Bab 1: Regression and Divergence

I was dead.

Well, that should be the case. After being thrown into outer space and deprived of air in the endless vacuum of the universe, I doubt one could survive it.

Yet, strangely enough, I wasn't a corpse floating in the emptiness.

The scene was no longer the stretching abyss but someplace oddly familiar, it was both reminiscing and terrible at the same time.

I could feel my lungs stretch as I breathed the foul air looming in this god-forsaken place and my entire body had shrunk as of a kid. And the armored vest I had was replaced with the old gray rag smeared with blood and dirt.

"Quit dawdling there Cipher! Run!" a familiar voice called then something swooshed from my side, and from her sight, I was paralyzed. "I said run!"

"Gabby?" I asked, yet the voice I let out was of a higher pitch. A child's voice.

"Who else, you dork!? And don't you dare drop that black orb," she pressured, grabbing my left hand and dragging me into the alleys of the slums, trying to ditch the angry mobs in our tail.

She was far younger than I had last seen her, having the features of someone whose just about to enter puberty and not the lifeless corpse of someone in her forties. And with that short black hair and tomboyish attitude, one would mistake her for a boy.

Meanwhile, my scruffy black hair springs as the wind zooms in the opposite direction we are running while pushing the limits of this frail thin body.

I'm starting to remember this place… this time. It was twenty-eight years ago. Back when I was twelve and still a wandering rat in the slums along with Gabby and Nate who became my companion with our shared fate.

Both abandoned and unwanted.

Yet I couldn't grasp what happened and how it happened. Those long years of suffering in the slums, enduring wave after wave of monsters, and the abandonment of those so-called Players.

Was it all just a daydream? A hallucination caused by the black orb I currently have in my possession?

Whether it is or not, it was too real for me to be just a dream, and this hatred for them that still lingers was too great to be mistaken as an illusion.

But if it were real, then is this one a dream? This scene doesn't feel like a dream either. The foul stench is rotting my nose, the cuts I had were starting to sting and my heart beating in the crazy turn of events is too realistic.

"What happened to you back there? You were so surprised as if you've seen a ghost" Gabby claimed.

"... well, kind of?" I replied, seemingly sending a jolt to Gabby for a moment.

She was kind of right though, considering both of us should be dead as far as I know. Technically, not just us but the rest of humanity ended up as specs floating in space, as far as I can recall.

"Q-quit joking! You know I hate things like that!" she scolded, continuing on dragging me. "And we still haven't gotten away so focus on running."

Running through the alley of the slums, someone crossed my mind who should be with us but wasn't in sight. "Where's Nathan?"

"What are you talking about? We helped him escape. That's why we're on the run!" she insisted as we went through numerous obstacles and crowds.

The slum is crowded with people who are mostly idle and waiting for a blessing. It has become their mentality.

And it's all thanks to the society we currently live in.

None of us could escape because even if we wanted to, the other side of the mountain only brings death with dreadful creatures loitering in it, and within our front is nothing but a vast ocean.

The other side of the walled city also holds the barren wasteland where other dreadful beings lurk. And the city itself excluded its interior from the rest of us, locking themselves behind tall walls of concrete as if our existence was filth to their city. The rumors only tell that this slum wasn't a slum before and used to be part of the city but none knew why it became excluded.

None knew why the walls between the slums and the city exist in the first place but the filth the city is ignoring is our only safe haven from the real threat of the world. Yet there are still those who are striving. Struggling by any means to get into a safer place as the slums hold no real security.

There's still hunger, pain and of course, people who would drag you down for their own selfish interests.

"We go left, okay? Left" she claimed in the sight of an intersection.

As something felt off, a sudden sense of Deja vu hit me. Without thinking, I took her hand and guided her in the right direction.

"What's wrong with you!? I said this way!" She claimed, trying to counter the force I've exerted but as soon as she gazed at her choice of path, there were already mobs coming out of that alley. "Or maybe you're right. Let's take right."

It only confirmed my intuition after almost getting caught in numerous intersections. This is the past, there's no doubt about it. And we almost got caught for the second time.

"Follow me. I'll lead the way." From then on, I guided ourselves, barely escaping and keeping our hair from the clutches of the mobs. But little by little, we were gaining distance.

With twists and turns, we eventually made it out of the mobsters' sight along with the fortune we couldn't have imagined we'd keep in this timeline.

Originally, we were supposed to be caught and all we've stolen would have been stolen as well. And our efforts of foraging in the restricted abandoned tomb would have been wasted.

I admit it. We are tomb and dungeon thieves. Stealing abandoned equipment, items, and cash inside a restricted area, and in today's case, the recently cleared tomb by the players.

The black knight's tomb in the coastal cavern. The place where the orb had been found.

Tombs are anomalous places that suddenly appear with no certainty and hold a great treasure that grants anyone certain abilities. However, most of these are quickly usurped by players, leaving no chance for mere humans to accumulate the ability to fend for themselves.

The reason why only what is left are the things we could take.

We know stealing is bad but in this world, reality is harsh and hunger is a plague that slowly kills you if you can't find a cure. We work to sustain one's hunger and in our line of jobs, we're just working to survive.

But in this scenario, the orb was our rightful finding as the players abandoned the coffin where the orb lies without checking properly. And the other men chasing us were just fellow thieves wanting to steal our prize.

"Phew, glad we took the right path, or else we would've been goners" she exhaled, grabbing her ankles from the marathon. "Say, how were you able to do that? It was almost like you could predict which way is safe."

"Ah… dumb luck?" I shrugged.

"Gee, I wish we could use that luck of yours to escape this place." she sighed, before waving her hands into the crowd as she sighted someone "Nathan, over here!"

It was really him amongst the crowd. The one Gabby loved the most, no matter what timeline it was.

"Sis!" Nathan dashed towards us, sniveling with a runny nose while dragging a bag carrying his own stash of stolen items from the tomb. "I was scared. Don't leave me again."

"S-sorry…" she hugged him tighter as her face sullens.

Even in the past, she loved her brother dearly. She prioritized his needs, acting luke his second mother and rejecting my confession years later. The reason she didn't accept the love I confessed to her. No matter how many times I had tried.

Would it change in this timeline if I gave it one last try?

"Ciphy!" he added, clinging to me next with his runny nose.

It has been a long time since he's been this close.

He was such a brat yet had grown splendid and strong enough to protect her sister while I was away for so long. But ever since I got separated from them, he's gotten more and more distant to the point I could barely talk to him.

I guess this return should be my redemption for all my actions.

"I-it's good to see you too…" I claimed, brushing his messy and rough hair.

"Since when did you start not hating my snotty brother?" she glared but dismissed it soon after. She fastened the strap of the makeshift backpack she had and cheered "Now, time to sell all our hauls. I wonder how much this orb would fetch us…"

"I ain't selling it…"

"Huh? I didn't hear you. Speak clearly, 'cause I think I'm hearing nonsense" she implied.

"Sell everything else, we'll be keeping this sphere" Something about this ball of darkness makes me want to keep it. It was there, the moment I awakened in this time. And for some reason, something tells me this is related to why I am back in this past.

I just can't give away a piece of evidence that could lead me to what is happening.

"Are you hearing yourself? That's the only thing that looks valuable enough for us to make decent money aside from the metal scraps we've fetched. And how are we supposed to eat properly with spare changes, smartypants!?"

"Sis… Ciphy, don't fight…" Nate interjected.

"We're not fighting, Nate. He's just being a headache again" Gabby glared.

"Look, all I'm saying is that we'll not trade the orb," I claimed, hiding the orb inside the pockets of my sling bag. "And besides, we have something far more valuable than a ball of black glass. We were just too stupid not to realize it"

"We… have?" she asked.

"Come on. Let's go to the market before the others catch up." Indeed, we had something far more valuable than an orb that only fetched a copper coin due to its undetermined use.