Building a treehouse turned out not as easy as I thought it would be.

Stupidly enough, at first, I tried to cut down a tree, not Sara, but another tree, with my little titanium claws.

My titanium claws could sink into the bark, yes. But not far enough. Compared to the slender yet thick tree, I only scratched the surface of it.

I had to bring out that dense stone ax (I dunno what kind of stone it is, but it's a little too heavy for my tastes) to give it a many inaccurate (accurate as I tried with my tentacle arms) chops until I fell it.

DOOM~

The tree crashed down with a large impact sound, scaring Sara who had witnessed it from afar.

This repeated several times until I got what I thought was enough wood to build my treehouse.

Then things became harder.

I had to turn these logs into planks.

... but I don't have a saw.

I had to use the ax, to hack the logs from a side. This... produced less than satisfactory results.

Chop. Chop. Chop.

Wood chips went flying, as the logs were hacked horizontally.

Crack

Despite my intentions, the log split not horizontally, but diagonally.

A short and very uneven plank that looks more like a bigger chip of wood was produced.

Practice makes perfect. Failure is the mother of success. Learn through repetition.

Bullshit!

I repeated this many times, trying to correct my chopping form and be as accurate as I can. Yet, the results always splinter off, turning into unsatisfactory debris.

As a faux kat, an octopus like creature with not joints nor straight bones, I don't have the physical talent for precise woodwork.

In the end, even after chopping all the wood, I could not get a single plank of perfect rectangular shape, but just several piles of wood debris and a single level in chop.

Since I could tell I would not be able to make any better planks even if I tried anymore, I decided to somehow make do with what I got. Although they are of different sizes and shapes, at least all the pieces are relatively flat.

This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

When I carried a pile of wood debris back to Sara, along with the ax, her wooden face showed a visibly scared expression.

"Meow Meow (Don't worry. I won't chop you.)" I comforted.

Then came another problem.

I don't have nails, or anything to put the uneven planks together.

Meditating as a faux kat could, I thought long and hard.

Finally, I came up with nothing.

I did get some ideas, but they were ridiculous or not viable. For example, crafting wooden nails out of branches, tying the planks together with grass, or catching birds and using their nest-making spit to stick the wooden planks together.

So, I decided to go for a walk.

During the walk, I still couldn't think of anything. It's not like people would find a solution every time they go out to clear their heads.

Instead, I managed to kill a Codag and bring its carcass back for lunch.

I removed its furry pelt and cooked its red meat with a campfire.

After eating, I took its pelt to the nearest pond and threw it in, to soak it in the water for a short while and stiffen it. If only I had some oil, then I could attempt tanning it and turning it into leather. Unfortunately, although the meat I cooked did drip some oil, I did not have anything inflammable to collect it with.

And that was how I produced my first fur blanket.

Another day, I ventured into an area I haven't visited before.

There, I found a viable solution.

Silk!

Strung messily around the leaves, between the branches, and on the trunk of a tree, are masses of white silk threads.

Furry and long white furred eyeless creatures the length of my unextended arms lay still or wiggle across the silk.

"Meow? (Silkworms?)" They look a little like the silkworms back on earth, expect bigger than what I consider normal.

There are also some cocoons attached to the branches and single-eye moths flying around or standing on the tree, both also bigger than their counterparts back on earth.

I want them...

Activating my camouflage, I slowly, very slowly, approach the tree, from an angle without any moths keeping watch from above.

Then, I approach two unsuspecting silkworms that lay on the bark, closer to the ground.

I slowly curl my camouflaged tentacles around and bind their bodies and mouths, or the place where I suspect their mouths to be.

There was no great battle. This time, the monsters, the worms, are as weak and harmless as they appear to be.

I pull them down, off the tree. They struggle in my arms, to no avail, their movements limited to wiggles.

I slowly travel with them away from the tree. From above, a single-eye moth that came over looks down, only to see a pair of young silkworm slowly wiggling away on ground. Not suspecting anything, it flew away.

After I got what I thought was far enough away, I exited my camouflage state and ran away on my two hind tentacles, as fast as I could, the pair of silkworms still struggling under my grasp.

For days onwards, the pair of young silkworms will be forced to spend nearly every moment awake either eating raw leaves or spitting silk.

If they try to escape the evil faux kat kidnapper, they will be pulled back by the long branches of a moving tree.

If they feel fat and try to wrap themselves in a cocoon, the faux kat will pull them out and whip their butts with its tentacles.

As for me, I grapple with the task of putting together a treehouse using some sticky and resilient monster silkworm silk and uneven wooden planks.

Excerpt from Aberna's Cyclopedia of Monster:

Codag - a harmless stage 1 beast type monster, a good source of meat and fur. It is a herbivore whose main diet is grass, is cowardly, and runs away as soon as it notices an approaching predator, whether that predator is big or small.