Chapter 5:Fuck the Boar
BLINK.
Lai Ming opened his eyes.
Smoke. Damp dirt. A log jabbing him in the ribs like it wanted to remind him he screamed into his hands yesterday.
Great. He was still alive.
Day three.
He sat up with a groan, back cracking like cheap plastic, and stared at the sky.
The jungle hummed.
Somewhere, a bird screamed like it just got mugged by a squirrel. Again.
He rubbed his face. Then remembered.
"Battle Boar."
He blinked.
Then groaned.
"Right. Big-ass, angry jungle bacon with tusks. Because apparently chickens weren't humiliating enough."
He looked down at himself.
Still half-naked. Still wearing a loincloth that used to be dignity. Still smelled like fire smoke, dried chicken grease, and spiritual disappointment.
"…Fantastic."
He grabbed his spear — the same dull, crooked stick from the last poultry war.
It felt lighter now. Or maybe he was just heavier. Stronger. Less squishy.
Still stupid.
"This is the worst plan I've ever had," he muttered, tying the damp underwear tighter around his waist. "And I once tried to cook eggs on a radiator during a blackout. So that's saying something."
He glanced around.
"Elder Munch?" he called.
No answer. No bleat. No judgmental wool-blob chewing grass in the corner.
Just wind.
"…Abandoned by livestock. Again."
He turned toward the trees.
Dark. Dense. Vines hanging like nooses. Roots like tripwire.
Every leaf looked like it wanted to kill him personally.
He didn't move.
Not yet.
"I used to get winded going up one flight of stairs."
"I used to fake coughing to skip gym and eat vending machine donuts in the bathroom."
He tightened his grip on the spear.
"Now I'm marching into a fucking jungle to stab a boar the size of a refrigerator. With a stick. In my fucking underwear."
A long beat.
"…Why am I like this."
He took one step forward. Then another.
His feet slapped wet dirt. Leaves rustled overhead. A bug zipped past his face like it was trying to intimidate him.
He glared at it. "I'll fight you too, you mosquito bitch. Don't test me."
Silence.
He kept walking.
"Alright. Step one: stab the boar.
Step two: scream like a coward and hope it gets confused.
Step three: if I live, pass out on the ground until the system gives me a medal or a protein bar."
He muttered as he walked:
"Should've stayed by the fire. Should've learned how to build a bed. Should've fucking domesticated the sheep."
Another step. And another.
"This is so fucking stupid."
But his body felt… right.
Balanced. Light on its feet. Arms firm. Breath steady.
His brain was screaming, but his legs moved like they'd done this before.
He paused at the treeline, spear resting on his shoulder, and looked back once — just once — at the clearing.
Empty fire. Moss pile. Silence.
Then turned forward.
"…Fuck it."
He stepped into the jungle.
The jungle got thicker the moment he passed the tree line.
Not just vines and mud — the air changed. Got heavier. Like someone turned the oxygen dial to soup.
Lai Ming pushed a branch aside with his spear, took another cautious step, and immediately regretted it as something squished under his foot.
He looked down.
"…Fucking mushroom. Wet bastard."
He scraped it off on a root and kept going.
The usual background music — birds arguing, bugs buzzing, leaves whispering about his inevitable demise — all started to fade.
This wasn't the same part of the jungle from yesterday.
This was deeper. Wilder. Quieter.
Like even the dumb animals had learned to avoid this patch of bullshit.
He glanced around.
Ferns. Twisted trees. Fewer signs of life.
He spotted a squirrel at one point — fat, one eye closed, chewing on something aggressively. It looked up at him like it wanted to file a noise complaint. Then scampered up a tree with the grace of a tax evader.
"...Friendly."
Farther in, he saw a lone chicken.
Not a jungle chicken.
A regular one.
Beady eyes. Dusty feathers. Pecking the ground like it owed it money.
It looked up.
He looked at it.
A long pause.
"…I'm not here for you today."
The bird blinked slowly, like it understood. Then waddled off like a suspicious informant.
Lai Ming stepped over a gnarled root, then another.
The vines started looking more like veins. Thick, dark, and hanging low like they wanted to trip him just to laugh.
Step.
Step.
Crack.
A dry twig snapped underfoot. Sounded way too loud.
He froze.
Something rustled above. A few birds scattered. Then silence returned.
He kept moving.
The deeper he went, the more the sound shifted. The bugs were quieter. The air got colder. Even the light through the canopy went from gold to green, like it was filtering through algae and ghost stories.
Then—
Rustle.
From the right.
Sharp. Sudden.
Not the kind of sound a squirrel makes.
Not the big, messy crashing of a tiger either.
Just one clean disturbance — like something big shifted its weight.
Lai Ming stopped. Held his breath.
Turned his head slowly.
"…That didn't sound friendly."
He crouched low, adjusting his grip on the spear.
No birds. No wind. No jokes now.
Just silence — stretched taut — and that one sound from the brush, still echoing in his ribs.
He took one quiet step forward.
Then another.
Eyes locked. Muscles coiled. Every cell in his body whispering the same thing:
Don't fuck this up.
One step.
Another.
The spear trembled in his hands, not from weakness — from that sharp, electric kind of fear that crawled under the skin just before everything went to shit.
"It's fine," he whispered. "You've got this. It's not a tiger. Probably. It's fine. You're fine."
CRACK.
The trees exploded.
Not a rustle. Not a snap.
A fucking detonation of leaves and rage.
SKRHHHH-KRRRRUNK.
A wet, grinding snort tore through the underbrush — like a pig had swallowed a chainsaw and decided to cough.
And then—
It came.
A wall of muscle. Brown. Filthy. Eyes wild.
The boar didn't run. It detonated.
"—WHAT THE SHIT—!"
Lai Ming flinched.
Too slow.
The boar slammed into him like karma with tusks.
His spear flew out of his hands, spinning into oblivion like it was trying to escape the story.
WHUMP.
He hit the ground hard.
Hard enough to taste dirt.
Hard enough to forget how legs worked.
Hard enough to question every choice that brought him here.
His shoulder shrieked.
His ribs throbbed.
His ears rang.
He coughed once. Spat out something that tasted like leaf and failure.
"Fuck—fuck—what—"
He rolled onto his side, legs kicking at the dirt, trying to stand. Somehow, he got his knees under him. Hands sinking into mud. Vision blurry. Pain everywhere.
"Where's the—shit—spear—?"
Then he heard it.
SKREEEEH-HHRRGH.
That same demonic snort. Closer now.
The boar was already turning, steam blasting from its snout, hooves digging trenches into the jungle floor.
It was coming back.
It wanted seconds.
Lai Ming pushed to his feet, arms up, half-coherent.
"Nonono—wait—WAIT—"
It charged.
No pause. No breath.
BOOM.
He threw his arms up like that'd do anything. Tried to brace. Tried to dodge. Tried to not die.
SLAM.
The boar hit him like a divine punishment.
His lungs forgot how to function. His spine folded. His brain rebooted.
THWACK.
Tree. Back. Mud. Sky.
He hit the ground with a noise somewhere between a grunt and a dying frog.
Everything hurt.
Everything spun.
Everything went quiet, except for the horrible, wet, triumphant huff of the boar — still standing.
And Lai Ming?
Barely breathing.
He couldn't hear anything except his own breath.
Shallow. Wet. Fast.
His arms shook as he tried to lift himself.
The tree bark scraped his spine. His shoulder was screaming. His lungs felt like they'd been replaced with hot mud.
He didn't move for a long second.
Then he heard it.
Clop. Clop. Clop.
Not hooves thudding.
Stalking.
The boar wasn't charging anymore.
It was walking now.
"Oh… fuck me sideways."
He pushed off the tree, wobbling, barely standing. His left leg didn't feel right. The world tilted.
The boar stared at him through the brush — eyes small, sunken, knowing.
Like it wasn't an animal.
Like it was personal.
"I'm not gonna die to a fucking pig," he hissed, blood dribbling from his lip.
He turned to run. To limp. To anything.
The boar roared.
SKRRRHHHK-KAWHH!!
CRUNCH.
It shot forward — fast, too fast.
Lai Ming tried to sidestep.
Failed.
THWUNK.
Pain. White. Sharp. Deep.
His thigh lit up like someone shoved a spear of lightning through it.
He screamed — no words. Just rage and pain and fuckfuckfuckfuck.
The boar's tusk had pierced through his thigh, ripping straight through meat and muscle before yanking out like it was gutting dinner.
He collapsed.
Hard.
One leg useless. Blood pouring down.
"FUUUCK—fuck—shit—ow—fuck—"
He clawed at the ground, breath short, dragging himself with elbows and teeth.
The boar didn't chase.
It just watched.
Snorted.
And slowly began to walk away.
Like it knew he was done.
Like it'd won.
Lai Ming couldn't even scream anymore.
He dragged himself a few feet — just far enough to hit a slope — and tumbled.
Thud. Slide. Splash.
Face-first into cold mud. Chest down. Blood mixing into jungle water. His loincloth half torn.
The sky spun above him.
Branches shifted.
His vision blurred and sharpened and blurred again.
"No..."
"Not like this…"
His cheek pressed into the dirt. He let go of his breath.
"I was just getting started."
Silence.
Then:
"Baaa."
Soft. Nasal. Familiar.
He didn't lift his head.
"…No fucking way."
Something tugged at his loincloth.
TUG.
A drag.
Another.
Mud shifted.
Then — warmth.
Firelight. Smoke. Familiar moss.
He blinked.
He was at camp.
Dragged halfway into the clearing like a corpse with bad luck and worse friends.
Standing beside him —
Elder Munch.
Chewing.
Looking down at him like he was the idiot.
"…You sheep-shaped angel," Lai Ming muttered.
The sheep walked away for a second. Came back with a leaf. Broad. Veiny. Ragged at the edges.
It dropped it.
Then — without hesitation — bit it.
Chewed.
Foamed slightly.
Then leaned down — and licked his wound.
"WHOA—bro—what the fuck?!"
The sheep didn't care.
It licked again.
Spit-leaf pulp smeared into the gash.
"Is this some kind of jungle kiss?!"
No response.
Just another slow, confident lap of sheep-saliva medicine.
Lai Ming gritted his teeth.
But…
The burn faded.
Not gone.
But better.
The bleeding slowed.
His breathing steadied.
"…You magnificent, fluffy bastard."
The sheep blinked once.
Then turned around, faced the fire, and farted.
Lai Ming closed his eyes.
"Fuck this jungle. Fuck that boar.
And fuck everything about spiritual medicine via mouth-to-thigh."
The flames crackled.
His eyes slipped shut again.
He didn't sleep.
Not yet.
But for the first time all day—
He didn't feel like he was dying.
But he also didn't feel alive.
Not fully.
His eyes stayed closed. The fire crackled beside him. The sheep farted again, quieter this time — like punctuation.
And then—
Darkness.
Not unconsciousness. Not sleep.
Just... void.
The grass glowed beneath his feet again — soft, familiar. That same glowing green patch in the middle of nothing. That same floating leaf drifting by like a sad paper airplane with depression.
Lai Ming stood.
Breathing. Barely.
His thigh still throbbed, even here.
Dream pain. Soul pain.
"You've got jokes," he muttered. "Letting the pain follow me into the nap dimension."
No system screen greeted him.
No 'You survived!' pop-up.
No pity points. No pity.
Just silence.
He looked around, then down at his hands.
Same faint soul-light. Same fingers. Same calluses that weren't enough to stop a living battering ram from turning him into a jungle blood smear.
"No quest?" he said. "No reward?"
His voice didn't echo. The void just absorbed it like it was tired of his shit too.
He sat.
Slowly.
Carefully.
Like someone who'd learned what it meant to bleed for real.
"So that's how it is."
No answer.
"You gave me the power to dodge in my sleep. To skewer chickens. To survive."
"But not win."
His eyes narrowed.
"I thought this was a system. A game. Some sleepy, sarcastic grindfest where I nap my way to the top."
"But that thing out there didn't care."
"It didn't care about stats or skill names or witty dialogue. It just slammed me into a tree and tried to make bacon out of my femur."
He clenched his jaw.
"And I let it."
Silence.
Then:
"Never again."
He stood.
One leg stiff. But steady.
"I'm not waiting for your next quest. I'm not playing fetch with fate."
"If I'm too weak—then I'll fix it."
"I'll train. I'll crawl if I have to. I'll make weapons from sticks and bones and whatever the hell Elder Munch isn't chewing on."
His hands curled into fists.
"Next time I face that boar—"
"I'm not getting impaled."
A breath. Slow. Cold.
"I'm impaling it."
No fireworks. No music. No shining stats.
Just him.
Alone.
Deciding.