A tall, fair and skinny young man, wearing an old, grey raincoat and worn-out, black jeans stood on a roadside, staring at a collection of capped bottles sitting comfortably on a table. His name was Gaus.

Probably because it was late evening, Gaus and his capped bottles were the only things in the vicinity, waiting patiently. After what seemed like forever, he saw two people approaching him from the other side of the road. From their tired looks, worn-out dresses and fast strides Gaus assumed they had spent the whole day at work and were in a hurry to get home and rest.

"We have fresh milk for sale. 5% discount." He said at the top of his lungs, hoping to make a customer out of the newcomers.

And when he didn't get any response, "5% discount. 10% discount if you buy two."

"..."

"..."

"...You can have a 20% discount if you buy more," he said, desperation palpable in his voice.

But still no luck. The two would-be customers didn't take his offer.

A few minutes later, another batch came - three old men and a woman. This time Gaus went all out from the very beginning.

"20% discount from the original price for any pair of purchase!" He declared.

None of them took his offer.

As he waited for more customers, the King's clock rang twelve times, clearly signifying midnight. He reluctantly packed his stuff and went home.

His house was close - seven to eight minutes' walk from the roadside. Although, he usually spent an extra minute or two because of his load.

The house was a flat apartment, built from mud and plastered with the modern cement to keep the thing standing (a new but popular method employed by builders to keep the mud houses standing). It had been one year since Gaus had lost his grandma (though she wasn't strictly his grandma since she adopted him from an orphanage; nevertheless she was the only family he had and she was too old to be his mother, so he decided to call her grandma) and he had been living alone ever since. He had learned to live with that: milking cows and selling their milk for a living and occasionally offering tailoring services. Although the latter wasn't as lucrative as milking cows.

He opened the house, went inside and locked the door behind him. It was a small, peaceful town, but locking doors at night was the routine.

Once inside he left the bottles in the kitchen and went to the toilet.

Afterward, he had a nice, warm bath. His supper, as usual, consisted of his leftover milk. He picked a bottle from his sale collection and went to his room.

The room, like the rooms of his peers, was nowhere near tidy - clothes, dirty plates, used bottles, spoiled milk, and many other things occupied the floor and the small bed. Gaus managed to find himself a seat. He downed the milk in a few minutes and threw himself on the bed after clearing the little space he needed.

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He fell asleep almost immediately, thinking about how many customers would buy his product tomorrow, and whether or not he would have a tailoring offer from the locals.

***

Scream.

At first light, Gaus woke up with a resounding scream. His body trembled under his sweat-soaked underwear.

"Urgh... Just a nightmare." He gasped, trying to catch his breathing.

Alas, this wasn't his only problem, as soon as he was fully awake he realized he was currently standing at the center of a narrow street, facing a towering, dark-green wall.

This...

He turned around almost instinctively only to see another freshly-painted, yellow wall. This wasn't his house, in fact, there was no house with yellow or dark-green paint in the whole of Sagagi, none. He was sure there was no such house in the entire village.

What is going on?

He slapped himself on the left cheek, hoping to wake himself up but to no avail, the only real change was the pain in his cheek.

A quick analysis of himself told him his clothes were the same old raincoat and worn-out jeans he had slept in, but he now had a wristwatch. He'd owned only one wristwatch in his entire life. It was a rubber one gifted to him by his grandma on the eve of the King's festival. But now, out of nowhere, he had a brand-new one.

He stared at it intently.

Closer observation revealed it to be made of a golden-like material that he used to see with his grandma's friends every now and then. It had no band, it was just glued to his skin just like that. It had a transparent lens showing the dial, and, unlike his previous digital one, this was a second-hand one.

The first thing he did was to pull it off, but unsurprisingly it didn't budge. He tried screwing the crown just to see if it worked but the moment his hand touched it, he saw a flash in front of his eyes. A dark-blue screen displaying words in an unknown yet comprehensible tongue appeared in his view.

Welcome to Multiverse.

Your magiwatch is ready to be used. Use the crown to activate skills.

He wasn't sure what was going on but he completed the process of screwing the crown. As soon as he did, the writings on the blue screen disappeared and were instantly replaced by some new ones.

Rewind by turning the crown backward.

Gaus was dumbfounded. He understood very little of what was going on, but, after some debate, he positioned his hand on the crown and turned it backward.

The world blurred and everything just went blank in the same way television would blackout. It then returned back to normal a second later.

Magiwatch has saved five seconds.

You have Rewound for five seconds, effectively erasing everything in the said period. Only you will remember.

His frown deepened. All his life he had never seen magic, but this seemed just like it. If not magic then what? A man slept in his room in Sagagi, near the Emirs' Palace road, but he woke up in another place with a strange watch and some creepy blue writings telling him he was in a different world called Multiverse? The worst (best) part was, according to the bizarre, blue writings, this strange watch could turn time backward and erase everything that happened in the erased period.

Gaus was just seventeen but growing up in the orphanage and living alone after his grandma's death had taught him a lot. He quickly came to a decision: he should first seek refuge and survive the night and then look for answers tomorrow morning.

But it wouldn't be easy. As he turned to leave someone snapped at him.

"Hey, what the hell are you doing outside?"