Chapter 3 - Chapter 3

The agitation of last night has subdued in the vicinity of my home. I still heard the demon I fought the previous day, roaming near the plank cabin I hid myself in, but it seems it was the only one that I would have to fear at sunrise.

It was almost certain now that I wouldn't sleep in this realm without a proper bed and the assurance that no evil freely existed in the vicinity.

Without any indication of time and kept in an absolute dark, minutes passed, then hours. At a time, I decided to break a part of my roof to see the atmosphere's color's evolution, hoping that the sun would rose shortly.

Fortunately, the day finally came, and my time hiding in my plank-made hole came to an end.

Slowly hiking up from the cabin, I searched the surrounding for the lurking demons that attacked me last night. Conveniently, as soon as it saw me, the fire-engulfed humanoid walked in my direction, but unable to reach the high ground I had, it decided to find a way around, unsuccessfully.

Surprisingly, I could still hit it from above, efficiently rendering it powerless.

Albeit tedious, the battle was easy enough, and I soon saw the remains of the then-deceased monster lying on the ground.

This victory was one of my earliest against this unfriendly world, and I then understand how the hardships I'd have to face in the future would not be so easy to deal with.

I then looked a bit at the items the enemy dropped on the ground, which numbered four. I could distinctly see a lump of rotten flesh, as well as a piece of coal that appeared where the monster had fallen, but what were those colored globes that hovered above the ground?

I spent several minutes observing these bright dots, but no matter the time I spent wondering about their functions, the answer still eluded me. Nonetheless, I could feel that these orbs weren't harmful in any way. Running out of options, I tried walking over the bright spheres, and they disappeared as if my body sucked them up.

Suddenly, I felt some burning yet comfortable feeling wrapping my whole body, and I could sense my power growing inside me, not by much but enough to be noticed.

It distinctly appeared that killing enemies was the pathway to many abilities. Although some might say it's unnatural, it seemed it was needed to grow even stronger.

Having defeated my now archenemy, I stepped back a little to look at the patchwork that sheltered me the previous night, wondering if pursuing building this into a proper building was worth a shot.

Not knowing how my predicament might evolve in the future, I was troubled with deciding if living here was the right choice. However, after yesterday's mistakes, it seems that I needed to settle somewhere before being able to understand what would be needed from the building I'd call home.

Parting with these unneeded thoughts, I focused on the issue at hand, how to grow stronger to survive in this world?

Even If that meant I had to play in the world's hands, following the quests seemed like a good idea for the time being. I then resumed my doings from the previous day and started gathering gravel and wood to complete the next task.

Fortunately, settling near a pond of water was the right choice for the time being, as I naturally accessed resources at open-sky, such as gravel, sand, or clay.

As raging as it may seem, completing this quest was indeed the correct thing to do, as it finally gave me the item I needed the most at that time, a torch and its light.

The quest that followed was telling me to make some flints using the gravel I gathered earlier. As soon as I grasped the slight sharpness of the flints I just made, I knew how useful it would be in the making of tools, let alone some weapons that I could use to defend myself in due time.

However, a downside of the flint creation was that I could deplete the gravel source near my home and be pressured to find sources further, endangering myself. To prevent that, I'd have to be careful with what I do with these precious resources.

While following the quests trail, I was finally tasked with creating a crafting station that could be used to create more complex items. It was a blessing, as my own ability to produce objects with my hand was slowly reaching a tipping point where none of what was tasked to me was reliably craftable without a station.

As the first complex block I've been able to make, I felt like I made severe progress toward my survival goal.

Another thing that helped me understand that I wasn't just running around doing nothing is that the quests progressively unveiled, leading to many new objectives.

Fortunately, one of the next tasks was to make some primitive tools, which I waited for for a long time now.

It was honestly relatively easy, as I already possessed the wood and flints to make the sticks and pickaxe head needed to create the pickaxe. With this new tool, I could finally strike the deeper parts of the world, including the white building materials I saw earlier.

It might also be an excellent time to start thinking about building a better house so that I can live a bit more leisurely than in these four square meters room.

However, I'd have to let this thought go away for a while, as a pressing issue knocked upon my door. As I expected earlier, the gravel source was slowly reaching its end, and with it, my flint supply was slowly being destroyed.

It wouldn't be this bad of a problem if only I had another way to create tools that could be renewable, but this won't be a thing for at least some days, I thought.

Even so, I managed to craft more tools that would help me in the future. Other than the pickaxe I made earlier, I created an axe, a hoe, and a shovel.

These tools would provide an efficient way to modify the terrain appropriately or even start a farm that could be my primary food source in the coming days.

However, storage space was gradually becoming another pressing issue, as my inventory started piling up things I gathered here and there, namely wood logs, berries, and vegetables.

I decided to move forward to the next quest to build a chest that would surely alleviate my needs and help me organize a tad better. Albeit being pricey in the means of resources, it was an investment worth making and was soon placed near the crafting table.

With the ability to think properly without taking the storage space into account, I started to tile some soil I had gathered and placed near the water pond. It allowed me to use my newly created hoe, which was quite useful compared to my bare hands, albeit being made in a relatively cheap material.

I used the last hours of the dying day to plant seeds I had gathered, like cucumber, raspberry, and carrots. This task took a lot more time than I initially expected, but fortunately, no monsters tried to attack me this time, so I could peacefully go back in my oak planks cabin uninterrupted.

I then took the opportunity to complete some more quests, mainly centered on securing an adequate food supply. I learned how to make a fruit tree this way by adding fruit to an ordinary sapling, and I made an apple tree with it.

The last task of the falling day that I figured I'd do was finally create a decent way to protect myself that didn't involve punching with my bare hands, which proved to be highly unreliable, especially when fighting enemies engulfed in fire.

This way, I used the remaining of my flints to create a sharp blade that could reliably protect me.

As opposed to the last day, this one was a proficient one overall. I finally obtained the tools I've been dreaming of, and fortunately, I won't have to stay one day more in the darkness of my own home, as the torch I previously got from a quest reward was lightening the room.

I was also in a position I could reliably organize my items, given I got another chest from a quest reward. I decided to separate the mundane things from the coins I got from the quests rewards.

As optimistic as one could be in my predicament, I finally decided to wrap that day here and adamantly waited for the next one to rise.