The Art of the Trap
Chester and Monia ventured into the forest and returned with a massive bundle of cut branches.
"I'm going to make one, so watch closely and copy what I do."
"Alright."
"First, there's something you need to know."
Chester grabbed a branch and bent it. Monia expected it to snap, but instead of breaking, it kept yielding until it formed a perfect circle.
"Impressive, right?"
"Wait, how did you do that?"
"Fresh wood doesn't snap easily unless it's already dead and dry. Of course, it also helps that I picked a particularly flexible species."
Monia nodded in understanding, then asked, "But what is it that I need to know?"
"Oh, just that you need to put some real muscle into it when you bend them."
"What? Is that all?"
"Yep." With that, Chester gathered a handful of long, straight branches and bound one end tightly with rope. Monia watched him and copied his movements.
Next, Chester took one of the pre-bent wooden hoops and brought it to the bound end of the bundle. He pulled one branch slightly outward from the bundle, pressed it against the hoop, and lashed it tight with a thin cord. He repeated this process for every single branch in the bundle, splaying them outward.
Next, he fashioned a slightly larger hoop and slid it further down the bundle. "And then we repeat."
He made a third, even larger hoop, lashed it in place, and then followed it with a hoop roughly the size of the second one. By repeating this pattern, he constructed a tapered, spindle-shaped fish trap.
"Ugh! Come on...!" While Chester finished the basic frame of his trap, Monia was still gritting her teeth, struggling to bend her branch.
"Hmph!" Holding her breath, she strained until her face turned red, finally forcing the branch into a curve. The problem, however, was that she couldn't hold the bent wood with just one hand. The moment she let go with one hand to reach for the rope to tie it, the branch slipped from her exhausted grip.
"Kyaah!" The released branch whipped past Monia's cheek and clattered to the ground.
"It's snapping back because you're just trying to force it into a simple loop."
"Then what am I supposed to do?"
"As you bend it into a circle, look, do this." Chester demonstrated, crossing the ends of the branch over each other. "Cross them over, and keep twisting."
He twisted the crossed ends again, looping the bent tip back through the circle he had just formed. Once the wood hooked into itself, the hoop held its shape perfectly, even though Chester was only holding it loosely with one hand.
"See?"
"Ohh." Watching him, Monia eagerly tried it herself.
Chester chuckled at her enthusiasm and turned back to his work, tidying up the closed end of his trap—where the branches were tightly bound—and the wide mouth where the fish would enter.
The most crucial part of any fish trap was the bait. You needed something to lure the fish in, and it was vital that the bait didn't wash away. Chester decided to use the entrails of the mysterious creature they had roasted earlier. They had already eaten the heart and liver, but he had set the other organs aside specifically for this.
"Where are you going?"
"To get the bait."
He had left the bait down by the shore, fearing that leaving it near the forest might attract wild beasts. Walking down to the beach, Chester retrieved a large leaf he had left resting on a flat rock.
"Ugh?! Oh, gross!" Monia, who had watched Chester return without a second thought, shrieked in horror when she saw the pink and white mass of unidentifiable flesh cradled in the leaf.
"Urgh!" Having never seen animal entrails before, Monia gagged at the sight. The organs, having sat in the warm sun and humid air, had already begun to spoil, releasing a foul, stomach-churning stench.
"You alright?" While Monia dry-heaved, Chester tore off a strip of the leaf and wrapped a portion of the entrails inside it.
"Uuugh..." Since she had barely eaten anything, her dry-heaving quickly subsided. She watched, pale-faced, as Chester placed the leaf-wrapped bundle on the ground and stepped on it.
"What on earth are you doing?!"
"Crushing it so the scent of the meat spreads better."
Chester took a thin vine and tied the crushed, leaf-wrapped bundle securely inside the trap. "This way, the fish can't actually eat the bait."
"...And we are going to eat the fish that are lured by that?"
"Of course. They'll be big enough that we'll gut them first anyway. You won't be eating any guts, so don't worry."
"Oh, I see..." Monia nodded slowly, but then her face contorted as she processed his words. "Wait, what?"
"Excuse me, what do you mean we only gut them because they are 'big'?"
"Well, you don't really need to gut the small ones."
Whether it was fish or snakes, if they were small enough, you could eat them whole without gutting or even cooking them. When you were too exhausted to build a fire, or in environments where starting a fire was impossible, creatures that could be eaten raw were invaluable resources.
"Y-You would eat such disgusting things raw?!"
"It won't kill you, so why not?"
"What is wrong with you! I could never do that!"
"Good grief." Chester stared at Monia with a look of utter pity.
"Just focus on making your trap. Whatever fish we catch with yours, I'll let you have all of it."
"...!" At those words, Monia's eyes lit up with determination. She seemed to have instantly forgotten all about the disgusting entrails.
Keeping an eye on Monia's clumsy progress, Chester gathered more branches and bound them together at one end. He formed a small hoop at the opposite end to shape the branches into a cone, then began weaving strips of tree bark through them.
Once the bark weaving secured the conical shape, he cut the rope binding the closed end. The branches flared outward, transforming the cone into a funnel.
"What is that?"
"This is the actual trap mechanism. It lets the fish swim in easily, but makes it incredibly hard for them to find their way back out."
Chester inserted the funnel into the mouth of the trap, then wove more branches to secure the two pieces together. By threading the branches through both the funnel and the trap's hoops, he locked the funnel in place while simultaneously closing up any large gaps. Finally, he lashed the joints with bark to ensure the funnel wouldn't slip out.
"Done."
"Is that it?"
"Yeah. And now..."
"You just said you were done!"
Ignoring her, Chester gathered a bunch of leafy twigs and wove them all over the exterior. Within moments, the trap looked like a small, natural bush.
"Now it's really done."
"Hmm, so... first this goes here..." Monia muttered, retracing Chester's swift movements in her mind as she tried to replicate them.
"Mmm, like this..." In truth, once the basic shape was laid out, understanding the structure wasn't overly complicated. Having completed the frame of her trap, Monia proudly held it up for Chester to see.
"How is it!"
"Yeah. Not bad."
"Ehehe."
"Now, put the bait in."
"..." Monia fell silent, instantly averting her gaze. In response, Chester thrust the leaf containing the entrails right in front of her face.
"Kyaaaaah!" Screaming in terror, Monia recoiled so hard she tumbled backward.
"Whoops." As Monia flailed on the ground, rubbing her bumped head, Chester noticed her skirt riding up and quickly averted his eyes toward the sea.
He then looked at the long rope he had asked Monia to braid. Honestly, vines would have worked just fine, but he had given her the task simply to keep her occupied. He figured that if she saw tangible results from a rope she had braided herself, she might find joy in labor and work harder in the future.
But will it actually work?
Chester's ultimate goal was to make a net. If they cast a net into the sea, fish would get caught in it as the floating island drifted through the water overnight. Then, they could simply harvest the catch in the morning.
Of course, Chester knew how to make a net. He had used them often to catch fish in rivers back when he played with his childhood friends. However, river nets were easy to make since they only had to block a flowing current. The ocean was a completely different beast. He couldn't be sure if it would work here.
I hope it goes well.
"All done!" While Chester was lost in thought, Monia triumphantly lifted her completed trap. As she did, juices from the bait pouch dripped out, splashing right onto her.
"Kyaaaah!"
"Careful." Chester caught the slipping Monia with one arm, then gathered her trap along with the leftover entrails, wrapping them tightly in the leaf.
"W-Why are you keeping those?"
"I told you, didn't I? We're setting traps."
"What? I thought you meant the fish traps."
"No. Fish traps are a type of trap, but we aren't stopping there. When it comes to traps, the more you set, the better."
After all, you never knew which trap would actually succeed.
"Once the traps are set, all we can do is wait. We just have to pray that when we check them tomorrow, something has taken the bait."
"How boring," Monia muttered. Chester burst into laughter at her remark.
"Even lions fail to catch rabbits sometimes. That's just how nature works."
"Really? I find that hard to believe."
"A lion puts everything it has into hunting a rabbit because that's the only way it stands a chance of catching one."
The two made their way to the river, securing the traps between heavy rocks so they wouldn't wash away. Once that was done, Chester led Monia deeper into the forest—into the uncharted depths of the Floating Island, a place she had never dared venture beyond her usual path between the Beach Villa and the river.