It's strange to think that the Event happened before I was born.
The "Event" is still a terrible name for it, all these years after, but it was an almost catastrophic thing that happened.
Well, I guess technically there were two parts to the Event, and I just happened to be born in the middle of it.
According to the people that were keeping track, eight million people (that's approximately 0.1% of the world's population) disappeared one day. That was the first part of the Event.
It was utter chaos.
There was no pattern found in who disappeared, so nobody could figure out why those specific people disappeared. No matter what age, nationality, or gender they were, it seemed completely random.
One of the people who disappeared just happened to be my father.
Now and then, when Mum feels quite lonely, she would tell me the story of the "Event" day.
On that day, Mum and Dad were having a little coffee date at the small café down the road from where they lived. And as they sat, drinking their coffee, and chatting happily, Dad disappeared without a trace.
The world grieved and slowly moved on when efforts to figure out what happened to the "Lost Souls" (as the media labelled them) ended up with no results.
For Mum, I was born. A healthy baby boy, with her hazel eyes and Dad's hair. Light brown and wavy.
Mum had a great support network that helped her out during the early months of parenthood as well as dealing with the presumed loss of her husband.
That was until, one day, almost exactly one year after the disappearance, most of the disappeared people came back, including Dad.
That same day, massive and majestic portals appeared all over the world. Each had a countdown that appeared above the portals, seemingly magically. That was the second part of the Event.
Those that seemed to be leading the people that disappeared appeared before the United Nations and explained the situation. They created whole new laws and systems all over the world to accommodate the "Lost Souls" who had returned.
They returned differently.
It's strange to think that life before the Event was so much simpler.
Yes, there were wars between nations that were fought. Yes, there were economic breakdowns that threatened the "fall of civilisation as we know it". But at the same time, there was no 'System'. And there were no portals that led to dangerous Dungeons.
I grew up in a world where a small percentage of the population had access to an out-of-this-world 'System', where people could develop and grow like a character in some role-playing game. The people who disappeared for a year came back as the first generation of Players, or Gen-1 Players for short.
According to those that returned, they were transported to a different dimension on a fantastical world filled with monsters and cultures that Earth didn't have that was called by the System, the "Tutorial World". And on Tutorial World, they were told to: Survive.
So, it always felt strange to think that the world before I was born, before the Event, didn't have this game-like System, because I can't imagine it at all. All I ever knew was a world where the System exists, and a small percentage of humanity can use it. All I ever knew was a world where Dungeons exist, and the constant fear of a Dungeon Break looms in the air.
All I ever knew was my dad was a hero.
He wasn't the strongest Gen-1 Player that returned, but he was always the strongest in my young eyes. He told me once that he decided to become a Tank (someone that specialised in defensive stats to withstand enemy attacks so that allies can attack freely) because he wanted to be someone who could protect his family. And in my eyes, he was.
And as I looked up at the black nothingness above me from the ground, trapped in the middle of a C-Tier Dungeon as a D-Rank Player, it felt strange to think about what Dad's last thoughts could have been when he was dying in the middle of the A-Tier Dungeon that he ultimately helped clear.
Like him, I was about to die from a whatever-monster that was hunting me down in a god-forsaken Dungeon.
Like him, I was about to meet my fate all alone.
Unlike him, though, I was betrayed… actually, it was more like I was used.
I only joined this Party in a C-Tier Dungeon because I really needed some money, and if I get some free XP out of the deal, then that was an extra bonus. They were looking for somebody to fill up the Player requirement, so they didn't care that I was only D-Rank.
The Party assured me that all I needed to do was stay at the back and keep myself out of the way.
I thought it was a good idea.
And they seemed nice enough.
I hadn't done any research on the Dungeon, so I didn't know that the Boss Monster of this Dungeon was a gimmick monster. It was known as the Parasitic Hunter, and what it does is once it gets a hold of a prey's scent, it separates itself into two.
One-half stay rooted to the spot where it separated and is open to attacks that way, while the other half scurried around tracking down the prey. Only when both halves are defeated and burnt to a crisp is the Boss defeated.
What I didn't know at the time I decided to join the Party, was that the leader of the Party was Gary Morewind. A C-Rank Player whose brother was Richard Morewind. The most infamous non-Player loan shark in Melbourne whom I borrowed money from to help pay for Mum's hospital bills.
And I was way behind in my payments.
You would think it would be better business to keep me alive so that I could pay off what I owed, but apparently, Richard had decided to simply cut his losses on me instead and told his brother to leave me to die in the Dungeon.
Like Dad, I had been chosen to be a Player. I was a Gen-7 Player.
Unlike him, who was a respectable B-Rank Player, I was D-Rank. And not only that, apparently, I was the weakest D-Rank Player ever.
I had negligible Attributes and barely any skills, and I struggled to find any Party that would let me join — well, except this one.
I really should have realised something was up sooner.
As I waited for the Parasite Hunter to find me, it was strange to think about what my life could have been if the Event didn't happen. If the System wasn't a real thing, and portals to dangerous Dungeons stayed only as a derivative plot contrivance for a myriad of power fantasy stories.
So, imagine my shock when a bright Window popped up in front of me with the message:
[CONGRATULATIONS!
You have managed to fulfil all the prerequisites to use the Prestige Ability.
Would you like to Prestige?]