Last preparations

-Day 3 on the mystery island-

Aoi woke up in the morning. She immediately noticed that her entire body hurt. Probably because she overworked herself transporting all that metal.

She wouldn't let that stop her though.

Until she could make her first knife, Aoi still had a bit of work to do.

She got out of her cave and began assembling her heater.

Aoi had to build her heater outside, so the smoke wouldn't amass in her cave and cause her to die due to lack of oxygen.

She began by piling the bricks and then coating the whole thing in clay. When she was finished, Aoi let out a satisfied huff. She had to wait a bit though. Her construction would take the rest of the day to dry.

So while Aoi was waiting, she took out one of the metal objects she had found and started cleaning the rust off.

She did this by just scrubbing stone against it. Even if she felt a bit stupid doing it this way, she didn't have a better way to do it.

The cleaning took Aoi some time. But after an hour she was finally done. Now Aoi had materials she could work with.

She still couldn't make her knife though.

Because the heater wasn't done drying, she couldn't start smithing.

So to distract herself while waiting, Aoi decided to dive for another shipwreck. Maybe she would be able to find more kinds of metals.

Aoi started walking towards the coast. On her way trough the forest, she saw the group of monkeys that had eaten a fruit before her when she arrived at the island.

Remembering how they had helped her, she gave them a wave and a quick thank you.

The monkeys instantly reacted. They all turned in her direction and started curiously observing her.

This surprised Aoi a bit.

After a few tense seconds, they slowly started climbing in her direction.

Because the monkeys were fast climbers, it didn't take them long to get near her.

Just before they arrived at Aoi's location, the monkeys all tensed up and started to run away.

Aoi was a bit surprised. But before she could start contemplating why the monkeys had run away, Aoi's ears picked out a sound right behind her.

She barely had a second to react. Without wasting any time, Aoi's threw herself forward, avoiding an attack aimed at her back by just a hair's breath.

Instead of just falling down, she did a dodge roll, immediately stood up and turned around to see her attacker.

Aoi's eyes fell on a very big tiger. Its fell full of intimidating stripes. The tigers muscles were tensed and it looked ready to pounce on her if she did any suspicious movements.

Aoi started searching for any solutions. The tiger looked incredibly fast, so it would probably be impossible to outrun it. It also didn't look like she could resolve it peacefully since the tiger looked like it was out for her blood.

So her only option was to fight it!

Just as Aoi decided, the tiger pounced on her again.

Aoi barely dodged it's attack by hurling herself to the side. While the tiger landed from its jump, she picked up a sturdy looking stick.

Not any moment later, the tiger jumped again.

But this time, she was prepared.

Now, with a weapon in hand, Aoi would be able to parry its attacks instead of just dodging.

She still had a huge disadvantage though. While Aoi only had one sword, the tiger had two claws and its fangs. Even if she was able to parry one attack, the tiger could still hit her.

So instead of a frontal attack, Aoi did a quick step to the right and swung her sword into the tigers side redirecting its momentum. While it was still in the air, she swung her sword again.

She hit the tiger right in the neck making it yelp. The power of her hit made it tumble and crash into the ground.

While the tiger was laying on its side and disoriented, Aoi made a bit of distance between them to calm down a bit.

Normally this would be the perfect opportunity for her to finish the tiger, but with only a wooden stick Aoi wasn't able to deal any real damage it.

And even if it became a battle of attrition, Aoi would definitely lose. Her ten year old body would tire out before the tiger did. She was already exhausted.

But while Aoi could probably only defend herself against a few more attacks, she didn't have any better idea.

So Aoi didn't move as the tiger slowly stood up.

It took a few seconds to reorient itself and then cast a furious look in her direction.

The tigers menacing presence fell on Aoi. She didn't see any way for herself to survive.

But while she was scared, Aoi didn't back down.

She gripped her sword harder and summoned all her fighting spirit and determination.

She couldn't die here!

Not until she made the best sword in the world!

Aoi's best bet would be to make a last attack on the tiger and hit it with all her power to make it go unconscious. If even that didn't work it, she would have to give up.

A moment before she could start her attack, the tigers expression suddenly changed and it ran away leaving a stupefied Aoi behind.

She stood still for a moment until the tension left her body.

Aoi let out the breath she had been holding. She was extremely glad the tiger ran away.

She didn't waste any more time and immediately ran back to her cave.

Once she arrived, she took a break to calm herself down.

Aoi realized that she would need to hurry up making her sword. She would've been able to kill the tiger, even with only a copper knife.

Running around on a uninhabited island without a weapon to defend herself was simply too dangerous for her.

After she felt ready to work again, Aoi took her oxidized copper and put it in her finally finished heater together with firewood she had collected.

She then started a fire in the heater. By burning the oxidized copper next to wood, the oxygen would bind with the carbon which would turn the oxidized copper into normal copper which was a much better material.

When Aoi produced enough copper to make a knife, she finished her day and went to sleep.

Author's note:

Hey. Thank you for reading!

This chapter had Aoi's first fight in it. I hope my writing was good enough to make it exciting.

If you find anything bad or have any tipps on how to write better, please tell me.

The next chapter will probably take the same time again.

I hope you had fun reading.

Bye.