I didn't know who invented reincarnation, but it kind of sucked. Being reincarnated with all my memories, I didn't know how I was going to properly bond with my new family, but I somehow managed. Growing up was strangely harder this time around. Knowing what life had to offer, my childhood wasn't as full of wonder as it had been the first time.

  I reincarnated into a fantasy world. I liked fantasy growing up, but I never considered that I would live it one day. Blasting things apart with fireballs or slashing them with a sword were fun for make believe, but in real life? Just think about how much back splash you'd probably get from both those activities.

  I didn't need to be covered in animal or monster guts all day. Reincarnate me in the realistic world. The one I came from. Things sucked, but at least I didn't have to worry about being killed by the flu. They never covered that sad reality in fantasy books.

  My "mom" died of consumption—which is just an old-fashioned name for tuberculosis—when I was twelve in this new life. With modern medicine, also known as antibiotics, she could have been cured and stayed alive and kept this shitty family from falling apart.

  But no, none of the so-called healers in town could cure her, because of course they couldn't. These healers who could heal stab wounds but not a simple bacterial infection of the lungs. Bunch of useless assholes.

  No, I didn't cry. Only losers cry over the death of their second mother. Someone who still gave them life, despite not being the first to do it. Regardless of how much care and kindness she put into everything she did. Despite how much her family loved her. None of that mattered, because she was dead. And she wasn't coming back.

  Sure, maybe she'd reincarnate into a modern world and live a whole new life there. Whoop Dee Doo. What good did that do for her loved ones? For the people she left behind. Her name was Alimay, by the way. If you cared.

  With my mother dead, our family limped on. We never fully recovered from that loss, but we survived. It's not much of a consolation prize, but at least my father didn't die shortly after, as is often the case with loving marriages in a medieval setting.

  "Oh, he fell off a bridge" or "he got trampled by horses" people would say, as if that was something people could accidentally do. Anyone with a brain knew what really happened, but medieval societies weren't socially sophisticated enough to face the awful truth. So they just swept it under the rug, like a bunch of cowards.

  And then there was the system. That awful, stupid system. It plagued my view all day and night, just begging me to click on it. It wasn't until my 18th birthday, when my father coincidentally died by falling off a bridge, leaving the family business to me, that I finally decided to click on the system screen.

  The screen prompt just said "Start New Game." Nothing fancy or elaborate. I mentally clicked on the button. A title screen showed. The title was "The Glorious System." How humble. Then backstory text scrolled slowly down the screen. I didn't read any of it.

  It made me choose a character name, to which I put my real name in, "Gwen." You may be wondering, Gwen? Isn't the protagonist of this story male? He is. I mean, I am. My mother just really wanted a girl so badly that she never even considered coming up with a male name, and when I was born, she named me Gwen anyway.

  I used to hate the name, but ever since my mom died, I've worn it proudly, punching anyone in the face who dare laugh at the name my magnificent mother gave me. The assholes. Served them right. What's a few broken noses in a medieval fantasy setting, anyway? Half the people here broke their noses at least once before their eighteenth birthday.

  It gave me starting stats with no ability to spread additional stats among my starting ones. I didn't know what that was about. Most games gave you some starting points to spread out, but not this one.

  My starting stats were Strength 5, Dexterity 4, Constitution 3, Wisdom 4, Intelligence 6, and Charisma 2. Damn. What a low charisma stat. I'd have to work on that if I could. With everything I wanted to achieve in such a short time, I would need a good charisma stat. Besides, a good charisma stat often let you skip crappy encounters.

  I hoped this was one of those hard work systems rather than max level systems. Max level systems, you had to choose a deliberate character build and allocate your available points wisely, because there was a maximum number of points you could gain.

  The problem with max level systems is they operated on efficiency of economy. You had to make choices that provided the most utility per point possible.

  There were many combinations of ways to do that, but almost all of them relied on the ability for the player to start the game over and use gained knowledge to refine their build.

  Since there was no indication whether I'd be able to start over when I died, I was going to assume I couldn't. It was better to assume that and be wrong than the other way around.

  The story has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.

  On the contrary, hard work systems allowed you to just gain stats and skills as you learned them in real life. Which meant there were no real limits, other than the time limit of your eventual death to natural causes or a dragon stepping on your ass.

  What I would have preferred more than anything was to have a family and live out my boring life helping my still alive father run an adventuring gear shop, while my still alive mother tended to the house, as unfortunately was tradition in this alternate historical era.

  I would have liked to have a family that wasn't ripped out of my grasp like the last one so recently was. Although that had been due to old age and dementia, it still stung. That wasn't the case, though. My mother and father were dead, and I was all alone in the world.

  Well, I wasn't all alone. I had a brother and sister to worry about, too, which was worse than being alone. If I didn't have the lives of others to worry about, I could've just accidentally fallen off a bridge too, and tried my luck in the reincarnation pool again, if that is what fate had decided for me.

  But saddled with this responsibility, I wouldn't shirk it. I wasn't that much of a coward. And so that left me with one option. Play the game. I was barely eighteen. While I could legally run the shop, I was going to need all the help I could get.

  My father had me and my brother to help him, and he was a big, strong man. I was a scrawny eighteen-year-old boy. And I'd lost the biggest help we had, my father. Now it was just me and my little brother who could barely sweep the dust off the floors.

  I'm going to pause because I feel like we're getting off on the wrong foot. I'm not a heartless bastard, even if I come off that way in my head. I cried my eyes out over my second mother's death, and I silently cried in the bathroom after I heard my second father had died.

  All I'm trying to say is life was hard out here. Harder than they make it out to be in books and shows. But for your sake, I'll try to complain a little less, and just shoulder the burden like a real tough guy would. I was going to do my best for my brother and sister, and I'll do the same for you.

  I hoped to get something good with this system, but so far it was just gamifying skills I already had. Was this just going to be life, the game, or was I going to get some cool abilities to help me not die and not make my brother and sister starve to death in the house?

  Next was character background and race. It said I couldn't choose those though. They had already been chosen for me when I was born. It did, however, tell me what they were, and it showed grayed out images of the choices to the left and right of my background and race.

  Despite being grayed out, they were still mostly visible. The names weren't displayed, but I could guess by context what they were based on the images. The background on the left of mine had an image of someone working a field. Must have been a farmer's background.

  The one on the right had an image of a man wielding a sword. That must have been a soldier or a knight's background. I assumed soldier since it was less prestigious. Knight seemed more like something you would work toward rather than move on from.

  The background I was given based on my upbringing was called "Merchant's Son." It gave me proficiency with a few different skills. The specific proficiencies I was given were bartering, appraisal, and repair.

  These were the most basic level of proficiency, known as apprentice proficiency. I could only assume there were many proficiencies above that, and anything you didn't have a proficiency in, you were shit at. Or at least only as good as any other random person without experience in the skill.

  Next were the race options. The race options weren't anything cool, or I didn't expect. The one on the left was a short stout man, who was clearly a dwarf, and the one on the right was a beautiful tall thin man with pointy ears, who was clearly an elf.

  I was hoping for something cool, like demons or orcs or goblins, but supposed it was for the best that those weren't options next to mine. I would want them too much.

  I had played more than my fair share of fantasy role-playing games in my adult years. I'd even played some table top rpg's. They were fun, sure, but I never wanted to live them. They were fun because there were no real consequences.

  You could pretend to be a badass hero, but when push came to shove, you didn't have to put anything on the line. You had nothing to lose, especially not your life. Not your real life, at least.

  Maybe it was karmic justice that I be thrust into this position, since I had no interest in being in a real life fantasy scenario. I didn't know what I had done to deserve this, but who knew what made the gods do what they did? It could have been as simple as the fact that I didn't want it that made them do it.

  Either way, I was here. Looking at my selected race, I wasn't surprised. It was human. It gave me the racial benefits of starting with proficiency in five skills rather than the standard three. It also gave me a 20% experience boost, but what good was an experience boost when everyone in your town had the same boost?

  I knew no one else had this system, but that didn't mean other people didn't level up and gain skills like I would. They just didn't have a way to directly interface with the mechanics.

  Since I started with five skill proficiencies, but only three had been assigned by my background, I had two left to allocate. I chose blacksmithing and alchemy.

  They seemed like the most relevant skills to running the shop since we sold adventuring gear and supplies. That included weapons, armor, potions, and elixirs. So if I could make a few extra on the side or learn how to improve what I already had, I could make some extra profit and feed my family for another day or two.

  I was hoping I'd at least be able to choose my class. As soon as I clicked past the background and race options—even though they were chosen for me—a "Choose your Class" option appeared. Nice. This is where the real fun would begin.

  Stats:

  Strength: 5

  Dexterity: 4

  Constitution: 3

  Wisdom: 4

  Intelligence: 6

  Charisma: 2

  Resources:

  HP: 65 hit points

  MP: 120 mana points

  Stamina: 65 stamina points

  Proficiencies:

  Bartering: Apprentice (3)

  Appraisal: Apprentice (3)

  Repair: Apprentice (3)

  Alchemy: Apprentice (3)

  Blacksmithing: Apprentice (3)

  Abilities/Spells:

  None