Another man might have worn himself out, worrying about the angry monster camped under his tree house, desperately groping after plans and schemes of escape and victory; another man might have found it impossible to focus on the fictitious struggles of Jonny the Man and his band of Kiwi warriors. But Bob, Bob was made of sterner stuff. Life was the journey and not the destination. You had to enjoy the ride.

Bob took a few moments to get a little bit more comfortable. Pride only does one so much good stuck up in a tree without clothes and his body was screaming for some more bearable position. Against the argument of agony, even the prospect of a scratched up behind had begun to seem tolerable. He lowered himself down onto a branch, nice and gentle now. The wood was hard, cold and rough, but anything beat standing. And look at that, another branch just in front served as a good book rest. He made the best of things.

Bob settled right in. The plot was about what you'd imagine. Jonny had stumbled upon an ancient virtual reality console and accidentally ended up inside the game, The Multiverse Odyssey. Turns out Jonny was unique in the cosmos (big surprise) with access to all twelve Ki essences. And the grey-bearded master, Yamada Taro, had come out of retirement to mentor young Jonny.

Yamada-sensei had taught Jonny the importance of Wi, self-mastery, the energy of one's soul that came through discipline and mediation, and Jonny had formed the Kiwi ("Ki Wi") Warriors. His fledgling organization had been challenged by the local strongman, Kai Vortex, leader of the tyrannical band: the Wiki ("Wi Ki") Warriors.

Jonny was facing down Kai now. Or he was doing his best to avoid getting flattened, because Kai was in the process of displaying an absurd and inhuman level of power. Jonny would have to dig pretty deep to get himself out of this one. Implausibly deep. Power up very likely.

The story was quite a page-turner and Bob enjoyed himself thoroughly. It's amazing what a good book can do. Bob laughed. He cried. He almost fell out of the tree. How does the author come with this stuff? Bob shook his head in wonder at the creative process. It’s absolutely golden. Or is it? Bob read back a passage to himself. One of Jonny's flashbacks as he sought the metaphysical inspiration necessary to defeat a superior foe:

"Jonny, get this through your thick skull. Survival ain't enough. We all goin' to die. You goin' to die, Jonny."

"No I ain't."

"Yes you are, Jonny. You think you some kinda demi-god. You goin' die, Jonny. You goin' die good. But listen to me. I'm saying something here. You need to get stronger. For others sure, for your little sis, for grandad, but more than that, for you. Remember this, boy: sweat makes the man. You ain't sweating enough."

"I sweat plenty." Jonny smelled his shirt. "Smell this."

"God, that smells bad."

Sometimes Bob had trouble telling if a book was really good or really bad. Was the author trying to be funny or serious? It sounded like it was maybe profound, but the idea was just hidden really well beneath crude humor and questionable grammar. In the moment, he'd been moved by Yamada-sensei's exceptional insight but reading back, was it all just setup for the sweat joke? Bob deliberated a moment, hesitated a second, and then decided it was profound. The author, Bob squinted at the cover, Jonny Johnson was a genius. Couldn't say more than that.

Bob grudgingly paused here to take a look at his own boar situation. This here was definitely not a natural space. Hours must have passed since he’d been teleported to the forest, but the sky appeared just the same as when he’d first looked up.

Down below the boar was moaning quietly to itself, evidently still in a good bit of pain. It was kneeling in the mud, bathing its wounded eye. Why wouldn’t it just go back to its den? Bob had no quarrel with the animal. He almost pitied the beast. Wasn’t there some more peaceful resolution to the whole affair? "Defeat" didn’t mean "kill". Maybe he could get the boar to acknowledge defeat in some way.

You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.

Bob spent a couple minutes brainstorming ideas. He quickly realized that he lacked the creative genius of Jonny Johnson. He didn't think getting the boar to play a best of three rock-paper-scissors was particularly practical. Nor entirely fair, since the boar with its hoof could only play rock. But Bob would probably lose any contest of strength or speed. And that was about the extent of the ideas he managed to scrounge out of the old brain.

Instead he turned back to the book. At least he had Jonny. At least he had Jonny. Ten minutes later Bob closed the book. He hadn't wanted to stop. If he could, he would have read straight through to the end. He wanted to read through. Unfortunately, it was becoming impossible to make out what was happening. To be honest, he hadn’t really been able to follow the narrative in that last chapter. The rain hadn’t let up and by now the pages had gone all soggy and the ink was starting to smudge. The mud on the cover didn’t help matters.

So Bob would never know Jonny's fate... Bob stared up into the grey sky, the picture of a tortured soul. He'd spent the whole workday looking forward to Jonny's adventures and now he'd never know, like, not he'd have to wait until tomorrow, no, no, he'd never know. Bob might very well be holding the only surviving copy of the work in the whole universe and it had just been rained through—tough that, not fair, not fair at all.

He finished another apple. Thank god for apples. He’d made a point of not giving anything to the boar below, hoping it’d finally get so hungry that it would have to start searching for food. However, long hours had convinced him that the boar would rather starve to death at its post than leave him in peace. Another good plan ruined.

He tossed the apple core up in the air and caught it. Bob was pissed. Forty percent due to this system initiation thing and sixty percent due to the disappointment of not finding out the ultimate destiny of Jonny the Man. So... to hell with it. He hurled the pit down at the animal below. A pleasurable thunk told him he’d hit his mark.

He felt a little better. It had really made quite a pleasing sound. A warm glow filled his heart. Undiminished even when the pig started scoffing down the remains of the apple. Undiminished even when the beast found gall enough to look expectantly up at Bob as though hoping for seconds.

Well, if it made them both feel better, who was Bob to defy fate? Bob gathered up a handful of hard, round apples, red and ripe. Time to begin the onslaught. Fire. He chunked apple after apple at the dumb brute, each one bouncing perfectly off its thick skull before rolling into the mud. Bob hadn’t felt this good in weeks.

The boar on its side was wild with delight, it didn’t know where to turn, rushing first left than right, nose in the mud, hoovering up apple after apple until... gulp and suddenly it was coughing and spitting—that last apple hadn’t gone down quite right.

Aha, Bob gloated over his foe. "That was my plan all along (no it wasn't). You've fallen for my trap, dumb brute. That's what you get for messing with Bob Brown." Bob continued to pepper the boar with further apples. Really rubbing in his superiority and laughing manically the whole time at the prospect of finally putting foot down on solid ground. "I'm no squirrel," he shouted (as though the question had even been in doubt).

The boar stumbled back, bucking and convulsing, its lungs struggling for air. It lashed out to left and right, battling imagined enemies as its brain starved for oxygen, and in its confusion, it slammed itself broad-side against Bob’s tree.

Bob, arms filled with apples, was unanchored; he wavered a moment, almost regained himself, and then it was all gone and he was tumbling down. His foot jarred into the ground and his head was thrown back, smacking against the hard wood, and splashing up a wave of mud that engulfed everyone and everything. The boar swiveled at the sound and charged madly at the source, throwing its head wildly around as it strove to dislodge the apple.

Brave, noble Bob, our mighty hero, at this last pitch of desperation, at this moment for champions, did the only thing he could, he cowered, arms coming up to protect his head, whimpering about his god-forsaken luck, wishing he was a squirrel-like creature and could scurry up the trunk and away, waiting for the inevitable end, waiting and waiting and still waiting. "Get the thing over with won't you," he heckled. But no blow arrived. Gradually, cautiously, suspiciously Bob unraveled his arms, spat out a mouthful of mud and opened his eyes.

The boar had crumpled down just two paces from him; it looked scared out its mind. And Bob expected he looked about the same. A brush with death can do that to a man. He let out a long, low sigh. He'd survived, but this, this was only the beginning. Challenge number one. Ping, he saw a little message symbol in the top right corner of his vision. No doubt, the universe wanted to congratulate him on a stellar performance. He’d get to it in a second. Universe be damned.