System Programmer Chapter 21: Down The Rabbit Hole

It had been years since Joshua had been in such a pitiful state. This was the type of att.i.tude he often had back when he was jobless and sleeping in the cabin in the woods. Still, Joshua had matured quite a bit since that period and after a few minutes, he calmed down. He still wasn't sure what had crossed his mind at that moment but that didn't matter. There is something Joshua didn't tolerate: pure stupidity. Now, what did that mean in Joshua's eyes? He could forgive people making mistakes, everyone does. However, what he couldn't stand was people making the same mistake over and over while refusing to learn from them. When something goes wrong, one should reflect on the event and take measures to avoid the incident to repeat itself.

The party had set up camp for the evening in the meantime. The T-Rex would serve as a fine dinner. Catherine hadn't heard from Joshua since he had vanished inside his world and was starting to get a little worried. She was in the right when she had yelled at him, that she didn't doubt. It's just that Joshua's actions took her by surprise. She had gotten used for him to pull brilliant ideas out of nowhere. Sure, he goofed around a lot, but he was always up to his game as soon as a dangerous situation arose. She decided to check up on him.

When she entered his soul world, he was busy doing something ridiculous as usual. However, she frowned as she saw him. His hair was in complete disarray, his clothing was badly damaged and worse of all his mental body was covered in various wounds. In front of him was a burning furnace. To his right, there was a table with 2 filled gla.s.ses. To his left, there was a large teddy bear. Catherine had absolutely no idea of what he was doing.

Joshua didn't notice her and hugged the bear. He smiled, nothing happened but something did seem to please him. Next, he picked up one of the gla.s.ses and tried to drink it. Suddenly his body trembled as if he had just received a shock and he dropped the gla.s.s on the table. The liquid spread all over and Catherine noticed the table was starting to melt. Was there acid in this gla.s.s? Not losing his concentration, Joshua picked up the second gla.s.s and drank it in one go. Nothing happened this time. Finally, he turned to the furnace. He opened it and stretched out his arm, clearly wanting to put his hand in the fire. Catherine was about to yell when he appeared to be shocked again. He left out a big sigh and started to laugh.

"What the h.e.l.l are you doing? You look terrible… Don't tell me you actually enjoy this?" Catherine told him, in a scolding tone.

"Oh, my lovely Catherine, you're here! Good! I solved the issue." he answered as he ran up to her.

"What issue?"

"Well, what happened this afternoon. I realized there may be moments where I act rather irrationally. I, therefore, designed a way to get my mind back on track!"

"By putting your hand in a furnace?"

"That was just a test. Basically, I designed a new function for Luna. If based on its constant a.n.a.lysis of a situation Luna detects I'm acting abnormally for the situation at hand, I will receive a small shock to snap me out of it." he explained.

"... Is that why you're covered in wounds?"

"Yeah, I had to perform a few tests to get it right. Like, at first, it failed to detect me stabbing myself. But it's ok now! Look, it prevented me from drinking acid and putting my hand in a furnace while allowing me to drink water and hug a teddy bear!" he clarified as if it was the most natural thing in the world.

Catherine left out a sigh. It looked like he was back to his original self on the surface but…

"Joshua… Are you all right?" she asked, with a hint of worry.

"Heh, I suppose I'll manage. I guess a solution like this might shock most people, well me included haha, but I honestly think it's for the best."

At this point, he had dropped all pretense of his usual nonsense. He suddenly realized his appearance would probably scare people so he fixed his soul projection and returned to his usual casual outfit. He placed his hand on Catherine's shoulder and told her:

"You have a lot on your mind already, don't worry about me."

Catherine slowly nodded, although she wasn't totally convinced. Joshua didn't appear to be in a talking mood so she didn't press further. So just told him:

"I've been asking a lot of you ever since I summoned you and I fear it might wear you out. If you ever want to talk about it, don't hesitate."

He just smiled and nodded in response. Catherine was still worried though but suddenly had an idea.

"By the way, we're cooking that beast for dinner, since you showed interest in it. Do you want to try it out?"

Hearing this, Joshua's eyes glimmered in excitement. He obviously wanted to try out dinosaur meat!

Without delay, he appeared next to the party and materialized his physical form. His outfit had been changed to that of a gourmet. He saw that Eric was busy cooking a large chunk of meat and started to drool. Events like this were those that made it worth existing!

The area the party decided to camp was a small open s.p.a.ce they had found in the middle of the forest. The area was very peaceful and apart from the water current of the river, only the wind's song could be heard. Joshua ate as if he had a bottomless stomach. Actually, he technically had one, since everything he ate was instantly turned into energy. Still, the group has a weird expression when they saw he ate an entire leg on his own. Catherine silently rejoiced though, his usual happy expression was back.

After the meal, Joshua decided to take a walk. Catherine expressed some concern but he reminded her he couldn't go further than a kilometer from her and thanks to Luna he would be aware of any danger coming nearby. Besides, he could drop his body anytime, he wouldn't make that mistake twice. He happily started his stroll, walking through a forest was an old habit after all. It was late so he had to rely on Luna to detect pa.s.sing by animals. Nothing unusual stood out, there was a woodp.e.c.k.e.r making a hole in a tree, a fox was sleeping in a nearby hole and some squirrels were busy eating from their storage of acorns. Joshua closed his eyes and listened to the sound of nature, this really brought him back. Half an hour pa.s.sed as he circled around the area.

He was about to head back to the camp when he heard a noise. He calmly checked it, it was merely a bunch of rabbits. What intrigued him is that as he saw them running into their hole, something s.h.i.+ny appeared in the tunnel they had entered. Excited, he approached the hole and took a peek inside. There indeed appeared to be some light on the other side, but Joshua had no way to identify what it was from there. Mechanically, he started to dig to make the hole bigger. His curiosity had been piqued.

He had been digging for about 10 seconds when his whole body felt an electric shock going through it.

'Luna's stopping me? Why?' he thought, but then he realized.

'What the h.e.l.l am I doing? Blindly going after some weird light without taking precautions.'

He stopped digging, took a step back to scan the hole and its content. However, as soon as he did that, the hole suddenly collapsed on itself. Joshua frowned and tried to detect the tunnel's content via Luna, but the scan revealed there was no tunnel at all. Then it hit him he somehow hadn't been using Luna's automatic scan for a few minutes. This felt… wrong, he would never do that normally. The memory of his meeting with the T-Rex flashed into his mind and he suddenly started to look around frenetically. He received another shock.

'Calm down. No point in doing this, Luna is already scanning the area.'

He was, however, starting to feel afraid. He bit his lip and rushed back in the camp's direction. Why did he even go out all alone? He was in such a confused state he didn't even think about informing Catherine. He arrived back at the camp a few minutes later. His breath was heavy, he hadn't run like this in a long time. Wait, why was he running, he could just dismiss his body!

It was close to midnight and most people had gone to sleep by now, but Catherine was waiting for him to come back. She saw him run into the place with a panicked expression and immediately went up to him.

As he saw Catherine, he let out a sigh of relief and gave her a sudden hug. She didn't expect that but gently started to pat his head until he calmed down.

"You were correct, I don't think I'm all right." he finally said.