"It's not the punches that hurt… it's knowing no one can hit back hard enough to make me feel alive."- Saitama.
***
Z-District, Link Hospital.
Lying on the bed in the general ward of Link Hospital's Z-District was a young teen who looked like he came from a poor background—his skin clung to his bones, and a glaring bald spot crowned his head like a failed monk-in-training.
He was fiddling with his digital smartwatch, face scrunched in frustration.
"So… it was fingerprint locked. Thanks, Grandpa Jack," Rex mumbled to the elderly man lying in the next bed.
Grandpa Jack, a long-time diabetic, had been admitted a few weeks before Rex. If his condition stabilized, he'd be discharged in a week.
'Shouldn't young people be good with tech?' Jack thought as he watched Rex fumble with the smartwatch like it was some ancient alien artifact. 'Is this kid from the stone age?'
Rex, now able to explore the watch's contents, was busy checking Ray's contact list, ID info, and past call logs—until he heard a ding.
He assumed it came from the watch, but saw no notification.
"System… status," he whispered instinctively.
And then it appeared.
A new tab had been added to the interface.
[Quests]
[ Daily Quest]
[Push-ups : 0/100]
[Pull-ups : 0/100]
[Sit-ups: 0/100]
[Running: 0/5km]
[Reward : None]
"...Are you kidding me?" Rex muttered.
He could barely walk, and now the system expected him to run five kilometers?
'And for what? No reward?!'
Was this some kind of cursed gym membership?
While Rex muttered under his breath and glared at empty air, Grandpa Jack stared at him from the corner of his eye.
'Is this kid a mental patient…?' he wondered.'Better not ask.' Jack sighed and turned over. "Old men need sleep, not drama…"
***
So Rex ignored the quest and slept like a log—until midnight.
When the clock struck 12, a sharp, twisting pain exploded in his stomach.
[Quest Failed]
[Penalty Applied: Severe Diarrhea for 6 Hours]
Rex's eyes widened in horror as he read the notification.
"Wait, WHAT?!"
Another wave of agony hit him. He bolted upright and sprinted to the restroom, not even sparing a second to think.
One more minute, and it would've been a war crime against the bed.
***
In the morning, a cold, fresh breeze blew in through the window.
Old Jack was enjoying the new day with his usual sugar-free tea. Hearing footsteps behind him, he turned—and nearly dropped his cup.
The sight made his heart skip a beat.
'He's looking more and more like a corpse wearing human skin!' Jack thought, heart skipping a beat. Just yesterday, the kid had looked malnourished — now he looked like a ghost freshly resurrected from a crypt.
Rex, oblivious to the horrified stares, shuffled to his bed on trembling legs.
He had spent the whole night in the bathroom.
"Why wasn't the penalty mentioned beforehand?" Rex muttered.
Then he snapped.
"WHY?! TELL ME NOW?!" he screamed at the top of his lungs, tears streaming down his face.
Jack flinched again, almost dropping his cup for the second time.
Rex continued yelling at the air, sometimes punching, sometimes headbutting an invisible enemy. Jack just stared, speechless.
"I should really request a ward transfer," Jack mumbled to himself. "This brat's gonna send me to the afterlife. I've already had two near-heart attacks because of him!"
***
Rex got scolded by the senior nurse for disturbing other patients — for nearly an hour.
"Do you understand?!" the senior nurse Maya barked.
"…Yes," Rex replied meekly.
When she finally left, he collapsed onto the bed like a dead fish, arms and legs spread wide.
He could only curse the system for not giving full information.
After thinking about it for sometime, Rex excepted his fate as slave to his Useless System.
'System definitely should have reason behind it, if not, what I can do? other in suffering in silence... let start with push-ups' Rex thought with dark expression, not wanting to experience 6 hour in toilet again!
"I have to do it…" Rex muttered while gritting his teeth, sliding off the bed and lowering himself to the floor, chest flat. He attempted a push-up… and one minute passed like that.
"…" Rex.
"Do you need help? I can call the senior nurse," Jack asked from the side, glancing at Rex from the corner of his eye.
"Don't! I'm… doing a yoga pose," Rex blurted. It was the only excuse he could come up with. How could he admit he'd been stuck in a push-up for two minutes and still hadn't cleared an inch off the ground?
"What's yoga?" Jack asked, brows furrowed. Judging by Rex's trembling limbs, it looked more like ritualistic self-harm.
"It's… uh… a new exercise… prescribed by Doctor Jim," Rex said, breaking into cold sweat. Clearly, Earth's common sense didn't apply in this world.
After that, Jack stopped paying attention to the brat and closed his eyes.
Rex rolled onto his side, panting. After catching his breath, he considered trying knee push-ups.
'They're still push-ups. They should count. I can't do the normal ones, but incline push-ups… maybe,' Rex thought, determined.
He got to work, trying them out on the bed—but quickly noticed another problem.
He managed to do five, but there was no change in the quest tracker.
"I refuse to believe this! They should count!" Rex shouted and continued doing knee push-ups until his arms gave out.
Finally, after thirty incline knee push-ups, the counter moved.
[Push-ups: 1/100]
One point.
"Am I cursed…?" Rex muttered, staring at the glowing screen with dead eyes.
The days ahead didn't look bright. He was going to become Batman,—at least until the day he could finally finish one hundred push-ups.
And that was just one of the four tasks he had to complete before midnight.
***
As night fell, Rex groaned and dragged himself toward the restroom again. Every muscle screamed, his arms limp from failed push-ups.
He reached for the door handle—
The lights flickered.
His smartwatch glitched.
He froze.
The temperature dropped. The air grew thick.
From behind him, footsteps echoed softly.
"..."
Rex turned, heart pounding.
A shadow stood in the darkness. Cold, suffocating power radiated from it.
Then—
Before he could say anything, A sharp blade stabbed through his chest.
He collapsed.
Everything went black.