Reverse Chronicles

The Reversal System

    The day almost ended in this other world. The sun is about to completely hide behind the western mountains beyond Croverre. The old man was herding the flock and the herd back into the barn. He seemed to be worried about something. Piqued by my curiosity over what lied beyond the farm, I went over the western part of the fence and took a walk.

    The green plains and meadows was exquisite under the orange sunset sky. I sat down and felt the cool and soothing breeze of the wind caressing my cheek. For the first time, I felt truly calm in this world. "This isn't so bad, after all." Then suddenly, I felt pain over my right shoulder and I witnessed as some of my health bar faded. I turned to see what caused it and saw a yellow slime-like creature.

    It was attacking me, continuously bumping and bouncing against me. My health bar was chipped, but the damage was minimal compared to when I was attacked by the old farmer. I grabbed a rock and threw it at the thing. It seemed to have sustained some damage. I threw another rock and the creature disappeared. As I was about to celebrate, a message appeared in front of my face. "Slime defeated, gained 2 experience points. 28 experience needed to level 2."

    "Experience, level?" I pondered as I got more curious. "Let's see what happens when I level up." So I spent the rest of the afternoon looking for more slime. As I battled more and more of them, I noticed a pattern in their movements. They always struck at the same place and at the same moment. It was important in-battle experience. Before I knew it, I was able to avoid any attack from any slime. "Slime defeated, gained 2 experience points. 14 experience needed to level 2."

    As I was busy looking for more slime to slaughter, the sun completely set hiding behind the western mountains. Not letting up, I continued my journey to level two. I looked for more slime and defeated them. Things got more difficult, but faster, as I sometimes encounter two slimes at once. Yet, even with their increased numbers, I am still able to evade their incoming attacks. Perhaps, I have really gained experience! "Slime party defeated, gained 4 experience points. 2 experience needed to level 2."

    "Just one more!" As I became more excited, I did not realize that I ventured too far from the farm. I took a look around and saw its light far off distance. The night was still young and the stars were just beginning to climb their way up to the night sky. I have two choices, one is to continue then head back; and, two head back while continuing on the way. I chose the second option and tried my luck while returning to the farm. Under the moonlight and the twinkling stars, I casually walked back. The wind was getting colder every second, and the student uniform for girls surely aren't that cold protective. "I wish this skirt was longer," I felt the cold wind brushing against my knee.

    I was almost at the farm, but it was too strange. I haven't encountered a single slime. As I stretched and made an effort to reach level two, something just bit me from behind. I saw as a large portion of my health bar fading away. I had less than half of it now. I turned around and looked at what attacked me, it was a large black dog that had somewhat black smog around it. It had red blood eyes. Its sneer made me shudder.

    It got closer to attack me again. I caved in and ran as fast as I could. I heard it rapidly following me from behind. As I took a look back, it was right just behind me, a few centimeters behind! I took a quick stop, drifted and held on to the fence on my right and ran back. The large dog managed to bite me again and now my health bar is lower than ever. I was also bleeding. My right shoulder was bitten from that stop. However, I was able to gain momentum jumping to the other side of the fence before that large beast could attack me again.

    Just when I thought I was safe, the beast jumped over the fence pinning me to the ground. I screamed in terror. "Is this it? Is this where my journey ends? Will I return to my world when I die? Will I die here without returning to my world?" a lot of questions filled my head. As the beast got ready to strike, I just closed my eyes and cowered in fear. Suddenly, I heard a sharp cry, enough to make me flinch and open my eyes to what happened. A blade pierced the beast's neck just missing me as it pierced through. The blade ultimately killed the black hound saving me from death. The beast disappeared, ultimately fading into smog.

    Surprisingly, a level up message appeared in front of me, "Dark hound defeated, gained 20 experience. Congratulations! You are now in level 2. HP increased by 5, MP increased by 4, Strength increased by 2, Agility increased 1, Vitality increased by 1, Intelligence increased by 0, Mentality increased by 0."

    "Are you alright?" I heard the old man's voice from a distance. He removed the sword in front of me and helped me up. "You shouldn't dwell out much at night if you don't have a proper weapon and enough experience." He helped me to his house and healed my wounds. I slowly regained my health back.

    "What is this world?"

    "Reversia?" the old man looked at me with such a surprised expression. "You were not kidding when you said you were not from this world?"

    "Why would I joke about that?"

    "The idea seems so bizarre."

    "Anyway, what's with this level up thing? And why are there stats? This doesn't exist in my world."

    "Really?" the old man looked at me with another surprised face. "In this world, you gain experience and level up. The higher your level, the more stronger, you will get. You can gain experience from fighting different monsters. There is a fixed amount of experience you can gain from each monster. As there is leveling up experience, there is also battle experience. When you fight the same monster over and over again, you will be able to predict its movements. There are some monsters whose intelligence make it hard to predict but the more you fight them, the more you will be able to predict what they are thinking."

    "I see," I pinched myself to check if I wasn't dreaming. "What about the strength, agility, and all this other different stuff?"

    "Your parameters? They increase whenever you level up. There are also other means to increase your parameters, such as training and studying. Strength affects the amount of physical damage you can inflict. Dexterity is your tendency to resist physical damage. Agility affects your speed and accuracy. Intelligence affects the amount of magical damage you can inflict. Mentality is your tendency to resist magical damage. Your HP is your health points, as you might have noticed a green bar on your top left. MP is your mana points, the blue bar below the health bar."

    "And if my HP bar runs out?"

    "You die and disappear."

    "You said something about magic. Can I do magic, too?"

    "Anyone can cast spells, every class in this world has the ability to cast spells. However, the magnitude and the difficulty of the spell is a factor in what spells that a particular class can cast. All classes can cast basic spells such as Cure and Heal, but on more complex spells, only magical classes can cast them. You also have to invest time on learning them."

    "Classes?"

    "There are different classes. From soldiers to sorcerers, there a variety depending on what you choose. You can pick your class when you reach level 5, but you have to start on the simplest ones, Recruit, Pupil, and Apprentice. Under the Recruit class, you are maximizing your physical capabilities. When you reach a certain requirement, you can upgrade to stronger physically-inclined classes. Under the Pupil class, you will be maximizing your magical capabilities. When you reach a certain requirement or when you learn a certain amount of spells, you can upgrade to great magical classes. Under Apprentice, you will be exposed to more specialized type of combat, such as long range abilities or agility dependent classes."

    "What's your class?" I blatantly asked.

    "I'm a Swordmaster," the old man replied.

    "That makes you a master of swords?"

    "Yes, I am."

    "By the way, you haven't told me your name."

    "My name is Marcus."

    And so my conversation with Marcus, revealed a lot of things to me. This world goes on a completely different system from where I'm from. I sure do hope that the laws of physics still apply to this world. Marcus retires to his bedroom, while I sleep on the sofa, getting ready for a journey that lies ahead of me.