1 How Earth Was

It's strange to recall the events that lead to all of this, as it happened so quickly. If you were to travel back 30 years ago, you would be able to look at the progress of history as a constant, events that would lead one to the other as a series of consecutive consequences, and by analyzing it, one would even be able to make predictions about the future with logic, obviously, no one could tell the future with certainty, but there were quite a few things that one could point out that would either make absolute sense and be part of what's called common sense or would be dismissed as absolute lunacy.

Who would have thought then, that a decade after, the world itself would suffer such a change, that history would become completely unpredictable?

I am of course talking about the "First Contact" of 20 years ago, when, even though Earth and its citizens were following a completely logical path, suddenly, everyone could hear in their heads the voice.

Softly, but due to the contents of the message, not at all calming. As if the conscience of everyone on the planet suddenly went off the rails for a moment, a voice that no one recognized then said: "Congratulations people of Earth. Your planet has been blessed by me, Catherine, Goddess of the Red Night. As such, you may now receive your gifts, your planet may now know its true nature, and you are to be accepted amongst many others. Rejoice and Celebrate, Pray and Struggle, as I've chosen you, may you prove your Worth".

Yes, a completely obscene thought, madness from beyond comprehension, in any other case, anyone would attribute this to mass hysteria, but alas, for the entire world, from even the most influential of politicians to the most average kid, every single person heard the same voice, say the same words, the meaning yet to be found, but the change was already felt.

Soon people discovered access to their Gifts, skills capable of turning the laziest person around into an athlete, and people capable of healing through seemingly magical means, just waving their hands over a broken bone was enough to heal it as if by magic. Many miracles were being found, it was understandable then, that people truly felt blessed.

One could easily see how magic was at play here, that, or science beyond comprehension, coming from a being beyond our notion. But some were quick to point out how this would seem like an RPG, a videogame of sorts, levels, magic, mana, and statuses, all of that were staples of that genre after all. And so, there were many who began wondering, if all those staples suddenly became reality, then what about some others? What about monsters? Dungeons? Other races like elves or dwarves?

Well, the world was not made only by its people, and so, it would be foolish to think only the people would change, after all, Catherine, the self-proclaimed Goddess said that the world itself was being blessed, and if humanity had changed so much, what about the world?

It began somewhat unnoticed, but something started appearing, a type of gate, it looked man-made, and there were many of them, appearing in completely random places, now, of course, if you were going through a forest and found a gate that looked like it was man-made, it wouldn't be strange for you to dismiss it, there's quite a lot of things placed in odd locations after all, who knows who build it and why, maybe there's a purpose, but since it didn't affect you if your curiosity wasn't piqued enough, you probably would just go about your day.

And so as gates were appearing, some people dismissed them, while others questioned it, it took only a week for a gate to appear in an impossible location. Flying a few meters above the ground in a busy street with no explanation as to how it manages to stay in the air. The feeling of a man-made gate suddenly disappeared as people looked at it, and then 2 weeks after, an incident known as "First Reminder" came to be.

As the First Contact had happened a month before, people were still puzzled and curious about their newly found abilities and were using them to mostly facilitate their lives or do something new, obviously, there were already people being caught using their Gifts for nefarious reasons. Violence and crime did go up at the time, and it was said that it would probably continue to grow if not for the incident that followed, which of course was named the "First Reminder", appropriate as it not only reminded us of the message the Goddess sent us, but it also reminded us of our new duty in this world, among many things, we had to struggle, no one knew if that was because of some kind of depraved wish of that Goddess for entertainment, if that was somehow the natural course of things, or if the planet suddenly decided to take revenge on us, whatever it may be, our struggle began at that time.

Early morning of the day known as the First Reminder began as any other would, however anti-climatic it may be, it didn't take long for it to change. The gates were opening, not all of them, fortunately, but many were, and out of them came the "Rampage", we had no way of knowing at the time, but if a Dungeon is not contained, if people don't periodically reduce the monster population inside of it, once it has... well "charged up", it will let go of the monsters inside it. Yes, monsters. thankfully, lesser dungeons, now called "beginner level dungeons" are the ones that let Rampages happen more often, about once a month if not contained, of course, each dungeon is different, so the time is different for each, and it also may change as the dungeon itself changes, but since no one was exploring the gates, and to be frank, the ones who explored probably died within at the beginning, many dungeons started going through rampages around the world.

Although they managed to create quite a lot of chaos in populated cities, since the monsters spewing out had more or less the same strength as a human, many being actually weaker, people were able to fight back by simply grabbing something to use as a weapon or using their Gifts. Most of the casualties were caused by unpreparedness and the gang-ups, where many monsters attacked a single person or a minor group of humans. With modern weapons though, killing those monsters was easy, as such it didn't take long for a response by the police and armed forces to control it.

A problem with that was the dungeons that exist in places like mountains, the bottom of the sea, and the sky, dungeons inside of caves or in remote locations, even islands, can be very difficult to access, if not outright impossible without a skill of flight or water breathing. As such, those dungeons still rampage to this day, and monsters roam around some areas of the world. The dungeons in the oceans in particular are incredibly problematic and maritime trading became very expensive due to monster attacks.

The First Reminder left many casualties, and a plan was made, the government of most countries decided to close the dungeons and the areas around them, raiding them periodically to disable future rampages. This plan, however, didn't last for long, it turns out it was costly and due to the amount of gates, not very practical, there was also the fact that some of those forces were required to stay active in human matters, such as fighting crimes.

There was a hidden reason as to why the government's first idea was to monopolize the dungeons though. After the First Reminder, people noticed that small stones and some weapons were left from the monsters killed, at that time it was unknown, but those stones are monster cores, and they can be used as an alternative energy method. Also, inside the dungeon you can find minerals, crystals, and many other items, the governments were researching those and trying to monopolize the goods produced in the dungeons.

Due to the logistical and manpower problems though, the dungeons were eventually opened for the public to enter, and some places were established where you could trade monster cores, minerals, weapons, and other dungeon goods for cash, As such it didn't take long before dungeon raiding became a career for many.

Thus, Earth as humanity knew it suddenly changed, in just one year, history had gone to an unthinkable place, and reality had become closer to fantasy than one could have ever imagined. Yet, during the 20 years that followed, many other things became known to us.

I was born 18 years ago, and as such, this fantasy-like reality is the only one I know, of course, through books and older people around me, I often hear about how the world was, and how things have changed so much, even though it is a reality i can never know now, it amazes me just how different it is as to what I have grown used to, to me, what Earth was is closer to fantasy than what Earth currently is.