I'm struggling to remember now mate, was a while ago for me, sorry.
Think there was a spade we used, too & that's fogging my memory.
I'm positive that you do not need to sharpen the axe twice, no.
The one thing I absolutely do remember is not being able to beat the human shadows & that was definitely because I did not have my Health stat raised high enough.
If you're having difficulty beating the human shadows, put your stat gains from kills into Health & work on gaining a few more by killing the raccoons and boars.
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Edit: wasn't the spade, was the spear that I was thinking of.
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Oh, another thing for Stamina, make sure you mess around with one of the girls before you go out (night before works), to get the green arrow by the menu icon, giving you 20% extra:
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