They sat there for a long time in the blackened and bloody grass. Bob could have sworn George somehow managed to fall asleep. It had to be some kind of special ability. Bob had enough trouble falling asleep in a feather bed, but George could snooze off anywhere in thirty seconds flat. Talk about a superpower. The day was starting to die. The shadows were lengthening and a chill edge had crept into the breeze.

All that time Bob had been avoiding the real question. He was afraid to ask it, afraid to put it to the test. He was afraid to find out the cost of their little misadventure. But he couldn't keep running from the question. He had to know. Bob tried to move his arm.

He bit his lip. He titled his head up. His eyes shined a little. He couldn’t move it. He couldn’t move it an inch. But he didn’t call out. He didn’t weep or curse. He didn’t want to worry the dog. He couldn't move his arm, not an inch. He was crippled. But he didn't want to worry George. George had been the hero of the encounter.

Yes, that’s right, George had always been the hero. It was always George to the rescue. George did that. George did this. George knows best. Thank you George. Bob was just bumbling along, going from accident to accident.

Bob stroked the sleeping dog’s head with his one good hand. Thank God he had George with him. Thank God for George. He wasn’t alone out here. In this dark, heartless world where everyone and everything was an enemy. He had George. That was a comfort. More than he deserved.

Maybe he'd just... he tried to move the arm again. No luck. No damn luck. Maybe? And he slapped on another healing patch. The same warm glow. He waited. He hoped. Maybe. He tried again. He shook his head. The arm was dead. Dead, dead, dead.

Now let’s find out what it was all worth. Bob pulled up his status:

> Name: Robert Brown

>

> Race: Human (lesser)

>

> Class: Heaven's Fool

>

> Level: 1 (17%)

>

> Rank: E

>

> Wealth: 4,893,300 credits

He managed a grim smile. He wasn’t surprised. He didn’t even blame the system. Anything more and it just would have been pity. What had he done? Trip up the creature? Drag it down from the sky? It was George who killed the beast. George who deserved the experience. Bob deserved nothing. Bob deserved what he got.

Bob looked darkly at his arm. It hung there clumsily, swaying in small circles as he moved the rest of his body. It was his right arm. His dominant hand. Bob would never be a swordsman now. Not that he ever had been. Never be a spearman either. Never a bowman. Never be a warrior standing on the frontlines with only his weapon and a sea of enemies. He threw himself back, lying on the grass and looked up at the sky.

What was he supposed to do now? Their hunting expedition had been an absolute disaster. Bob was just as weak, no weaker, far weaker than he had been this morning. His dominant arm was a lump of dead wood. The arm even got in the way, impeding his free movements, counterbalancing his actions. He was so, so far from being a fighter, from even being able to protect himself.

Were they supposed to go on like this? What would Bob lose next, a leg, his other arm, his head? That’s what the insect had been going for. That swipe had been aimed for his head. And it would have connected to. Only his last-ditch dodge had saved him. He might have died right then.

Bob realized, lying there, remembering the fight, he was afraid. Oh my god, he was afraid. Sure he’d seen people die in the tutorial, but they’d just disappeared or been dragged away into back rooms. He’d never really seen it. A man brought down in cold blood, a blank-eyed corpse lying on the ground, his guts spilling out of him.

Bob had approached this hunting like it was a game. Monsters spawned to be bested by noble heroes. George’s fire breath killed a monster in a moment, in a flash of blinding light, but that wasn’t how people usually died. That wasn’t what would have happened to Bob if he’d been a second slower. He’d die hard and slow and some monster would swallow him down piece by piece.

He felt nauseous. His heart pounded. Blood was rushing to his head. Did he really have to go back out there? Did he have to keep fighting? Wasn’t there some other, easier way? There had to be. But look right there, hovering just above him, that sharp point suspended by an invisible string:

The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation.

> Quest: Sword of Damocles (World)

>

>

> Kill Viscount Bob, Lord of Earth

>

>

> Reward:

>

> * Lord of Earth (provisional) (title)

> * Viscount (title)

> * 1,000,000 credits

Rank, glory and a million credits. Somebody would step up to make their name, no? Oh somebody would step up alright. Hadn’t Bob learned that already? This here was a bloody, dystopian world and the only way up was on a tide of blood. Somebody would step up alright. Bob’s head was on the block. He was afraid. Yes, he admitted it to himself. It stung at his pride, but it was the truth. He wanted to run. He had to run.

If only the damn sword would fall on him already! This suspense was unbearable. Always to look over one's shoulder. To be afraid of every shadow and whisper. Always to be weak. George was lying in his lap, smiling in some happy dream. "Dammit George," Bob whispered to himself, feeling the shadow of a grin.

"If it wasn't for George, I'd have given up way back. I'd have died in the second challenge, died in that chair when the lights went out." Bob sighed. He couldn't just give up. Not while he still had George to look after. But he didn't have any hope left. He didn't see a path out. He was numb and broken inside. He just didn't want to worry the dog. That was the least he could do. That was all he could do.

Bob gently woke George up. "George let's head back to camp." George jumped up as bright and cheerful as always, his tail wagging and eyes beaming. Bob scrounged up his mud cloak from where it fallen on the ground. Pop. Bob turned to find the dog standing at the old battlefield with a guilty look on his face. It only took Bob a moment to notice what was missing.

“George, why you gotta go and collect the dead corpses…”

George pretended not to hear.

“Just don’t take them out at camp okay. I really don’t want to see that thing again.”

The dog pretended not to hear.

It was a short walk home. Their hill dominated the landscape so it was impossible to lose their way. On the way back, they encountered a level 9 Panzerkäfer stomping around. It was a monstrous green beetle about the size of a minivan. And was that a unicorn horn protruding from its forehead? At any rate the horn stretched out a good three feet, tapering to a sharp point and glimmering with a pearly, ethereal whiteness.

Bob knew death when he saw him. They had no chance against a creature like that. Even George might not have been able to one-shot that monstrosity. Thankfully the monster's massive size meant Bob had spotted it from a fair distance. Far enough that they could hide and wait for the insect to bugger off. Bob dragged George to the ground and draped the mud cloak across both of them. The unicorn-beetle didn’t even glance in their direction. They waited five minutes until the monster had disappeared from sight and then carried on.

Nowhere's safe. That was the message Bob took away from the meeting. How he missed that grace period. He really wished he'd spent it a little more profitably. The rest of the way back, he was even more cautious and paranoid, crouching and sticking to patches of high grass. This must be what prey feels like. The fox in the woods with the hunting horns echoing around him.

It was a slow journey, boring and nerve-wracking at the same time and when they'd reached their little depression with the camp chair and the tent laid out on the ground, Bob collapsed straightway into the seat. He was mentally exhausted. He wanted to sleep and forget everything in the night fog. Bob eyed the campsite.

"Whose great idea was it to leave setting up the tent till later? When the warrior returned tired and wounded from the battlefield... I hate you, afternoon Bob. You planned this."

Either way Bob needed five minutes to wallow. Except Bob's eyes fell on the narrow channel that cut into their depression. He hadn't liked the look of it before and now the sight positively haunted him. It was a shortcut directly to their hideout. Some nocturnal monster was bound to chance upon it and be led straight to their sleeping bodies. There wasn't a hope in hell Bob could sleep with that black mouth looming over his dreams. He'd have to block up the gulley somehow. No rest for the weary.

The job must have taken Bob an hour. And whatever had been left of his mood had not survived the effort. You'd be staggered to discover how frequently you actually use both arms without realizing it. And Bob had one. And with that one, he'd had to roll over every stone in the area and stack them up into a two foot wall.

Even this much would have been impossible if the channel had been any wider. Naturally, Bob had wanted to give up at this point, but the two foot pile of loose stone didn't look like it would stop a soul. So he'd persisted. He'd used his mud powers to fill in all the little gaps between the stones, coat the whole structure in an inch layer of mud, and, then for good measure, he'd added an extra foot to the top of the wall.

Bob continued to frown at the humble, little barricade, wiping away sweat from his forehead. It was no Helm's Deep, but he just couldn't be bothered to work any longer. He was tired, frustrated, and in a black, smoldering temper. He could have built it twice as high and strong if he'd had both arms. He glared at the lifeless stump, hanging off his right shoulder. It was his own fault. It was all his own fault.

His frown deepened as he stared longer at the three-foot wall of mud and stone. It was probably enough, right? At least it should stop anyone from just wandering in (maybe). Hell from a distance, it might even look like the channel stopped in a dead end (maybe). Surely it would serve for one evening at least (maybe).

Whatever. Tomorrow Bob would think about sealing it off proper. Let nobody say Bob wasn't trying to stay alive, even if it felt like the effort would all be pointless in the end. He'd slaved away for a full hour, when anyone else would have crumbled into their sleeping bag and cried themself to sleep. He'd done his part. And now it was truly night. And Bob still had a tent to put up. "I hate my life."