The Lumberjack Boy on the Island

Marine Calendar year 1499.

The first half of the Grand Line, Maple Leaf Island.

This island earned its name because its shape resembles a maple leaf, and it is rich in trees that grow red leaves.

The customs on Maple Leaf Island are simple and honest, and nearly half of the islanders are professional lumberjacks or gardeners who cultivate Red Leaf Trees.

Due to the climate, this special plant, the Red Leaf Tree, seems to thrive exceptionally well on their island.

Red Leaf Trees that reach a certain age are excellent timber for shipbuilding, so most of the residents of Maple Leaf Island make their living from this.

In a forest of red leaves near the sea, a Black-haired Boy is swinging an axe, putting his life into frantically hacking at the thick trunk of a Red Leaf Tree before him.

However, perhaps due to his lack of skill, or perhaps because the axe in his hand is simply working against him, every heavy swing the boy makes fails to strike the same spot accurately.

For a native resident of Maple Leaf Island, you might not know how to drink or brag, and you might not know how to wield a spear or staff, but your tree-cutting skills must at least reach a level of proficiency.

The level of tree-cutting Wood is currently displaying—if not for the fact that there is no one else around—would likely be mocked by the islanders as being inferior to that of a child who hasn't even come of age.

Wood is fifteen years old this year; in this world, he should be considered an adult.

Yet, regarding the logging skills that basically every resident of Maple Leaf Island has mastered, Wood's current ability is indeed inferior to that of some young children.

But this cannot be blamed on him, because Wood is not originally from this world.

Or rather, his body is indeed the native Wood of Maple Leaf Island, but the soul within has already changed.

"Ding. Completed 1,000 axe swings, felled five Red Leaf Trees. Performance: low-average. Task complete."

"Congratulations, you have obtained one opportunity to use the Life Simulator."

That's right, Wood is a transmigrator, and he possesses the "cheat" that every transmigrator must have. This cheat is a mini-game that was quite popular before Wood transmigrated, called the Life Simulator.

The reason Wood was hacking away at the trees so desperately before wasn't because he wanted to get rich off this stuff; after all, he isn't Logger Qiang, who is chased and crushed by two bears every day in the forest.

He chose to do this entirely because of the task the system issued him.

Task Name: Lumberjack of Maple Leaf Island.

Task Requirements: Use the designated axe to strike a Red Leaf Tree 1,000 times. The more Red Leaf Trees felled, the higher the rating.

Task Completion Criteria: Obtain at least a medium rating. No time limit.

Task Reward: Unlock one opportunity for a life simulation.

(PS: Be grateful, Small Fry. This is a well-known welfare task segment; don't expect future tasks to be this simple.)

Looking at the task completion notification, Wood finally put down the axe in his hand and let out a long sigh of relief.

His still-tender hands, due to holding the axe for so long, not only felt numb but had even developed quite a few blood blisters.

The system kept insisting that this task was simple and just a welfare segment prepared for novices, but Wood completely disagreed.

Heaven knows how many days he has been hacking away at big trees in this red forest.

From not even knowing the correct way to hold the axe at the start to completing the task now, Wood has been hacking at these trees for a full three months!

At the beginning, given Wood's physical fitness, he couldn't even manage to swing the axe with force 1,000 times a day. It took him over a month just to barely meet the standard.

For the remaining two months, although Wood managed to hit the 1,000-swing quota every day, he would either fell only one tree or none at all.

Since he couldn't reach a medium task rating, the task naturally couldn't be completed, so Wood could only numbly repeat the task of cutting trees every day.

Moreover, thanks to the unique nature of this world—or rather, the fact that the physique and recovery abilities of people in this world are generally stronger than in his original world—even if Wood was exhausted to the point of death every day, he would be full of energy and "revived" by the next morning.

And since this task had no time limit, otherwise, this seemingly simple tree-cutting task would definitely have been a death-defying difficulty for Wood.

Wood has actually been in this world for over a year, but the system was only activated half a year ago.

When Wood first transmigrated, he didn't know what kind of world he had arrived in. But because the customs of Maple Leaf Island were simple and there were no high-energy existences on the island, Wood once thought he had arrived in an ordinary, peaceful world.

Although the technology in this world might be much more backward than in Wood's previous world, the pristine lifestyle and unpolluted air made Wood feel quite relaxed.

Just when Wood thought he could rely on some advanced knowledge from his past life to barely make a living and live out the rest of his life in peace, a piece of news that echoed across the entire ocean disrupted his original plans for a beautiful Future.

"Want my treasure? If you want it, you can have it. Go find it! I left everything I own in that place."

On the newspaper delivered by the News Coo, a man with black hair, kneeling at the Execution Platform but looking calm, occupied the headline. The article was so long it took up more than half of the paper.

In Marine Calendar year 1498, the One Piece Gol D. Roger was executed, but his words before the execution stirred the entire ocean, causing countless people to flock to the sea. This world had ushered in the so-called "Great Pirate Era"!

It was also because of this report that Wood finally realized, with hindsight, what kind of world he had actually arrived in.

This was definitely not some peaceful world, and it wasn't that there were no high-energy existences; it was just that his birthplace was essentially full of weaklings!

The end of Roger signaled the beginning of the "Great Pirate Era," and only a few months later, the waves of the era had already reached the Maple Leaf Island where Wood lived.

There was no other reason: the Great Pirate Era had arrived, and if people wanted to go to sea, they had to build ships.

And besides needing shipwrights, shipbuilding required excellent timber.

Unfortunately, the Red Leaf Trees of Maple Leaf Island are among the best materials for shipbuilding. So, under the waves of the era, a large number of pirates swarmed toward the island.

The residents of Maple Leaf Island, accustomed to a peaceful life, had no power to resist the vicious pirates.

Within a month, pirates came in three waves, and the high-quality timber in most residents' homes was looted clean.

Because Wood had no logging skills at all before, his home was spared.

The pirates didn't just plunder the island's resources; they would kill at the slightest disagreement. Wood, having witnessed a Loli about to die miserably in front of him, couldn't bear it. Summoning his courage, he secretly backstabbed a pirate Small Fry, which finally allowed him to activate the current system.

(New book, please add to your library and follow. Thank you all! (▽｀)