The Protagonist System

111 Running Out Of Time

You have died!

Yeah, I kinda figured that one out by myself, thanks. I thought sarcastically.

Primary Mission failed. Secondary mission incomplete. Hidden missions 3 of 8 completed.
Severe penalties will be applied and your choice of the next world will be...

WARNING! Soul transference interrupted!
Divine Intervention has stalled normal procedures. Reinitializing... ... ...attempt failed.
Please remain calm while we investigate this problem.

Sure, take your time. I'll just float here for a while and then head over to the gift shop. I thought and I was suddenly there and it was much bigger than before. I chuckled at the sudden transition and saw another bill was already on the counter waiting for me.

It made me laugh that both Death and Fate had bought a few things under my account and they went right into my inventory, which severely hinted at what those penalties were going to be. The items were a handgun with infinite ammo, full disease immunity, and MRE ration packs for a year. Yay.

Of course, it made me wonder if I was still going to suffer the penalties for the registered failure, even with the interruption. I did die, even if it was right there in front of a goddess. Oh! Maybe she's the one that's interfering? Did Eris forgive me for what I did to her?

A little blue box appeared with the word 'giggle' inside, which was from Fate. Then it expanded and showed a video. I stared as Eris, the goddess in control of the world, lapped up every drop of my massive expulsion and then she shocked me by giving me a quick suck and happily swallowed it. A goddess just... wow. I mean, it was a little rapey for her to do that with me being technically dead and not giving consent, though.

I think she's a bit of a necrophiliac, considering a good portion of the souls in the world she cares for are undead. Fate's little box said.

I chuckled at that. All it took was an incredibly handsome corpse and a massive load of cum for her to admit it?

The word 'giggle' appeared again. It was quite impressive. Even Death was surprised to see how much your last hurrah contained.

I laughed. Of course! I was going out with a bang. I wasn't going to disappoint anyone.

The little box stayed empty for several seconds before more text appeared. We're sorry that we weren't allowed to intervene. Being who we are, remaining neutral is vital to our function.

I lost my amusement as I remembered those last few moments. My desperation and my begging had gone unanswered and that hurt more than dying did. Why didn't the System answer my pleas?

The word 'sigh' appeared for a moment. The Head Succubus was locked onto your soul. If the system allowed you access, her absorption ability would have latched onto it. If she had gained even a fraction of the power it has, shunting her to Heaven itself wouldn't have hurt her.

That revelation made me pause. Was my system that powerful? Why couldn't it fight against her ability to protect itself?

It actually was protecting itself. She would never gain access if the system remained inactive. When you die usually, you are shunted into the system itself, adjusted by the choices you make or are forced upon you when you make a mistake, then you are sent to the next world.

Not if she consumed my soul! I almost shouted in my mind.

The word 'sigh' appeared again. We do have failsafes, you know.

No, I don't know. I responded, a little angrily. I haven't been told anything beyond I have a system and that's it. There wasn't even a tutorial.

The little box stayed empty for several seconds and then disappeared.

I huffed at that reaction, because I had stumped Fate itself by reminding her how I had gotten into this in the first place. My Karma points had been exactly zero and I was sent on with no preparations. It was kind of fun at first and I had to admit to myself that I had been treating it like a game. It took me a few worlds to be sure there were no consequences for myself, besides leaving behind the friends and family I became close to.

It still hurt to do that, too. I just couldn't refrain from interacting with people, though. Why would I hurt myself and stay lonely like that? I'd rather have a normal relationship and not something faked. I was also gaining skills and abilities with each world and I was sure that I would eventually figure out The Protagonist System and could abuse the hell out of whatever loopholes it has.

For now, I had an expanded gift shop to look through. I went to the weapons section and picked up the shotgun that also had infinite ammo, so it matched the handgun I had. Not only did it have more stopping power, it was better for close-quarters combat. When I noticed the maintenance manuals for them, I bought those, too. I glanced through the shotgun one and laughed.

As long as I had magical power, they would never jam or needed to be reloaded. I smiled and put them into my inventory and thought about buying a baseball bat or a machete, then mentally shrugged. I had a sword already, well dozens of swords, so I wasn't going to run out anytime soon. I could also repair them with magic by using spells or transfiguring them.

I moved on to the clothing section and gained a few ideas for clothing choices. Transfiguration was a huge cheat for making new clothes out of whatever I wanted and I was going to abuse the hell out of it. I made note of the different enchantments on the clothing like self-cleaning and self-repair and moved on to the food section.

I checked the snacks section and laughed when I found a never-ending bag of potato chips. I bought it for 150 Karma Points, just because I knew it would surprise whomever I shared them with. The best part was it could be any flavour you thought of as you reached into the bag. Now I just needed a cookie bag that did the same thing and... one just appeared on the shelf and I laughed.

Thank you, store owner! I thought happily as I bought it. I regretted not thinking about this before going to High School DxD, because Koneko would have been all over me right from the start if I had an endless bag of cookies of every flavour.

The last thing I bought in that section was a container of endless liquid for 500 Karma Points. The base was always water if you didn't add any magic. Depending on the magic you did add, it could become anything from orange juice to milk to alcohol. I was definitely going to have a lot of uses for it.

I moved on to the merchandise section and snorted at the huge variety it had now. It had things from every choice I had been given so far and I laughed and laughed as I browsed through everything from Goku's weighted under-clothing from Dragonball Z to the Star Trek and X-Men action figures.

I bought the weighted clothing, because why wouldn't I? I also bought the Terminator's cool sunglasses. The temptation to grab Full Metal Alchemist's transmutation gloves was pretty high, too. The 1,000 point cost was a bit outrageous, even if I could swap out the effects with a touch of magic. I sighed and remembered that I could do the same things with normal magic already and moved on.

I skipped buying Geordi Laforge's visor and the one Cyclops wore, too. They simulated the real effects and that wasn't as appealing as you'd think. Who wants to only see in the electromagnetic spectrum or have everything look red through ruby-quarts lenses? Not me, thank you.

As I reached for Riddick's trademarked goggles to see if they worked, I realized I was in a much better mood and that I shouldn't hold anything against either Fate or Death. It wasn't their job to micromanage my life and I knew I was there for someone's entertainment. It wasn't their fault I had let my guard down around someone I knew was dangerous.

Before my hand could grip the goggles, I was suddenly pulled out of the gift shop and was floating in the space I first appeared in.

Thank you for waiting. The problems have been mostly resolved. The Protagonist System has been stalled and will need to be worked on while you are returned to your current world. The management would like to apologize for any inconvenience this caused.

Warning: Personal Level reduced to 1 by Divine Interference.
Damage to System resulted in your previously bought upgrade 'All Basic Skills Maxed Out' has been lost. All current skills and abilities have been reduced to their lowest levels.
Upgrade package is no longer available (data corrupted).
Karma Point spending has been suspended until next world.
In-world options have been suspended until next world.

Geez, what else are you going to do to screw me over? I asked with a sigh.

Next world choice has been suspended.

Fuck. I thought and resigned myself to being shunted off into a post-apocalyptic world. All right, send me back. I have work to do.

Current world mission must be completed within: One Month.
Failure will result in severe penalties being applied.

I could practically feel myself being reamed in the butthole as I read that, as if what I was already being given weren't enough penalties. My plans for a leisurely trip to the capitol have just been thrown out the window and into a woodchipper.

Without warning, I was suddenly back on the large bed inside the carriage and wide awake. A sudden pain lanced through both my head and my chest as I felt an ungodly amount of information being sucked out of my head. Thankfully, the pain in my chest was just an echo of my power being ripped out of my chest that the Head Succubus had stolen.

I closed my eyes and felt incredibly weak. I hadn't been like this before, not even when I had started this whole adventure, and I was fully aware that I could be very easily killed if I didn't take precautions. I tried to cast a cleaning spell and my magic kind of sputtered and nothing happened. I received a popup warning that I had insufficient magic to perform that spell and I sighed.

With that severe blow to my pride, I carefully sat up and groaned at the full body ache I had. I crawled over to the end of the bed and managed to not wake anyone as I slid off of it and onto the floor. On hands and knees, I made it to the bathroom and pulled myself up to look in the mirror. My surprised face was reflected back to me and I was amazed I didn't look like I felt.

I stumbled to the shower and took my time as I washed myself. It took a while. I dried myself off and sat on the side of the tub and went over in my head what I had available to boost myself. Being weaker than a normal human was not going to allow me to survive long enough to complete my mission.

“Can I see my conditions?” I asked and a popup appeared.

Magical Exhaustion
Physical Exhaustion
Skill Depletion Sickness
Level Reduction Sickness
Mental Extraction Sickness

I sighed. “What's that sickness thing?”

Your skills and knowledge were forcibly removed.
Your body is suffering from excessive trauma.

“Wonderful.” I said and didn't bother asking how long it was going to last for. I also knew I wasn't going to be doing anything magical for a while and couldn't give myself temporary boosts as I recovered. That meant I could only do one thing.

I pulled out my under-armor from my inventory and slipped it on. Just doing that hurt my head and it throbbed. Using my inventory counted as magic apparently, so I was really glad I didn't try to put on my entire armor set in one shot. It might have killed me.

Over the next half an hour, I took out each individual piece of enchanted armor and put them on. I hadn't done it this way in a very long time and it was both nostalgic and frustrating, because I was only going to receive the benefits of the enchantments after I completed putting the whole suit on.

It was the first time I regretted giving it the multi-enchantment, because my head was pounding like a drum and I was collapsed on the floor by the time I finally managed to take my helm out of inventory, the final piece. I almost lost my grip on it and groaned as I gripped it with my remaining strength. I didn't realize how heavy my armor was until now.

With a turn of my head and a deft pull that almost knocked me out, the helm slid onto my head and the enchantments kicked in.

“UGGGGHHHHHHH.” I loudly groaned and felt myself almost inflate. It didn't do anything to the metaphorical holes I could feel in my mind and my chest; but, it did allow me to ignore them for now and filled my body with strength. It was artificial and I didn't care.

I stayed there on the floor and revelled in not feeling like crap as the armor's enchantments went to work on me. Regeneration, healing, buffs galore... it was like slipping into a warm bath after a heavy workout when you pushed yourself too hard.

I didn't move for another ten minutes, since I knew none of the girls in my party were going to wake up until tomorrow. That was when I remembered I had been in bed with the succubi for a day and a half, which was much longer than the caravan was supposed to travel and stay at the next rest stop. Since we were still at the crossroads, that put my carriage almost two days behind the caravan.

That also reminded me that I had a severe problem. All my skills and abilities dropped to level 1. Everything I had learned and experienced had been taken and I was starting from the ground up. I was going to suck at driving the carriage until I levelled up the skill and I had no other higher abilities to depend on to compensate or to forcefully level other things up like I was used to.

I sighed and sat up like I wasn't exhausted or sick, then I stood and left the bathroom. I went to the girls and checked each of them and made sure they hadn't been drained as well. I couldn't cast the inspection spells and had to rely on good old-fashioned fingers to the neck to check their pulses. They were breathing and alive, so I left the bedroom and went to the kitchen to cook something.

I chuckled at being stupid and sat down on a chair and pulled out the endless bag potato chips, endless pack of cookies, and endless container of liquid. I had just enough magic to make root beer soda pop and had a great snack that gave me a lot of energy.

When I was done eating, I brought out enough bowls for the girls and filled them with chips, added plates and filled them with chocolate chip cookies, and poured tall glasses of root beer for them. With their future snacks set, I went outside and saw that the carriage had been left off to the side of the main road and the horses had been left to fend for themselves.

For the next few hours, I tended to the horses and started levelling up the skills I needed for both that and handling them. It added a level to my driving them when I was done and that made me relax. Associated skills still worked and I went inside to talk to my party. I had a few things to explain, including what happened to the succubi, and I would wake them up if I had to.

It was not going to be a good conversation for anyone, especially for Darkness. I somehow knew she was going to blame herself for it and I would have to convince her that it was all my fault instead. She wasn't going to believe me, though. I gritted my teeth and promised myself that I had to try anyway.

It really was my fault that it happened and I decided to lie to her and tell her I was sent back to apologize to her. It wasn't that big of a lie, after all.

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