Rargnes found himself in the room where he had chosen between the three classes. He blinked, rubbed his eyes, and looked around at the abyssal emptiness.
"Did that really just happen?"
After three long years? Really? Was he back to that fateful day?
Rargnes felt the stress rising within him, corrupting every part of his body, which grew icy. Waves of memories tortured his thoughts. He began to tremble - a trembling that, when he regained his senses, realized he had willed himself. As if to make this situation normal in its extraordinariness.
His head raced at 200 miles per hour. If all these memories were true, would he go through the same stages again? The hatred he saw in his memories, the hatred of his past as a slave, seemed to have disappeared with his fear. The bottle made him want it again, as if his previous body had been nothing but a puppet.
The thought disgusted him. His mind may think it was his body, but it was only a part of it. A saved part was better than a lost one, but still. Was he dead?
Only his body seemed to reassure him. These were - for him - just stories his mind told itself. The stress made him want to drink. He couldn't, in this place.
He looked around him. In front of him was the sign asking him to choose between the 3 classes [Warrior] [Mage] [Lord]. He turned and looked at the void that filled this room. From what he understood, time was unlimited or almost here.
The thought came to him to wait here, to see what would happen. Then he thought that what he had heard was only the stories of survivors, a biased narrative. Who knows if death wouldn't touch him if he stayed here too long?
He refocused on the selection. The mage class was out of the question: far too difficult and requiring tools to start with. The lord class would allow him to ask questions and have a quieter life, while the warrior class would slightly improve his body - although it could never make him compete against warriors and mages trained since childhood with suitable weapons and armor.
He eventually chose the warrior class, to test - he categorically refused this life of slavery, senseless, with no hope of longevity - and was teleported back to the bar again.
Rargnes blinked and looked at his hands. He felt something pass through them, without observing any visual change.
He looked at his legs, then closed his eyes and felt his body. He felt a slight fluctuation that strengthened his body and gave him a feeling of pleasure mixed with a kind of incomprehension.
He then wondered what a mage must feel when a bit of magic appeared in their bodies. Was it natural? Or a supplement to the body? Was this invasion planned?
He regained his senses by the cry of the mage next to him.
"Are you okay?"
The mage who had injured his hand screamed in pain. "No! No, it's not okay! It hurts like hell! Damn it!"
He looked at him, a feeling of empathy filling his body, which he suppressed as he looked at his phone, while sipping his drink that he had just ordered.
He typed keywords like goblin, then, seeing the lack of results, went to live streaming sites to see the reaction and words of the people.
Soon, people began to leave, and then the goblins arrived.
What seemed strange was that no one seemed to have memories of what had just happened. Was it a power of his own? Could he really trust it?
As the goblins displayed their stocks of products, a thought came to him.
What if, what if everything had been true, but he was dead? That his memories were still alive in another body. That with each death, he returned by abandoning his body, a part of his life, to regain possession of a third body?
The thought chilled him, but, as if his body couldn't think about it, the feelings he felt were less significant than the shock of the arrival of the goblins. For his body, it was a first.
The lords began to buy the information in front of him. The separation was made again, and this time, he was in the group of warriors and mages - during the whole scene, he was on his phone, frantically watching the news. When the first group decided to go get supplies, he joined them.
They were about twenty to leave.