Ultimate Gamer System: Factory Must Grow!

Chapter 7 Wood, blood and scare

Thump.

Thump.

Thump.

The cracks on the tree's trunk continued to grow along with Theo's anxiety over the repeated, loud noise the process was making.

Yet, when he struck the tree for the fourth time, something changed.

The sound was unlike anything Theo had heard before, and yet it was extremely familiar. And with this sound, the tree's trunk finally gave, no longer able to support the weight of itself.

It started to slightly lean towards the young man. Then, a little bit more. And then, as the bulk of its weight moved over the center of its mass, the whole tree started to quickly fall down, threatening to crush Theo underneath it.

'Woah...'

Forgetting about this very viable risk of tree-felling, Theo jumped off to the side, out of the way of the falling trunk.

And just like that, with a lot more noise than Theo would prefer, the tree fell down.

'That's it?'

Staring down at the poor tree he just slaughtered, Theo nervously gulped.

'I mean, I could try to get some wood from sticks and all, but...' he breathed in and out, 'but is this really how this is supposed to work?'

Gritting his teeth, Theo chased away all the needless thoughts, opting to reach out with his hand over the fallen tree.

'Maybe like this?'

He held his hand out... but to no avail.

The progress bar for collecting it didn't appear.

"What if it's too big?"

Refusing to just... give up, Theo took a breath before raising his axe above his head... and then dropping it down, mixing the momentum granted by the gravity dragging the axe down with the pull of his muscles.

Thump.

The sound was exactly the same as when Theo struck the tree in an attempt to harvest it. This time, however, the effects couldn't be more different.

Poof!

As soon as the stone axe struck the trunk of the fallen tree, rather than splitting it... it somehow made all of its leaves, all of its numerous branches, all of what wouldn't be a part of a cured log—disappear, vanish into thin air.

Then, his eyes opened up.

'I went with a realistic cut, so it gave me a realistic response. And it didn't happen before... because I didn't have the more realistic subroutine...?'

As much of a stray guess as it was, Theo decided to roll with it anyway. And so, rather than striking at the tree as if he wanted to cut it down... he just raised his axe-bearing hand to the level of his chest... before gently tapping its blade down on the tree, as if he wanted to just hammer it down.

[Cutting: 15%]

[Cutting: 30%]

...

...

[Cutting: 90%]

[Cutting: Completed]

[Obtained: Block of Wood x 1]

Theo's eyes instantly moved over to his equipment vision. Yet, pretty much as soon as he realized that this block of wood didn't mix with the sixteen blocks he obtained before...

THUMP!

A scarily loud noise erupted right next to Theo, instantly dragging his eyes over to its source while sending his arms flailing in a desperate bid to shield his head from whatever caused this noise...

Only for Theo to realize his mistake right as the tree started to rapidly fall—and as fate would have it—right in his direction!

'Shit!'

Scared witless, Theo leaped over to the side, as far away as he could from the falling tree.

This time, however, he wasn't as lucky as before. Or rather, he didn't have the same amount of heads-up to react appropriately in time. And while he managed to avoid getting squashed by the heavy trunk, one of the tree's stray branches dug straight through the flesh of his arm, leaving an ugly wound behind.

"ARgh!"

Theo attempted to grit his teeth... but with a chunk of his flesh literally torn off his arm, the pain proved to be way too much for the spoiled child of a modern world to just handle.

And right as the sound of the second tree falling—and of course, blocking the entrance to the hole he made just in case something like this happened—mixed with his pained scream and now the scent of his warm blood mixing with the soil it seeped into...

The one thing that Theo feared had happened.

The threat status of his threat detection changed.

[Threat level - No Threats Detected] > [Threat level - moderate]