James slowly opened his eyes as he felt pain spreading from the top of his head to the tips of his toes.
It was like someone had stuffed him inside an industrial dryer and left it spinning for hours.
He was lying flat on his back on the dirt, staring at a canopy of green leaves swaying gently in the wind, with a few rays of sunlight filtering through above him.
"Where am I...?" he murmured, dazed.
James sat up slowly, propping himself on his elbows and clenching his teeth against the pain.
However, feeling the grass brushing against his skin, he looked down and discovered he was completely naked.
"No wonder it felt cold down there," he said, his gaze stopping at his groin. "...I didn’t remember you being this big, buddy."
Then all the memories of what had happened came flooding back at once. He brought both hands to his face and rubbed his eyes while letting out a long sigh.
"Damn... that bitch really blew herself up on top of me."
While James was still talking to himself, a translucent blue screen appeared floating in the air, right in front of his face.
[Main Quest Not Completed]
["The Final Battle Between Good and Evil"]
[Result: Total Failure]
[The assigned objective, "Defeat the Hero," was not fulfilled within the established parameters.]
[The User was neutralized before the confrontation could be concluded.]
James frowned as he read what the screen was showing.
"That’s bullshit" he said, indignant. "If I got ’neutralized,’ it was your fucking fault."
The screen flickered once, as if it had heard him and decided to ignore him completely, and the text changed.
[Given the User’s inability to complete the Tutorial, a penalty proportional to the severity of the failure will be applied.]
[Calculating...]
"Wait, wait, wait," James said, raising both hands. "What penalty are you talking about?"
[Penalty determined.]
[Proceeding to adjust the User’s attributes to a level consistent with their actual performance.]
[Previous attributes: temporarily locked.]
"What? Would you like to expl—"
The screen changed again before he finished speaking.
[Stats]
[Strength: D]
[Endurance: F]
[Speed: E]
[Agility: E]
[Magic Power: F]
[Magic Defense: F]
[Vitality: F]
[Perception: E]
[Luck: S]
"...You’ve got to be kidding me."
James looked at the list again, column by column, row by row, hoping he had misread it.
But to his misfortune nothing changed.
"No, no, no. Hold on. Where are my old stats?" James said, pointing at the screen with a finger as if that was going to accomplish anything. "I had everything at SSS rank! And now I’m all E’s, F’s, D, and a single S?!"
The screen didn’t respond.
"And on top of that the only one that doesn’t suck is Luck?" he continued, growing increasingly irritated. "What the hell use is having that one so high?"
James tried to take a deep breath to calm himself, when he remembered something.
"Wait a minute... at no point was I warned there would be a penalty this brutal," he said, pointing at the screen. "Besides, I clearly remember that part of the information you showed me was unreadable."
And after a few seconds of silence, the screen seemed to respond to him for the first time.
[The penalty was communicated to the User before they chose to deliberately fail.]
"What do you mean ’deliberately fail’?" he said with wrath. "I already told you it was a—"
[Every Quest carries a reward and almost always a penalty. It’s common sense.]
[The User accepted the conditions the moment they assumed the body and the role.]
"I didn’t accept anything! I just appeared here out of nowhere and you started all of this on your own!"
[Ignorance of the conditions does not exempt one from compliance.]
James opened his mouth to keep arguing, but closed it when he realized that wasn’t going to get him anywhere.
"...I can’t believe a damn screen is winning an argument against me," he muttered under his breath.
The screen, indifferent to his complaints, changed again.
[As compensation for the loss of power, a new Main Quest is enabled.]
[Its purpose is to allow the User to reverse the applied penalty and gradually recover what was taken from them.]
[New Main Quest Activated]
[Name: Recovering What Was Lost]
[Objective: Recover the User’s Demon Lord Powers.]
[Progress: ██%]
[ERROR.]
[$@#%!&*()]
[NULL_SYNTAX_ERROR]
[PARAMETERS LOST]
James finished reading and frowned again.
"See? There’s that wall of incomprehensible text again," he said, growing more exasperated. "How the hell am I supposed to know what to do if I can’t read a single word of what you’re saying?"
The screen changed again.
[The main objective is reached progressively.]
[Side Quests will be assigned to the User on an ongoing basis.]
[Each completed Side Quest will return a portion of the lost power and bring the User closer to recovering their original form.]
[Assigning the first...]
[New Side Quest Active]
[Name: Starting Off on the Right Foot]
[Objective: Kill the goblins attacking the village near where you respawned.]
[Suggestion: start with the ones surrounding you.]
[Calculating reward...]
[████████████]
[0xDEADBEEF]
[REWARD_TABLE_CORRUPTED.]
[%$@!#%&]
[ATTEMPTING RECOVERY...]
[RECOVERY FAILED.]
James let out a resigned sigh at seeing those meaningless messages again.
And in the end he decided to focus on the little he actually could understand.
Then he calmly surveyed the clearing he was in. Large trees and bushes stretched out in every direction.
Not a single goblin in sight.
"Look, I don’t know if you realize this, but this place is emptier than my bank account," he said, looking back at the screen with a tired expression. "So why don’t you check your data again and—"
James didn’t get to finish the sentence because, at that precise moment, the bushes surrounding the clearing began to move.
First he heard a rustle to his right, then another to his left.
And before he could react, five small silhouettes emerged from the undergrowth.
They were short creatures with dark green skin, pointed ears, long noses, and bulging yellow eyes.
Each one was holding some kind of improvised weapon.
Sharpened sticks, rocks, or rust-covered knives.
"...I should have seen this coming."