The Protagonist System

Darkness was having an absolute ball. The ferocious manticore and the vicious griffon were no longer fighting over territory and hunting rights, because they were fighting over their new plaything. Her loud moans echoed throughout the clearing as she was mauled with paws and claws, bitten by a giant mouth full of sharp teeth and by a giant beak, and tossed around like a piece of meat.

“How long are you going to let this go on for?” Megumin asked me. Her red face showed that the sounds Darkness made were quite sultry and enticing for her.

“I'm keeping a close eye on her health. When she's down to about half, I'll step in to 'save' her.” I said and made sure Megumin heard the emphasis on the key word.

Megumin softly laughed, because she knew that Darkness would be disappointed when I did.

We watched as Darkness was handled roughly and getting off on it. She didn't even bother trying to curb the beasts or their fight over her and let them do whatever they wanted. The drool and slobber was coating everything and I reminded myself to never ask why she enjoyed monsters salivating over her.

“I think that's enough.” I said when the manticore gripped Darkness in its paws and she let out a pained moan. I drew my mythril sword and glanced at Megumin. “Which one do you want to blow up?”

“The manticore.” Megumin said without hesitation.

I gave her a smile and a nod. “One wingless wonder coming right up.”

Megumin's eyes widened when my sword glowed like the sun as I channelled Light through it, then I disappeared from her sight.

*Swish!* *Swish!* *SWISH!*

Megumin's mouth dropped open when the manticore's dragon-like wings flopped off its back and the griffon's giant eagle head slid off its body. All three things hit the ground at the same time and I was suddenly back at her side.

“Start chanting.” I ordered and Megumin jumped and stared at me. “Darkness is getting crushed.”

“Right.” Megumin said and pointed her staff at the now wailing manticore as she poured her magic into her staff. “I call forth the power of fire and brimstone.” A large magic circle appeared below her feet. “I bring forth the everlasting destruction of the universe.” A second and third magic circle appeared over her head. “Heed my call! Feel my wrath! Behold my power!” All three circles glowed. “Explosion!”

A bright red and orange beam shot out from the staff and hit the creature right in the chest.

*WHABOOOM!*

The manticore reared up on its hind legs as it roared in defiance of its death, its paws letting go and inadvertently tossed Darkness away from the center of the blast. I instantly ran over and caught her before she could hit the ground, tossed her over my shoulder, and ran back to stand beside Megumin to watch the rest of the explosion.

“It's... so... beautiful.” Megumin whispered as our clothes and hair were blown around by the blast wave. She lost all her strength and I caught her with one arm to let her see the results of her work.

“Good job, both of you.” I said and slapped Darkness on the ass. She moaned and shivered, probably because she only wore the torn remains of her bodysuit and my hand had touched her skin directly.

“So... indecent.” Darkness muttered.

I chuckled and cast my area effect healing spell. It cost more and took longer to cast, because it affected more than one person, and Megumin and Darkness sighed as we all glowed and were healed over the next two minutes.

“Do you want me to help you dig through their stomachs for the pieces of your armor, Darkness?” I asked her as I slapped her ass again.

“Ohhhh.” Darkness moaned and shivered. “Satou, please... stop... teasing me.”

I barked a laugh and dropped her on the ground, which made her moan and look up at me with adoration on her face. “I should take you over there and let you wallow in all that blood and gore, on your hands and knees, as you search for each and every piece.”

Darkness shivered and her hand went between her legs and the other went to her breasts. She wasn't trying to cover herself up, though. Two of her fingers pushed the cloth barely covering her aside and disappeared inside of her opening as her other hand pinched her nipple and squeezed her breast.

“You'd like that, wouldn't you?” I asked and she nodded as her hands sped up. “That's too bad. You have to lay there and suffer while I do it for you.” I said and snapped my fingers to form hands from the ground to hold her ankles and waist.

“OHHH!” Darkness moaned and came hard. Her body trembled and her breathing was ragged as she laid there and stared at me, the adoration changing slightly to something more.

“I'll be back in a half hour or so.” I said and gave her a little wave before I started walking over to the battleground. She moaned indecently and I heard her fingers moving again.

Megumin quickly followed me and left Darkness by herself. “Is she getting better or worse?”

“Surprisingly better.” I said and Megumin gave me an odd look. “This was pretty much one big foreplay session for her. It takes a lot to get her going now, thanks to the efforts of the succubi. If we had gone on one of the other normal quests, she wouldn't have reacted at all during the fight.”

Megumin's look changed to thoughtful. “I think you're right. She needed a much bigger monster this time to get worked up.”

I nodded. “I bet during the next mating season for the giant frogs that she won't even flinch at being eaten or covered in slime.”

Megumin nodded as well. “Frogs really can't compare to a giant griffon or a large manticore.”

“Ha! Not even close.” I said and reached down to clean the giant eagle head of blood and stored it.

“Are you really going to get down on your hands and knees to search through its innards?” Megumin asked me as we walked over to the main body.

“Nah. I just wanted to get Darkness off quicker.” I said and took out one of the lightsaber keychains I bought in the shop.

Megumin stared as I activated it and used it to slice all the way down the belly of the griffon, spilling its guts out onto the ground. I did the same to the remains of the manticore, after a quick repair spell to remove the explosion damage.

With easier access to their insides, I walked over to Megumin and took out my wand. “Accio armor pieces.”

Several large squelching sounds came from both carcasses and a lot more than the pieces of armor Darkness wore came out of them and flew over to land in front of me.

“Ewww!” Megumin covered her mouth and nose with a hand.

“I thought they smelled bad on the outside.” I joked and waved my wand over the armor pieces to clean them up, then repaired them with magic. I took out a trunk and separated the pieces that Darkness owned and put the rest into the trunk. “Accio weapons.”

More things squelched and came over to land in front of me. I cleaned them and put the sword Darkness owned aside and put the rest into the trunk.

“Accio magic items. Accio adventurer items. Accio money.” I said and each earned smaller and smaller squelches and smaller piles of things. I cleaned it all and added it to the trunk. I couldn't think of anything else to summon, so I cast diagnostic spells on the creature remains. Nothing else showed, so I repaired the two creature bodies enough to look normal and stored them.

“Why are you taking them?” Megumin asked.

“Trophies.” I said and she raised her eyebrows. “I doubt anyone will want the manticore's face; but, the large dragon wings would look cool hanging over the bar at the guild.”

Megumin huffed. “Only you would think that.”

“What about a whole stuffed griffon hanging over the notice board?” I asked and ignored the moans from Darkness.

“Are you trying to give the guild workers heart attacks?” Megumin asked.

I barked a laugh. “Well, it doesn't hurt to ask.”

Megumin rolled her eyes at me and picked up the armor pieces for Darkness. “Let's get Darkness fixed up in the travel trunk before we have something to eat.”

I nodded and stored the trunk of other things. “It has been a long day and we should sleep for the night before going to look for the bear.”

We went over to where Darkness was still secured to the ground and she looked half-asleep. Her thighs were soaked, as was her hand, and her half-lidded gaze on me let me know that she would have no problems with letting me have her. None whatsoever.

I took out the travel trunk and set up the protections for it, including the notice-me-not and aversion wards. I opened the fourth compartment and picked Darkness up in my arms, gently this time, and she cuddled into my chest with a contented sigh. Megumin climbed into the trunk apartment and I climbed in after her.

*

Breakfast the next morning was filled with talking as Darkness shared her analysis of the battle that she had a front row seat for.

“I'm telling you, that griffon was a speedy beast! No matter how many times the manticore tried to shoot its tail spikes at it, and no matter the range, it dodged easily and swooped in to attack in retaliation.” Darkness praised it, her eyes almost alight with passion.

“It was trying to bite you in half.” Megumin said with a deadpan voice and her forkful of eggs was briefly forgotten.

“It was, despite my much higher defense rating.” Darkness said, delight clear on her face. “It fiercely wanted me and fought to the death to have me. I couldn't feel more flattered if I tried.”

“Uh huh.” Megumin said and remembered her fork of eggs and ate it.

“Your explosion was much more powerful as well.” Darkness said with admiration. “I assume you had enough skill points to push it to the next level?”

“The next two.” Megumin said, proudly.

“Ha! Of course. Our fight with the cabbage hoard benefited us immensely, as did forming our party.” Darkness added, quite pleased. “I daresay we are close to the highest levels in the entire town of Axel.”

“If not the highest.” I said and cut up a sausage. “I'm sure there are a few around that are near us or higher.”

Megumin nodded. “Whoever they are, they have competition with us. This quest journey is going to earn us a few more levels.”

“We can hope.” Darkness said and nodded as well. “Half a million Eris is nothing compared to the experience we gained for fighting those two giant monsters.”

Both Megumin and I exchanged amused looks, because Darkness didn't actually fight and just let them play with her. Maybe that counted, since she did successfully distract them from tearing up the region in their dominance fight. She definitely put her defense stat to the test and could easily claim to have survived being attacked and mauled by a manticore and a griffon.

We finished up breakfast and cleaned up, dressed in our adventuring outfits and armor, and left the trunk. I removed the protection wards and stored the trunk, gave both girls a warm smile, and offered my elbows to escort them. Megumin blushed and accepted while Darkness took it like the lady she was pretending not to be.

I maintained casting my detection spell as we walked, so nothing could sneak up on us. We made our way along some of the back roads and through large swaths of thick forest as we hunted the next object on our quest, the One Shot Bear.

We had to become more cautious as we approached the rumored area where the man killer had been last sighted. I whispered words to Darkness that if she could ambush the thing, she could hold it for Megumin to blast. It made her softly moan with pleasure and she swore she would be as sneaky as a mouse to accomplish it.

Surprisingly, less than an hour later, Darkness really did sneak up on the grazing giant bear and leapt at it from inside a bush she had used as cover. Neither I nor Megumin asked her how she had gotten the thing into a Full-Nelson arm and neck brace, even though she was only 5 foot 7 inches with the 2 inch heels and it was 16 goddamn feet tall.

Barely ten seconds later, Megumin unleashed her best Explosion spell and Darkness didn't try to contain her moan of ecstasy as she and the monster bear were blown away in the blast. Thankfully, the bear took the brunt of it and Darkness was merely pummelled into unconsciousness and not mostly obliterated like her armor and bodysuit.

Megumin was also out of it, because she asked me to not heal her this time. Like Darkness, she actually enjoyed suffering from the use of their abilities. I didn't want to deny them too many times by healing them, so I took the travel trunk out again, set up the protections, and put them into their own rooms inside the apartment.

I marked it with a beacon and created a small temporary teleportation circle and sealed and locked the trunk. With them as safe as they were going to be, I disillusioned it and took out my magic carpet. I flew up into the air and followed the directions to find the pack of void wolves.

They were surprisingly easy to track down, despite the fear and terror they caused by just existing, and I made short work of them with a wide area immobilization spell and then beheaded them with my mythril sword. Just for fun, I removed their pelts and left their paws attached to them, affixed the heads as if they hadn't been cut off, then stored them and the bodies.

With them out of the way, I took out the notice about the Destroyer. The drawing made it look like a giant spider and I would probably deal with it like I would any other giant spider. Cut off its legs and it was pretty much defenseless and couldn't move.

I flew on my magic carpet two territories away and I saw that the giant mechanical spider was approaching a small village, crushing the defenders and defenses as it shot an energy beam to blast the protective wall of the village. I felt conflicted, because I wanted to sigh at not getting to it before it started attacking and was happy that I hadn't been too late.

It didn't matter how I felt about it now, so I stored the carpet and dropped down in front of the next part of the wall that the energy beam targeted. I drew my sword as the large electronic eye in the foretress powered up.

*WOOOONNNN!*

I held my magical blade right in the path of it and the townspeople screamed at me to dodge. After a few seconds, the beam cut off and my mythril sword glowed like a blue sun.

“I believe this is yours.” I said and pointed the sword at the giant electronic eye.

*WOOOONNNN!*

The beam tore through the eye and the top of the fortress like it was made of tissue paper. The entire thing seemed to shudder and shake, then sparks started to flow over all over it.

“Let me help you with that.” I said and charged up my sword with Holy Lightning.

*KRACKOWW!*

The entire mechanical monstrosity was covered in electric arcs of power that short-circuited everything. The thing shuddered for several seconds, let out a whine like a sad child caught doing bad things, and lost all power as its main body sank to the ground and stopped moving.

There was complete and utter silence for several moments before someone cheered that it was dead. That set everyone off to yell and cheer with happiness, especially the few adventurers that had been hired to rescue the richer families and the mayor. They hadn't been able to escape before the Destroyer had descended upon the village and would have lost their jobs and their lives.

Rather than stand there like an idiot and accept the praise, I ran over to the Destroyer and cast a diagnostic spell at it. It was only powered down and wasn't destroyed, so I made one of my smaller explosive glass beads and stored the machine as I teleported a short distance away.

*WAABOOM!*

Everyone screamed and ducked for cover, only for the light to fade and there was nothing left but a crater. Another moment passed before they cheered again.

I shook my head at them not caring I had died and teleported back to where the trunk was safely hidden. I unsealed it and unlocked it, climbed into the apartment, and closed it up. I could definitely use a nap after the full morning I had. I checked Megumin and Darkness, both were fine, so I went to my own room and climbed into bed. Before I knew it, I had dozed off and was asleep.