As for the recipe unlocked by the mallet, it certainly wasn’t in the direction he expected.

A stone chisel which required a chipped stone, wood log, and a rod. All things he could get hold of relatively easily, but this recipe could wait. He wanted to check what crafting the wooden box unlocked.

“Huh. It didn’t unlock anything? Does that mean I need to complete more recipes first? But I got the stone axe before discovering hemp rope!” He voiced his complaints to no avail, but quickly came to a logical reason about it all. He rubbed his imaginary chin and said, “Well, the next one is the 5th level of recipes… Maybe that makes it special in some way? I’ll just get all the other recipes done first to check.”

A few easier ones could be knocked out just by heading back to his starting place and using more branches from the oak tree to make sticks.

“Or I can use the dead tree branches,” he said in realisation of his errors. When he finally found another standing dead tree, after chopping it down he snapped off several branches and found out the box classed them as sticks right after cleaning them up.

Was this some sort of ‘intended’ way to get sticks then? It was hard to tell if his arrival had been set up or not… Did that mean others had been set up as well?

These sorts of questions continued as he gathered another 12 sticks from the dead tree and then cut it into 8 more logs. The process remembered a time he’d gone camping with his dad and his friends as a young boy.

He must have been seven or so, his memories of the event unbelievably foggy, but what stood out was seeing his dad cut down a dead tree. Besides taking more swings due to having far less strength than his current body, his dad cut away the trunk until the thing crashed into the ground with a shudder.

Even a distance away he felt the reverberations from its weight, and then his dad and friends began sawing the trunk into pieces whilst his dad chopped logs into firewood for the upcoming night.

Besides that, nothing about that trip stood out, but he remembered feeling jealous that he wasn’t able to help with any of that.

Some years later he got to go camping and did it, but it felt different in the end. Like a hollow victory.

With the tree harvested entirely, he quickly threw together the recipes as directed, first making the reinforced wooden spear, and saw the thing it unlocked was a wooden shield. Besides three wood logs, he required a hemp rope, but he held off on making that as the unlock from the rope itself interested him far more.

A short bow made from two rods and two hemp strings. Hunting through ranged attacks would be so much safer in the long run, not to mention working better in the forest. “On the other hand, I’ve never held a bow in my life. Why can’t I just get a better spear or something?”

Of course, the box never responded to anything he said, and he just had to suck it up and make a short bow. Luckily, he had enough spare hemp fibre on hand to quickly throw a crafted product into one of the orbs. And so came another wonderful surprise.

It unlocked the recipe for a hemp fabric, and what else could that mean?

He’d have clothes soon! In which case, he had to get a head start on making as much fabric as needed. In the meantime, he could just focus on making a piece and then finishing up the wooden shield.

And since he could walk and separate the fibres from its stem, he could walk around the forest whilst doing so. The spaced trees overshadowed him entirely, but with a rather thin canopy, he received more than enough light to casually walk around without even the slightest concern.

For a while he completely forgot he was naked as well.

As he continued his search, the setting sun shone through the thin forest with an orange fade. He had to head back before night fell to set up a fire, in the meantime stripping another two hemp stems to get 22 fibres. Needing 12 per rope though, he only had enough to make the wooden shield for now.

Once crafting it, he was surprised to see the next item was an item rack. It simply stood up and could hold a couple weapons, something perfect as the number of tools he gathered littered his cube’s storage. He came to realise that his naming scheme had been rather pointless and said aloud, “I might as well call it an inventory. Not like that’s inaccurate.” He rolled his eyes in response to his own denial of the situation and crafted an item rack.

These simple recipes which only required four items couldn’t have been easier to make now that he had an axe. This was likely also the reason the next level of recipes hadn’t been shown yet.

When he chipped a few more stones tomorrow, he could finally check if his guess was right.

Quickly rushing back to the oak tree he started under, there was very little time to set up a fire. It had been a long time, but he roughly remembered how to create embers using a fire bow, and in theory a short bow could replace the thing.

He took a few longer twigs, and sharpened the tip of one using the shards of stone all around the place whilst making a tiny hole through the other. Now he had to hurry to create enough heat, the journey back had taken longer than previously guessed as the sun approached the horizon and half crossed it.

Moving the bow back and forth, he rotated the stick at high speed in the little hole of the second, keeping it in place whilst the two rubbed rapidly. It didn’t take long for a wisp of smoke to appear, but he didn’t stop. He waited until the smoke grew larger and more solid, finally believing it to be enough and dropping a bundle of hemp fibres on top whilst blowing.

Within, he could see the small orange ember glitter, brightening under the air of every breath. He was so close! It just had to ignite–

The ember dulled and the bundle of fibre stopped smoking. He failed.

And as that happened, the sun set over the horizon, plunging him into a moonlit night. The sudden transition to a mostly dark landscape was a lot more than expected, but he didn’t complain, simply restarting the process. It wasn’t as though he was utterly blind but night was never a great time to be alone, at least he hadn’t seen anything resembling predators thus far.

Though, just in case some sort of thing only came out at night, he rubbed the sticks together faster and faster. Smoke appeared once more, but he remained cool even as the descending darkness only grew heavier, leaving him stumped that this continued. Was this how dark the night truly was?

With such a threat approaching he didn’t bother commenting and diverted all his attention into pure focus on starting a fire.

He’d been spoiled by his modern life, even when he went camping he always had access to torches and lanterns. This sort of quietness and lack of control frustrated him, but still, he saw new embers appear and hurried to drop just a few fibres onto it, blowing gently to ignite a flame once more.

“Please work. I don’t have much longer.” He only barely saw about ten feet in front of him in the current darkness, and who knew how much worse it would get. If for any reason he was stuck in such pitch-blackness all night…

He might honestly go mad.

The fibres caught aflame and a small match-like fire sprouted. Without hesitating, he increased the flame with more hemp fibres and carefully dropped it onto a dry log he cut in half on return. A few sticks game out of his inventory, and he snapped them to fuel the flame. The dry wood easily caught alight and in just seconds his tiny ember transformed to a roaring campfire.

With a sigh of relief, he no longer sat in complete darkness. A few more logs dropped down onto the bulging fire and he sat comfortably against the oak tree.

“That was close,” he said in between heavy breaths. Unfortunately… Night was not as safe as he expected.

From beyond the flame’s range, something dragged its feet on the grassy ground. He clearly heard the scraping as it pulled dirt and grass with it, and in concern he stood out with the spear and shield in hand. “Who’s there!?” He wasn’t that scared with a fire around, refusing to back down now that he held the only safe spot in what appeared to be the whole plains.

However, the moving figure did not respond, instead only shuffling forward more. Holding the shield closer to his chest, Joey prepared to defend his ground. He couldn’t guarantee the intentions of whatever approached, and there was just so much to do here that he didn’t want to give up.

Like meeting up with his family, or just building a load of stuff so he could enjoy himself for once. Or just find out what the fuck that cube was! So if whatever came threatened his life… Just if!

He would stop it. No matter the price.

It had taken most of the day, but he finally found it. That thing which made him so happy as a child, but resulted in his adulthood as a ‘miserable bastard’, and you could bet everything he’d never let it go again.

The figure finally shuffled into the range of his fire’s light, and he saw the naked humanoid shape just barely dragging itself forward through the soil. With pale green skin, disgusting nails and hair, not to mention crooked joints and missing teeth in its open mouth. It vaguely groaned when looking into his eyes for the first time.

“A fucking zombie, that’s what I was pissing myself over? I won’t put up with this piece of shit, just gotta destroy the head, that’s how this usually works.” With complete confidence, and anger, he put the shield and spear away and grabbed the club which still laid against the tree.

Killing a human might have been hard for him. But a zombie? The crappiest lone enemy in quite literally anything ever?

Maybe if it were a small horde he’d grow worried, or if this one possessed superhuman characteristics. But seeing how it weakly shuffled through dirt and barely even seemed responsive, any semblance of fear vanished faster than a popped balloon.

And he laughed to himself at a random thought over the situation, then said, “Who knows, maybe I’ll level up for killing it!” While he didn’t believe this to be a game, the fact that a real zombie just appeared meant that ridiculous idea had some credibility.

Not a whole lot, but humour is always the best way to ease suffering, or something like that. He waited until the drooling mess of a monster approached closer and got a better sight of its pale body. Its limbs were large, but rather than muscular appeared bloated, as though rotting, and stored masses of maggots and gases. Its eyes were hazy and pupils a dull grey as though unable to see. Still, it somehow locked gazes with him and approached.

The fire right beside it clearly did nothing to stop an approach, and he noted to never ward off zombies with such attacks. Sleeping tonight wouldn’t be easy.

But now fully encapsulated in his camp’s warm glow, he rushed forward and swung sideways to smash into the side of the zombie’s head. He expected to see the thing toppled from this body’s unreasonable strength, where he’d repeatedly smash its skull to bits. For a monster that he’d actually dreamt of killing due to playing some games too much, there was no fear or harshness for attacking it.

His club smashed into the zombie’s skull with a heavy thump, and he saw it jerk to the side following the heavy impact.

But then it stopped. His club stopped as well.

And it didn’t fall over.

Surprised by the change of pace, he only said a quick, “Huh, how did it–” It suddenly lunged for the arm holding that club and squeezed tight without restraint. In just a moment, he felt the bone snap like a twig and his club dropped. But still the zombie hadn’t let go.

He punched its face trying to get away, kicking its body as well, but it felt like he just kicked a brick wall. What the fuck was with this thing?

One thing came to mind. The safety stone, he needed it. And now!

But no matter what the zombie didn’t pull away, it tightly bound its right arm and before he could move, it shoved him such that the two fell over. With it on top he tried to crawl away, but the thing somehow pinned him even with its weak-looking body.

He couldn’t escape.