Nancy was pouting like a little child getting reprimanded for her actions but after that, she slowly nodded from understanding what she did wrong but our attention was caught by Alexa screaming for dear life.
In a split second, I carried Nancy on my left side before dashing to where the scream came from but luckily enough, it wasn't as serious as I thought it was. However, even a few from the other groups sprinted here as fast as they could but all we saw was Megan on her ass while Alexa was already in tears.
"WHAT HAPPENED?!"
Megan was a little red from embarrassment, "I'M FINE, EVERYONE! I'M FINE! I JUST SLIPPED, OKAY?!"
Alexa shook her head, "B-BUT YOUR LEG! I SAW—"
"I WAS WEARING THE SHIN GUARDS, ALEXA! I SLIPPED WHEN I SWUNG AND I—"
Kaley got in between them, "Alright, let's all take a good, deep~ breath first..."
And as they did, Kaley turned back to Megan who was still on her ass:
"You still slipped, you okay? No sprains or anything?"
Megan nodded, "Yes, of course. I— Hngh! O-Oww... Shit! Definitely a sprain or something..."
As I took a closer look, the bottom of Megan's right boot had a bit of mud and this shredded leaf—which was probably the main cause for her slipping—but what everyone saw first was this huge tear on the shin guard's leather padding.
But as safety first saved the day, she wore the shin guards provided and it was the one who caught the blow when her axe missed its intended target. Because if she didn't, she'd be lucky to come out of this with her left leg intact though she was even luckier because she came out of this with a sprained ankle.
I haven't actually seen a person chop their own leg off—even accidentally—in real life, but I've seen plenty of leaked footage out there and since most of them were doing it alone, it was gnarly as gnarly goes and it would almost always result in death if they weren't able to get past the initial shock.
In any case, Megan was definitely out of commission for now, but since she most definitely needed to get it checked out plus I didn't wanna get tied down to Nancy who kept wandering alone, I took it upon myself to bring both of them back.
"Y-You're also taking me back?! Why?!" Nancy exclaimed as she started tugging on our rope.
"Because you have to keep Megan company! Why are you so feisty outside? You're not like this inside the estate, right?"
"I-I dunno! I just l-love exploring and finding things that people don't find normally..."
Megan interjected as I was carrying her on my back, "You better have some spicy stories for me or I get to punish ya!"
"P-Punish? Why?!"
"Not actually punish but you do have some, don't you?"
"I-I don't follow..."
"I mean... Have you caught Sebastian doing something naughty with the other maids?"
"W-What?! That's—"
"Something like that, I want something like that..."
"Wha— Don't suddenly go that deep on me!"
"That... That sounded dirtier than I thought, I'mma just keep quiet the whole way back—"
"NOOOOO~!!!"
"HAHAHAHAHA!!!"
With that said, I'd be happy to announce that all Megan needed was some ice and some painkillers and it didn't take long before I bid the two goodbye and went back to where the others were.
In any case, Kaley was the first one to run up to me and ask how Megan and Nancy were doing before we continued our slow ascent to this log cabin that still seemed to be nowhere in sight.
Though morbidly enough, with how Sebastian was, I wouldn't be surprised that if we finally cut down all these trees and managed to bring all of them up in two weeks time, he'd just say that the cabin was missing and we'd just have to build us one.
But yeah, it didn't take long before I got bored of just watching over the group so I switched places with one of them to cut a tree by myself. And of course, it wasn't difficult to find a willing sub—who was Seb, if any of that mattered—because he get to hold my rifle and look cool with it while taking a short break.
Though it also didn't take long before a few noticed we were being led to avoid cutting down trees that weren't easy mode.
JP walked up to Sebastian and asked the same question:
"C-Can I ask the reason as to why we're avoiding those ones? They're clearly marked, right?"
Sebastian simply nodded after wiping sweat off his brow, "Ah~ Someone finally noticed. It's not a secret per se but that's just how I do things.
But if you want me to expand on that, the reason being is the trees we're cutting down now are predictable or easily manipulated to fall down a certain way while those ones that had curvatures—or in tree lingo, "Banana-Shaped Trees" are very tricky to manage."
"Tricky how?"
"Hmm~" then Sebastian randomly pulled out a fucking banana from his pocket, "Let me give an example then—"
"Where in the hell did you pull that from—"
"That's not important now, right?" then he beckoned JP over a flatter surface before placing the banana on one end, "Watch how it falls down, alright?"
As Sebastian let go of the fruit, it followed a straight line down at first but after its curvature was introduced to the ground, it started to shift and turn before completely laying flat on its side.
"You see now? Imagine if that banana was as huge as the trees we're cutting. Sure, we can cut them at any time but what I'm trying to make us do was to clear the easier ones and give more space for those curved trees because, at the end of the day, we're here to train your bodies and to avoid those trees tangling up in case they fall a certain way..."
JP nodded a few times, "I see now. Thank you for explaining that."
"No problem at all—"
"Would you mind answering a few more questions?"
"As long as it's not too personal, I'll answer to the best of my ability..."
In any case, JP just asked more about helpful tips for swinging an axe while I focused on how each and every swing of this axe lent to me would hit deeply on its target. It was a totally different feeling compared to using my katana or my wakizashi but if I did have to use an Injector Axe in the future, simply getting comfortable with a regular one wouldn't hurt.