The situation was much worse than I had expected, everywhere I looked there was pools of blood formed by yesterday's extreme bloodshed. My stomach lurched when I saw the bodies lying on the ground, they were mutilated to the extent it was not possible to say with certainty whether it was a male or female and the extent of injuries on some of them seemed to indicate that people even tried to hurt them after their death.
" Tch, nothing here as well ", I heard someone remark from behind. I turned to find a guy standing over the corpses, rummaging through their pockets. He was tall and well built and looked around 17 years old with a pretty, boyish face that betrays his actual age and dazzling blue eyes which went perfectly with his blonde hair. He looked like a prince straight out of a romance movie, except he was scourging through dead people's stuff.
He caught me looking at him and I think he read the look of disgust on my face.
"The fuck you look looking at old man?", He questioned me. That stung my pride quite a bit.
I swallowed it and replied, "Watching an arrogant prick rummage through dead people's pockets", I put on my iconic look of disgust like he was an absolute piece of trash.
"I'll forgive you just this once old man and FYI I was looking for any items they could possibly have" He replied.
Items? What items? There was no such things when I died. The confusion should have been apparent in my eyes because that kid replied, "It's for clearing the labyrinth" He attempted to explain, instead it made me only more confused.
" You don't know the labyrinth?" He scoffed, "So, a fucking nobody who was leaching off the front liners ventured to call me a prick. That takes a lot of courage old ma- WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU DOING!?" He yelped like a puppy in terror as I pinned him to the ground and held my Excalibur under his neck.
"If you would dare to disrespect me one more time" I whispered, "This sword will cut off your head clean". A tiny smile danced on the lips of the boy as he raised his hands in surrender.
"Alright old man, I concede, so let me up will ya?" He said. I reluctantly removed the sword from his neck and helped him to his feet.
"So why is a strong person like yourself roaming the back ends of the attack force, you need to be on the front lines, fighting with the other elites." He remarked after shaking the dust off his jacket.
"Elites? Who are they", I asked, a lot had seemed to change in the time I was dead.
"You don't know much do you?" He laughed, but then threw me a nervous look like I might attack him again, "Elites are the leading magicians, warriors and duelists of our age, they are the ones who fight on the front lines, risking their lives to advance the stages".
"Oh you mean the ones given by the task windows", I injected, waving my finger to activate it.
"Yeah exactly", then he looked at my task window, "Hey, why are you using such an outdated model?" He asked me, laughing again, "Here I will update it for you", Then he took my task window and tapped something on it.
SYSTEM UPDATE AVAILABLE
UPDATE? [YES] [NO]
SYSTEM CLEARED FOR UPDATE
UPDATING... PLEASE STANDBY
CONGRATULATIONS YOU HAVE BEEN PROMOTED TO PREMIUM SYSTEM
UPDATING TO PREMIUM SYSTEM.
"Wow, a premium system! That's so cool, only the strongest of the Elites have access to the premium system", The boy exclaimed, come to think of it I didn't know his name yet.
UPDATE FINISHING
UPADATE COMPLETED
CONGRATULATIONS YOUR SYSTEM HAVE BEEN PROMOTED TO SUPREME SYSTEM
"Wait, Supreme System, what is that?" The boy scratched his head in confusion, "Must be some kind of new interface, hey old man do you know about this?", he asked me.
I just shrugged, "No clue", He turned and muttered something to himself, it was along the lines of 'useless idiot' or something like that.
"Hey kid", I asked, "What is your name?"
"Oh, I didn't say it yet? Sorry, my name is William Harley, you can call me Will", He said with a smile, "What's yours?"
"Axel Carlsen" I said.
"Okay, cool" he said nonchalantly and turned to my system, "Well, Mr. Carlsen I think the update is done."
SYSTEM UPDATE COMPLETED
ADDITIONAL FEATURES CONFIGURED
CONGRATULATIONS YOU HAVE UNLOCKED SUPREME SYSTEM [META]
"Here you go", Will returned the system. I took it back, the interface changed from the usual blue to a golden-red colour.
"Damn, that's actually kinda nice", I whistled, "Thanks Will", I smiled at him, from almost killing him, we had became friends pretty quickly.
"Anytime Mr. Carls- THE HELL?!" He exclaimed as a sudden and loud explosion shook our surroundings.
" Will, what is happening?" I asked, he looked as shook as I did.
"I guess the labyrinth clearing is not going that well", he shrugged.
"What exactly is the labyrinth?", I enquired.
"It is the clear condition for this stage, at the end of each stage we have to fight that stage's boss and apparently this stage's boss is in the labyrinth", he explained.
"And what stage is this", I enquired further.
"Currently we are at Stage 25", He said looking towards the huge building towards his left.
STAGE 25?! How did they progress so quickly? I was not gone for more than a couple of days, so how did they progress so quickly? My mind started spinning slowly. They should have finished it in record time to have obtained such crazy numbers.
But slowly realization dawned on me and I cautiously asked Will, "Hey Will", he muttered "Mhmmm".
"What is today's date?" I asked, he threw me a sideway glance as to why I was asking such weird questions.
" Today is 24th June 20XX ", he said.
I doubled forward like I was punched in my stomach and started tearing at my head as I began to lose control of my thoughts, "This cannot be happening, this cannot be happening", I kept murmuring.
"Are you okay Mr. Carlsen?" Will's voice reached me like it was blocked by a huge wall of water. My eyesight blurred as I realized that cruelly my reality was ripped apart yet again.
I had travelled 12 years into the future.