The Protagonist System

My life in Danmachi almost became a utopia after that epic battle. It was almost funny how I was still getting attention, even with the two Level 10 adventurers in the Hestia Familia that had defeated the third and last Great Quest for humanity.

The story of the battle spread across the world almost overnight and became an instant legend. As a side effect, the Hestia Familia became so well known that Hestia almost constantly glowed with the prayers of thanks and praise she received. She had to resign her job because of it and her boss fully understood her reasoning. He also couldn't keep up with the unending customers with her there.

The stalls made a fortune for everyone in the Familia, which we all split evenly. The guaranteed travel business was also discreetly launched and became another source of nearly unlimited income. All of the Familias did a minimum of one mission a day, even the ones only searching for potions ingredients, so various members of our Familia were ferrying people back and forth to the levels with the right resources for them to harvest.

Surprisingly, no one welched on the price or complained. It wasn't just because of Aiz and Tiona, either. The sheer amount of money they made for themselves had dwarfed all of their previous attempts to traverse the dungeon. The safety that had been guaranteed also let them be more reckless with an easy and quick way to exit the dungeon, so they were eager to keep that method available.

It was the day before the birth of Hestia's and my child that the world paused and greyed out. I had been waiting for this moment for months and read over the brief text explaining how Bell's atory had a natural ending and now it was time for my son to take over as the protagonist.

Thanks to the previous purchases I had made with my Karma Points when I made Hestia pregnant, my son would always stay in this world, reincarnating over and over, and he would only inherit the powers I had from back then.

I accepted the ejection from that world with grace and let a dimensional clone replace me. I instantly gained all of the memories I would have made if I had lived out that relaxing life and I smiled widely at spending thousands of years with Hestia as she transitioned from a mortal life to an immortal one. Her powers had grown exponentially, thanks to my efforts spreading her name, and she had to retreat to heaven to maintain the balance of power on the mortal plane.

The little blue box that Fate always used appeared. You did great fixing that mess.

Thanks. I thought to her, quite pleased at the results. Where to next?

As always, it's up to you. Fate responded. Although, we both know you still have some unfinished business in one particular world.

I sighed and thought about that. I couldn't transition back to Familiar of Zero, not after buying off that whole dimension and closing off all portals and access to it, so the next world I had visited was Konosuba. That was the one where I had a great start and then totally fucked it up by being ignorant of the danger I was putting myself in.

I still had the occasional nightmare over the head succubus as she rode me to death and tried to absorb my soul and powers. Over the years, I had slowly distanced that event from the act itself, so having a woman ride me cowgirl style didn't give me panic attacks or flashbacks anymore.

Can I buy in on another version of that world, pop in myself for a moment, and then transport the demon general Sylvia into the new world? I asked.

It will cost significantly more Karma Points if it's only a brief instance. Fate warned me.

It took me a moment to realize why. Oh, I get it. With me being there only briefly, I can't change or alter much to give you all more to work with after that, hence the higher expense.

You got it. Fate responded.

All right. It's worth it, just for the laugh factor. I thought and smiled.

I started asking for what I wanted, with all the characters having over-the-top acting, over-exaggerated attacks, and the base level being raised to a ridiculous point that even the townspeople could fight the demon general's army if they wanted to.

Fate's little blue text box constantly showed the word 'giggle' as I constructed the world I would be entering as a mostly redundant protagonist. I even skipped meeting the goddess part, just so I didn't give away that I wasn't the original soul they were giving access to that world to. I would have felt bad about giving Kazuma a heart attack after he reincarnated if he hadn't done that to get there in the first place. It was fitting, wasn't it?

*

I woke up on the ground with a yellow glow covering me. I wore a commoner's outfit, just so I wouldn't stand out, and I had changed my looks to mostly fit the character I was playing.

“Easy there, traveller.” The very pretty farm girl said as her healing energy faded away. “You appeared out of nowhere and then collapsed!” She said, a bit exaggeratedly and waved her arms. “Just relax and try to recover your strength after the failed teleport spell that nearly killed you.”

I blinked my eyes at her and then smiled at her giving me the perfect excuse. “Thank you very much, beautiful maiden!” I said, surprising myself with how easy it was to fall into the overacting role. “I would thank you in a manly way if you are currently unattached.”

The young woman blushed and her eyes darted to below my waist, blushed even more when she saw I was hard, then she looked back at my face. “We barely know each other, stranger.”

“I am Kazuma, Adventurer Extraordinaire, and you saved my life. The least I can do is offer my services to you.” I said and wagged my eyebrows at her.

She laughed and stood up, her simple dress hugging her curves and showing off her ample assets. “You nearly died and the first thing you want to do is bed me?”

“It's the perfect excuse!” I said and jumped to my feet and posed for her, making her laugh again.

“I have to milk the cows, feed the chickens, get breakfast prepared, clean the house, tend to the other livestock, then spread hay in the barn and make bread.” She said and sighed. “I don't have time to indulge in the pleasures of the flesh until very late tonight and I'll be too tired to enjoy it.”

I stopped posing and took her hands. “Then allow me to help you today. I'll do all the work as you instruct me on how to do it properly, then I'll bed you like you deserve. I'll move on during the night, so you won't feel awkward about it in the morning.”

She gave me a surprised look and then her smile lit up her face. “I dare you to say that to my father!”

“I'm sorry! Your father's married! I can't bed him like that!” I nearly shouted.

Again, she looked surprised and then she laughed and laughed.

I plucked her address from her mind and took her arm to lead her back to the farm where she lived. She had taken an early morning stroll before tackling her chores for the day and just happened to come across me as I appeared. It was only fair for me to reward her for saving me.

Needless to say, she thoroughly enjoyed spending the night with a handsome stranger that showed her things she had never seen before.

*

The next day, I went into town to the Adventurer's Guild. I still had my maxed out Adventurer's Card, so I wasn't going to register or anything. Being reset to Level One would suck just as much this time as it had the last few times I experienced it.

Instead, I cased out the place and ordered food. I waited until the place was fairly busy and a lot of very strong adventurers were there to either talk or look for missions for the day. I made sure I wasn't looking over at the spot near the center of the room with my eyes and created a fake demonic ritual circle. I had it glow, then glow brighter, and it gained a lot of attention.

Everyone started scrambling for their weapons and shouted warnings, which was perfect, and I used my clairvoyance powers to find the right dimension where Sylvia had just consumed my previous self. It was easy to find my armor's signature, because she had manifested it to cover herself.

To be fair, she actually looked sexy with the orange-yellowish armor plates in strategic areas and they would give her just the right protection from slashing damage and piercing damage. She was also without her weapon at the moment, having moved deeper into the mines to hoard together the beasts she and her subordinates were breeding for the demon general's army.

I plucked her from there and made her appear right in the middle of the guild hall in front of nearly a hundred adventures yelling for blood and vengeance on the demons. Sylvia barely had the time to sigh in defeat as they all attacked at once and her new armor actually did more to protect her than either of us thought it would.

Still, it only covered the essentials and she was soon dismembered and her head was quickly mounted on a pike. It was proudly displayed beside the bar and her belongings and body parts were brought to the receptionist as proof, then everyone cheered as the guild split the reward with everyone and offered free food and drinks.

The best part? I cheated a bit and went to the receptionist to post a quest on the notice board. I doubled the reward for demon generals and handed the gold to the receptionist, shocking her, then I asked what they paid for information about the demon generals.

The woman laughed and asked me for everything I knew. I used my clairvoyance powers, just to make sure my information was correct, and told her where they were, how many, and what she needed to do to handle each and every one of them. She handed me my gold back for the information and said the guild would cover the new bounties for me.

I thanked her and created several maps and dropped them on the counter, shocking her again, and then left the guild hall. The world greyed out as it paused and Fate's little text box appeared with the word 'giggle' on it, because it was time to move on again.

Surprisingly, the zombie worlds I had been shunted to were greyed out and marked as completed. It was an odd thing to know that Death's punishment had actually counted for me being the protagonist in those worlds, even if I was just along for the ride as the movie worlds completed themselves.

Then again, it was quite tempting to make alternate versions to see if I could do anything differently, only to find out the deaths were the only point where I could be inserted. Oh, well. No redo for those outcomes.

Next was The Walking Dead and The Last of Us. Those were also marked as completed and I wasn't going to try to redo those. They had worked out well in the end and I had two quite satisfying lifetimes in both. There was no point in going back to change a few things, especially if it would only make things worse or not end in a satisfying way like they already had.

The Incredibles was a pickly subject. It was marked as completed, except a few choices I made were questionable, even if in the end I had a great life, a wife that loved me, and two daughters. I didn't count the thousands of supers my genes had sparked into existence, since they were government owned anyway. No, it was better left the way it was.

The same could be said for My Hero Academia. Everything worked out and I had a great life and my adopted daughter Eri had become the protagonist, so there was nothing for me to fix. It was tempting to go there and live out my dimensional clone's memories for myself, except it would only be giving me first-hand experience reliving the memories I already had. There were other things to do than stroll down memory lane for decades and decades.

Even the last world that was a combination of DC and Marvel, I had reached the point that it became self-sustaining, with my greenhouses, underground factory, and setting up Doctor Fate with a practically limitless renewable force to keep the main dimension safe. There wasn't much left for me to do there except to sit back and enjoy relaxing, which I already had the memories for anyway.

The only place left on the list that was controversial was Worm. It had been my own stupid mistake to assume the space worms would be grateful for being reunited instead of vengeful for how they were treated. I had to severely debate the validity of returning there to be with the people I loved over attracting the attention of another space worm.

You see, there was an entire race of them travelling through their own multiverses and that was a scary thing. If I reappeared within that microcosm with their combined powers as a part of me, it could set off another war with even more entities as they came to find out why two of their members died and why there seemed to be another one that they didn't know.

Dammit, I just can't risk it. I thought and sighed. Even if I went into another separate one, it could still gain their attention; or worse, gain all of their attention. Fighting against one depressed and kind of brain damaged space worm was difficult enough. Fighting ten, a hundred, or even more as they converged to investigate what happened? That was just asking for more trouble than it was worth.

I was sad to leave all my friends and family behind; but, it had been a mostly clean break, if a surprisingly sudden one. I also left messages and gifts for them, so it wasn't a complete loss for either them or myself. With another sigh, I closed my list of traversed worlds and looked at the others.

Now I really had a huge decision to make... and I wasn't going to make it after thinking about everything I went through. I needed a fresh perspective and needed time to just relax and not worry about anything. So, first thing's first. A trip to the gift shop!

It was nice to look at all the different merchandise from all across the different franchises and properties that existed. The funny thing was, it was only things that I knew about, even if only in passing. There wasn't anything from shows and movies I haven't heard of or books not written or released.

Apparently, my own knowledge was the limiting factor of what I could unlock in the higher tier of the gift shop. That wasn't surprising, however. It wasn't like I could magically produce things that didn't exist yet or won't exist until far in the future. The shop would need to be infinitely large to hold it all.

As I browsed, I found a pillow in the shape of Goku's Nimbus cloud and had to buy it. I hugged it and sighed at the fluffy softness that actually let me feel what it was like to hug a cloud. I could only imagine that sleeping on it was also going to be like sleeping on a cloud and I couldn't wait to try it out.

I also found a plushie of Karuma, or the nine-tailed fox monster from Naruto. There were two different versions, Yin and Yang, and I chuckled at it. His father was an idiot to nerf his own son like that by giving him only half of the power and one that was completely unbalanced without the other half. It was no wonder Naruto had such a difficult time with Chakra control!

That made me consider going there to fix his horrible life. Well, that version of his life, anyway. It made me curious about what was considered Naruto's deaths for me to be inserted to. There had been many times where he could have died and was saved at the last minute and there were also a couple of times where he should have died and didn't.

It was then I realized I could probably go in at a specific point and might change a lot more than what I thought I could, assuming I was allowed to interfere at that junction of time. I should talk with Fate and see if my idea was viable or not, assuming they would let me access my powers that quickly. Then again, I already had Chi-like energy, so becoming Naruto at any point in the timeline wouldn't hinder me at all.

I brought my purchases to the counter and paid for them, stored them, and went back to the space in between to talk to Fate. I had a suspicion that another entity might want to have a word with me as well, since my idea would be stepping into her realm a little.

With luck, she might remember our little liaison in bed when she was wearing her goth girl persona back in DC and would still be in a good mood because of it. I needed her to put in a good word with the Shinigami and I needed to buy out any deficiencies I would have using my powers after transitioning. I was not going to be stuck powerless ever again.