Chapter 2: Diddy D. Kong

As I awoke from my sleep, I marveled at how rejuvenated I felt compared to yesterday; although I'm still tired, I don't feel like I'm on the verge of collapsing from lack of water, though I am a little hungry. Releasing a yawn, I flipped myself over onto my stomach and began crawling toward the nest of eggs, and while doing so, I was able to notice how much easier it was to move around, granted it was still difficult and somewhat slow; I had to consciously focus on manipulating my limbs, otherwise with my poor control, it would be nearly impossible to go in a specific direction.

'Speaking of limbs, now that I'm no longer in such a desperate situation, I think I can now focus on my body, which seems to be that of a newborn with how short my limbs are and how weak I am, not to mention I can hardly lift my head.' Thought the man or baby as he viewed his malnourished yet short arms.

However, learning that I no longer have my massive bulky body packed with muscles was alarming; what was even more concerning was that the parts of my body that I could view were nearly all covered with a dense amount of hair, and although I called it hair, it looked more like fur. While there are humans alive that have been born with a symptom that causes them to grow an enormous amount of hair on their bodies, none of them have a brown monkey tail attached to their tail-bone; not to mention, let alone a newborn, what human is capable of surviving roughly eight days without water?

'From my understanding, three days is the limit to how long a fully grown human can survive without water, and I did more than double that. Either I'm some genetically engineered superhuman with a huge amount of fur, or something I'd prefer wasn't the case; I'm no longer human.' Thought the baby as he released a sigh of frustration while slowly approaching the nest of tortoise eggs.

Although I stated those possibilities, I truthfully didn't believe either; in order for those to be true, I'd need to have my brain transferred into this new body, and that just isn't possible; an adults brain is simply too large to fit inside a body this small. Of course, I suppose it's possible that this child-like body isn't as small as I give it credit for, but I find that harder to believe, as that means the tortoise from yesterday was roughly the size of an elephant, which is frightening.

It's very well possible that, instead of having my brain transferred, my soul was rebirthed or reincarnated; however, I don't believe that either; it's slightly more appealing to me, as it sounds somewhat more believable, but not by much.

'But, for my soul to be rebirthed or reincarnated, that would mean I would've had to die first. Haa, surprisingly, that actually makes much more sense; with how many performance-enhancing drugs I was consuming, I'm not surprised I ended up dying; I most likely had a heart attack in my sleep.' Thought the baby as he once again sighed.

The dying part wasn't too big of a deal to me; the most frightening aspect of death was that no one knew what happened once you died; however, seeing how I'm currently alive, it seems like, as I believed, death isn't the end. Well, at least not for me, and I hope so for my family; though I'm not religious, I pray they end up in a better predicament than me; I almost died again.

'Alright, for now, let's just assume that I was rebirthed, reincarnated, or whatever it's called until I can find evidence that suggests otherwise. If that's the case, my goal is still the same as before: find food, water, and shelter.' Thought the child just as he finally arrived at the nest of eggs.

Having finally arrived at the nest of tortoise eggs, I reached down, and just when I was about to crack one of the eggs on my knee, I noticed both of my knees had fully healed; they were pretty bruised from yesterday as I had hit them repeatedly with several eggs, yet it looks like they've fully recovered.

'Well, I suppose it's not shocking; they were only bruised.' Thought the child as he began smacking his knee with an egg, though he didn't notice that his knee was perfectly fine afterward.

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Feeling satisfied, I looked into the hole where the eggs lay as I wished to know how many were left, yet I was left speechless when I realized there wasn't a single egg remaining.

'I suppose tortoise eggs aren't that nutritious.' Thought the boy as he yet again sighed.

Now that I no longer had a source of food, I was forced to find another source; I could feel those bananas and coconuts hanging from the palm trees, mocking me as I began relentlessly scavenging around the beach for possibly more tortoise eggs.

Luckily, after several hours of searching for tortoise eggs, or really just any source of food, I discovered various eggs hidden in the sand; some didn't even resemble the tortoise eggs I previously ate, but as long as they were edible, I didn't care which is slightly ironic since I don't even know if tortoise eggs are edible.

'45, 46, 47… 91, 92. I've found 92 eggs within a span of probably four hours, which seems to be very good; I must've washed ashore just around the time their species were laying eggs.' Thought the child with a small smile as he covered all ninety-two eggs in the sand while stabbing a stick above the spot so he would always know where his egg stash was.

Now that I've found myself another temporary food supply, which should hopefully last longer than the twenty-one eggs, I headed back to the place where I was bound for several days and decided to search that area to see if I could find anything helpful; though even if I did, I probably wouldn't be able to use it given my weak, uncoordinated, and small body.

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Having spent the next couple of minutes searching around the area where the blankets bound my body, unsurprisingly, I discovered nothing that might help me; in fact, I only happened to find one thing.

'Yep, just like I thought, nothing useful, though I did find what looks like a dog tag, or at least something similar.' Thought the child as he lay on the ground while examining a dirty wooden dog tag.

Brushing away all the sound and other dirt stuck to the dog tag, I carefully look at the words, which I can surprisingly read, and attempt to sound them out; however, given my body, that obviously didn't work.

"Didy D. hon.(Diddy D. Kong)." Said the child, slurring his words like a drunkard.

'Diddy D. Kong. Although it sounds weird, it seems to be a name, and given my child-like body, I'm willing to bet that it is my name. However, that name sounds very familiar. Diddy D. Kong, huh; I suppose that's my name. I might as well go with it. If I'm really a reincarnated individual, it's the least I could do to honor my birth parents, wherever they are; I hope they weren't shit people, but given my situation, I can't deny that possibility.' Thought Diddy as he placed the dog tag on the blanket.

As I set the dog tag down, I started formulating plans on how to survive my current situation, and first things first, even before finding a steady supply of food, water, and shelter, I needed to get more mobile, and that meant relearning how to walk, I just didn't know how viable that plan was since I seem to be a newborn child.

'In all honesty, after everything that's transpired, this seems to be one of the least crazy things I've done; If I was reborn into a human's body, I would've without a doubt died, but this human-monkey hybrid body seems to be much more resilient than a humans body. Or its bodily functions are simply many times more efficient, which could also affect how I survived for nearly eight days without a so-called drop of water.' Thought Diddy as he began crawling around as a form of exercise to strengthen his weak body.

I decided to start off slow by simply perfecting my ability to crawl first, as that would also significantly increase my dexterity and agility, not so much my balance, but I'll work on that once I start practicing how to walk. Though one thing that is very annoying but also helpful is since it's in the middle of the day, the sand beneath my palms and knees is scorching, which forces me to move faster if I don't want to get burned.

'Is sand usually this hot?' Wondered Diddy as he eyed the glistening sand while swiftly crawling, at least compared to his earlier speeds.

The act of crawling wasn't too difficult; I was able to do it when I felt like I was about to collapse; now that I have a full stomach, crawling is pretty easy, though only if I do it for a short time; moving for an extended period of time makes me quickly exhausted.

'T-This is getting quite difficult; I can already feel the muscles I barely have, cramping.' Thought Diddy as he continued crawling in circles on the beach while fighting through the pain in his muscles.

Clenching my gums, I persevered through the pain and continued crawling around the beach for roughly another ten or so minutes until I could no longer move my arms, and I practically collapsed on the hot sand, which forced me to quickly move toward the blanket before once again collapsing in exhaustion; this time for good.

While to most people, it may seem stupid, given my body and situation, to crawl around until my body nearly gives up; however, I've spent thousands of hours at the gym, and one major thing I've learned from working out if you wish to make the most progress, is to train to failure; in other words, train until you can't train that muscle anymore. That's precisely what I did; I crawled to failure.

I don't know where I am or how exactly I got here, but one thing for sure is the presence of wild animals, and if I wish to live beside a forest with who knows what type of beasts. I will need to be strong if I seek to survive, which I'm obsessed with anyway.

'I may wish to get strong, but let's take this one step at a time; first is learning how to walk. Once I can do that, I'll start thinking about gaining muscles.' Thought Diddy with his back to the ground while breathing intensely; however, there was a slight smirk of excitement on his childish face.

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Elven Legacy (Chapter 119: Banquet Officially Begins!), Hero of Harmony (Chapter 4: A Hero's Life Continues), and One Piece: Chaos Kong (Chapter 3: Chaos Kong's Birth) at [patreon.com/Ozonelayer691]