First Kill

"If I was a rich girl nananananana….." hummed Anselm while walking through the forest. He was carrying a leather satchel with a rather convenient handmade sling. Convenient but biting into his skin. He had found it while rummaging through his house. In it were a few supplies like an copper pot and stirring spoon and bandages. There was also a kitchen knife which was not useful for combat.

'All right, it's time to brainstorm ways to increase power. Let's try to increase basic strength by a ridiculous degree. I remember Luffy saying Ace was much stronger than him, before he left to become a pirate. And that was before he consumed the Flame-flame fruit.'

'Kid Ace used to have a metal pipe by his side while fighting Giant tigers. We won't even try Normal sized tigers because of my rather skinny predicament. We'll try hunting small things first.'

'The worst part is not that the village people are unfriendly. It's that there seems like there's no spare iron pipes or tools around for me to use as a weapon. Which i can understand. Why would they leave precious tools like that laying around.' 

'I don't even seem to remember how to make those spears from earth. I knew I should've watched a video on how to make knives or something, because I could really use something right now,' thought Anslem, walking through the undergrowth.' 

'Well I might have to spend some nights in the tree at this rate. I might have to make a fire soon. Anselm climbed a rather sturdy tall tree to scout out the forest.' 

Looking at the horizon, stretching miles and miles beyond as far as his eye could see, Anselm was able to make out something that looked like a gate. 'Well that appears to be my first stop. I hope the town guards or whatever don't require any documents from me.'

As Anselm continued walking across the forest, he stopped dead in his tracks. A rabbit was running towards him. 

'What luck! I can't believe this…. On the first day? I got plot armor baby!

Wait, this is the One Piece world. As far as i know, this little ruminant might be an expert in delivering drop kicks. Nah i really don't need this right now"

Panicking, Anselm hastily scrambled up a tree staying up on the lowest branch. The rabbit was hastily approaching the spot under him. Suddenly he saw it. A grayish red flash pounced on the rabbit. 

It was a wolf. A really old one at that. With two scars on his snout and a rather puss filled, injured white eye. 

It appears to have been kicked out of his pack, considering that wolves usually hunt in packs. And that there was an absence of howling.

Well not that it needed a pack. The wolf tore apart the rabbit's left foreleg. He then proceeded to disembowel the poor thing. Anselm gulped. He just hoped that it wouldn't notice him. 

And of course, it did. The wolf looked up and noticed him. He in fact, stared at Anselm in the eyes. 

'Wait, is this one of those tropes, where the animal looks him in the eyes, leaves him alone to intimidate the person and then watches over him or something.'

It was in fact not the case.

Snarling, the wolf jumped up really high and opened his mouth. As he lunged, Anselm did the most cliche thing ever. Having no weapons to defend himself, he instinctively brought his left hand forward to block. The wolf's jaws tightly clamped onto his forearm.

Waves of pain came waving through his brain as Anselm and the wolf came crashing down to the earth. Emergency signals surrounded him. Then Anselm thought of something abnormal. Resisting the sharp fangs, Anselm pushed his arm further down into his throat. The wolf gagged and tried to run away. But Anselm followed, using his right hand to grip the muzzle from the outside, snapping it shut. 

The wolf thrashed violently, but Anselm held on to a desperate hope of survival. His vision blurred with tears of pain, but he kept on clenching his arm and pushing further down. Feeling the sticky saliva and the wolf's hot breath, Anselm was not doing fine. 

The wolf's moments became even more frantic, then panicked, then weaker and finally the growls turned to actual choking gurgles. 

Finally with a last desperate effort, the wolf's body convulsed and then went limp. Anselm released his grip and collapsed beside the lifeless animal, his arm bleeding and throbbing with pain. He lay there for a moment, panting heavily, the reality of what he had done sinking in.

Summoning his remaining strength, Anselm struggled to his feet. He looked down at the fallen wolf, its ferocity extinguished. Despite the pain and exhaustion, a sense of accomplishment filled him. He had faced a deadly predator with nothing but his bare hands and emerged victorious. Anselm knew that today, he had truly proven himself.

The sun dipped below the horizon, and the forest grew darker, but Anselm walked with a newfound confidence. He had faced his fears and conquered them, and nothing in the forest seemed quite as threatening anymore.

'QUIT IT. See this is the type of mentality that'll get you killed in the first place. Getting overconfident won't get you anywhere dude. It'll get you killed.'

Breathing a loud sigh, Anselm quickly gained his vigilance and pushed his euphoria side.

'Now that i have a neutral outlook on your life, I think it's time to hit the bed. But first let's get that booty and myself cleaned up'

Cutting up the wolf meat, he avoided the internal organs and solely focused on the sinewy tissue in the chest and legs. He tried scavenging whatever he could eat from the rabbit. Blood and gore didn't seem to bother him as much, after this particular life threatening fight. He then gathered up all the remains as much as he could and dumped it really far away from him to avoid wild animals at night.

After cleaning up the mess somewhat, he found a suitable clearing and decided it was time to start a fire.

It took around 10 minutes. He rolled a cylindrical piece of wooden stick with a thread, perpendicular to a smaller round wooden piece to start some sparks. The squeaks coming from grounding them started to become louder and louder. With Anselm's fixed focus, he kept up the momentum eventually gaining some sparks. As a small twig caught on fire, he quickly gathered all the small wood pieces in his vicinity and fed the voracity of the flickering tongues of fire. He soon gathered some stones and isolated the fire with a stone circle. He gathered some extra wooden branches to feed the flames when it gets bigger. 

The resulting flames gave him much needed warmth. It's time to recover and rest. Boil some water. Clean and sterilize his left forearm as much as he can. And finally cook the wolf and rabbit remains. He pulled out a copper pot from his leather satchel, which by the way bit into the skin across his shoulder and chest even now. 

Anselm thinking 'I need to do something about that or it might cause an infection in the future' made a mental note. He got some rightly shaped branches and dug them into the ground to make two poles. Making a temporary stand for hanging the copper pot, he started searching for a water source in his vicinity. Finding a stream, he filled the copper pot and made way back to his temporary camp clearing. 

A few minutes later,

After boiling the water, he tore a piece of cloth and submerged it in the boiling water. He then proceeded to clean his left forearm. Amusingly he found a wolf tooth lodged inside his forearm. 'He must have been an old wolf. I got really lucky this time. Sigh! the primal life is tough indeed.' Putting his tooth into his satchel, he found a branch to bite into. As he bit into it to avoid screaming, he poured boiling water on his wound. He rolled the bandage over his forearms and bit into it, tearing it at the length he wanted. And just like that, he felt relief wash over him.

'Aight it's time to cook. Let's do this. I never tried wolf or anything canine before but let's just roast the sinewy muscles on his chest and shoulders first. ' 

He removed the hanging pot from the pole and let the remaining water cool for his drinking water. He proceeded to spit roast the wolf tissue while placing the rabbit pieces on some flat stones. He had placed them near the fire to cook them.

'Damn this is gonna take a long time. I should've prepped the food first and then bandaged myself up' sighed Anselm in regret. 

One hour later,

'The cooked rabbit tastes pretty fine. But it got cooked a bit too much on the other side, after placing it on the rock. But if we talk about the sinewy, juicy, ligament of wolf meat, it's incomparable. Well more nutritious protein for me' Having finished a scrumptious meal, he patted his stomach. He drank the water from the copper pot which had cooled down by now and placed the rest of the roasted wolf inside his pot. 

Night has fallen. Anselm decided not to extinguish the fire as he needed the warmth. He decided to risk it as most animals he's seen so far have been normal sized. It's also too late to find sleeping quarters.

He decided to spend the night up on the tree. After climbing on a thick sturdy branch, he found depressions in the tree here and there, which made it easier to remain stationary and fixed to the tree. 

And soon, Anselm finally fell asleep after his first proper meal in this world.