Punishment

Kadori glanced at the strange markings on his hands, his expression a mix of surprise and confusion.

"What is this?"Upon examining the markings, Kadori found them written in an ancient foreign language he couldn't understand.

"What does it mean? Is it part of this System nonsense?"

That was the only reasonable explanation Kadori could come up with. Ever since he got the system, strange things had been happening to him.

[ALERT!]

[YOUR DAILY QUEST IS YET TO BE COMPLETED][1 HOUR TO GO.]

[PUNISHMENT FOR FAILURE: ????]

The holographic screen popped up right in front of Kadori while he was busy trying to decipher the markings.

Based on the notification, it meant there was only one hour left before a new day, and before the optional quest would be completed, freeing him to leave.

"I guess I'll figure out what this means later on," Kadori concluded, lowering himself to the floor and beginning a set of push-ups.

"Nine!"

"Ten."

Having completed ten push-ups, Kadori expected to receive the notification for the completion of the task. But he got nothing.

[30 PUSHUPS A DAY: INCOMPLETE: 10/20]

[RUN 30KM PER DAY: INCOMPLETE: 0/20]

[LIFT 30KG PER DAY: INCOMPLETE: 0/20]

[30 SIT UPS PER DAY: INCOMPLETE: 0/30]

Kadori opened the daily task panel to see the reason behind it.

"It all increased by 20?"

Glancing at the daily quest panel, Kadori noticed every single quest on it had gone up by 20. The last time he completed the quests, they were all at 10. How had this changed?

"It must have been the level-ups."

Leveling up twice could also be the reason for the change. In the Moonlight games Kadori used to play, the higher the level, the harder the tasks.

Kadori quickly resumed the push-ups to reach the target of 30. It was far easier this time due to his increased strength.

[TING!]

[30 PUSHUPS PER DAY: COMPLETED 30/30] [REWARD 1 STAT POINT]

Kadori began to run around in the empty desert, going back and forth until he received the notification.

[RUN 30KM: COMPLETED 30/30KM]

[REWARD 1 STAT POINT]

[30 SIT UPS PER DAY: COMPLETED 30/30] [REWARD 1 STAT POINT]

Kadori bent down to catch his breath before beginning his last quest. But there was an issue...

"What on earth am I supposed to lift? This place is empty."

Glancing around the dark, empty desert, he searched for any object that weighed 30kg or more, but found nothing but sand.

"Darn it! The time is almost up!" Kadori screamed internally, moving around frantically to see if he could find anything.

[TIME UP!]

[YOU HAVE 1 PENDING TASK]

[PUNISHMENT: ALL ACTIVE SKILLS AND PASSIVE SKILLS WILL BE LOCKED FOR TWO DAYS]

[PUNISHMENT: ALL STATS WILL BE HALVED FOR TWO DAYS]

[PUNISHMENT: NO REWARD WILL BE RECEIVED FOR COMPLETING ANY TASK FOR THE NEXT TWO DAYS]

Receiving these new notifications, Kadori felt his whole body weaken, causing him to fall to his knees.

Kadori had been unable to feel tired after the fight with the Grandmasters' beasts because of his high strength stats.

But with everything being halved, it felt like his whole body was being crushed like a train.

"All this because of a single incomplete task?" Kadori grumbled.

The punishments seemed pretty unfair to him. Having all his skills locked for two days was already bad enough. Why then did it need to reduce his stats and also deny him rewards for his daily quests and any other quests in the future?

Kadori sluggishly lifted himself off the floor and brought out the compass that had led him here.

He began to trace it back to where the portal was.

Pushing a small red button that was floating in the air, the portal slowly began to form out of nowhere.

Kadori stepped into the portal after it had fully formed, making him vanish from the desert.

In a blink of an eye, Kadori got teleported outside the desert and back to where he had started.

He could still see the same girl he had met earlier, but this time she wasn't sitting alone. Instead, she was attending to other people.

Kadori glanced at the group of people around her and assumed they were part of the Terminators. They were fully equipped in high-grade armor, and their weapons were pretty decent.

It was obvious they were going for a hunt.Kadori left the place and headed back to the room he had woken up in.

"Who the hell is that guy?" A man among the group of people asked the girl.

"I'm not sure," the girl replied. "He showed up yesterday and demanded to be transported to the northern part of the desert."

"Northern part? But that's the Grandmasters' territory. How come he's still alive?" The man voiced out in disbelief.

He was still a Platinum four Chaos user and knew he would struggle against Grandmasters' beasts.

How then was a Bronze 2 able to survive for a full day?

***

Kadori arrived in the apartment and walked into the room. Upon entering, Kadori collapsed on the bed and panted heavily from tiredness.

"This is much worse than I thought!" Kadori lamented, wiping the sweat off his forehead. At least getting this punishment was better than the death it warned him about.

Kadori wondered why he wasn't punished with death since he had failed to complete all the quests. But he concluded that it might have been because he had only failed to complete just one.

[NAME: KADORI KAKASHI]

[LEVEL: 3]

[RANK: BRONZE 2]

[HP: 100][SP: 3]

[ENERGY POINT: 0]

[TIREDNESS: 70]

[STATS]

[STRENGTH: 13 (5)]

[STAMINA: 5 (2.5)]

[AGILITY: 5 (2.5)]

[INTELLIGENCE: 10 (5)]

[PERCEPTION: 5 (2.5)]

[AVAILABLE POINTS TO DISTRIBUTE: 13]

Kadori's eyes scanned through the holographic screen with boiling anger.

After struggling to bring his strength up to 10, he wouldn't be able to use it for the next 2 days. His eyes were fixated on the stats panel and he wasn't even bothered about the remaining changes on the system.

"I guess I'll just need to use my available stat points to increase them. I can't afford to be weak for two days," Kadori pondered.

"Add all 13 points to strength!"

[ERROR!]

[ERROR!]

Placing the points into his strength, Kadori was met with an error notification.

"So I can't even increase it?!" Kadori yelled internally.

The entrance door of the room swung open and Yukiko walked inside.

"Where have you been?" Yukiko asked, placing a tray full of food on the table.

"Uh... I just decided to take a stroll around my new home," Kadori replied with a nervous smile.

Yukiko glanced at him with a look of suspicion before finally speaking, "Hurry up and eat up. When you're done, we'll leave for the Terminator Academy."