Return of the Woodcutter

The next few days, Aito took advantage of his relative haven to rest, understand his new powers, and make some preparations for what would probably be his last fight on this godforsaken island.

He first explored the entire cave. Turns out, it had a very simple form. Two entries linked by a long descending rocky corridor, forming a progressive V-shape, with the central point being the area he currently resided in. The first entry was located at his previous dwelling, and the second one was hidden behind the only waterfall on the island.

From a strategical point of view, it offered a few advantages, the main one being an emergency exit—which ironically was also a major drawback. There was a genuine possibility of him getting attacked from behind if evol monkeys learned of the hidden entry, which would—literally—be a pain in the ass to deal with.

If push comes to shove, he could still try his luck by escaping into the underground river. But the lack of a light source underwater, coupled with the distance he would have to travel while restraining his breath, could certainly lead him to his doom instead of an exit.

The real problem laid in bigfoots' "ability" to respawn. By now he understood the gods were summoning those creatures to hunt him down. So he couldn't just kill them all for fear of having to deal with an army again the next day.

Waiting for them to strike first would do him no good either, and only leave Aito to build up anxiety about a potential attack that could hit him any time. But if he tried to reduce their numbers by exiting the cave to kill a few, Aito would reveal that he was alive and kicking.

With no real other choices but to wait, he built defenses, using the wood and ropes in his inventory, while saving a few for the fire.

He allotted some of his time to adapt to his new basic stats and skills. Although a few days weren't enough to develop perfect control, he now had a better understanding of his current abilities.

Aito stuck to this schedule until a certain blue window, he had been expecting, showed up when he woke up in the middle of the night—or at least what he thought was night since the cave's darkness obscured the passage of time.

[Remaining time until the end of the black trial: 24 hours]

The notification instantly roused his still, sleepy mind. It was the last day, and Aito was certain those monkeys would try something. He had no proof to back it up, but he preferred to take the initiative rather than waiting for an eventual assault.

His first experience with the monkey army had left a deep impression on him. They were organized, armed to the teeth, and had a strong leader. If he left them to plan an attack, it could become deadly.

Therefore, he decided to act first.

"Finally," he said, poking Jack to wake up his friend. "Let's have a hearty breakfast and get to work, Jack."

"Kyaak!"

***

[Remaining time: 18 hours]

The sun rose on the horizon in an almost cloudless sky. A strong wind blew in its usual direction towards the sea.

'Perfect,' Aito thought, standing outside his cave next to a bush with two corpses hidden in it. Those bigfoots had been standing guard at the entrance, probably to alert their kin in case a certain human or creature walked out alive.

After quickly dispatching those two under the cover of darkness, he had scoured the surrounding in search of the resources he needed for his plan.

Apparently, now, evol monkeys roamed the island at night, or maybe they already had for a while. That made Aito think back to the many evol monkeys' corpses in the cave before he had slain the creature. There was a strong possibility that, at night, the Paineater had been killing and satiating its still unclear needs using evol monkeys.

It would explain the lack of attack at night, their sudden evolution, increase in number, and also maybe why monkeys never could entirely populate the island until a certain point in time that allowed them to go through a drastic change.

In a way, the Paineater had lessened the trial's difficulty. On the other hand, it could be said the creature had increased it by a large margin with its sole presence.

As for how those monkeys appeared, it could only be the gods' doing. After all, when Aito had succeeded in rescuing the Red Challengers, the gods agreed to give him one day's break.

When searching the surroundings, Aito had found multiple footprints leading to his second camp by the riverside. Meaning, the monkey army probably settled near it.

Meanwhile, Jack had kept an eye out for the few wondering monkeys that seemed to patrol the area and dealt with them when possible.

Finally, over with his preparations, Aito took two makeshift torches out of his inventory, lit them, and handed one over to Jack, who ran in the opposite direction. They then lit every single bush they could find on fire. Some of them were stuffed with dried sticks of wood and palm tree leaves to speed up the process.

Soon, the entire area was set ablaze. Aito backed up to the cave's entrance and watched the show unfold.

According to his experience as a woodcutter, a forest fire with today's meteorological conditions could spread as fast as 7 to 9 kilometers per hour. Furthermore, the lack of rain and constant sun rendered the vegetation more or less dry, despite the tropical humid climate. And to top it off, the wind blew strongly in the perfect direction.

The Problem was…

"Shit…" Aito said, coughing because of the smoke.

He thought that with the wind, he wouldn't have to worry about it for a while. But he had underestimated it.

Aito retreated to his cave. With the bit of wind blowing from the hidden exit to the other, the smoke couldn't spread in it. At least in large quantity.

Just to be safe, and unwilling to be asphyxiated, he decided to move to the other side of the island. He passed through the waterfall, which led him to a small pond. With no other choice but to get wet, he stored his armor, weapons, and tattered clothes in the inventory, before crossing the cool water with unknown depth—probably linked to the underground river.

He thought there were a few drawbacks to a wet leather armor and preferred to keep it dry if he could help it. Aito wouldn't admit it, but he just didn't like the feeling of drenched leather on his skin.

Plus, having scouted this hidden entry from time to time, Aito was certain that evol monkeys rarely, if not never, came here. They seemed to be mainly living on the other side. Maybe it was because he had stayed there the entire time.

'Damn it's cold!' He thought. His body had gotten used to the island's tropical temperature averaging 28C°. The river water, being colder than seawater because of where it originated from, could only lead to such a reaction.

He soon reached solid ground and exposed his stark naked body to mother nature. After almost three months of survival, he had grown a thick beard, coupled with shoulder-length black hair. He was now the stereotypical spitting image of a woodcutter. His fat and beer belly had almost entirely disappeared, revealing a powerfully built man. Broad shoulders and chest. Toned abs, back, and leg muscles.

His dark eyes peered into the surrounding vegetation, looking out for any kind of unexpected danger. He sent Jack surveilling the area and proceeded to put on his equipment, but was interrupted in the middle of it by a tingling feeling to the back of his neck.

"Shit… seriously?" He cursed, feeling stupid now that he was wearing nothing but his old tattered brown trousers topped with badly sewed patches of monkey skin.

Aito rolled to the side while making a mental note to never again take off his equipment in such a dangerous environment, even if he had to get it wet.

A spear brushed past him, revealing the location of six bigfoots armed to the teeth. Aito quickly took out two one-handed iron axes from his inventory and rushed towards the group. He knocked aside the next projectile with one of his axes and in the same motion hurled the other.

The ax head cut through a spear-thrower bigfoot's head before lodging into a tree—its now cracked-edge half sunk in the wood.

'Damn it. I used too much strength.'

Two bigfoots with two-handed axes ran towards him. Before they could reach him, Aito grabbed a stone and barely had enough time to increase its weight using his new skill. He aimed for a bigfoot's face and threw the stone, using all his strength.

The evol monkey tried to shield itself with its arm but was surprised when it cracked, snapped, and contorted. It didn't pierce the bigfoot's arm but threw it off balance when the arm hit its face because of the projectile's power.

An unbuffed "Lv3 strength," "passive skill Lv1 Weapon Throw Mastery," and "active skill Lv1 Weight Control," added together made for a devastating attack—considering that a stone could be used as a weapon. With those three, he could probably just throw stones instead of other weapons and still deal powerful blows to the enemy.

Satisfied with the result of his attack, he smirked while dashing at the other incoming bigfoot, whose eyes widened when Aito reached it a bit faster than expected.

It brought down its ax, trying to cut its enemy, but was surprised yet again when a hand grabbed the weapon's wooden shaft to interrupt the motion.

Aito took advantage of that small window of opportunity to decapitate the creature with a horizontal slash.

The iron ax head passed unhindered through flesh and bone. The bigfoot's ugly head, contorted by pain, detached from its body and fell on the ground.

Aito turned his attention towards the two shield-bearers that were protecting the last spear thrower but only found three corpses.

Jack silently appeared to his side with bloody iron daggers in hand, cleaned them using a corpse, and stored them in his crude leather backpack.

"Good job, Jack."