The Elusive Human, So Often Forgotten [Progression Fantasy]

Self-Published

Community Rating

Description

Von of Redgrave wakes up to a rather wonderful surprise - five years have passed, and in that time he became the greatest human swordsman in the Six Principalities. Now, he realizes - to his joy - that he could laze around for the rest of his life, never accomplish anything, and still be considered to have brought pride to his noble house.

Yet he feels oddly unhappy about this, even though all he ever wanted was the ability to laze around and do nothing, he finds himself yearning for something more. A request from Talla the Elf sets his heart ablaze, and he once again sets forth on the path of becoming the strongest swordsman - and this time, he doesn't want to stop at just being the strongesthuman.

He won't stop until he's the strongest to ever live.

[Participant in the Royal Road Writathon challenge]

Information

Status: Hiatus
Year: 2022
Author: Rafael Kalleen

Royal Road Stats

Rating: 4.4/ 5.0
Followers: 569
Views: 93,169

Reviews

No reviews yet. Be the first to share your thoughts!

Community Reviews(6)

ArilliusRoyal Road
★★★★★ 5.0
There are currently 9 chapters for this fiction upon writing this review. The moment I finished the ninth I went to the patreon to find more chapters, only to find that the writer has another fiction entirely. I was both sad and happy, knowing there was more to read from this author, yet also knowing there was no more of this story.
I've spoken on how much I like it, but not why. I suppose it's a lot of things. I'll start with the best part about it. There's a problem with this story. It is horribly incomplete. This is felt through every chapter, sometimes strongly and sometimes weakly, but it is always there. The fact that the story revolves around this problem only makes it worse. Yet I say this is the best part about this story. This problem is not just your problem as a reader, but also the problem of the main character. It is his challenge to face as much as yours. It hangs on you, the questions, even as it hangs on him and others.
It is not just a funny afterthought that the main character 'awoke after five years as the best human swordsmen.' But if I say anymore it will spoil things, even slightly, and I won't do that. Suffice to say that this is important to the story and important to all of the characters, to one degree or another. It matters, this problem, and there will be answers for it.
The best part about this story is that feeling, that gnawing feeling that you're missing something here, and it makes me want to read every page faster then the last to find out what it is I'm missing.
Style
The story has style. More then that, it has flair. It tells the story but it also tells you of the world. Little exposition here, sometimes almost frustratingly little, and yet you'll learn exactly what you need and not a drop more, all through the story. You learn of the world through the characters, through the implications of their words.
Just enough is explained and only then by the grace of a character who should be saying what they're saying. There are no momen
SummercatRoyal Road
★★★★★ 5.0
Hey so
I'm drunk and I read this story before getting drunk and even drunk I decided to write a multi paragraph response to "but he's the bad guy" and fuck me if I can't even identify a proper antagonist in this boxing - er, swordfighting - zero to hero story.
Look, I always demand otters. Otters inevery story. I'll demand some here too
But I'll be honest and I'm editing the title
This story doesn't need otters to be good
Tomo_09110Royal Road
★★★★★ 5.0
Great plot and characters that draw you in. I find the world really interesting and I enjoy the unraveling of the characters secrets. The sword combat is detailed but simple enough to understand the movements and techniques even as a complete novice. A very compelling read that I look forward to reading more of.
Blah64Royal Road
★★★★ 3.5
I like the character introspection as he tries to live up to expectations, due to glory he achieved, but can't remember.
Unfortunately, I have strong negative feelings about tournament arcs, and this story feels like one giant tournament arc. Duel after duel.
Plenty of people love tournament arcs, I'm just not one 'em.
Heart of the StarRoyal Road
★★★ 3.0
This has a lot of potential to be a good story but DropShotEpee needs to take some time to think critically about how the world he is creating works.
the story has some good character and writing, they have consistent and distinct voices and the internations feel natural. So every individual scene feels good and is fun to read. There were no problems with the grammar that i noticed either.
The problems come when the scenes start linking together and forming a larger story. The story is up to chapter 16 by this point and so far there has been very, very information about the world and how things work. So far i have been able to determine the following things.
1) Magic exists but can aparently only be used in 1 vs 1 duels.
2) There are multiple species (total number unknown) on the planet and supposedly most of them are strong than humans in some way?
3) Elves are being afficted by a curse of some kind caused by some mysterious evil.
4) The world is obsessed with dueling, hosts regular tournaments and has a global ranking of duelists.
That's it. Aside from those points i know almost nothing else about the world and how it works and 239 pages into a story i feel that's a bit of a problem. From the very start of this story I was left with enormous questions, why is dueling so important? Why does magic work the way it does? What is the state of the world?
DropShotEpee loves fencing, they love it a lot. That's very clear in their writing and is probably the entire reason for them to be writing at all. I suspect they have decided that they want to write a world where dueling is how people solve problems and interact with the world. However (and this is where I am pulling some experience from DropShotEpee's other story) I don;t think they have properly considered how such a world would come to exist. What circumstances and conditions would need to occur for the world to pick dueling as it's primary method of conflict resolution? Why would they do so? What would change becau
danlinRoyal Road
★★ 1.5
The story suffers from telling instead of showing. The main cause of this are the inner monologues (written in italics). There is atleast one italicized sentence every 2-3 paragraphs. It really brings the story down despite the interesting concept. It's like the author wants to write in 3rd person but his fingers are forcing him to write in 1st. The prologue was perfect, but the rest is very amateurish.
The main character is also more cliche and easygoing than I expected from the synopsis and prologue. I understand why but it is a common personality type so it's annoying. I wanted someone more serious.
Also the voice of the characters make them sound like modern teens despite being in a fantasy world.