The Protagonist System

188 Those Damn Space Whales (Worm)

World Paused

Congratulations! You have completed the world of My Hero Academia successfully and vanquished the evil forces that tried to take over and corrupt the population with chaos and endless violence.

I did? Well, that was surprising. I figured I had a lot more work to do, since we only cleaned up most of Japan and hadn't even touched the nearby countries or made inroads to spread our team out. I thought with a mental shrug.

We were starting to get foreign agents, both hero and villain, entering the country under false pretenses and we were going to deal with them and soon their bosses. Apparently, that wasn't going to be the focus of the story after I had introduced Eri to her new best friend.

I guess that means she's become the protagonist of the story now. I thought with a chuckle.

Your record-breaking Karma Points total has been logged and a significant portion has been set aside. There will no longer be any chance that you will ever go into negative Karma again, no matter how much you screw things up. So, have fun!

The next world will be loaded as a 'sandbox' version where you can do anything you want. Save it, wreak havoc, build the world's biggest harem by arranging to be the only male, it's all up to you.
Warning: World Setting Parameters must be set beforehand and cannot be changed after you enter. Details can be tweaked, like always, and any offspring will have a reduced cost and earn greater rewards.

Ooo, that sandbox thing sounds interesting. Yeah, let's try that. I thought and brought up the list of free gender-bend worlds. With only a small additional cost, I could make them into custom worlds with whatever I wanted.

I checked the ones in the list and the most appealing one was Worm, even if it was what most people called grimdark. A male Taylor wouldn't even require a name change or tweaking the details much, so I chose that.

A bit of change there to make the high school into a college instead, just to age everyone up to legal standards. I also chose Taylor's first death and changed the infamous locker scene into a dumpster, in order to fit my divine body inside it without trouble, and that was it. It was barely a few hundred points and I could get right into the story without worrying about anything else.

With my current powers, I was going to have a lot of fun messing around and playing in the 'sandbox' that was Worm. I couldn't wait to decide what I was going to do first. Oh! Maybe I could be a villain, just like Taylor was in canon, only I'd really lean into the role this time. Screw Armsmaster! I'd release the details that it was her rejecting me that made me go villain! Ha ha!

My thoughts kept me laughing, because I was now wondering if a female Lung would be too arrogant and full of herself to date a white guy, even with how powerful I was. It was going to be interesting to find out, anyway. Who wouldn't want to bed a female dragon, right? She would be hot in several respects, that's for sure.

You have chosen Worm: Gender-bend Custom as your next world
First death chosen. Minor details adjusted.
Good luck in your new life!

Thanks! I can't wait to have a lot of fun. I thought and I felt myself shift as blackness engulfed me.

There was a sudden lurch and I was jerked and twisted sideways, which had never happened before. A panicked feeling flooded the space around me and it wasn't my own.

Warning! A divisional Dimensional Barrier has been detected!
The time scale variance is unregistered and the current dimension coordinates of arrival have been corrupted.

Oh, fuck. I thought as I was twisted back the other way and felt like my insides were being wrung out and squeezed.

Adjusting trajectory for possible insertion.
Warning! WARNING! Boot-up failed! Chosen options not installed.
The Protagonist System has not finished loading!

FUUUUUUUCK! I yelled in my head as the blackness tore into me and I felt like I was shredded apart and lost consciousness.

*

I wasn't sure how long I had been unconscious for and groggily opened my eyes. I didn't recognize where I was and there were no inserted memories to help me. I rolled over onto my side and blinked my eyes lazily as I tried to see where I was. My body was heavy and very slow to respond to my mental commands, so it took me a minute to see the empty pill bottle and beer bottle.

Fuck me. I thought and rolled onto my back to stare up at the ceiling. Whoever I was at the moment, had tried to kill themselves with an overdose of ADHD medication, which was the stupidest thing I had ever seen in my many lifetimes. It explained why my body felt like it was full of lead, at least.

I spent a few minutes getting my arms to work and managed to push myself up into a sitting position and my eyes had a difficult time focusing. I sighed and moved to the edge of the bed, my body sluggish, and I set my feet onto the carpeted floor. Unfortunately, I knew what I had to do and reached for the small garbage can full of used tissues and stuck my fingers down my throat.

My gag reflex worked just fine and I threw up, then again, and I felt the bile burn my throat. I wasn't done, not by a long shot, and had to keep going. Purging the stomach was the first step and I needed to get myself up and running quickly. I had no idea where I was, who I was, or what was going on.

It only took six attempts to empty my stomach and I was grateful, because that was awful. Whatever else I had eaten stank to high heaven and my tongue felt like sandpaper. I stood, very very slowly, and my brain did a kind of loop-de-loop and I had to sit back down.

“Fuck.” I said and rubbed my temples as my head throbbed. Without my system fully loaded, I didn't have access to anything. I had no inventory, no powers, and no way to control the story. Hell, I couldn't even spend Karma Points to do anything like fix my goddamn headache that I was too stoned to notice before. The chewed leaves in the trashcan gave it away.

I used a hand to brace against the nightstand and forced myself to stand. I wobbled like a spinning top about to fall and waited it out. It stopped after about ten really long seconds and I tempted fate by taking a step. To my complete surprise, I did not fall flat on my face. Hurray!

I stumbled across the room and entered the tiny bathroom and bent over the sink to turn on the water and started drinking it, then I choked and spit it out. It was hot water! I sighed and turned it off and turned on the other tap. I set my head on the sink and slurped slowly, because I didn't want to bloat myself and it would slow my movements down even more and make me feel worse.

I stopped and stood up, braced myself on the sink, and lifted my head to look in the mirror. The bowl cut blonde hair didn't give me any clue about who I was and that sucked. I had no idea who I was and I had hoped seeing my new face would have helped with that.

“Sweetie! It's time to get up!” A woman's voice shouted from downstairs. “You're going to miss the bus to school and it's the first day back!”

I blinked my eyes at that and wondered when in the timeline I was.

“GREG! Did you hear your mother? Get your ass out of bed!” A male voice loudly shouted.

I caught my breath and felt dizzy. That name was easily recognizable in the Worm world, because nearly everyone in the fandom despised the guy for not helping Taylor get out of the locker, despite him trying to be her friend before that and always trying to talk to her about stupid things, because he was socially awkward and didn't know how to talk to people.

Greg Veder. I was Greg Veder and he was NOT the protagonist of Worm.

“Fuuuuuck.” I said and stepped into the shower.

“Did he just curse at me?” The man asked.

“I'm sure you're just hearing things, dear.” The woman answered.

I ignored them and turned on the water and stripped off my Alexandria pyjamas, uncaring of the temperature of the water, and quickly washed before I let the cold water splash against my face. It woke me up a bit more and I felt better. I drank a little more as well and stepped out, dried off, and went into my room.

I opened the dresser and grabbed the first pair of pants that looked suitable, a pair of underwear, and the t-shirts all had stupid sayings on them. I grabbed one at random and put the clothes on, grabbed the half-full backpack, and stepped out of the room.

My eyes looked upon the stairs and I groaned. I was still kind of dizzy and gripped the hand rail tightly as I walked and then stumbled down the stairs. My free hand caught the wall before I slammed into it on the landing and I took several breaths to calm down. I mentally nodded and carefully walked down the next set of steps to reach the floor.

“Come and eat, sweetie.” A woman's voice said.

I turned around and saw a very short blonde woman wearing a business suit that stood beside the kitchen table. If I didn't know she was my mother, I would have commented about how utterly adorable she looked.

Said woman blushed and looked even more adorable. “G-Greg, I'm your mother. You shouldn't say things like that about me.”

Oh. Oops. I guess I did say it out loud. “Sorry, mom.”

The man sitting at the table lost his stern look and chuckled. “At least he has some good taste.”

“Hank!” The woman said and lightly slapped his arm.

He huffed and gave me a stern look. “You're not wearing your beanie hat today?”

Oh, fuck no. I thought. “Forgot it.” I said and sat down across from him.

“Did I hear you curse earlier?” The man asked instead of telling me to go get the hat.

“Headache.” I said and started eating the sickeningly sweet breakfast cereal in the bowl in front of me. If this wasn't a superhero world, I would be wondering why Greg didn't have diabetes.

“Why didn't you say anything, sweetie? Here, you can take this with your milk.” The blonde woman said and handed me a small blue pill.

The irony was not lost on me. “No, thanks. Had enough pills.” I grumbled and ate a little faster.

“Good for you. Real men don't need that medication stuff.” The man across from me said and ate his eggs and toast.

It was the woman's turn to huff. “Sometimes it does help.”

I ignored their silent argument and finished eating. I stood up and felt a little better, even though I should have only eaten toast or something else to better absorb stomach acid. I turned and took the short woman into my arms and hugged her, just because I had been doing it for years with Inko, my previous mother.

“Thanks, mom.” I said and kissed her cheek. I walked across the kitchen and saw a conveniently placed bus route map on the front of the refrigerator. It was marked with the right numbers for school, library, and work, and even had our own address on it. Nice. I thought and left the kitchen without seeing the shocked look on my father's face and the bright blush on my mother's.

The bus stop was only a block away and I didn't realize I forgot my jacket until I was halfway there. A gust of wind let me know it was freaking cold out and I hadn't checked beforehand. There was even snow on the ground. So, not only was I an idiot for wearing a t-shirt during winter, I also wasn't wearing a coat or gloves. This day was turning out spectacularly. It really was.

I rode the bus to school and my shivers kept me warm. It wasn't much consolation, because I was feeling sicker, and one of the bus windows was locked open to keep the smell out. Yes, really. That's what the bus driver told me when I asked. At least he didn't call me stupid for not wearing a coat.

The bus dropped me and several other students at Winslow High School and I mentally cursed. I didn't even get the one main thing I paid for? Goddammit. I thought and tried to not shiver too much as I walked towards the front doors.

A few of the other students openly laughed and pointed at me, letting everyone know I was an idiot for forgetting my coat. I ignored them, mostly because I had no excuse. What was I going to say? I'm sorry for not remembering a jacket, because I tried to kill myself last night and now I'm someone with no memories of who I was?

Yeah, that would go over well in a world like Worm. I thought and entered the school. If that came out, I would be captured, hosed down, and interrogated... and that would be the gentle version. You do not want to know what the malicious version would be.

I heard a ruckus down a side hallway and sighed, because I was sure it was going to be a stupid gang mash-up or something, like them making useless threats and never doing anything. They were school kids, so you had to expect a lot of posturing and boasting. It's what they do.

A strong smell hit my nose when I neared the group of kids and I heard someone throwing up.

NO! I yelled in my head and ran. Of course it was today! Stupid, stupid, stupid! I berated myself and shoved people out of the way, making them yell and curse, and I broke through and lunged at the person in front of the filth-filled locker.

My hands just barely pushed Taylor out of the way as Sophia Hess jumped forward and tried to shove her into the locker. Since I was now there in front of her, I was shoved in instead and the door was slammed closed and locked, to a lot of people's laughter.

“That's what you get for being you, Hebert!” Sophia taunted and banged on the locker, making my headache rush back. “Know your place!”

“Um, Sophia? Taylor's right there.” A girl's soft voice said.

“What?” Sophia asked and the laughing died off.

I wasn't concerned about that, because everything started to go black as I passed out.

Great idea! You've somehow managed to replace the protagonist with yourself.
The Protagonist System is re-initializing. Finishing loading... Done!
Reloading custom options from within a world is not possible. Default world settings locked.

I sighed, because they did warn me I couldn't change things after arriving. It was going to suck that I was stuck with all the basic characters and there were no really exciting things to play around with. That sandbox thing really had sounded fun.

The blackness was suddenly replaced by a vision of two large worm-like space whale things as they swirled around and one of the glittery scale things broke off of one of them.

Noooo! I thought in a panic, because I was going through a trigger event. I went over what I could do and there wasn't much. My perk Mind Block should stop the entity from connecting to me through a shard and affecting my brain.

My Power Sharing power would still be useful as well, especially here with all those powers ruining people. I would also sell whatever thing tries to attach itself to me, since I didn't really need it. Did it count as a soul fragment or was it just a power source, I wonder? What amount of Karma Points would I have afterwards?

It took me a moment to realize something important after asking myself that. This was only the latest cycle in a whole slew of cycles and not the first. Whatever power I was going to gain, no matter if the shard was deployed previously or not, it would have been used a bunch of times to help destroy civilizations and entire worlds across multiple dimensions.

Also, the sell process was automatic if a soul fragment was involved, and I agreed to accept all the negative Karma of the target. FUCK!

I closed my eyes and didn't bother to look at whatever power I didn't get, what it sold for, or if it had a soul piece or not. I definitely didn't look at what my Karma Point total was after accepting the negative Karma from erasing thousands of worlds from existence.

A presence formed at my side and I hugged them tightly. I felt several kisses on my face and lips and I didn't move or react. All that work and potential I had built up, breaking records, enough Karma to create entire galaxies inside universes if I wanted, and even make new worlds and new civilizations.

All of it was gone, because I was arrogant and thought I could have fun on a parallel world I had forgotten was protected by the entities that used these worlds as fuel on their journey across dimensions. They had segregated these worlds from the rest of the multiverse for a reason, mainly to hide what they were doing from other entities. I had trespassed and I had paid dearly for it.

A feeling of reassurance came from around me and I sighed. I nodded and opened my eyes, gave the presence another kiss, and turned back to dismiss all the popups. None of them mattered, except for the last one that told me my divine body had been restored and my powers reactivated. Before I could choose to return to the world, my subconscious brought up the window I already knew the contents of.

Karma Points: 0 (Reserved: Locked)

Well, there's nothing to do but to get back to it. I thought and felt a hug, then the presence faded.

A small rush of memories flooded into my head as Greg's life, as normal and kind of pathetic as he thought it was, slid into the back of my mind. I chuckled at the new memories, because Izuku had a much harder childhood than the guy living on a grimdark world.