[ *-% Attempt ended in Ruin.]
[Time is rewinding once again… Death and Time made a deal.]
[The God of Death is returning you to the past.]
[Message history being erased…]
[You are now Level 1]
Kane awoke to a voice ringing in his ears. He slowly opened his eyes up to the message placed firmly in the center of his field of view. He was confused by the sight. It was a message he had seen so long ago, but he must be still dreaming since it wasn't close to accurate.
"I'm level 9… If it wasn't for those bastards… I could have been so much more…" Kane sighed and woke himself up from his groggy state and looked at the message. Suddenly his memories of his death came pouring back into him. His head began to throb as he sifted through his memories.
"No…! I died… To think a dragon would really appear out of that gate. How typically unlucky of me… But where am I now?" Kane looked around the room, the message following every direction he turned his head to.
'I remember this place… Is this my parents' house? It was so long ago that I moved out… And then… It was destroyed.'
Kane grew incredibly confused, unable to make sense of his present. He quickly swiped away the message blocking his view and looked around for his phone but found a shabby older phone model on his dresser next to him. He quickly made his way to the calendar app on the phone.
'August 1st… 2016'
Kane couldn't believe it so he searched up the date on the internet instead, yet the result was the same. This was the day…
'The day that changed everything…'
He had gone back in time. He couldn't believe it. Kane pulled himself out of his bed and found a mirror. The usual scruffy frown had returned to its hopeful youth.
"32 years have just… been reversed? But why…? Damnit… Status!" Kane wondered, unable to come up with any answers. As a last ditch effort, he summoned his status window to show him his current stats.
[Kane Wynn - Classless - Subclass (Regressor) - Status: Normal]
[Strength: 1.0, Agility: 0.9, Vitality: 1.0, Stamina: 1.1, Mana: 0.6 Luck: 1.5]
Kane stared at his status window with complex emotions. All of his progress had been wiped, and the only thing he had left was his memories. He took a quick look at his Regressor subclass to see if it did anything, but there were no bonuses. With a sigh, Kane quickly got dressed and quietly made his way through the house that was still slumbering. The clock on his phone said it was 5 AM, so Kane had no doubt his parents and his younger sister Katy should still be asleep at such an early time. After peeking through the door to his sister's room and laid his eyes upon his younger sister. She was alive, and breathing softly underneath her pink and fluffy blanket. He stared for a while before closing the door, complicated thoughts roaming through his jumbled mind.
He made his way outside into the lukewarm and humid outdoors and began to jog to a nearby abandoned warehouse he knew of. It was a half an hour journey, but it allowed Kane to continue his thoughts about going back to the past.
'I don't know if this is the afterlife or if this is a new shot at my life… Of course, it could be a cruel joke too. Perhaps I'm stuck in some hallucination that the dragon conjured.'
Kane continued his thoughts as he took in the scenery before him. The neighborhood hadn't been abandoned, the town hadn't been burned down. Memories of the dead and the destroyed overlapped in Kane's mind. At the time, nobody could have stopped the carnage in the area…
'Katy died from a gate break while on a field trip during the early years of the change, before society decided to restructure around the rankers. So if she's here and alive, then I have a shot at changing the future.'
'If it really is a new shot, then I have to make the most of it, and become more powerful enough to overcome the gates by myself. If I was able to make it to level 9 in the last life, perhaps this life I can at least make it to level 15… No, I can make it to level 20!'
Kane was relieved at the thoughts, but they added new burdens on his shoulders. He continued his thoughts as the sun started to rise on the horizon, and the sky began to turn orange. His legs walked at a quick pace, since he needed to see the warehouse as fast as possible.
'If I want to make the most out of my life this time, I can't choose Warrior again…'
Warrior, of the 4 classes available to the public in the last life. Once someone visited a temple, they would be able to choose a class. The classes were Warrior, Ranger, Magician, and Priest. Each had various subclasses they could specialize into upon leveling up. After choosing their initial class, they would be able to gain experience and be able to level up by killing monsters.
Previously Kane and many others had chosen Warrior, thinking about strong face to face combat and stereotypical fantasy warriors. That path had limited opportunities due the sheer numbers of people who chose the class, leading to higher prices for lower efficiency. Kane had the aptitude for the Warrior class, but even still he was unable to gain an advantage. But the sheer number of Warriors also had its pros as general use frontliners.
He had to choose another class if he wanted to succeed in this life. He couldn't take the warrior class he had an affinity with in his last time, even if he had an advantage, he wasn't sure he could gain enough resources with his advantage to make a difference. When he thought back on his past life, even if things had gone better for him and no shady groups blocked his path to high rankhood, he wasn't confident he could stand out amongst the most talented warriors his previous life had to offer.
'A Mage deals a decent amount of damage, and has access to spells bestowed with their level and subclass, but it's not enough by itself to face stronger gates. A Priest is obviously off the list because of my personality, due to its main role as a supporter not suiting his methodologies in the slightest. A Ranger does decent damage too and despite being mostly agile but doesn't have much in the way of defense… The skill required is too high, a big hit and I would be through. Anything he could choose now was a gamble based on the advanced classes he could advance into later. He remembered quite a few of them, but he couldn't think of anything that could give him what he was looking for.
Kane soon arrived at the warehouse after gathering his thoughts. Before him was not the rusted old warehouse that used to exist. But a temple. The temple looked like an old Greek Tholos, white in color and sporting many columns around its exterior.
'Just as I thought. It's been replaced by the temple…'
Kane made his way inside the empty temple, not yet crawling with people like it would be in the future. A lone goddess statue was centered towards the building, her arms folded out towards the entrance. Kane took in a view he was more familiar with than the town he used to live in. It was lightly decorated, with some chandeliers and a red carpet, but otherwise empty. As Kane arrived at the statue a new message popped up before him, just like the level up message he had awoken to.
[You may now choose a class.]
Kane looked at the message before telling it to continue. His former affinity had been for a warrior, and he had accepted because he thought it would be cool… Many later came to regret the decision. But as he was mulling over what class to choose, a new message popped up before him, and his eyes widened out of shock.
[You have been granted the option to choose a Unique Class! A Unique Class is something that is only ever offered to one player at a time.]
[The Goddess of Death offers you a class. You have an affinity with this class.]
[Apostle of Death]
[Apostle of Death - One who is intimate with death more closely than others and commands death to heed its bidding.]