Enemy of the World

Main Character Hides His Strength, Book 1

By: Road Warrior, OppaTranslations - Translator

Narrated by: Nick Podehl

Length: 13 hrs and 46 mins

Publisher's Summary

The gods have set forth in motion five Calamities for the inhabitants of the Other World, and only by enduring them will mankind be allowed to live on. 

The leaders of the Other World do not believe in the possibility of triumph against the will of the gods, and instead squander their time indulging in their desires while the world rots away around them. Mankind’s only hope rests on the shoulders of a man they hate the most. A man who has taken every possible measure, both accepted and forbidden, to attain power. Sungchul Kim, the man who reached the pinnacle of strength, now stands alone against the Calamities. Not because he is a hero, but because of a promise.

Reaching the Demon King’s palace, Sungchul soon realizes his shortcomings. He failed to resolve the first Calamity due to his inability to wield Magic. He is forced to journey in secret, hiding his identity and strength to steal the knowledge of Magic from the very people who branded him as the Enemy of the World. However, to do so, he must hide among the weakest group of people in the Other World: the newly arrived humans from his homeworld, Earth.

Translated by OppaTranslations.   

©2016 Roadwarrior (P)2021 Podium Audio

It was alright...

This book was ok. In spite of excellent narration by Nick Podehl I often found my mind wandering. I’m not sure if it’s the translation, the fact that a lot of the cultural references were from a society that I’m not very familiar with, or the chronological setting, but overall the plotting of the story felt clunky and disjointed.

Unfortunately, this is one of those books that starts out in the middle of the main character’s storyline. By which I mean that the MC has already spent 25 years battling his way up to the pinnacle of his power and the book begins as he is facing the ultimate fight at the end of those 25 years. So you spend the rest of the book trying to get enough backstory for the character’s motivations and personality to become apparent.

In my experience this plot device is a pretty big pitfall for most authors and Mr or Mrs Road Warrior definitely spent a fair amount of time digging the story out of that hole. It’s especially problematic because the author doesn’t use flashbacks or dialog with other characters to present what appears to be an entire book series worth of backstory. Instead they just make random declarative statements about what the MC did or what skills he acquired but they certainly don’t relate the information with any drama or storytelling devices.

Moreover this MC is extremely uncomplicated and his personality lacks nuance. Add this to the fact that this is the most OP character that I have ever encountered in this genre. And I mean that literally... in this book it’s stated several times that no living being on the planet has any hopes of challenging him whatsoever.

Normally I have no problem with OP characters, but in this instance all the drama is removed because the MC, in spite of being in the most dangerous situations that one could imagine, is never even slightly challenged nor is he ever confronted with any true peril.

With all this said, the vast majority of gamelit and LitRPG on Audible is so unquestionably unlistenable that this story is still worth checking out. When held up against the poorly written and sometimes tragically poorly performed (see anything narrated by Wayne Mitchell, Jack Voraces, Daniel Wisniewski, etc), this is probably one of the better LitRPGs to come out in the last couple months on Audible, which is a bummer.



In an unrelated note, after listing the three narrators who are at the bottom of the list of really not very good Audible performers I realized something... Somebody should call Ember Lane and tell them that they really need to be more discerning with who they get to perform their audiobooks. Half of their releases are performed by those three over-acting, ear-molesting hacks. Which is a shame because I really dig Ember Lane’s writing, but I’m not willing to put myself through the torture of listening to Wayne Mitchell ruin another audiobook via the literal worst-affected accents in the history of recorded literature. ...Somebody should also call that dude and tell him to just use his normal speaking voice.

Who has a problem with too much power?

The Enemy Of The World was Amazing. At first you have that overwhelming guy who radiates an oppressive presence, but then you see all these restrictions limiting him. The story is awesome and I sure as hell want the a second part as soon as possible.

Don’t waste your time

I will admit I read the bad reviews but really needed something to listen too and it was a waste of a credit. I was ok with an OP Mc if it was done right and this was no where close. The Mc is not only op but he is able to pick up basically any skill with little to no issue. If that wasn’t bad enough the writer explains it as the Mc has studied from fighting others. Most of the time the author just says “if only they knew he was the strongest person in the world” that alone made this book cringe worthy coming up every paragraph. Another issue is the absolute lack of world building. We get tossed into the story, know nothing of the world and the author does nothing. Nick Podehl did great with what he had and I sure hope he got paid enough to read this. Another issue I had was the MC was all over the place emotionally. Sometimes he had morals and wanted to help someone and in the next chapter he would just walk away from a situation he could resolve in moments. “Spoilers”
the incident where he knew the student was a member of calamity and could simply kill him and progress the story learning magic he does nothing. His stat increases are absolutely moronic.

Not worth the time

Not even Podehl could salvage this experience for me, which is rare. All the whams squeaking and squaking in the action sequences ruins emersion. The characters have no personalities, just exaggerated traits and mc comes off as a weird edgelord. Not a fan.

Good start.

As a translation of a Korean work, the story is solid, given enough translation and work to make sense without falling into any of the pitfalls translated works can have.

Nick puts a lot of flair and work into the story, and does a great job not only narrating, but making the characters feel distinct and alive.

The story is. . . Well, it is. It's fairly typical isekai/litrpg fair, with a lot of emphasis on societal corruption. So our jaded protagonist has decided he'll just do it all himself. Which has it's own set of problems with him having already become a social pariah and outlaw for the way he goes about rocking both the societal boat and just outright stealing things he needs since others won't help him. It starts in the middle of the story, but it seems like it starts where he'll actually have human interactions after an eight year period of being on his own, which likely wouldn't have been interesting from a character development perspective. The Other World (Which is kind of a terrible name, but descriptive) seems like a pretty dark and terrible place.

Looking forward to volume two.

Awesome listen

Very fun book from start to finish. Do yourself a favor and pick this one up.

who is doing what????

I do not know who is who or what is what sungshow sung tae, sung died. some of the names are So similar I have no idea who is talking. The main character's name blends into all the others.
Plot seems OK, but I can't figure out who's doing what, so that kind of sucks.
Maybe give names that we can understand, or only 1 sung, and whatever other names.
it's like having 3 Sam's in a book.

ok, I listened to the rest of the book. I do like the story, if only the names were consistent and were easier to differentiate between. I still don't know the old professor's name.
The narrator does women's voices pretty good, and a variety of mens voices. oh, its Nick Podehl, no wonder.

I REALLY Wanted to Love This

When I first saw authentic foreign names, I got so pumped to listen. It was also by my favorite narrator, so I immediately bought it.
Feedback on the Story: Boy oh boy. The main character is a sociopathically anti-social man who spurns responsibility. Even though he has so much knowledge and strength, he keeps it all to himself while literally letting thousands die. The plot is too weak to sustain the belief that he's trying to hide his abilities. Additionally, we learn very little of his big bad mission to save the world. Overall, I'm guessing this is a self-published book because the plot doesn't have a consistent atmosphere. We go from a super violent survival of the fittest "plaza" to a school where Sungchul just reads a book. The only continuity is that none of the characters ever want to do their jobs. The pessimism really takes its toll after a while. For instance, everything is terrible, even the almighty great school is terrible. The only positive I can think of is for people who find it easier to put themselves in a character's shoes, because there's no unique characteristic to Sungchul.
Feedback on Translations and Cultural Differences: I'm guessing onomatopoeia is a big part of the Korean language, but there's an excessive use of "Wham!" and "Bam!" in this book. But the biggest thing that didn't translate well was the "ye-yo" after every sentence from the homunculi. It was novel and cool the first couple of times, but got old really quick.
Feedback on the narrator: Nick Podehl is just amazing. He nails the colloquial tones and emphasis of an asian speaker without the accent. Like how? I can't tell how accurate it is to Korean, but it really pulls you into the character. He even manages to make the flood of "Whams" sound like it new every single time. It sounds like it hurts.

Great book

loved it from beginning to end.
can't wait for the next book to come out.

👍👍👍

If you are looking for an OP MC this it. Bring on the next book!

great

cant wait for the second book, the story was very engaging and with the narrator, better.

The narration saved the book.

The book follows a narcissistic, hypocritical main character who wasn’t likeable at all. The conversations are awkward. However i would still recommend this audiobook because Nick Podehl did a phenomenal job narrating. He managed to embody the characters personality very well and it was the only reason I finished the book.

Not great or bad, best summed up as Meh.

Book is not bad nor good, it's easy to listen to but as the story is essentially beggining at its end most of the details pertaining to the world make no sense has we have no context, should of made the book longer and summarised the past, narrator was great though and saved it.

Gary stu

Not a Long review, can't be bothered.

5 hours in and i've had enough.
MC knows everything, if you didn't listen to him you'll regret it. The performance was the one tving keeping me from dropping it earlier. Peace

Enjoyable if flat, and oh so many onomatopeias.

It's hard to rate books like this because even if they aren't great they still manage to entertain and keep you interested. The story centres around a super op mc so there is absolutely no tension in the story except whether he will involve himself in a situation or not, and seeing as he's quite passive even when people are doing horrific things it can be more annoying than tension inducing. There are some interesting hooks in there and a sense of progression so it's enough to keep reading. It's a good book if you're waiting for something to be released or can't find anything else to catch your interest. Nick Podehl is a good narrator but the onomatopeias (ie the narration of words like CRASH/KACHING/ARRGGGHHHH) are a bit much. The length of the book makes up a lot in terms of just having something to listen to.

Tw for those who have a hard time with graphic descriptions of violence. You probably should just skip this one.

Like to hear it

It was one of the first Korean Web novels that I have read (albeit only halfway through).
Very good. Much better than THOSE Kr novels that are popular now. Honestly, they're probably ripped off many stuff from this novel (and the Everyone Else is a Returnee, hope it will also receive an audiobook XD)...
and the NARRATION. It's just top grade! Although I suspect that it was voiced by at least two people, if not that dude have got some cosmic talent :D But anyway, I'm a fan now. Gonna look into other stuff voiced by him :3

Lackluster

So, the story is translated and it shows. On the nose anti-korean insults was thrown in there( instead of just plain anti-asian) which was weird...and threw me out of the story. The bad guys are just comically bad and plain evil. "Oh I got power, let's rape and murder!".
Plenty of "that person" or " that guy" when side characters thinks about the main character and it just sucks, doesn't add anything to the story, plain filling.

Main char is as flat as a paper with his only saving grace being a chef. Also solves problems with hammer. Always the hammer. Now I don't mind a murder spree but most times it just felt like the author wanted to get rid of characters because their 10 min spotlight was over. Let's just say no "villain" survived more than an arc.

The narrator is simply lacking. Hard time hearing who was who when in dialogue and somehow made a DEMON and a SQUIRREL sound the same...

I'll give it 2 stars because it made me laugh twice and it was somewhat interesting hearing about a new world.