Having only been a Fighter in the past, Levi had never personally unlocked the Tamer class before. He knew the basics: You had to force a creature to completely surrender, which would then unlock the class.

After becoming a Tamer, he could bind future minions with a simple spell, but the first one had to be done organically.

“Stop fighting,” Levi commanded.

The gremlin ignored his command, wriggling and trying to twist free as vehemently as ever.

Levi leaned his knee forward, crushing the breath out of it. “Stop fighting,” he repeated.

The gremlin wheezed and clawed at the ground, tearing up grass in clumps and dragging lines through the dirt, but it did not submit.

Someone screamed. “Is that a child? Someone help!”

Levi tilted his head as someone kicked at him. One hand whipped up in battle-trained reflex to catch the leg and he shoved back.

The young man who’d assaulted him hopped and stumbled, but that didn’t deter him. “Leave the kid alone!” He came back swinging, clearly intent on knocking Levi off the gremlin.

Levi rolled away, dragging the gremlin with him by its throat so it couldn’t hurt any of the bystanders.

“It’s not human,” he tried to explain. “It’s a monster from a dungeon.”

“Help!” someone nearby continued to scream. “Murder!”

Levi held the creature up, but no one could see the horn and tail marking it as non-human.

Levi sighed. This was a waste of time. His throbbing leg reminded him he still needed to find a restorative as quickly as possible. “Forget it. I’m taking it with me.”

Someone had their phone out, pointed at them, giving Levi a strange sense of nostalgia. It had been years since the last pre-invasion electricity-based human technology had ceased functioning.

He sent out a quick mana ping to scan for threats or the gremlin’s home dungeon. But, of course, he had no mana, so nothing happened. Instead, he jogged deeper into the park, away from the sidewalk and the people watching.

Something about the scene felt incredibly familiar. The skyline, skyscrapers against blue sky, it looked too...

His momentary distraction gave the slippery gremlin an opening. It bit his hand hard, and Levi instinctively flung the creature to the ground. It turned to attack again, but Levi reacted faster. He kicked out, then dove on top of it, slamming his elbow onto its skull and knocking it to the ground. It lay dazed and twitching.

“Last chance. Do as I say, or I’ll find another gremlin to tame.”

It stared up at him groggily, tensed as though to continue fighting, then slumped and bowed its head.

Congratulations Earth Human! You have Awakened!

Stat system unlocked! Good luck!

You have 1 level to assign.

Classes available:

Fighter Tamer

Had the system always had convenient class-selection buttons? He remembered being utterly baffled by the unintuitive system navigation when he’d Awakened the first time. It provided no tutorial, no help menu, no guidance whatsoever. The system acted as though everyone should already be fully familiar with its functions, and its entirely alien navigation techniques took some getting used to.

After six years of using system resources on a daily basis, he must have subconsciously rearranged things to his preference automatically.

He selected Tamer.

Regens are now unlocked.

New ability: Tame

Attempt to forcefully convert a creature into a minion.

Tier: 1

Cost: 5 mana, 5 stamina

Restriction: Can only be used on creatures with less than 5% health remaining.

It took only another moment to lock in his selection.

Class ‘Tamer’ has been set to default. Would you like to name ‘Horned Gremlin’ at this time?

Levi looked down at it and considered a moment. “Skarm.”

Unauthorized use: this story is on Amazon without permission from the author. Report any sightings.

Skarm tilted its head, unsure what to think of the name.

“Too late to complain!”

Skarm blinked, then shrugged in acceptance.

Levi focused on his new minion, the nameplate appearing over his head.

Skarm: Level 1

(Horned Gremlin)

Levi nodded. Not much, but it'd do. Then he glanced around them at the open lawns and green trees.

“I need to check something. Wait here.”

Levi jumped to grab a low hanging branch, then had to burn stamina to scramble up to the top of the tree. He scowled at his arms. Too weak to even pull him up without system assistance? Unacceptable.

He reached the top of the tree and stood there, a slow surge of stamina constantly correcting his balance.

Clear and open sky in all directions. No flicker of rainbow flame on the horizon. No cloud of ash blotting out the sun. No hint of anything but an ordinary city that had never known pain and terror and death.

Where was he? Nothing about this made any sense. This wasn't Chicago, that much he knew. The skyline seemed... familiar, but not in any specific way. It could have been any number of cities they'd fought to retain for as long as possible before their inevitable retreat.

Everything about this felt so wrong.

Levi hopped down from the treetop without thinking.

The impact burned through his remaining stamina in an instant. Instead of landing in a ready crouch, his leg gave out completely as he both heard and felt something crack. Instinctively he tried to turn the awkward fall into a roll, but his body reacted sluggishly, weak without the addition of system stamina. He wasn't used to being level 1 again.

“Ow, damn it!” Having less than a thousand stamina would take a lot of getting used to. And what was up with his body? Even without his system stats, he'd been fighting for enough years, he should be able to handle simple situations like this on muscle memory alone.

Skarm ran over and poked him in the side. The gremlin's eyes were wide with concern.

Levi exhaled, irritated. “I'm not dead.”

Skarm's tail flicked happily, but his face remained full of worry.

“Be patient. Urgh.” He grunted as he shifted to a sitting position and prodded at his leg. “I can fix something like this easily enough.”

Levi gritted his teeth against the pain as he firmly pressed against the fracture, verifying that everything was where it should be, then released the hold on his system health and nudged it forcefully toward the injury.

Relief washed over him in a steady wave as the damage mended, releasing tension he hadn't noticed in his shoulders and back.

Levi exhaled with a shaky laugh. “Note to self: no more jumping without leveling first.”

Music rang out, abruptly and without warning, triggering sudden nostalgia. That ringtone... coming from his pocket?

Levi pulled out the phone with a growing feeling of unreality. Not just a phone. His phone.

He stared down at the screen. Mark Huiron. The name meant nothing to him. The date, though, shook him. July 7.

It wasn't July. Couldn't be. Why would it be July? Had he lost six months somehow?

The ringing stopped, but Levi kept staring until the screen put itself back to sleep.

What happened after what he thought of as his death? Had he been in a coma for half a year?

No. That didn't make any sense. He'd been walking across a town, not waking up in a Healer’s shelter.

Was this all some kind of fever dream? Something else controlling his perception?

Illusions were tricky because you couldn't always tell you were in them, but reality had a feeling to it that couldn't be replicated. Levi had never been the paranoid sort who practiced constant reality checks, but he'd heard enough horror stories about Control monsters not to neglect it completely.

The grass, the trees, the people, the sky... this wasn't an illusion. This was real.

The headache remained in full force, pulsing painfully behind his eyes.

This city. Happy and clean and full of life and hope.

This gremlin and its dungeon. So low level, hardly a threat at all.

His phone. In his pocket.

July.

He could only think of one place and time in which all those events coincided, and the implications were staggering.

Could it be? He fell back against the nearest tree, still staring at the black-screened rectangle in his hand.

He'd gone back in time. Nothing else made sense.

He swiped open the phone, then hesitated at the lock screen. He didn't remember his password. He let it go dark again and tilted it to look at the trace of fingerprints. He hovered over each number, until one felt right. He let his hand go through the motions without thought, and the phone unlocked.

Calendar. Check the year.

Sure enough... eleven years ago.

Active internet connection, not a frozen device showing old data.

Eleven years.

Levi swallowed. None of the invasions had happened yet; 10/24 hadn't happened yet. The date of the first portals opening, like 9/11 before it, had been seared into the memory of everyone who had lived through it.

Which meant just Levi now. No one else knew what had happened. What would happen. No one knew anything.

He slid down the trunk and sat, staring blankly at the distant buildings just visible above the trees. The clear blue sky beyond.

Dungeons would’ve been appearing for less than a year at this point, individually luring people to their deaths. There would be rumors and cover-ups, disappearances and odd environmental shifts, but the broader world would be unaware of what was happening. All of which was a mere blip compared to what was coming.

Dungeons were slow and subtle. The invasions were fast, brutal and relentless.

Responsibility slammed into Levi like a physical weight, choking his breath in his chest.

No one knew anything.

He had three months to change the future. And he hadn't the slightest idea where to begin.

----------------------------------------