Chapter 2: chapter 2
I wake up early in the morning feeling refreshed; looking down, I'm greeted with the sight of my very own silver prosthetic arm, which I clench and unclench several times, 'so it really wasn't a dream I actually died and got sent to the world of one piece by a R.O.B I'm who's name I can't even try to pronounce without getting a massive headache,' I idly think to myself as I reach for one of the fruits that I gathered yesterday while looking for timber for the fire.
After finishing my refreshing fruit, I grab a couple more and head outside my tent, but not before tucking my revolver, which I had hidden under the below in my belt, holding satori which I had left lying next to my bedroll with my free hand and wearing my backpack which I stuffed with even more fruit.
Once outside my tent, I take a moment to check my surroundings for any signs of danger, seeing as the cost seems to be clear with no sign of any threats or any footprints in the sand other than the ones I left behind yesterday, I sit on the tree log near the now extinguished fire to finish my fruity breakfast.
Once done, I light a cigarette and stand up, heading in the forest's direction near the beach. Although I'm a little thirsty, my only source of fluids is my whisky bottle, and I have to be completely sober while exploring the unfamiliar terrain of the island for obvious reasons. 'It's decided then, securing a clean source of fresh water will be my top priority while exploring.'
Once inside the forest, I draw satori from its sheath and hold it in my left prosthetic hand. Tuck said, sheath in my belt while keeping my right hand on my revolver, ready to draw it at a moment's notice. That said, though, I'll try to rely on satori more than the gun to develop my basic swordsmanship.
Marching through the tree-infested land and towards what I hope to be the center of the island, I keep up my guard and try to be as alert as I can to react as fast as possible to any unforeseen situation.
My march continued peacefully for what seemed to be half an hour, give or take a couple of minutes. I finally notice some tracks littering the forest ground. After taking a cursory glance around me to make sure I won't be ambushed by some forest creature while investigating said tracks, I kneel with one knee and run my hands through the tracks to remove the leaves covering some of the tracks.
I notice animal tracks, lots of them. They seem to be fresh too, which is a good sign because animal tracks mean animals, and animals mean protein. More importantly, water because animals wouldn't be able to survive this island otherwise.
Suddenly my body goes frigid as I hear a dry crunching sound coming from behind me, 'crap I got too excited and let my guard down,' I thought; my body, however, was already reacting, turning around while standing up as fast as I can without losing my balance I swing my blade as hard as I can in the sound's direction, only to hear a metallic clang as the sharp end of my sword met a pair of gleaming large white tusks.
Taking advantage of the stalemate while my sword intertwined with the offending tusks, I take a moment to take in the sight of my attacker, only for my vision to be filled with a large brown furry head at least two times the size of my own adorned by a pair of fierce red eyes that promised bloody murder attached to its furry face, which I grin at while putting more force into my arms to send it sliding backward a good couple of meters.
Taking a second look at my attacker, which turned to be some overgrown tusked boar, taking the sight of its two-meter tall body as it thrashes its hind legs wildly in place and sending a pile of dirt flying behind it and snorting a breath of air from its giant nostrils strong enough to send the fallen tree leaves as far as a full meter in front of it flying, I only feel my grin stretching even wider across my face, as try to calm the wild beating of my heart, 'why is my heart beating so hard,' I wonder idly inside my head as I keep my eyes on my opponent.
Our staring competition continues as the leaves that its breath sent flying finally start falling. As the last leaf hits the ground, we both take that as our sign and start charging towards each other. It squeals, putting its sharp set of teeth that no boar has any business having on full display, and lowers its head while charging towards me, making its intention to skewer me with its tusks blindingly obvious. I drop my stance while bringing satori to my lower left side and start a charge of my own.
Time seemed as if it had been slowed as we neared each other with our eyes locked on each other until we were at a striking distance, and that's when I halted my forward charge and took a step to the right, barely dodging its gleaming white tusks, putting me in a perfect position to strike at its unprotected throat by simply raising my sword, which I do a course, drawing a splash of blood and causing the boar to squeal and crash nose-first in the dirt ground right behind me, I turn around and watch as it tries to stand up only for it to spasm and fall to the ground again, feeling my heart rate goes up continuously, I calmly walk up to thrashing beast and swiftly plunge the blade of my sword through its head ending its suffering.
The majestic beast that could obliterate an average tree to smithereens by simply smashing into it, reality finally seems to hit, "I did this," I whisper to no one in particular, as my heart rate finally seems to stabilize. Still, what was that feeling, and what caused my heart to go wild like that? I wonder as I try to recall the feeling. It most definitely wasn't fear or dread. I know fear, and that wasn't it, could it be..?
"sigh if it wasn't fear, then it can only be excitement. I guess I'm a battle maniac then. I just hope I don't turn into some kind of stupid muscle head."
Having come to terms with the strangely not so unpleasant conclusion, the wide grin that was stretching across my face, the whole fight finally disappears only to be replaced by a faint smile.
Finally coming down from my battle-high, I swing satori to my side to get rid of the blood lingering on its blade and wipe it on my dead opponent's hide for good measure. I then return it to its sheath and leave the first enemy that I have defeated behind me in favor of continuing to explore the island and finding a stable source of freshwater. I really wanted to take to the corpse back with me to feast on back in the camp, but its large size would only slow me down, and the smell of blood will only attract predators.
I continue walking towards the center of the island for a while until I come upon a large tree with weird circular leaves bearing what seemed to be dried-up bottle gourds as fruits.
"I could hallow these out and use them for water storage later," I mutter to myself as I climb the freakishly large tree, finally reaching a high enough point for the bottle gourds to be within my hand's reach. I drew satori and cut the stems of ten bottle gourds so that they would fall to the ground for me to pick up.
Climbing down from the tree, I pick up the scattered bottle gourds only to notice a wet swishing sound as I pick one up; growing curious, I use my knuckles to tap on its surface, hearing a somewhat loud knock, so they're hollow inside, 'interesting' i think as I send its top flying with satori, looking inside the gourd I notice that it's filled with some multi-colored liquid.
After a moment of thought, I shrug my shoulders and bring the bottle gourd to my mouth to take a swig since I'm immune to poison because of the detoxifier cyberwar, only for my sense of taste to be assaulted by all kinds of fruity flavors suddenly, it first tasted like watermelon and then changed to grape only to keep changing several times each second it stayed in my mouth, I then gulped heavily only to bring the bottle gourd back to my mouth and drain it of its contents like I was dying of dehydration, finishing my drink and making sure that I've consumed every last bit of juice, I then turn my sights to the bottle gourd tree and look at it with a smoldering gaze so intense that I could have sworn I saw the tree sweatdropped.
Climbing back to the reach of the bottle gourds, I cut the stems, often more of them, and climbed down to pick up and stuff them inside of my backpack. That was the most delicious drink I have ever tasted. Of course, I was going to get more. Besides, since they're hollow, it will save upon the time that I had intended to spend carving them up, and I can use them to store water once I drained them of their juice, finally satisfied with my harvest and no longer thirsty, I continue my march through the forest.
My trip proceeded peacefully and uneventfully for a couple of hours except for my encounter with a group of strangely ferocious turkey-like birds that tried to ambush me some time after I left the bottle gourd tree, trying being the keyword here since I saw them coming a mile away thanks to my enhanced senses and learning from my mistake of lowering my guard before I was ambushed the by tusked boar, I of course then beat the living shit out of them. However, I only killed two of the ferocious birds by snapping their nicks to take back to my camp and left the rest to their fates because, unlike the boar, they weren't big or heavy enough to slow me down and won't attract any predator since I killed them by snapping their necks.
Glancing at the sun in the sky and roughly determining the time, I gave up on trying to locate the center of the island since it wasn't as important as finding a source of water, and so turning to the ground, I find the tracks of what seemed to be and large feline based on the paw marks it left on the ground which I decide to track, my logic here being that it will need to go to a water source every day if not to drink then to find and ambush prey while it was distracted drinking water.
After what seemed like an hour and a half of going in circles following the large feline's tracks, my ears picked up the sound of flowing water. I sighed and left reluctantly, ignoring the tracks I've been following for what seemed like an eternity. I fortunately or, unfortunately (i can't seem to decide) didn't come across the owner of said tracks.
After several minutes of walking, I finally came upon a large stream of water. Trying to be as cautious as possible, I climb a tree near the creek to get a better line of sight and survey the surrounding area.
Noticing no presence nearby, I climb down and head towards the stream and kneel next to it, and start by grabbing a handful of water and eyeing it closely, noticing that it's clear and has no smell to it. I then held the water inside my mouth and started swishing it around, not tasting anything strange, not tasting anything. I swallow the water and sigh. Why so much precaution if you're immune to poison, you might ask? The answer is simply that it wasn't precaution. Still, I was looking for signs of pollutions because if the water was polluted, then it means that humans are responsible for polluting it one way or the other, so to make a long story short, I was checking for humans the presence. The water is as straightforward as it means that there are no humans nearby, at least not in the direction that the stream is flowing from.
After drinking a couple more handfuls of water, washing my head and hands, and refilling the empty bottle gourd, which I drained during my hours-long march, I get up and start making my way to my camp.
My trip back to my camp was relatively uneventful, the only exciting thing that happened was that when I reached the place where I fought the tusked boar earlier today and didn't see its corpse anywhere, what I saw, however, was a set of large paw prints on the ground, as big as my torso in fact and a lot of blood and black-colored feathers, I concluded that there was a fight between two strong beasts here, a big one, considering the state of the smashed trees nearby. It was probably over the body of that poor boar.
After finally reaching my camp and securing its perimeter, I slump down on my tree log bench exhausted, too tired to do anything else. I sit there while taking the occasional sip from my whisky bottle for a couple of minutes of deserved rest. I then light a cigarette and slowly make my way to the beach to take a swim to wash away the dirt and grime accumulated during my trip. I also get lucky and catch a couple of fish using an improvised sharpened stick spear.
Swimming back to land with my stick-spear adorned with three slightly more oversized than palm-sized fishes impaled through their sides, I start a fire and to warm myself and to cook the fish and the turkey like birds; after setting the meats above the fire, I go inside my tent to grab my guitar to stave off the boredom until my meal is ready.
I then sit down and start singing while playing my guitar next to the fire.
"shiver my timber shiver, my soul, Yoo-hoo heave-hoo, they were men whose hearts were as black as coal..." (Shiver My Timbers cover - Thunderclash)
I continue to sing for a couple of minutes until my meal is ready, which I devour with a passion despite its blandness and lack of seasoning, only feeling filled after eating an entire bird, two fish, and a bunch of fruits.
The meal finished with nothing better to do; I pick up satori and start swinging it in a practiced manner that's been drilled into my head thanks to the novice swordsman perk; I keep doing that until my arms get tired and then run, doing squats, and sit-ups until I tire of that and then get back to doing my practice sword swings.
This continued for several hours until I felt tired and notice darkness all around me. I then head to the now extinguished fire to start it again and heat the remaining of my lunch.
Meal heated and devoured, I continue sitting on the log as I go through the events of my day. The first thing that comes to my mind is my fight against the boar bringing a smile. Then that weird tree with the bottle gourds, making my smile become even more comprehensive as I cut the top of one of them and drain its contents, I sigh after that remembering that I didn't come across any human presence, even though I didn't go through the entire island I was 80% sure that I've been sent to an uninhabited island, I hope it isn't somewhere crazy like the calm belt or the grand line.
Shaking the negative thoughts out of my head, I smile, 'today has been a good day, I think to myself as I take a sip out of my whisky bottle, feeling satisfied and tired after a day of hard work, I head inside my tent for some sleep, intending to figure out what I want to achieve in this world and how I'm going to do it.
Weekly Power Status
-- Power
Ranking 
-- Power
stone