Return of the Woodcutter

For the next six days, Aito fortified his base. He built multiple traps made of wood and coconut tree leaves, such as small pitfalls and snares.

Evol monkeys appeared every day around the same time, meaning when the sun was at its zenith, which made it predictable enough for Aito to prepare for it. The challenge, however, didn't lie in their attacks but his lack of fire.

Aito had tried to make one like it was shown in movies and documentaries with two pieces of wood, but each time, he broke them with his current strength. Added to the equation was his craving for alcohol.

Revival may have cured his liver cancer and reanimated his body, but apart from those, it left him as he was before. Which meant that the thirst was still there. By now, he would have already downed an entire bottle if it weren't for the lack of supply.

Since he couldn't quench his thirst, it led to alcohol withdrawal symptoms: headache, profuse perspiration, shakiness, fatigue, appetite loss, and difficulty thinking clearly.

Alcohol had been an answer to the pain he felt from his memories of three years ago. However, now that his drug was gone, those same memories he had tried to forget came back to haunt him every day. He had to tire himself out to sleep at night.

At first, Aito thought he would rapidly overcome this personal trial, but his frustration grew with each passing day as he failed to make a fire.

Furthermore, his current diet had a serious drawback. Coconut was a natural laxative and taking a dump thrice a day annoyed him.

But thanks to this diet and his loss of appetite, he had rapidly lost weight. His beer belly started to shrink and his muscles toned up. However, he grew tired of eating only coconut meat. So today, he was particularly set on making a fire.

Aito sat in front of his cave. He settled the dry coconut fibers he had prepared previously on dry grass. Those fibers were highly flammable and should be able to replace tinder.

Next, he took his fireboard, made of a tree trunk he had sun-dried for six days, cut a small V-shaped notch in the center, and placed small pieces of dried coconut fibers in it. Finally, he took his spindle stick, placed it in the notch, and rolled it back and forth with his shaky hands while praying.

"Please ignite, please ignite, please ignite."

At this point, he didn't care if he seemed crazy when talking to himself. One week alone and the lack of alcohol started to mess with his head.

Sure, he had lived alone before, but at work, he also interacted with other woodcutters and his best friend, Jack. Now, however, no humans could socialize with him. He felt truly lonely for the first time in his life.

"Please ignite, please ignite, please ignite."

He continued to roll his spindle stick. Days of failure taught him the exact amount of strength to apply on the stick. Ironically, it had been a great way to familiarize himself with his strength.

Aito's eyes shone brighter than ever before when something he had been anticipating for what felt like an eternity happened.

Smoke rose from the notch.

'Careful now. Don't drop sweat on it.'

Aito stopped rolling and blew on it. He carefully transferred the amber to the stack of coconut fibers and blew once again. The ember quickly spread from fiber to fiber, igniting them. He delicately placed dried woods on it and, finally, made a fire.

He towered over his creation, a sense of achievement running by his every muscle, bone, and organ before eventually reaching his brain.

His joy overruled his ailments as he felt an uncontrollable need to shout out his victory over nature to the world. Although there was no one here.

"Ha… haha… hahaha! I made a fire! Did you see that you scammer of a goddess! I, Aito Walker, made a fire! Hahaha!" He said, thinking that the goddess might be watching him.

At that moment.

BING!

[Congratulation! You made your first fire.]

[A reward has been granted]

Aito opened his inventory to find two flints. Annoyed, he wondered why it wasn't sent to him beforehand. It surely would have prevented one week of frustration.

Soon after, four evol monkeys appeared next to him. Aito's black eyebrow twitched. Was it some kind of coincidence or the goddess was truly watching him?

Nevertheless, he smirked while eyeing the monkeys hungrily.

"Come, let me invite you for lunch! On the menu, evol monkey à la broche!"

Feeling Aito's predatory glare, an instinctual fear struck the monkeys.

"Kyaaak?"

***

Just before Aito made a fire.

In the gods' council room, the Four were still monitoring the trials. To their surprise, Sheyla and Ogoro were doing better than expected. They had established a secure perimeter around the police station while keeping a low profile to avoid attracting too many zombies' attention.

Filona and Brutalina were enthusiastically watching the red challengers, still bickering about who's church they would join.

Meanwhile, a bored Zalon monitored the White and Blue challengers. White challengers only had to survive for two months in a modern city by cooperating together with no monsters to watch out for. The challenge came from the limited resources available to them, which caused discord because of the sheer number of challengers.

The same applied to the Blue challengers apart from the fact that they needed to pay attention from time to time to some wandering goblin-like creatures that appeared once a week.

As for Belmand, he was 'monitoring' the Black challenger, if snoring could be called monitoring. It should have been Brutalina's task, but the muscle head was too busy drooling on her future potential recruits.

At some point, he opened his sleepy eyes and caught Aito laughing like a madman while insulting Filona. He couldn't help but grin.

"Ah… typical reaction."

***

Aito was resting under a tree's shadow after eating his fill of monkey meat. It had been one of the most delicious meals he ever ate. He still remembered the juicy after-taste of well-cooked meat. The fat had melted in his mouth, giving him a sense of pure joy and well-needed comfort. Who knew that a warm meal could be so comforting?

However, amidst this joyful moment, Aito noticed an irregularity. The monkeys had grown ten centimeters taller and their fangs seemed sharper. Thinking back to his current quest, the notification window did say they would evolve with each passing week.

That worried him because if they grew this much in one week, he did not dare imagine what kind of trial awaited him after two months. And that was just the physical growth. If those creatures developed intelligence… survival will become even more troublesome.

"I need to prepare."

First thing first, Aito had to familiarize himself with the island's geography. His gaze turned towards the mountain's summit and, with a goal in mind, began his climb.

One hour later, he finally reached the summit. The ascension had been quite likable and took off his mind of the loneliness. Mountain climbing wasn't one of his hobby but his strength offset the lack of experience. However, his stamina could use some improvement.

From up there, he could see that the reef was unusually close to the island. Waves made it difficult to reach the open sea and would push anybody towards the shore, so any idea of leaving was removed from his mind.

His cave was located at the mountain's foot. To its left, Aito discovered some sort of pond. Too small to call a lake and too big to be a natural pool. Surrounding the pond were bamboos.

Bamboos were flexible and durable, which made them great building materials. He could certainly make traps and furniture with those. Also, it wasn't far from his lair.

Aito could probably catch some fish there since, for some unknown reason, the river didn't contain any kind of life form. He had looked for traces of fishes to no avail.

Though he did notice that the further he went upstream, the colder the water got. He planned to investigate the peculiar phenomenon later on but, right now, he needed to tend to more urgent matters.

On the opposite side of the mountain, a waterfall could be seen. It was probably where the river led up to. Which was weird in its own right since the river flowed down in the other direction.

A sense of dread emanated from that place. He didn't know yet that it was his gift, Intuition, warning him of a potential danger lurking there. Aito decided to stay away from that place, at least until he finished his preparation.

Before leaving the mountain top, he sketched a crude map of the island on a piece of wood he had brought with him.

***

2nd week of survival.

Noticeable physical changes could be seen on Aito's body. Due to the constant exposure to the sun, Aito's skin tanned. He grew a small black beard, and muscles finally started to show despite the remaining fat.

Alcohol withdrawal symptoms finally disappeared entirely. However, loneliness and resurging memories lurked in the shadows of his mind, awaiting the opportune moment to strike. To chase away those taxing psychological issues, he constantly kept himself busy.

Aito made stone tools to avoid using his iron ax. Its frequent usage started to dull the weapon's edge and if he didn't pay attention to it, the ax could be badly damaged or break.

But for that, he needed ropes. Then he remembered the movie about a guy who survived on an uncharted island for years. The main character had used straps of tree barks to make ropes.

To Aito's surprise, once dried, the tree barks weaved together, made for solid ropes. Furthermore, it was fairly easy to make.

Using ropes, woods, and stones, Aito crafted a stone ax, knife, and other useful tools. It took him a while to figure this out and do it properly.

Thanks to the bamboos, he could also experiment with building fish traps but failed miserably.

Using those trials and failures, he kept away the loneliness that he knew would catch up sooner or later.

3rd week of survival.

Evol monkeys grew taller and more aggressive. Gone were their passiveness. Now, they attacked Aito on sight with more vigor than before. But his traps proved effective when some of them fell prey to pitfalls and snares.

He also built human-shaped bamboo dummies to the locations he frequently visited, named them after his best friend, Jack, and often talk to them. The lack of an answer was frustrating at first, but he quickly made up for it with… imagination.

4th week of survival.

Aito had completely acclimated himself to the island's geography and could, so to speak, walk around blindfolded, and still find his way home.

Evol monkeys now no longer appeared at noon but at a random time once a day out of nowhere. The flash of light that summoned them was gone, making it trickier to detect their presence. Fortunately, they never attacked at night.

In his growing madness, Aito built more traps, so many in fact that it became a danger to himself since he started to forget where he had placed them. Feeling stupid, he piled up rocks next to those he remembered the location to mark them down.

***

ONE MONTH AFTER THE BEGINNING OF THE TRIALS.

Bamboo neatly weaved together with ropes surrounded Aito's cave entrance. Bamboo spikes directed outward were placed near the wall to deny entry to the evol monkeys. A hole in the structure formed an entrance that Aito blocked at night with logs.

Aito stood outside the entrance, seated cross leg on the ground, while sewing monkey skin together using a sharp bone and improvised rope to make shoulder pads.

Monkeys started to become an actual threat, and he realized soon enough that armor would help. His wounds could heal at night, but if he could prevent walking around all day covered with bleeding bite marks, he'd gladly avoid that. Plus, he needed a new pair of clothes.

His lumberjack shirt was shredded, revealing his now flat belly. He had lost so much fat that he needed to use a belt he had crafted from monkey skin to tie his tattered trousers.

Thus came the idea of using monkey skin to craft armor. He had previously dried them to toughen the hide.

He weaved multiple layers of skin together to enhance the armor's defensive abilities. With no previous sewing experience, the armor he crafted was a mess, but at least it offered some protection.

Once the shoulder pads were completed, he worked on making cuff bracelets. Last week, he had noticed that monkeys liked to target his wrists to make him drop his weapon. At first, he thought it was just a coincidence but quickly realize it was intentional.

"Well, what do you think?" He said, showing his two pieces of crude monkey skin bracelets he had equipped to the bamboo Jack next to him. "Yeah, right? Ugly as Filona. But it should do the trick."

The name Filona has become a word often used to define ugliness. With no actual target to his current misery, he held the goddess responsible for what was happening to him, which made Belmand who was monitoring him laugh from time to time since Filona could be considered the incarnation of beauty itself.

"I know, I know. The fish traps. Stop ordering me around like that, you know I don't like it."

With his cuff bracelets done, Aito headed towards the pond to check out the new fish traps. He was certain that this time he could catch one or two. Before leaving, he turned towards the bamboo dummy.

"Won't you walk there with me for a change?" He asked, staring at it with sorrow in his eyes. "Whatever, see you there Jack."

However, before he could even take ten steps, four evol monkeys burst out from the woods.

They were around one meter tall with lean and flexible muscles, but what stroke Aito the most were the stone weapons they held. Two of them were equipped with a knife, another held a spear, and the last one an ax.

Aito frowned when he realized they had copied his tools.

"Great, now they have weapons."