<h4>Chapter 5: Chapter 05: The Lost Returns - 1</h4>


    Have you ever experienced a dream where you are falling from a great height into a dark hole so deep you couldn''t see the bottom?


    You keep expecting to hit the ground at any moment, but you don''t.


    Instead, you just keep falling until, when you least expect it, you finally hit the ground.


    This was exactly how Damian was dreaming at that moment.


    Except, there was a key difference.


    He wasn''t falling into a dark hole; instead, he was rising, soaring into a sky painted in endless darkness.


    Damian could move his eyes, but the rest of his body felt frozen, numb as if it no longer existed.


    It was as though his physical body had vanished entirely.


    The speed of his ascent grew faster and faster.


    In the distance, his vision caught a tiny white dot, flickering against the vast void.


    As he rose, the white dot grewrger andrger, expanding continuously until, in a blinding moment, his body collided with it.


    "Argh!" Damian gasped, jolting awake.


    His eyes were watery, his chest and back drenched in sweat.


    The annoying sound of stic rustling against itself grated on his ears, making his head throb.


    "Damn it, my ears are killing me," Damian muttered as his vision began to clear.


    Looking around, he froze, confusion clouding his mind.


    "Isn''t this the ce I lived three years ago before the Day of Awakening? How did I get here? Why does it look exactly the same after three years? Didn''t this entire area get destroyed by the monsters?" Damian''s thoughts raced, a storm of disbelief brewing in his mind.


    "More importantly, how am I alive? Did those high-ranked Awakeners actually save me after defeating the red-gate monsters? Then why am I here instead of in a hospital? And where are my wounds?"


    He vaguely remembered the horrifying scene of the tentacle monster attacking him, shattering what felt like most of his bones.


    He knew healing potions wouldn''t have worked on him because hecked any magical affinities.


    Consumable magical remedies simply wouldn''t activate within his body.


    "Something is very wrong... Everything feels different," Damian murmured, a growing unease settling into his gut.


    Suddenly, a faint tremor shook the ground.


    The studio apartment around him shuddered slightly, the objects inside vibrating softly.


    Damian didn''t feel fear.


    He had experienced far worse.


    Instead, he felt confusion mingled with an inexplicable wave of nostalgia that struck him like a blow to the face.


    "This... this isn''t right," he whispered, his expression twisting into a grimace as an unbelievable thought crept into his mind.


    But he refused to entertain it; it was far too absurd.


    "Status," Damian muttered, hoping for the system interface to appear.


    But to his dismay, nothing happened.


    "This cannot be happening... There has to be a mistake," he said, panic rising in his chest.


    He quickly got up, only to realize that his chronic chest pain had returned, a familiar ache from years before.


    He grabbed the calendar hanging on the wall and looked at the clock beside it.


    And that''s when the realization struck him like lightning.


    He had regressed.


    Back to three years ago.


    Just an hour before the system descended upon Earth.


    "Wait, how is this possible? No matter how many unimaginable phenomena emerged from the system and the tower, there was never anything rted to time travel or regression," Damian muttered to himself, disbelief etched across his face.


    He would know, he had worked for the organization that oversaw everything connected to awakeners, the towers, and the system.


    He had been directly involved in the team responsible for recording such phenomena in the database.


    "Maybe it''s not regression that I''m experiencing. Maybe... everything from the day of the awakening to the day the red gate appeared was all just a dream," Damian spected, though he quickly shook his head to dismiss the thought.


    "No, that can''t be right. If it was just a dream, then how do I exin the unstable weather? The strange, erratic conditions that urred before the day of the awakening are happening again," Damian thought as he nced out of the blurry, dirt-streaked window.


    Outside, the weather shifted unpredictably.


    Intense heat waves radiated from the sun one moment, followed by torrential rain apanied by gusting winds the next.


    "Today is definitely the day of the awakening. I don''t know how, but somehow it''s true. How is this even possible?" Damian rubbed his chin in thought.


    "Wait... does this mean I''m the only person on Earth who knows what''sing?" He crossed his arms, his mind racing.


    "In my past life, I couldn''t level up as quickly as others because Icked talent. I didn''t awaken any abilities on the day of the awakening that would help me hunt monsters efficiently. But I could havepensated for that with the achievement system, which offered special rewards."


    "The real problem was my weak body. With a frail constitution, I could never even dream of earning an achievement," Damian reflected bitterly.


    He began recalling all the information he had gathered in his previous life when he worked as a data recorder for the Awakener''s Society.


    "Maybe I can earn some achievements and boost my stats topensate for myck of ability. And since the system hasn''t descended yet, I might actually have an edge this time," he mused.


    Though Damian couldn''t remember every detail of his life before this apparent regression, the first few weeks after the day of the awakening were seared into his memory.


    He had suffered countless nightmares about those chaotic days.


    Then there were the records.


    N?v(el)B\\jnn


    He had been privileged to ess ssified information during his tenure in the department that managed data on the system, towers, dungeons, monsters, and more.


    That ess was reserved for low-level awakeners, who were easier to control and less likely to leak sensitive information.


    Damianbed through every piece of knowledge he could recall about the day of the awakening and the subsequent events he knew had urred.


    "If this is really happening, then I have to do everything I can to survive and cure my illness. But to do that, I first need to ovee myck of talent. The best way to start is by earning the first four achievements from the achievement system," Damian resolved, ncing at the clock.


    On this day before his regression, he had been standing in front of his office when the first dungeon break urred.


    This time, he vowed, things would be different.


    "I remember I was heading to the office. I had just reached there, and a few minutester, the system descended," Damian thought as he grabbed the $650 he had saved up for pain relief medication.


    He proceeded to put on a half-sleeve T-shirt and a pair of unwashed track pants.


    "It would be a waste to use it all on medication... Instead, I should buy some things to help me kill low-level monsters."


    Without further thought, he left his studio apartment, not even bothering to lock it properly.


    Stepping onto the apartment porch, he began searching for something.


    "Found it," he muttered, holding up a small rat trap.


    Inside, a live rat was frantically trying to escape the cage.


    With that, he headed to a nearby supermarket to buy supplies.


    Damian grabbed a chef knife, a Nakiri knife, a cleaver, a carving knife, a butcher knife, few water bottles and, finally, an axe.


    As he ced the items on the counter, the cashier raised an eyebrow and nced at him suspiciously.


    <i>"Is he some kind of serial killer? Why would anyone need so many different knives?"</i> the cashier wondered but chose not to say anything.


    After paying and packing the weapons into the backpack he had brought, Damian made his way to a nt shop.


    There, he purchased a small flytrap sapling in a bottle.


    Clutching the bottle tightly, he began running, breathing heavily as he headed toward his office.