Two months have passed and my whole body is aching and hurts. I was just done with my training with Francis. If you could even call that training, it felt more like torture. My language learning has improved a lot. I can now hold small talk with the villagers but as soon as they go more into detail it gets too hard and I can't follow it anymore.

Anyway, my body training has been going way better then I was expecting. It was mostly running, weightlifting (rock lifting) and your normal workout routine but on an abnormal level. I first thought that I was pretty strong after coming here seeing how much better my stamina was then before but it turned out it was actually quite bad. Most men of the village were way stronger then me and it was actually quite embarrassing on how weak I was.

After 2 months of training my body I was getting closer to being on par with most men in the village. I at least want to be stronger then most people here before I set off on my adventure. Because if I want to defend myself I do want to be able to something.

Tomorrow I had a day off and wanted to explore the island, I wanted to see the part of the village that got destroyed since it was a big part of their history.

The next day I started to pack food and water for my little trip on the island. Francis pointed me in the direction I had to go in and if I didn’t come back before evening he would come to search for me. The island wasn’t really big so it shouldn’t be a problem, I thought. The village was more in the south of the village and Francis pointed me toward the North-east.

Francis told me that most animals don’t do anything and that there is only one animal on the island I should look out for. He described it as a "big cat with some nasty fangs sticking out of the sides of his mouth". ‘Kind of sounds like a small sabertooth tiger.’ Even though they are half the size of a normal tiger most of the time they are in pairs and are quite hostile.

After listening to Francis his preach about safety I headed of into the direction of the old village. It was kind of scary and lonely at first being all alone in a forest. But I got used to it pretty fast and tried to up my pace as to not waste any time. Around half an hour later I found a wooded path going into the direction of the old village. Walking for another half an hour I found the entrance of he old village. ‘Could you even call this an entrance anymore?’

On the side of the path there were two burned wooden poles sticking out of the ground with what looked to be a sign on it but it was unreadable. As I walked further it got more and more depressing, houses were almost completely burned down or just destroyed. One of the few houses that looked to have somewhat survived was the main building. They did put this one fire but because it was mostly build out of stone it kind of survived.

When I walked in, the floor and walls looked almost black from the fire, at least some of the furniture kind of survived. I advanced further into the house and tried to go upstairs. As I set a step on the stairs the whole thing broke down. I almost fell myself but I quickly got my balance back. When looking at the destroyed stairs I noticed something. To my surprise there was an empty space beneath the staircase that was completely hidden. ‘At least not everything is depressing here, this is kinda exciting.’ When I shoved some of the rubble out of the way there was something that looked like a hatch. “Wow, this actually survived the fire and demolition?”

After clearing more of the debris I found the latch of the hatch and started to pull on it. Nothing happened. ‘Goddammit, is this how its gonna end?’ After looking at the hatch again I started to get embarrassed. ‘There are locks on the side, of course it won’t open.’ I unlocked the hatch and now it opened. Not too smooth though, it did need a few pulls to open it. ‘Wow, a little chest.’ There seems to be some sort of chest laying there.

The chest was around the size of those old square tv’s. I took the chest out of the hole and examined it. It looked like a fancy make-up chest. I couldn’t hold myself back anymore and opened the chest. To my surprise there wasn’t anything like jewellery, gold or money in it but a strange looking fruit. ‘No way... there is no way this is a devil fruit, right?’ The fruit looked like two round discs sticking to each other with white and red rings alternating each other inside the two discs. The stem was connecting like a cherry’s. It was kinda big, It would probably take a few good bites to eat this. After admiring it for a bit I put it back in the chest and took it with me.

‘What a find! Anyway, I think I’ve seen enough of this place, I don’t want to get more depressed. Time to go back.’ When walking back I was thinking that maybe Francis knew more about this fruit. Thinking there was an answer back at the village I got excited and started running. After running for about 20 minutes I was already halfway there, I took a quick break and took my sandwiches out and started to eat. I was calmly eating when I heard rattling not too far behind me. I turned around and about 20 meters away from me was a big looking cat looking right at me.

I quickly stood up, grabbed my backpack withe the chest in it. In the hurry I dropped my sandwich and as fast I could I fucking booked it. Not looking back I ran as fast as I could. ‘There is no way I can beat something like that, what do you mean small?! Its about the size of a big dog! I don’t have any fighting experience. Only the feeling of bloodlust already scared the shit out of me.’
I knew it was chasing me and took a deep breath and screamed for help.

After about running for a few minutes I can see someone in the distance. ‘I am saved! Someone heard my screaming and is coming to help me!’ When I finally met the person it seemed to be Francis, I quickly stopped and hid behind him. “Hey scaredy cat, you scared of a little cat?” He said while laughing. The big cat jumped at Francis but he didn’t even flinch, he dodged the cat and punched it in the side while still in the air. The cat got lunged to the side making a hard sound hitting the ground. “Was that it?” Francis said while looking at the cat. But then suddenly another cat jumped out of nowhere and bit Francis in the leg. Apparently he wasn’t alone! “Fuck, that hurts!” Francis screamed in pain. After Francis punched the first I wasn't panicking as much and I kicked the cat that was biting my friend as hard as I could in the stomach. The cat got launched into a tree and I thought I heard something crack. The other cat was about to get up and saw that his buddy was on the ground, probably dead, and he ran away.

I was just staring at the cat that was laying still on the ground. "Did i do that?" I looked at Francis who was in pain and quickly tried to gather my thoughts and help Francis. "Grab some cloth to reduce the bleeding!" He said while gritting his teeth.
The wound was quite deep and the bleeding needed to stop. I took my shirt off and put it around his leg on top of the wound, the bleeding had kind of stopped for now.

Sjodiek

This was my first time writing something combat related, was it clear enough?