When I finally woke up, I found myself on a lonesome beach. To either side of the beach, grey cliffs with the occasional greenery rose a few dozen meters above the sea. Looking inland, the pebbly beach gave way to a forest about a hundred meters from the shore. In contrast to the jungle on my island, the trees here seemed much smaller and the vegetation beneath them was practically nonexistent. A normal forest then instead of the jungle I had been in up until now. Still, not another forest I thought to myself. I was heartily sick of them already. What about some plains or a nice desert? I was definitely ready to get away from endless trees for a while.

It was at this point that I had a sudden realization. I saw no sign of Gregory or his log. He would be around somewhere I was sure. We washed up on the beach together so he was probably just off scouting. Yea that was it. He definitely hadn't been eaten or anything. I mean we were best friends through thick and thin. I would have heard something if anything came for him. Besides this is Gregory we are talking about. All he had to do was touch a monster to make them surrender. He was definitely fine.

To distract myself from my thoughts, I tried moving about a bit and found myself sore but otherwise fine. Swimming definitely uses muscles I didn't even know I had. Based on how stiff I was, I thought I should be hurting a lot more than I was. Then I realized I had a pain resistance skill. I thought it would be pretty much useless given I had 0 hit points so anything that actually managed to damage me would kill me. That said, my pain resistance skill apparently came in handy in the strangest of places.

As I was thinking about this and that, Gregory finally showed up. I first noticed some movement coming out of the trees and did a cautious dive to the ground to hide myself. It was only after looking at the movement a bit more closely that I realized it was Gregory's log. Sighing with relief I got up and trotted over to see what he had found.

"How is it in there?" (Me)

*Flip*

"Any sign of people?"

*Shake*

"I have no idea how you have so much energy after swimming for a full day with that log."

*Flip*

"I don't suppose you could help me have the same ridiculous stamina?"

*Shake*

"Well I guess we should pick a direction. Not like we are going to go back to that island from hell. I guess we will follow the coast to the right. The boat started on that side of us so maybe their home is in that direction."

*Flip*

Look, I would be more polite about our birthplace but that island was terrible. Even Gregory agreed that we were better off finding a different place to live. Well, to be honest it wasn't like either of us wanted to settle down or anything. We just wanted to travel in more safety than was available on that island. There had to be less dangerous places on this world. Please let there be less dangerous places.

We walked along the shore, climbing cliffs as needed, for about an hour without seeing a single monster. There were seabirds and a few insects but I was by far the largest living creature we had encountered on this land. In contrast to the extremely high population density of our island, the desolation of this place was making both Gregory and I nervous. This would have been normal if we were on Earth but after so many years on this planet, the absence of monsters led both of us to start feeling like we were missing something. Maybe there was a predator that had hunted out all the other monsters. If so, we were likely smack dab in the middle of its territory by now. I really hoped that wasn't the case but it seemed like the only way to make sense of what we were seeing.

As I thought this, I saw a few small green men come over the top of the hill Gregory and I were climbing. If this world was a video game, I would know they were goblins without a doubt. Those ugly faces were readily recognizable from countless games. Yes, I know my face looks even worse but they were still ugly. I can recognize fellows who suffer under the same disability okay?

I snuck closer to them and could hear them speaking with one another. No idea what they were saying of course but I could at least tell they were speaking a language. Finally! Someone to talk to that could talk back to me!

I stood up in excitement and started waving to the goblins while calling out to them.

"Hello fellows!" (Me)

"Glark! Glark mark meetho!" (Biggest goblin)

"My friend and I are lost. I don't suppose we could request assistance from you?" (Me)

At this point, I couldn't help adding a smile to my wave. It was also about this time that the goblins lifted up the clubs I just noticed they were holding and started walking towards me. It looked like they were running to be honest but the pace at which they moved was more of a slow amble. I compromised and called it a walk.

Thinking they were coming over to help, I was going to keep talking to them when Gregory shot out and paralysed them all with his painful poison.

"Hey! What did you do that for? I was talking to them. They were just walking over here to help us. Are you going to do this to everyone we meet? How are we going to meet new people if you keep poisoning them all?"

*Shake*

"Don't you shake at me. What am I supposed to do with them now? How are we supposed to make friends with them after you did that?"

*Shake*

"Then what do you propose we do? We could have asked them for directions to the nearest city if it wasn't for you doing this."

Gregory walked over the goblins shaking all the while. He seemed annoyed with me. I was annoyed with him too so I guess that made us even.

Gregory started to mime moving earth in front of the mouths of the goblins.

"You want me to kill them? But we just met them. They can talk. Can't we keep them?" (Me)

*Shake*

"This is racist. Just because they look like goblins does not mean they are evil."

*Shake*

"Okay how do you know they are evil then mister smart guy?"

*Flip*

"Could you understand what they are saying?"

*Flip*

"Seriously? You are a termite. How are you so amazing?"

*Shake*

"What are you trying to say? It better not be that you aren't amazing, I am just too terrible. Is that what you are trying to say?"

*Flip*

After I chased Gregory for a while, unsuccessfully as he was of course faster than me, I returned to the goblins and suffocated them like Gregory asked. I don't think my best friend is a psychopath who kills everything but myself so he must have heard them saying something terrible.

After they stopped breathing, I tried picking up one of their clubs but like always it just broke into pieces quickly leaving me holding nothing. I had hoped that the curse wouldn't work on this new land. Well, it was worth a try anyway right?

Looking at the bodies made me feel a bit sick so we moved on quickly. I had just killed the first humanoids I met in this world. It left a bad taste in my mouth. Goblins are normally monsters in games that try to kill the player automatically and from Gregory's reaction I guessed these were much the same. Still this was the first time I killed something I knew to be intelligent and to make it worse they were human enough to make it feel like a homicide. I thought I had gotten used to murder in this new world but I still had a ways to go. Once again, I was made thankful that I didn't eat as dry heaving was unpleasant enough.

As we walked along the coast, we came across another dearth of monsters. Those goblins seemed incredibly weak. They couldn't be the only monsters in the area. As we continued not finding any other monsters, my speed kept slowing as I started moving with more and more care. Gregory and his log were a lot more conspicuous but he could generally take care of himself. Besides, if he stopped moving it just looked like there was a log lying there.

About an hour after we left the goblins, we finally saw what we assumed was causing the problem. On a beach that was otherwise unremarkable were half a dozen finely detailed stone statues of sea birds. There were a variety of monsters that could turn things to stone. Generally they needed to see you in order to do it. Gregory and I gave one another a look and moved away from the seashore and into the forest that was still not far off. The trees were too small and the vegetation was too sparse to provide complete cover but it was much better than being on an open beach.

After continuing to travel the coast along the edge of the forest we shortly came across more statues of various small animals. All of them were just as exquisitely detailed as the first few we saw.

I stopped in my tracks when I saw a set of statues of humanoids in front of a cave in the side of one of the cliffs. The humanoids looked like a group of five adventurers from some video game. There were two in some kind of heavy armour with shields, two in much lighter armour with bows standing at the back and one with a set of robes with a staff.

It was so exciting to see people again. There could be no doubt now that there were people somewhere around here. All I had to do was find them. Hopefully, they would be friendly. I could talk to them, see what kind of culture this world had, learn all about the world, and maybe even talk to them.

Calm down me, calm down. They were probably trying to hunt this monster when they were caught by surprise. The cave faces open beach so there weren't any places to hide from its gaze. It might well live in that cave. Gregory and I could hunt down this monster as a sign of our good will and show the people of the nearby settlement what we had done to earn their trust. There had to be a nearby settlement. They definitely wouldn't have travelled a huge distance just to die here right? Nope. Definitely there is one close. Probably just over the next bend of the coast or something. Getting myself all psyched up to do this, I looked over at Gregory. He was looking at me shaking.

"No need to get all judgmental on me."

*Flip*

"Oh come on. I didn't look that weird did I?"

*Flip*

"Whatever. You would be excited too if you were in my shoes. Lets just kill that thing so we can earn the trust of whoever is around here. Think you can handle it if I distract it?"

*Flip*

Gregory left his log where it was and started to make his way along the cliff so that he was above the cave entrance. We had done this quite a few times back on the island. I would find a place out of sight to hide and make some noise to draw out the monster. While its attention, and most importantly its sight, was in my direction, Gregory would jump on it from the other side. Once it was paralysed, I would go over to it while carefully avoiding its vision and suffocate it.

There was just a small problem this time in that there was a LOT less cover than there normally would be. I could hide behind a tree just fine but the forest ended a good fifty meters from the cave. If I just hid behind a tree, when it fell looking in my direction I would be turned to stone as soon as I stepped out from behind the tree.

Well I would just have to make it work. Gregory was counting on me. The people who were going to be my new friends were counting on me. I could do this. Motivation was high. Now I just needed an idea. Really any idea that had a chance of working would be okay. You would think I could just throw a rock but that requires the rock to stay in one piece long enough for me throw it. Chances of that were bad. Hiding behind a tree was bad for the reasons I just outlined. I could try hiding behind the statues but that had the same problem as the tree in that once I moved again I was screwed.

I needed to be somewhere I could both hide in and get out of. I looked at the ocean with trepidation. That would work but I was rather worried about it. I could just climb the cliff above the cave, then go down into the water. Make a noise in the sea and then swim out of sight underwater. It would work assuming there were no sea monsters waiting to eat delicious morsels like myself. I hadn't seen any coming to this new land but that year of wandering the coast of our island left a deep impression. Oceans being deadly was deeply engraved in my psyche. Yes I managed to jump into the water in the face of a rampaging mountain of a fire breathing lizard of death but if anything the mayhem the sea monsters wrecked on the other monsters swimming next to me left an even deeper scar.

I started walking toward the sea while telling myself there was nothing to worry about. I looked at it for a while just to see if any sea monsters would surface. After a while, I felt like I could hear Gregory telling me to hurry up. I psyched myself up and well watched for a little longer. It never hurts to be cautious. On the second try, I made it into the water. Once I was in, I made my way around to the part of the cliff that was around the corner from the cave. Once I was there, I shouted like a crazy person and immediately ducked under the water swimming further down the coast with all of my strength.

As soon as I ran out of breath, I surfaced and started swimming toward the shore. If Gregory had messed up, I would already be stone. So now I just had to get out of this scary water and go deal with what Gregory had caught.

By the time I made it back to the cave, I knew what had been causing all this trouble. It was a monster we were familiar with from the island. I could hear its cries of pain and immediately recognized it. Basilisk. A lizard about two meters tall and ten long that sucked all the life and nutrients out of anything it saw, turning them to stone.

Once I had suffocated it, Gregory did something I was totally not expecting. He had gone back to get his log and when the basilisk breathed its last he started crawling into its eyeball. Yea that was gross. I tried to convince him to stop but it was to no avail.

I ended up looking away and waiting for him to finish whatever it was he was going to do. Seriously, this whole not needing to eat thing is amazing. I might be nauseous but all I can do is dry heave. Likewise, it is no big deal if I am put off food for a while. When I finally thought it was safe to look, I saw Gregory carrying one of the intact eyeballs over to his log. Curious I went over to look. Inside one of the cavities in Gregory's log were the two eyes of the basilisk. Another cavity was opened with hundreds of glowing brown stones inside.

"I have been meaning to ask for ages. What are the stones for? Do you just collect them because they are pretty?" (Me)

Gregory did a flip above the five mostly empty cavities which only had a few stones in them and a shake above the two full cavities.

"So those two are for something other than just being pretty?" (Me)

*Flip*

"What on earth could you possibly need them for? No don't tell me. Do you eat those?"

*Flip*

"I thought you ate wood?"

*Flip*

"So you eat stones too. You are one strange termite you know that?"

*Shake*

"Yes you are. No need to shake at me. I have lived with you for your whole life and I know you are weird."

*Shake*

"Ah it is okay. I guess we will just have to be weird together. Oh, I got completely side tracked by all of this. Why did you take the eyeballs of that basilisk? It isn't to eat is it?"

*Shake*

"Please tell me you aren't collecting pretty eyeballs now?"

*Shake*

"Oh thank goodness. That would have been a whole other level of creepy. But if you don't want to eat it and you don't think they are pretty, why in the world did you go get them?"

*Jumps from the log to me and back a few times*

"For me? Why?"

...

"Is it so I have proof that we subjugated the monster?"

*Flip*

"This way the people around here will be friendly with us! Brilliant Gregory. You are the best."

*Flip*