A triple kill with a stone.

Ait, I'm ready.

You can't even begin to imagine how mushy my brain is feeling. It's like I pulled the disable trigger. Even thinking about thinking is hard, that's how bad it is.

That said, the suffering definitely paid off; I'm now able to do the shape I've been practicing for the past two weeks. It still takes a good amount of focusing to do, but I figured I may as well slowly make progress with the log placement while I practice. This also serves as a great way to train my balance, as I'll be forced to shift my weight in various ways so as to not fall over with these heavy logs.

"Three birds with one stone.. A triple kill, hah." Sounds stupid no matter how you put it.

After procrastinating in dread for one more day, I finally got to work.

~~~

I can't say it was easy. It was quite the opposite, in fact. I ended up snapping my right leg in half when I raised by left one to make a step, which was, as you can imagine, very painful.

The next attempt wasn't that much better either, but I made some progress. With some weight shifting shenanigans I somehow made it about four steps before my blade - the one I used for holding the log - started deforming from the sheer heaviness of it, so I'm now working on making it thicker.

All of those things like recovering broken body parts and making the blade thicker requires a substantial amount of energy, which I don't have. You see, it's been a while since I've gone out hunting, and I've decided against consuming plants because it takes too much time.

"What are my choices for today?" I could take down a bunch of plate bugs. They're rich on the nutritious stuff, but I'm looking to get better at fighting.

"And what better way to practice than actually going out for a fight." Am I really gonna try fighting the "meatball" though?

Ah, fuck it. If I can't even win a fight against a meatball, I've got no chance of survival if I ever come by a bunch of humans.

Meatballs are interesting creatures. Even funny, in their own way. They look like giant balls of meat, hence the name, but with a huge mouth and gill-like gaps where the ears would normally be. Its mouth is massive, and the lack of bones in the meatball's body, combined with extremely stretchy skin, allows it to open the mouth extremely wide, acting like a glider to catch the wind.

It then directs for thrust in whatever direction using those slits on its side, allowing it to fly as long as there is at least some wind.

Raising my head to confirm my thoughts, I nodded.

There's wind. And it's really strong. For most it would be a disadvantage, but for those meatballs It's a blessing. They get to dash around the sky at really high speeds.

"The fight's gonna be a tough one." I excitedly rubbed my blades, creating an unpleasant screech which was quickly drowned out by the constantly accelerating wind.

Ever since the tempest started, the speed has been increasing, slowly but consistently getting more and more dangerous.

I wonder if, at some point, it'll be so bad I won't even be able to stand still anymore? That a very real possibility, but one I'd like not to think about, as that would mean certain death when I eventually need to take off into the skies..

"Agh, I can think about bad stuff forever." I decided against demotivating myself and went out for the hunt.

Is it okay for me to call this island mine since all the other vagabonds left? I'm sure they wouldn't mind, after all they were always "really nice" to me.

"Anyways, the shape of *my* island is pretty interesting, isn't it?" I put emphasis on the word my as I said the sentence in my head.

It used to be that I went around a full circle she I was wondering about. That was the shape - a nearly perfect circle, and it hasn't changed too much.

Most of it, or rather, the bigger half of it is still the same circle, but with a "docking station" where the jelly guy's head is exposed. All of the meatballs lived there, preying on the smaller creatures they came by, but now there was a whole lot of nothing.

And so, they migrated over to the opposite side.

"That's a pain for me cause I have to walk three times longer to get to them. But hey, at least I have time to mentally prepare for the fight to come." It's all fun and games until I accidentally run into two or three of them at the same time, but the world wouldn't play suck a cruel trick on me, would it?

Ahah, haha. Haaaah..

Oh lord have mercy.