Life Without A Class

"The end is coming! The zombies, the giants, the wolves, and even those giant worms are going to kill us all!"

I heard these familiar screams from far while walking slowly towards that crazy man's direction.

The streets were in a messy state, filled with garbage and leftovers from the big party last night. The city, which I lived in, celebrated the ninety-ninth anniversary of the Great Day!

In fact it wasn't a great day, but it was the start of the apocalypse that befell over our lands.

My name is Hye. According to my father, my name held the meaning of a bright and intelligent man.

I was indeed smart, but I was no way living a bright life. My life was defined even before I came to this world.

Ah, forgot to say that Earth wasn't the same Earth ninety-nine years ago. When the apocalypse hit Earth, it started by merging all continents, breaking all boundaries and adding strange lands to us.

And since that day, more lands were being added to our great Nala, the new Earth we live currently in. With the start of the apocalypse, strange races began to appear like zombies, wolves, goblins, monsters, and even evolved insects and worms.

War was inevitable between us and them. In fact each race began a series of brutal and long wars against other races to dominate Nala, including us, the humans. The bad news came in that our weapons couldn't do any damage against these races.

They all used various sorts of magic. And that wasn't exclusive to them alone.

Humans started to delve on the path of magic since the dawn of the apocalypse. According to the old stories written in our records of that time, we had many quests provided by the mighty judges, plus a system. Whoever achieved anything worthy would get a class of his own and power beyond belief.

But many failed to achieve such a thing. I, my father, and my entire family came from a grandfather and a grandmother who both failed their quests.

People like us were called classless people, or the trash in the new world we were living in.

On top of the society, people with high classes ruled the human race. We now live in three big kingdoms, each covering a vast land that exceeded the size of the old Earth itself.

But this was nothing compared to other races. In fact the war between humans and other races lasted in its fiercest early time up to ten years. During that time, most of the humans were killed and only three kingdoms stood tall till this day.

In other words… We lost that war! The three kingdoms provided a much safer environment to live in. But that wasn't according to what that crazy man was saying.

"The end is coming! Prepare for it! The dark day is coming! We will be all doomed!"

"That man…" I couldn't help but shake off my head and examined the message coming from my system.

[Your daily quest is here! Help the old foreteller in his daily needs and you'll get ten coins]

"Tsk, another boring day," I muttered while clicking to see if I was lucky and got another quest. But like my usual, I only got this unlucky one here.

Systems now became like phones in the ancient age of humans. We all had systems that helped to moderate our lives.

For me, and as a classless person, I had no privilege to get high ranked quests. Only trash quests like this one kept popping each morning.

Ten coins seemed like a very small fee for such a task. But it was enough to pay my rent and provide food for myself.

"Oh, it's the bright and intelligent man again," that crazy old man noticed me it seemed. The moment he did, he stopped shouting at the people in this street and turned to look at me, with a smile that wasn't like one.

He looked the same as usual, wearing a ragged and tattered old looking black suit that turned grey out of time and continuous cleaning. His white and long hair was dishevelled and fell over his shoulders, even reaching the middle of his back.

His face was stained with black and blue spots, out of his habit to do his proclaimed foretelling experiments using explosive substances. I once was about to get blown to pieces thanks to one of his proclaimed foretelling.

"Don't say that to me, I'm just a normal loser in this kingdom," I came to stand beside him while feeling disgust from the look of his saw-like yellow teeth.

In fact, if I saw him from afar, I would mistake him for being a monster! The only proof he was a human came from the system. After all, systems never assigned low grade quests for humans unless to serve other humans.

"Come… Come… I got more stories to tell," and here he started again! Despite my task was to attend to this crazy man's needs, he only cared about one thing… Telling stories!

At first I was very interested in what he was saying. He kept telling weird tales and stories that seemed like real legends. I was entranced by his foolishness and craziness until one day I discovered what he was telling was pure nonsense!

He kept stressing that he was telling the untold truth of history. But not a single word of what he said was written or even mentioned in any known record to mankind! I searched and even dropped my quests for an entire week to check over his awesome bulls*t!

Eventually I realised how insane and full of bullshit he was! The events he kept telling never happened before. Different events occurred, not even close to what he kept telling me about. And even the names he made sure for me to memorise weren't even registered in any legendary tales known to human civilization before or after the apocalypse!

Ji the brave, Luke the mightiest, Anna the wisest, Cher the lioness… and much more of such weird names and nicknames that never existed.

"Come, I have a good tale to tell you today," he hurriedly took me inside his house with such enthusiasm. According to him, he kept issuing the system tasks only to me.

And aside from him, I got no other regular customers to satisfy.

His house was like the difference between earth and heaven compared to his ragged state. It could be described as a big mansion with a wide garden and tall walls.

A palace, a palace with an owner who was a beggar like him… How ironic!

I once asked him how could someone like him get such a fancy place to live in. The only answer I got was that he had a very high class, and that provided him with great income even without the need for him to do anything.

I really envied him at that moment and even now! Classes in our world were like college degrees in the old human civilization. I was like a person without a degree. Despite being smart, hard working, knowing a lot of crafts, and willing to do anything with devotion; I wouldn't be able to get anywhere in this world without having a degree, without a class.

Many others weren't as good as me and were living in luxury thanks to their classes. I hated classes more than anything in the world as it turned my life into such hell.

And the most bitter thing was the fact that I didn't bring any of this upon myself in the first place! I just inherited such a cursed life, just came from such a wrong family.

If I had the chance to get reborn under another family with a class, I would be grateful for that! If I had a chance to get a class, even if I went to hell itself to get it, I wouldn't flinch back.

It was my life's greatest dream, a dream that would possibly not turn true at all.

So many times I imagined myself getting back in time, to the moment when the apocalypse befell humans. I dreamt about fighting for my own right to have a class of my own.

Humans back then mistook things greatly. They thought they were fighting for their survival and didn't care about things like quests nor classes. They were wrong! They didn't know that by such careless decisions, they doomed all the generations that came after them till the end of time.

Gosh! Every time I thought about this, I got mad! I wished I could have a say in all this, I wished I could change my current fate, even by facing death itself.