my notebook again.
Its pages are the ones I filled with uneven handwriting, arrows, circles, and scratched-out lines, memories of the novel, fragments of future events, and details that no one in this world should know.
Some pages were already worn thin from how often I had turned them.
Then I remembered something important.
The Hero System.
I flipped to a fresh page and began writing carefully.
The Fortress and the Hero System
The Fortress was not just a military base. It was the center of authority, training, and control for all heroes of the Land People. Officially, its purpose was simple:
to clear demons and protect the boundaries of human territory.
But in the novel, that wasn't the whole truth.
The Fortress stood at a strategic location, close enough to demon-infested zones and far enough from civilian cities.
Any demon that crossed a certain boundary would be detected, reported, and exterminated by heroes dispatched from here.
At least—that was what the people believed.
I wrote slowly.
The Hero System categorized individuals based on their combat role, potential, and usefulness to the nation.
Heroes were divided into ranks—Initiate, Adept, Elite, Honour Elite, and Mythic Vanguard—but the novel only ever truly focused on the top three heroes of the Initiate and Adept ranks.
Those were the "chosen ones."
They were the ones who appeared in major battles.
The ones who received guidance, resources, and narrative importance.
And the rest?
They were background characters.
Like me.
I frowned slightly.
I don't remember much about higher-ranked heroes, I admitted silently.
In the novel, once characters reached Elite Rank or higher, their existence blurred together.
They were powerful, yes—but faceless.
Rarely explored. Rarely questioned. They existed to show how strong the world was, not to be understood.
That omission always bothered me.
I turned the page.
Combat Fighters and Magic Users
In this world, heroes were generally divided into combat fighters and magic users and so on, though many people mistakenly believed they were completely separate paths.
They weren't.
Combat Fighters relied on physical strength, body reinforcement, weapon mastery, and instinct.
Their power came from muscle, bone, blood—and will.
Swordsmen, spearmen, martial artists, shield bearers—most frontline heroes belonged here.
Their techniques were simple in concept but brutal in execution. Slashes enhanced by aura.
Strikes reinforced by mana flowing through muscles. Defensive stances that could block demon claws capable of tearing stone apart.
Demons, too, had combat fighters.
Low-rank demons relied on brute force—fangs, claws, thick hides.
Mid-rank demons developed technique—tail whips, bone armor, explosive leaps.
High-rank demons could rival elite heroes in pure physical combat.
Then there were Magic Users.
Magic users manipulated elemental forces, mana structures, and conceptual spells.
Heroes used magic with discipline.
They studied spell formation.
They followed rules.
But demons did not.
Demonic magic was instinctive, chaotic, and often fueled by sacrifice—blood, souls, territory.
Where human magic required stability, demon magic thrived on imbalance.
That was why demon spells were dangerous even when crude.
I paused.
(That's why demons are feared, even when weak.)
I wrote more.
Some heroes were hybrids—combat fighters who could use magic to reinforce their bodies or weapons. But the novel rarely focused on them.
Why?
Because hybrids were unpredictable.
They didn't fit the clean structure of the hero system.
And systems hated irregularities.
I clenched my pen slightly.
Like me.
What the Novel Never Showed
I leaned back and stared at the ceiling.
The novel followed heroes along specific routes.
Specific villages.
Specific demon nests.
Specific battlefields.
Heroes always took the main roads, the officially sanctioned paths cleared by scouts and approved by commanders.
They entered dungeons that were publicly registered. They fought enemies that had already been "balanced" for them.
And because of that—
There were places the heroes never went.
Doors that were never opened.
Paths marked as "collapsed," "too dangerous," or simply "unnecessary."
I underlined that word.
Unnecessary.
Those places were not irrelevant.
They were simply inconvenient to the story.
I had already begun noticing them in the fortress.
Corridors that ended abruptly with sealed gates.
Underground passages marked as "maintenance only."
Old watchtowers on the outer walls that no one used anymore.
Dead paths, I thought.
Routes abandoned by the narrative itself.
In the novel, demons often gained unique skills in those forgotten zones—skills no hero ever countered because no hero ever encountered them.
That was why certain disasters happened later.
Because no one went there early.
Then, suddenly, another thought surfaced.
(The power of the King…)