There were others who were not laughing.
"Is he going straight for the den?"
"Does he know anything?"
"If he provokes the Ghorok's queen?"
"Should we interfere?"
"No, but stay ready... we might have to defend if the Ghorok Queen sends a tide."
---
Terry, on the other hand, had no idea he was going straight for the Ghorok Queen's den.
He was just dancing and prancing around, collecting and foraging everything like a little princess in a jungle, even humming a tune.
"Oh, what's that?" He found a small hut, broken and abandoned.
He entered and saw a collapsed bed, termite-ridden furniture, and some dried herbs sealed in clay pots.
He didn't recognize them, but that feeling, that extra sense, gave him hints. Some felt like bug repellant, some had healing properties. Some would probably give him bloody diarrhea and some were just trash.
He tapped the floor near the bed; it crumbled under the tap and his weight. He left the hut and found a corner where some cut wood was still piled up, rotten and termite infested, among them, he spotted a woodaxe.
Rusted and half-corroded. As he picked it up, the handle snapped. It was rotten and eaten through by termites.
He put it in his inventory and tried to check or read about it through it.
But then something lit up in his mind, like a mini-game had triggered. The center of it was the rusted, broken axe. Around it, options showed up: stones, herbs, even his crude club.
"Huh? What am I supposed to do now? What's it asking me to do?"
He stared at it for a second and then it clicked.
"Is it saying I can repair it using these items?"
He thought about it, nodded once, and that was all it needed. He selected the items which were logically required and confirmed it. The items vanished, consumed.
And in his inventory, a new item appeared: Woodaxe.
Terry pulled it out, and his eyes went wide.
The woodaxe was now properly cleaned, sharpened, and reinforced. Not brand new, but definitely not a half-assed patch job either.
The crude club was now part of the handle, fused in. The axe head was cleaned up, shiny, grinded just enough to look solid. Not perfect, but way better than the rusty junk from before.
He could feel it, he could swing this axe at least 220 times before it would break. And if he kept repairing it like this, he'd never run out of usage. Technically.
So he swung it on the rotten wood and hut, trying to test it on them first.
To his surprise, after some swings and cutting down some rotten woods, it exploded like confetti, as if he had finished the requirement and triggered the next sequence.
The exploded confetti got absorbed into him automatically, and in his inventory, a material section now read "WOOD: WOOD x4."
"Does that mean I can gather wood like this? Even the useless, rotten wood?" He didn't wait for someone to answer and started hacking everything around him.
The Wood Count kept on increasing when he noticed that good, healthy wood from a tree would give him 20-something wood. The same effort and thing from the rotten, termite-ridden wood would give only 2 or 4 wood.
"Ahh... so that's the catch." Better than nothing. So, in a few minutes, he cleaned the whole place, leaving only a path which might suggest that there used to be a hut here.
As he was looking at the patch, he thought for a moment. "Does this mean I can build too?"
Nothing happened, so he focused more, and his intuition was right. Another mini-game triggered, and like a blueprint floating in front of him, he was able to see how big or small a wooden wall he could make and how much it would cost.
Filled with excitement, he quickly followed it, and within a few blinks, a wooden wall was ready in front of him, embedded in the ground.
"Fuck!" He didn't put the floor first. He swung the axe and broke down the wall and properly laid down the foundation, floor, and other things.
The task that would normally take at least a day or two, or even longer if you weren't an expert in woodworking, carpentry, or hut building, he finished in just a few moments.
Days of work done in minutes.
He felt proud as he admired the new hut. Not fancy, but it had that rough, thrown-together vibe. Still, it had that fresh, new smell.
He stepped inside, looking around at the windows, the corners, the empty space. "Wish I could just live here."
Suddenly, something triggered, a feeling of being bound to this hut, this place. For some reason, it felt like his now.
"Who are you?"
Terry jumped. He heard a female voice behind him and immediately raised his axe, his noodle-like arm shaking. But when he saw who it was, he relaxed.
A young girl taller, healthier than him stood there, dressed in tribal clothes, ribbons, runic tattoos, bone jewelry, and more. She had a mask resting sideways on her head, with two tusks sticking out of it and lastly a sharp spear.
Her face was painted in shades of red, yellow, and white. Her real face was hard to make out, but Terry could tell, she was beautiful.
Both body and face. Slender, slightly muscular. She looked like a wild local, as Terry guessed.
"I am... I'm Terry." He lowered the axe. "What are you doing in this dangerous place, girl?"
"Who are you calling girl, boy? We're the same age." Her voice held an unshakable edge that said, Don't assume anything about me unless I say so.
"Fine, my lady." Terry gave a short bow, and she nodded.
"You haven't answered my question."
Terry scratched his head. "I'm... kind of trying to hunt a Ghorok."
"Trying?" She looked confused.
"Yeah... this is something I'm forced to do now. I need to hunt it and bring its head, or else... but I don't even know what a Ghorok is."
Her expression stayed serious for a moment, then she suddenly giggled, trying to hide it behind her hand.
Terry scratched his head more, embarrassed.