The faces of all the friends and comrades that had died before his eyes in the past flickered through Al's mind. Al had the impression that he often dreamt of them, though he usually never remembered his dreams. Some mornings he woke up with a bitter aftertaste in his mouth...maybe it was because of this.

As he wondered why he so foolishly sacrificed himself for Koro, which led to him wondering why he was even capable of coherent thought while dreaming, the cycle of faces repeated once more.

The first had been Laura, Al's best friend who he met in the orphanage, and one of only two people who he relied upon everyday to stay alive after they were kicked out into the unforgiving streets. She was malnourished just like Al himself, and when the first rats started evolving, she got bitten by one and died in a matter of hours after the System incorporated Earth.

She used to sometimes go out at night and bring back some money, saying she was robbing it from people's pockets. Al and their friend Juan knew what she really did though, since the bruises gave it away. They tried to stop her, but she refused. The night before the System incorporation she was treated especially badly, and it just made her even more exposed to the poisonous fangs of the rats. Al and Juan could only cry and hold her hand as she died.

Between that and the gross noises and smells that came from his mother's room when he was a child, anything to do with intercourse disgusted him mightily. He even used to be apprehensive upon women, though eventually that attitude became less and less pronounced.

The next face that appeared was Juan himself, who died about two months after the incorporation. He and Al went in a mad frenzy killing rats the first few days, and reached level 3 fairly quickly. The two of them put all their points into Dexterity, since it would be impossible to completely defend against the poison, so their best bet was avoiding their bites. They used their swiftness to efficiently rob money and food, taking advantage of the disarray that civilisation was in.

They eventually went on a journey north, encountering stronger monsters, but just before Juan could get to level 5 and get his class, they were ambushed by a pack of mutated wolves while Al was on watch. He managed to wake Juan up, but he had invested some points into Strength and was unable to escape the wolf pack.

Al heard him scream and saw his crying face as he was dragged away by the wolves. Al kept running though, as three of the wolves kept chasing him. He got bitten several times and almost got an arm torn off by the rabid beasts, but eventually managed to somehow kill them in a fierce melee.

That awarded him his class, Death Dancer, due to all his close encounters with the rats, the couple of times he almost died while on the journey, and his several-hour-long struggle against the wolves.

The next face was Johnny. He was a farmer who found Sl collapsed and full of wounds on the forest near his farm, and took him in. Al taught the the old man that killing mutated beasts gave him experience, though the further away he was, the more experience disipated before reaching him.

This made killing beasts with the rifle he had (it was normal in Texas) inefficient, but doing it with his shotgun was better. The man got a pretty neat class and bought an accuracy-enhancing skill from an online marketplace set up by the System, and the two eventually set out to level up as a two-man party.

He got a ranger-like class that made the loss of experience when killing from far away much less pronounced, but eventually they ran out of bullets. Johnny tried to swich to using a club, but eventually he got careless and was killed by a relatively weak monster he thought he could deal with while Al was sleeping.

Al continued levelling up alone, and by level 10 he had stopped putting all his points into Dexterity and put some into Strength and Perception. He reached a big city around a year after the incorporation, and someone had set up something similar to an adventurer's guild.

The system had somehow destroyed all the satellites so there was no internet, and the incessantly evolving monsters meant that many cities became isolated. Also, once he became famous Al was told confidential information on how nuclear bombs, submarines and other advanced technologies had also been stripped of their most essential materials and parts they needed to function.

Al formed a party with a healer, a brawler and a self-proclaimed magic swordsman who could barely infuse his sword with wind mana. They were together for almost a year. The brawler was a nice and straightforward woman, and she was dating the healer. He was also a nice man, though it was a bit annoying that Al lost experience every time he was healed.

'Well, they had to gain experience somehow, I guess.'

Al was the one who had to get healed the most often, and it made him wonder how he'd survived up until then.

The next faces were the brawler and healer. The two and Al were betrayed by the magic swordsman, called Kale. 'His name alone annoys me.' They we're facing a powerful boss inside a high-ranked dungeon, but the moment things got awry he ran away with his tail between his legs.

Eventually they managed to defeat the boss, by being constantly healed. The brawler got thrown into a wall and died of blood loss on the boss' last struggle though, and the healer, who had long since been out of mana, used all his remaining life force to try to bring her back. They both ended up dead.

'That's why love is so disgusting.'

Al got extremely good protective gear from that dungeon and a powerful rapier he baptised Airbreaker, a tool that he wielded for the almost eight years that passed until his death. From then on he wandered alone for several years, slowly and steadily levelling up. He saved several people and parties from monsters, showing how high his individual power was compared to most people at the time.

'How weird, I swear monsters back on Earth must've given less experience than they do here. It took me 10 years to get to level 23 after all, but barely 4 to reach level 19 over here... Well, I guess cultivation also made killing monsters much easier, and they were always close by, also my epic class gives a bigger experience boost than the rare class I had on Earth...yeah, it checks out.'

Until 7 years after the integration, he never joined a party. When city bossed started appearing and wrecking havoc in the middle of urban areas Al fought them several times with dozens of others, but he never developed ties with anyone.

Several times he was attacks but organised groups akin to bandits, but he always managed to kill them or somehow slip away with his outrageous Dexterity. He got kidnapped once with that group that had a mind magic user, but he was rescued by a man wielding a giant hammer who insisted that his name was Thor.

The man managed to somehow convince him to form a party, and after visiting many places they arrived at New York. They fought against a fearsome beetle-like boss with tens of others, but only four people remained after the fight. They were Thor, Al, an impressive fire mage called Lily, and Kale.

Al had changed so much that Kale didn't recognise him, but Al almost killed him in his sleep. A healer named Mary stopped him with all her might, saying overly idealistic stuff like "You'll become as bad as him if you do that!" or "You have to forgive him! People change!" So he eventually gave up.

After some time the five naturally formed a party. Kale still didn't recognise Al because back then they called him Alberto, since they were from southern USA and used to Spanish names. Apparently Thor developed feelings for Lily after a few months, because he came to Al looking for counselling. Al just told him to fuck off with his love issues, but then Mary came to him saying she was in love with Thor.

Al just told her to ask someone else.

The last face was Mary. One day the continent boss that had been reaping lives left and right as he wandered through the continent like an unstoppable calamity, arrived at the small village Al's party was staying at. Thankfully it was morning already and they'd woken up, so they weren't caught completely by surprise.

The fight was tough, and in an unexpected attack, the wolf launched the claws of his left paw towards Mary, killing her on the spot. Al managed to eventually kill the damn beast, killing himself in the process. He wondered how Thor and Lily were doing now, if they were still alive that is. Al didn't know if she was interested in Thor as a partner, but surely she would eventually budge to his aggressive advances...

'Why am I thinking of that now? I need to wake up, dammit!'

Al's eyes shot open as he thought that, and he noticed a warm sensation spreading all throughout his body. His eyes were filled with river water 'or maybe it's my tears' so he couldn't see clearly, and his ears were also clogged up, but he knew exactly what was going on.

He whispered weakly "Thanks, Yuly."

Then he fell back asleep.