Chapter 6 Starting a New Hobby? It's Hard.

As the pale glow of the moon struggled to pierce the thick fog that surrounded the forest, a strange sight appeared at a clearing at the edge of the riverbank.

Splintered pieces of wood lay scattered on the ground, alongside vaguely shaped carvings. The carvings had four legs and a blob shaped head each, but they could not be identified as any species of animal in particular.

There was no noise. The forest was as silent as a graveyard except for an eery scraping sound.

Suddenly, the silence was broken by a cheerful voice.

"Silvester! Silvester, look at this!"

Lief held up a wood carving that vaguely resembled an animal. It had a stubby snout, vaguely pointed ears, two holes for eyes, and a short tail.

[What is it?]

The dark green tiger examined the wooden animal with critical eyes before eventually pronouncing its judgment.

[Not bad. It actually somewhat resembles a bear.]

Lief tossed the carving aside towards the graveyard containing his other failures with a sigh.

"It's supposed to be a wolf."

All he could say was, he was not artistically inclined.

He had tried to learn to carve the fallen pieces of wood that he found in the dead forest. Carving would also help him train his hands/claws to control their strength.

The splintered pieces of wood among the failed carvings were all pieces of wood that he held too tightly or pressed to hard. If he even just gripped a piece of wood too tightly, it would shatter into millions of splinters.

His claws were sharp, and it took him a while just to get the hang of holding a piece of wood tight enough for him to carve, but loose enough that it wouldn't crack or break.

And even after all that, he still couldn't carve well. He just couldn't get the wood into the shapes he wanted. Oh well, at least it gave him practice holding comparitively delicate things without breaking them.

Anyways, he had his new fog skill so he could still replenish the forest without needing to walk around anywhere. It was almost like setting a videogame in idle or afk mode.

"Silvester, I'm bored. Do you have any suggestions for what I could do?"

Lief laid back down on the grass covered embankment with a sigh.

Silvester sat beside him, its tail flickering back and forth.

[Go watch the new animals coming to live in the forest? Go watch birds? Hunt birds? Sleep?]

Lief sighed once more. The suggestions by the green feline were not very reliable, especially the last two.

Finally, he returned to his woodcarvings with the slightest hope that eventually, with enough practice, he'll be able to create something decent. At least he seemed to be immune to getting splinters.

Suddenly, he had an idea.

"Silvester, do you want to build a treehouse with me?"

[I am a systemic entity and am incapable of coming into contact with anything. I can not build anything with you.]

"Well then just accompany me when I build! Me, Cain, and Asher used to build treehouses in the giant forest in their backyard! It was really fun, and I still remember the designs for a couple of them! I'll just have to resize them so I can fit in them! I can use some trees from the dead forest for materials, and I remember that there was one group of trees in the living forest that should be big enough for a couple treehouses!"

Lief jumped up excitedly, plans for an epic tree palace already running through his mind. Although previously he was the designated brawn of the group, that didn't mean he couldn't come up with plans or designs on his own, he just was too lazy to do it. But since he already had premade designs from Cain, why not use them?

He dashed through the forest until he reached the dead part of the forest, choosing several taller and straighter trunks. With a combination of his claws and tail spines, he began to chop the trees down and strip them of their bark.

Soon he had a pile of naked tree trunks piled beside him. Once he figured he had enough, he lifted them up easily and began transporting them to the living trees he was planning to use as the treehouse base.

When he reached the site, he began to cut the dead tree trunks into planks.

Although he didn't have the same tools he had access to when he built the treehouses with Cain and Asher, his claws were perhaps much sharper and more efficient than any tool he could've used. Just cutting the wood into plank shapes was much easier than trying to carve tiny details into miniscule figures.

Because he didn't have iron nails or screws or even glue that he could use to stick everything together, he had to come up with a Plan B.

Using thin vines that could be woven together, Lief managed to create a somewhat decent rope. It was able to hold up his weight, so he decided it could be used.

There were also sharp wooden splinters that were carved in a way that they could be inserted into something fairly easily but were hard to take out that could take the place of screw or nails in certain places.

After retracting his tail spines, Lief could use his tail as another arm to carry materials, hold things in place, and reach further. It was quite convenient, and helped make up for the fact that there was only one of him, as compared to when he built treehouses with his friends back in his old world.