i_was_there: A Minecraft Story

chapter_five: Challenge

"He wants me to what?!"

Alex shrugged. There's a smile on her face, as if she herself isn't like the idea either. "And, like you just heard, he wants this whole area cleared by nightfall."

In an instant, I heard the drumming of my heart in my ears. I looked around. But this area is so big. . . How am I supposed to clear all this out by nightfall? This place is practically surrounded by a forest! "D-Do I get anything? Like an axe or something?"

"Unfortunately, no. He is allowing you to craft whatever you want from the wood you gather, though." She took my shoulder and walked me to the nearest tree. It a birch one. "We've planted hundreds. . . Maybe thousands of trees here. One chest might not be enough to accommodate all the wood you will be feathering."

"Okay." I whispered hurriedly. "Can I go now?"

Once I received her signal, I turned to he tree and knocked on the bottommost block of its trunk. The sound is somehow dulled, it's as if the block was hollow in the inside. And with that little knock, a small crack has appeared in the middle. I turned to show Alex, but she was already walking away.

I knocked on the block some more until it finally broke and floated as a 2D item on the ground. I moved my arm forward. The block was immediately attracted and headed straight for my inventory.

I'll have to ask Steve and Alex how to use my inventory later.

I continued my collecting for a few more hours. At the moment, I'm on my 280th tree (just an estimation). I did go on a little detour and grabbed some stone to make the chopping more efficient. Even though it wasn't tiring, all the running was making me hungry.

Whenever I was sure that no one was looking, I killed some of the animals around (I know, I'm sorry!) to munch on their meat. Cooked meat, of course.

Maybe about two more hours later, Alex and Steve got out of their house and headed in two different directions. Alex was headed towards me while Steve was headed towards the mountain where my tiny house is currently sitting on top of.

"Hey!" She waved, casually walking like the model she was.

"Hi." I greeted, still chopping. "What's up?"

"I came by to check how you're doing." She said, observing my none sister technique while moving my arms. "Nice to see that you're making progress."

"Slow progress." I whispered, sighing. "Where's Steve going?"

"He said that he wanted to observe you, so he looked for a good spot to look."

I tilted my head. "Where?"

She raised her arm and pointed to the direction where Steve headed to earlier. I followed that direction, to the mountain, and saw Steve causally standing at the very top. While he was there, h placed a fence around him for safety and he's leaning on them, watching us intently with his bright, ocean eyes. The fact that the sun was making him glow like an angel is distracting, too.

"Oh."

"Just don't mind him." Alex said, dismissing it.

If only it was that easy. I mean, just look at him! He's barely making an effort but—

I tried as much as possible to ignore him, even though I could feel his piercing gaze on my back wherever I went. I didn't mind it as much, though, I feel extremely pretty in this dress. But maybe he just sees it as childish or immature of me to choose something like this. Does he? Probably not, he probably doesn't care, either.

It's been a few hours since that encounter with Alex, and Steve is still on the mountain. Since only a few minutes ago, he's been sitting down on the grass with his upper body poking through the space in between the fence.