Foreword
If someone had told me a year ago that I was going to publish a book, my first thought would have been that they were, at the very least, pulling my leg. And yet here it is—a reality, constructed in a somewhat unusual way, but a reality, nonetheless. And to be fair to all those who have supported me along the way and who have put so much of themselves into these pages that they could be considered full co-authors, I think the best thing to do is to explain how this book came about.
It all started very innocently on a day like any other. Contrary to what one might think, working at the UN does not always involve great emotions or negotiations; that’s reserved for the few who like to be in the thick of things or aim for top positions. In my case, like many others, I am just a pen-pusher like any other, with the only significant difference being that I travel a little more than the average person.
That's why I was struck when, one day in the middle of the morning, my department head casually asked for volunteers to conduct a series of very important interviews around the globe. Under other circumstances, that wouldn't have been for me, and I would never have asked for it, but since I was eager to get out of my cubicle (or rather, to distance myself from a bad divorce), and why not, to devote a little more time to my hobby of drawing, I ended up volunteering for the job without even knowing how, when, or where the interviews were going to take place.
Imagine my surprise when I found out that my job, along with nine other colleagues, would be to interview adventurers from different professions around the world to find out what had led them to leave their careers early. This raw information, along with other findings and statistical calculations, was intended to form a public UN report addressing the main causes of the decline in the number of adventurers in guilds around the world over the last 20 years, providing, if possible, solutions or proposals for solutions to the issue.
In case some of my readers aren’t aware, this decline in guild membership has become one of the main topics of international debate. This is primarily because, if this trend continues, we will reach a point where there will no longer be enough adventurers to handle the dungeons—which, although few in number when compared to the figures from the First Magic Revolution, continue to proliferate throughout the world, which increases the likelihood that the monsters living in them will run rampage and begin attacking the immediate surroundings of the dungeon, thereby putting nearby ecosystems and populations at risk.
And yet, despite the importance of my work as an interviewer for that report (and the financial compensation wasn't bad either), I didn't hesitate to consider whether my decision had been the right one and even asked my boss if it was possible to get off the boat. Why such reluctance on my part? Some may ask. If adventurers are almost like movie stars, who wouldn't want to meet them in person, shake their hands, maybe ask for an autograph or a photo?
Well, it’s true that ever since the First Magic Revolution, adventurers have gradually established themselves as the kind of heroes everyone admires and loves—the real-life version, if we’re feeling a bit dreamy, of all those fictional stories about superheroes and bands of heroic saviors that we used to enjoy so much as children.
However, for a UN employee like me, these individuals are, at best, synonymous with bureaucratic and diplomatic headaches. Because how can you properly manage a group of people with exceptional abilities and magical powers who constantly cross the borders of different sovereign countries for work and who, individually, are potentially as dangerous as a nuclear warhead? Very badly, actually.
Despite my professional resentment, which I made sure to point out to my boss, there wasn't much to negotiate, especially since the permits, visas, reservations, and other paperwork had already been taken care of, and it would have been a waste to throw all that time and money away. So, reluctantly, with such poor conditions, my trip around the world began.
A couple of years later, older but also wiser, I returned home grateful for not having missed that opportunity. Thanks to that experience, which had seemed so harsh at first, I was able to see the hidden side of the adventurer's life, the one that comes to light once the spotlights and cameras are turned off, rediscovering in the process my own life and how fortunate I am in my own normality and everyday routine.
It was precisely because of this, realizing how valuable my lesson had been, that I felt the need to share what I had learned with others. Because although we all know (or rather assume) that even the most illustrious, rich, or famous people have their problems like the rest of us mortals (and this has been emphasized to us in countless novels, films, and series that deal with the turbulent lives of historical and famous figures of all kinds), I believe that message doesn’t always sink in as it should— or at least it never fully did in mine, since I was always haunted by that shadow of doubt telling me that I hadn’t reached my full potential, that I could do more with my life, or that I was destined for something more than just being an office worker.
After my trip, however, after learning what the lives of these famous, powerful, and wealthy adventurers entailed, I came face to face with the illusion. For every one of these brilliant and famous figures, there are thousands, if not millions, of adventurers who scrape by as best they can, not knowing if they will die tomorrow on a mission or if they will be able to pay their bills at the end of the month.
I'll say more: even if you're part of the elite, you're not safe, because from one day to the next you can go from being at the top to falling dead in a dungeon or being overtaken by promising newcomers. I suppose the most obvious and easy-to-understand comparison for everyone would be the world of acting, which also has that ruthless edge, but as a child of the 2000s, influencers immediately come to mind—they, too, are subject to those capricious ups and downs.
In light of that, as I said before, I realized how lucky I am to be able to spend time with my daughters; to be able to decide, more or less, what to do with my free time; to be able to take regular vacations; to be able to meet up with my friends; to be able to limit my worries to simple things like renewing my dental insurance or buying toilet paper, and not to organizing or leading a team of people on whom the end or survival of humanity depends.
Why did this change come about after that series of interviews and not before? After all, like so many others, I had already read and heard those lessons from various sources, starting with my parents, who always told me that at the end of life, the important things are not money, fame, or moving to remote places, but being with and enjoying those you love, without letting yourself be blinded by work or other personal goals that will not always bring you happiness.
I'm not sure, even today I still think about it, but I think the main reason is that the profession of adventurer, unlike other professions where you can end up being a star, is highly idealized in popular culture to a greater or lesser extent. Because let's be honest, we've all at some point imagined waking up one day with superpowers, or magic, or costumes that give us certain abilities, or special pets or companions like dragons and things like that (in case anyone's curious, my personal favorite was to have a self-aware alien bio costume that gave me superpowers).
The problem with these fantasies, as their name suggests, is that they are fantastical, they assume many positive aspects and tend to forget the less fun part, burying the small details such as that extraordinary person still has a work schedule, bills to pay, loved ones to care for, not to mention that their powers instantly make them the target of all attention, whether good or bad.
Adventurers, undeniably, have become fiction turned reality, giving us all hope that one day we will be reborn and become like them. As the song said, "you the barbarian, you the archer, acrobat, magician, and knight". Interviewing them, however, made me realize how wrong I was in my daydreams, and the impact was twofold because, I insist, I had an image in my head that was too pristine, too precious, so when it shattered into a thousand pieces, it taught me what knowing the hidden side of other celebrity professions did not: that life is precious and does not always need stardom to be so.
However, despite that conviction, there was still room for doubt within me. How could I, just like that, presume to lecture anyone on anything? In many ways, I was a privileged first-world guy, and I didn't want to become the typical well-off white man who comes along to tell the poor, simple-minded common folk how they're supposed to live their lives. So, mired in doubt, I approached my boss again one day and mentioned my idea of turning a selection of the interviews into a book. This gesture, in a nutshell, was a cowardly delegation of my responsibilities. If my boss said I couldn't use those interviews, perhaps because they were protected by a privacy clause or something like that, then I wouldn't have to face that internal debate and I could simply hide behind the phrase "I couldn't use that material, so I had to give up the idea."
Unfortunately for me, my boss not only agreed but also supported me 100%, assuring me that the interviews could be used freely since they were part of a public report, but that, for my peace of mind, she would obtain explicit permission so that both I and the publisher that decided to publish my work could rest easy. As if that weren't enough, she told me that she could talk to some of the publishers we had agreements with for printing (the UN also functions as a publisher from time to time) with the intention of facilitating the publication of the final manuscript.
I thanked her, cursing myself for having unconsciously committed myself to creating that book, even if only out of deference to the facilities that were being made available to me for the project and which other writers more talented than myself, unfortunately, cannot always count on.
So, with that hurdle cleared, the next question was, how to choose the interviews? With just the ones I had done, not counting those of my colleagues, there were more than 100 interviews. Should I include them all? Select them by theme? Or was it better to put them in order of completion, importance, or perhaps by geographical area? It was then that my colleague Indira, whom I can never thank enough, suggested that I set myself a limit of 18 selected interviews, since in Judaism, her faith, the number 18 is associated with life. What other number could be more appropriate than that?
I accepted her proposal, as I also accepted that of my colleague Micaela, who suggested that I choose and order those 18 interviews based on my heart, not on reason. That way, I could find the ones that were truly special and authentic to me. At first, I was very reluctant, as cutting some of the interviews hurt me deeply, and by the time I reached 25, I thought I couldn't cut any more.
The final push at that moment of indecision came from my childhood friend Daniel, to whom I offered that first selection, asking him to help me sift through the ones I couldn't bring myself to cut. The bastard, who knows me very well (and whom I had been keeping informed of my progress and struggles with the book), went for the ones I was most attached to, knowing full well that I would refuse to remove them from the compendium, and when I told him so, he replied with a sly smile and the following sentence: “So now you know which ones are extra and which ones aren't.”
I had to agree with him, and by the end of that weekend I had already selected the 18 winning interviews. The rest, as they say, is history, and today, finally, my editor has decided that I should write the prologue that will be used for the final edition of the book. It's been years of work that, as I said at the beginning, has finally materialized into something real and tangible where I have poured, in some way, a part of myself with the best of intentions to help others who have found themselves or are finding themselves in my situation.
In conclusion, I hope this text proves interesting to readers and sheds light on a facet of adventurers’ lives that has often been overlooked—a facet that deserves, if only because of our human nature, a minimum of empathy, since these individuals rub shoulders with death every day so that we may live another day. Perhaps one day these threats emerging from the dungeons will be reduced to a minimum or disappear altogether, or perhaps, as some recent events seem to suggest, they will become part of our present and our daily lives. In any case, whatever happens, I hope it will be for the best.
Thanks also to my boss, Susana; to all my coworkers who gave me so many corrections and pieces of advice; to my family (and especially my daughters); to my ex-wife, who despite our divorce supported me greatly in this project by behaving like a true friend; to the UN employees who made my trips and interviews possible; to the local guides and locals who so often got me out of a tight spot when I didn't know where to go, and just in case I've left anyone out, thank you to them too. And of course, thank you to everyone who has given this book a chance. You are the ones who have made it possible for this book to reach more people who need it.
To everyone, thank you.
