by Cube Kid
Diary of a Wimpy Villager
Book 5
Copyright 2015 Cube Kid
All rights reserved. No part of this ebook may be reproduced in any manner, electronic or otherwise, with the exception of brief excerpts, reviews and so on.
This book is an original work of fiction. It is not official. Neither Cube Kid nor this book have any association with the makers of Minecraft or Scholastic. It is not authorized, endorsed, sponsored or licensed by Mojang AB, Microsoft Corp. or any entity owning or controlling any rights to the Minecraft name, trademarks or copyrights. Minecraft and its related game characters and names are trademarks of Mojang AB.
Minecraft ®/TM & © 2009-2015 Mojang / Notch
If you haven't read the first four books, grab them before starting this one. Otherwise, you'll be confused.
TUESDAY
We built a cave near the school today.
From a distance, it looks like a huge pile of cobblestone just sitting in some empty field.
Nothing special.
But pure awesomeness is contained within.
It's for combat training.
We can practice how to fight in darkness which warriors sometimes need to do.
It's big enough to hold 75 students.
When you take away the torches, it's pretty dark in there.
Now, you're probably thinking something like, "Why did Runt make a picture of a dark cave? It's not like anyone needs a picture to imagine a cave."
I agree.
The above picture is, without a doubt, the most boring picture I've ever made. Some cobblestone walls? Some dirt underneath? All of it barely visible due to the lack of light?
Well, this is a diary about my life, and not everything in my life is exciting.
Furthermore, this drawing, of a simple cave, illustrates what lengths we're going to become better villagers.
We built a cave in the middle of our village to train.
That's hardcore, huh?
Beyond that, if you're ever talking to your friends about boring pictures, well, just direct them to this picture.
Maybe some day one of your friends might say something like, "Dude, I was reading this one book, right, and it had some boring pictures . . ."
And you can be like, "Dude, I know of a book that has a more boring picture than whatever book you're talking about. Dude."
(By the way, am I overdoing the 'dude'? I just wanna sound like an Earth kid.)
And your friend will be like, "Dude, no way. The book I just read was literally titled 'The Most Boring Book Ever Written'."
And you can be like, "I'll bet you five emeralds."
And he'll be like, "Okay, you're on."
And you'll whip out this diary, show them my cave picture, and your friend will be like, "Okay. Wow. Wow. Just . . . wow. Now that is the most boring thing I've ever seen. I give up. You win. You win. Here. Take my emeralds. Please. Just take them. I feel so sorry for you, for reading that boring book . . . even if we DIDN'T make a bet, I'd give you emeralds out of sheer pity."
(This is basically an easy way to get free emeralds.)
(Unless you're one of those Earth people. Steve said Earth people don't use emeralds, but shiny metal things and pieces of paper and plastic cards. I find that really strange.)
Anyway, today, during Combat class, in the secret combat cave, every student had to fight a zombie while everyone else watched.
When it was my turn to fight, it was so dark.
All I could see was the zombie's shadowy form.
I filled in the details with my imagination.
I imagined the zombie's sunken black eyes.
I imagined the zombie's mottled green skin and old stinky clothes.
An image of the zombie appeared in my mind . . .
Actually, at first, I imagined a steak instead of the zombie.
I was so hungry.
I focused again, trying to picture the zombie before me . . .
Urrrrrg!
(When a villager forgets to make a 'h' sound during a 'hurrggg', you know he's annoyed.)
I just couldn't stop thinking about food.
I didn't have breakfast or lunch, and all the hard work we did in class this morning made me really hungry. I mean, since eight this morning I've been running, jumping and swinging a sword.
That kind of stuff really drains your hunger bar, you know?
Well, it didn't stop there.
After picturing big juicy steaks, my imagination really started to soar . . .
I finally did picture a zombie.
At least, it had a head, arms, a body . . .but something wasn't quite right . . .
A cake zombie?!
I shook my head.
Blinked.
I had to snap out of it.
My hunger was out of control.
Surely you've imagined a cake zombie before, too, right?
When you were really hungry?
You did, right?
Please tell me I'm not alone here.
OK, there we go, that's more like it.
So there I was in the secret combat cave, fighting a zombie.
I felt so nervous, because 74 other students were watching me, and so was Steve.
Any little mistake I made, everyone would see, and laugh at me. I had to fight to the best of my ability. I couldn't do that while imagining cake zombies, and if I kept thinking about that, who knows what I'd think of next. A cookie golem?
I swung in the zombie's general direction.
Swish!
The blade of my wooden sword cut through the air before hitting the mob.
Clunk.
I gripped my sword tighter and stepped back, thinking about the situation—I was in serious warrior mode.
Now, a single zombie isn't much of a threat.
They're slow—you can dance circles around them, if you're brave enough. (I'm not.)
They also stumble around like a pig on stilts (I don't know what stilts are. I'm just quoting Mike here.)
And even if a zombie does hit you, the damage isn't very high—probably about as bad as that old Urf guy hitting you with a stick or perhaps a carrot.
In addition, they never try to protect themselves. Zombies just come at you in a straight line like noobs to signs that read 'ZOMG DIAMONDS HERE'.
Even so, it would be foolish to get careless when fighting a zombie.
A single zombie can still be dangerous.
Even if the damage they deal is pretty low, the attack will still knock you back.
Imagine this: you could get knocked back by a zombie, into another zombie behind you, then the second zombie would knock you back AGAIN, this time off a cliff, and you'd land in a river . . . and you'd think, "Wow! I survived that! I didn't take a scratch from that! I got knocked off a cliff, landed in a river, and didn't take any falling damage at all, as if I were a cat! How lucky am I?!" And then you'd see that the river is actually flowing towards a waterfall. And a lava lake, down below . . .
(If that ever happens to you, I'm really sorry. Please be careful when fighting zombies.)
Furthermore, a zombie can 'call' another zombie, spawning a new zombie nearby.
How zombies spawn other zombies is quite mysterious, but more than that, it's highly annoying.
The new zombie the first zombie calls can call its own zombies. A single zombie can quickly become a small army of zombies. The zombies will multiply, one zombie after another zombie, as each new zombie calls more zombies that the origina
l zombie called. At first, it will only be one zombie, but it will quickly become a zombie party with many zombies doing . . . whatever things zombies do.
If the zombies are on top of cake, they'll start dancing around:
(A zombie dance party. Top secret info: I wasn't joking about zombies dancing on cake. See for yourself. If zombies step on cake, they'll begin bouncing around like crazy! Perhaps cake could be used to protect our village somehow. I'll consult Stump on this, since he's the baker.)
Anyway.
These were just a few things I learned in Combat class so far.
I tore myself from my thoughts for a second, and studied the zombie's movements.
Hurrrrm.
Actually, it wasn't moving AT ALL.
I swung my sword again.
"Haaaa!!"
And hit the zombie on top of the head.
Bonk!
I swung with such force, the blade bounced off, and I staggered back.
My mind was racing the whole time.
Let's go over some numbers, shall we?
A wooden sword deals two and a half hearts worth of damage with a single strike.
A zombie's life force is equal to ten hearts.
That means, four swings with a wooden sword should kill a zombie, because 10 divided by 2.5 equals 4.
However, zombies have a small amount of natural armor. A total of two armor, if I recall correctly. So, what is that? A total of 8% damage reduction? I can't remember, but what I do know is that dropping one requires five hits with a wooden sword. (I've never killed a zombie before, I'm just a really good student who listens ALL THE TIME.)
But then, if you use a leap attack, and swing while you're moving downward, you'll deal more damage with a critical hit—that's big boy stuff.
I decided to finish the zombie off with such an attack.
I guess I just wanted to be cool. To show off.
Everyone was watching me, right? So I had to do something flashy. It'd make Max jealous.
I moved back then charged forward and jumped in the air, sword drawn . . .
Oh.
I also made another ridiculous battle cry.
"Hiiiiiaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!!"
I was going to make a perfect attack.
This leap attack I made, it was going to be so cool, so powerful, it would be too hard to make a picture of. If someone ever tried making a picture of the leap attack I made, and put it into a diary, the picture's awesomeness would simply make the diary explode.
I don't want to endanger you, so I'm not going to include the picture here.
Just use your imagination.
Imagine me, Runt, your favorite villager warrior kid, flying through a dark cave, sword held in both hands like a ninja, screaming louder than a poo screamer.
Awesome, right?
That zombie, he had no idea how much damage he was going to receive!
I was going to show all the other kids—who were watching me—how cool I was.
I was even going to impress Steve—who was also watching me—who was the teacher for this class.
I was——
OOOF!
I smashed into the zombie before even I managed to swing my sword.
I didn't even swing my sword . . .
I just slammed into the zombie like a bowling ball slamming into a pin.
I bounced off the zombie's body and flew into the air, then landed on my back. My sword flew in another direction, clattering on the ground.
The whole cave erupted into laughter.
How . . . annoying.
I remained there on the cavern floor for a moment, just breathing.
"Lights!" shouted Steve.
Some girl whipped out a torch, then another kid did the same, until the whole cavern was lit up.
"Can you tell me," said Steve, gazing around at the students, "what did Runt do wrong just now?"
Max snickered. "Everything?"
A few others laughed some more.
Stump reached down and helped me up. "Runt just forgot to time his attack, that's all."
"That's right," said Steve. "In combat, timing is everything. Swinging or jumping at the wrong time can mean the difference between winning or losing a battle. You don't want to bowl into a zombie, if you can help it!"
More laughter.
Not from me, though. The only thing that came out of my mouth was a big sigh.
It seems like some things never change.
Even if I've out-leveled almost everyone by now, I'm still not getting much respect, just laughter . . .
There was, of course, a very good reason why everyone laughed so much.
I wasn't actually fighting a zombie.
It was . . . um . . .
Uh . . .
Errrrr . . .
First, before I tell you . . . please don't laugh at me, okay?
Everyone else laughed at me, and if you also laughed at me, I'd be the first villager to produce ghast tears (maybe that wouldn't be such a bad thing, though? I could sell them.)
Okay, the zombie was . . .
A practice dummy.
(The zombie head was real, though. We found it in the village storage building. Don't know what a zombie head was doing in there.)
It wasn't even a good dummy.
As everyone stared at the dummy, the dummy's right arm—which was a piece of fence—fell off, landing on the ground.
A poorly-crafted dummy, with only one arm. I was defeated by this.
How pathetic . . .
"Steve? When will we fight real zombies?" asked Sara.
"Yeah," said a boy named Pebble. "Real zombies move, you know? And . . . don't have arms that fall off."
Steve sighed.
"I know," he said. "I know. I'm . . . working on it. You guys need to fight real mobs, not . . . this," he said, glancing at the dummy. "I just don't know how we're going to get real zombies into the village safely. The elders will never agree to that. And they'll never agree to letting me take you guys outside."
"There has to be a way," said a boy named Mound.
"I'll think of something," said Steve. He paused. "All right. That's all for now. Class dismissed. Have a good lunch."
Of course, after most of the students cleared out of the cave, Max just had to come up and say something.
"Wow, Runt," he said, looking me up and down. "I didn't know noobs could fly. I sure learned a lot this class."
Razberry grinned at me.
"Watch out for those practice dummies, huh?"
The two snickered again and took off.
Steve gave me a pat on the back.
"Don't worry about it," he said. "It happens. Even to the best of us."
"Yeah, sure," was all I could say.
I didn't let it get to me, though.
I don't consider myself a kid anymore.
Even if I'm still twelve, the village has a lot of problems and I have to be strong because I want to help solve them. The biggest problem being the army of mobs that may attack our village again. There haven't been many attacks recently, but it's probably because they're planning.
An army, just waiting to strike.
An army controlled by someone named Herobrine.
Who is Herobrine, anyway? A wizard like Notch? Or some kind of freaky monster?
I had a dream that Herobrine lived in a big castle, and I helped attack that castle, and finally, ran my sword through Herobrine himself.
But I don't even know what he looks like.
So, in my dream, I imagined Herobrine to be something crazy.
Pumpkin pie hands?!
No, no, my dream wasn't THAT crazy.
Besides, there's no way Herobrine looks like that.
If he did, all it'd take to defeat him would be sending Stump after him (Stump can eat even more food than I can, and that's saying something.)
Jeez. I gotta stop thinking about food. My stomach is rumbling, and my food bar is almost empty. I need to go get something to eat.
Otherwise, I'm gonna start eating this diary.
Bye for now.
WEDNESDAY
Okay, so, as established yesterday, there's a new problem.
Even though we have Steve and Mike teaching us the ways of monster slaying—and even though we have a cool little secret cave—the practice dummies can only go so far.
Dummies don't move like real mobs.
They don't attack like real mobs (I'm thankful for that.)
And they certainly don't smell like real mobs (I'm super extremely enthusiastically oh-my-Notch thankful for that. I still can't eat apples due to the whole rotten apple plus sweaty feet smell a wet zombie gives off.)
What I'm saying is, we need real mobs if we want to push our combat scores higher.
My combat score barely improved after yesterday . . .
(A gain of 3 points . . . a whopping 3 points after swinging for hours and eventually getting laughed at . . . what a scam.)
So, after school today, I had an idea.
Now, it's a better idea than the furnace house. I'm fully confident in this!
You see, we need real mobs, right?
But the big problem is, mobs usually travel in packs.
Go beyond the wall at night and you'll get mobbed by a mob of mobs.
MOBBED.
Plus, how can you contain a single mob? Leashes won't work, from what I understand.
And asking a few zombies to please just stroll into the village so we can beat on them won't work.
Therefore, I came up with an ingenious solution.
A monster box.
It's like this.
Mobs spawn in dark places, right?
So why not create an area—pitch black, no light—for the purpose of spawning mobs?
You might call me crazy, but today I began working on my monster box.
I built it on the side of my family's house, on the side of my bedroom.
Of course, my dad came over at one point to see what all the fuss was about.
"Whatcha doin,' son?"