The Shadow Monarch Izuku Midoriya

Ch 6: The System Part 2

"Talk"

'Thought'

[System]

RUMBLE!!!

Izuku's eyes shot right open from the violent tremor that shook his entire body and Izuku said, "An earthquake?!"

Izuku sat right up and grabbed the edges of the bed. The shaking was so bad that he couldn't maintain his balance.

RUMBLE!!

The shaking got progressively worse as the seconds ticked by. It happened then.

One of the steel bars on the bed he held on for dear life suddenly broke. No, it didn't break per se, but simply 'disappeared'. Izuku hurriedly looked at his palm. No steel bar there, just grains of sand, 'Sand?!'

In the end, Izuku was thrown off from the bed. He bounced around all over the hospital room and screamed out. Even when that was happening, items within the room was turning into sand one at the time and screamed, "Uwaaaahhhh!!"

....Plop.

He felt something soft against his fingertips. They happened to be ultra-fine grains of sand. And the accursed earthquake had stopped. Izuku spat out the sand in his mouth and hurriedly raised his head up.

His eyes caught the sight on an endless plain of nothing but sand. Izuku frowned heavily and got up. All the sand that found its way inside his clothes poured out. He dusted the sand caked on his chest while taking a look around him.

Indeed, all he could see was sand. And more sand and Izuku in confusion said, "A desert....?! This couldn't be real."

Until a few moments ago, he was sleeping on a bed inside a hospital located in the middle of Musutafu. But now, as soon as he opened his eyes, he was in the middle of a massive desert?

Izuku scooped up a handful of sand, and let it slip through his fingers. The fine grains fell straight down to the ground.

It wasn't just the breeze, though when he raised his head up to look, the sky didn't have a sun, a moon, or any stars for that matter.

It was an empty sky, as if it was filled up with black ink and nothing else. However, for some reason, he had no trouble seeing at all. Izuku then said to himself, "Just where is this place?"

As Izuku got up he saw the sandy ground beside him turn into a pit and Izuku ran as far away so he could avoid getting sucked in the sand he plopped down on his butt, panted heavily and stared at the bottom of the pit. Quite bizarrely, he could see that the sand at the bottom was 'boiling'.

Izuku said, "Hang on a minute...."

Izuku's eyes narrowed in suspicion and he said, "....It's not actually boiling, is it?" When he took a closer look, he spotted 'something' pretty big wiggling down there.

Izuku instinctively forced himself up. He was getting a really bad premonition right about now. Sure enough, just as Izuku took a step back, the sand within the pit suddenly exploded upwards.

Phushu!!

The falling sand emitted the roar of a waterfall Izuku's eyes went extra round in the meantime and said, "An... an insect?"

The identity of the thing that exploded out from the sand was a giant centipede.

Kiiiieeehhhk!!

When fully revealed, the damn thing's head almost reached the height equaling that of a five-story building. Izuku thought, 'This is unreal....'

But the size of the centipede wasn't the only thing that shocked Izuku as he said, "Why is there a... name floating on top of that monster?"

Izuku closed and opened his eyes again, yet nothing had changed. Even now, there were five red words floating on top of the monster's head. Just like a monster from a video game might have.

'The Poison-Fanged Giant Desert Centipede.'

Just like its horrendous and bizarre appearance, its name too was something he'd like to avoid at all cost. What drew his attention the most was the two letters "poison" and "fanged". He spotted a pair of fangs as large as a child jutting out just below the bastard's jaw. It didn't take a genius to figure out what might happen if he got stabbed by those fangs simply from its name alone.

It was then, the sound went off in his head again.

Tti-ring.

[Penalty Quest: Survival]

Goal: Please survive until the end of the time limit.

Time limit: 4 hours

Remaining time: 4 hours 0 minutes 0 seconds

Izuku thought, 'Are you kidding me....?'

However, as soon as the 'remaining time' changed to 3 hours, 59 minutes, and 59 seconds, the centipede parted sand and rushed towards him as if it couldn't wait any longer.

Izuku turned around and ran for his very life before he could even take another step another pillar of sand not too far from him appeared.

'3,2,1...'

As the countdown finished Izuku fell into his room in the hospital and keeled over on the floor and painfully wheezed out. As he whimpered and groaned for a long time, before powerlessly falling flat on his back. He didn't have any energy left to lift even a finger.

Izuku barely managed to say, "Pant.... Pant.... Just.... What was that....?"

Izuku continued to pant heavily when a new message appeared before him.

Tti-ring.

[You've completed the 'Penalty Quest.']

Izuku's expression crumpled into something unsightly.

A 'Penalty Quest'?

Did he do something worthy of being punished?

Izuku carefully retreaded his memories until he recalled the [Daily Quest] he abandoned mid-way yesterday. Now that he thought about it, it definitely said that if the quest was not completed, he'd be hit with a corresponding penalty.

Izuku said, "Pant, pant, that.... That was not a hallucination?!" Indeed, it was not a hallucination nor was it a dream. There was no need to pinch his cheeks to confirm whether this was a dream or reality.

At the same time, another ominous premonition rushed into his mind. If this event was indeed caused by the 'Daily Quest' thing, then without a doubt, this would not be the last time.

Sure enough, he got to hear yet another mechanical beep going off in his head.

Tti-ring.

He flinched in surprise, but thankfully, it was not about another quest or anything like that.

[Rewards for completing the Penalty Quest is now available.]

[Would you like to confirm the rewards?] (Y/N)

Izuku thought, 'Rewards....?' The word 'rewards' jumped right out. Too bad, the problem was, he currently didn't have any energy left whatsoever to confirm this and that. His situation simply didn't allow that.

Izuku thought as he started to close his eyes, 'Never mind giving me rewards or not.... Let me take a break first....' His sights gradually blurred. Soon, Izuku fell into a deep slumber akin to a blackout.

A nurse entered the room and said, "Oh my gosh?! What happened here?" But Izuku didn't wake up as he was already in deep slumber as they picked him and put him back on the bed as they thought he just fell off the bed.

(Hopefully you guys enjoyed this chapter...) (Words 1111)