Anon_Y_Mousse

Oops, we've got a late chapter here. Author totally did not oversleep and not schedule a chapter  knowing full well he will.

It’s been more than a week, possibly even two since I’d involuntarily started living as a fish. A week since that damnable encounter and the chemical burn still huuuuurts, dammit!

I complained about it, but it’s actually quite numb now. It is not as bad as shortly after my scuffle with that gangly-legged spider. Right after that, I would have surely let out a bloodcurdling screech if I still had the equipment for it.

That was the worst pain I have ever experienced in my life. It was even worse than the time I got circumcised without any anesthesia – and that hurt like hell!

If I did not consider chemical warfare to be inhuman… err… morally hideous, the lesson was certainly drilled into my skull now. That spider was violating the Geneva Convention! Arrest it now!

I couldn’t move for a while, or rather I deemed it too dangerous to move around with such injuries. I did not know how what is the exact amount of time it would take me to fully recover.  Judging by the extent of my pains, it definitely would take weeks. Or perhaps even months.

This numbness in my mouth definitely peeled my eyes open to the fact that getting hurt down here really, really sucked. A single attack could very well incapacitate me for a good amount of time, possibly leading to my death.

I really had to thank whatever higher power may exist out there for how biology was designed around here, though. I had not eaten for a while now, yet I did not even feel a hint of hunger. I bet I could even keep going without any negative side effects for multiple weeks!

The same cannot be said for my mental health. The only reason I hadn’t gone into a mental breakdown yet is because I had a bigger, more pressing issue at fin.

I pat the end of my tail on this smooth stone, clay or whatever it is. It felt comfortable enough, right? Well, there was one small problem with this ground, it was alive.

My investigation only started when watching the wildlife around here started to grow monotonous and boring to my short attention span. I started to pay attention to my senses other than sight, which were supposedly more refined anyways.

The ocean had a natural ‘flow’ of sorts, even if I didn’t spend any effort to move myself, the ocean would take me along with it. With my fishy senses, I could now feel that ‘flow’ quite well, and every time it is disturbed, I knew for sure that something moving in that patch of the water.

It was likely more complicated than that, but I don't have a good understanding of it.

It had been very slight, but I feel that the ocean current has changed and  it was not just because I am lying against this rock.

Normally I would just attribute it to a sudden change in the water current, could be plausible enough with the water circulating around the polar region¹Read Thermohaline Circulation and what not. However, the water was pushing me both vertically and horizontally.

Relative to where I am now, it is flowing from my back, downwards. This is strange, considering I only feel like I am being pushed into this rock, and not into the ground.

That could only mean one thing – the ground was moving downwards, but I am sure that the ground could not move downwards along with me, at least at the speed it was going. It was far faster than any tectonic movement as far as I'm concerned.

Ugh, and the water was moving noticeably faster horizontally too, but not as much. Still, I should have been suspicious about that when I first arrived here. I was far too blinded by my excitement.

Carefully, I moved my fins and flex my tail to propel myself forwards. It still hurt, but it was not excruciatingly unbearable now. I should at least be able to safely move around for a while.

I had to confirm a theory, after all.

Let’s see, a good direction would be to the right of this ‘forward’ current. If my guess is correct, I’d hit something pretty interesting, maybe even downright terrifying.

I navigated around the limited flora and fauna, carefully trying to not even get anywhere near the mushrooms. I absolutely did not want to get inflicted with anything that resembles poison any time soon.

This time I didn’t turn on my red light, I was still afraid that a sea spider would detect it in some way. I was not sure I would survive another encounter with that thing’s relatives.

The shrimpsticks and fungi are as omnipresent as they could be in this desert-like environment. The giant isopods less so, but I could still feel a wide creature slowly creeping close to the false surface registering a few times on my perhaps kilometer long journey.

Unlike my journey to the bottom, I was swimming a lot faster now, perhaps even recklessly fast.

It only took a few hours until I got to the edge, yes, there was an edge. It did not seem like a cliff, neither was it a hill. It was just an abrupt fall into the actual depths of the ocean.

I needed to see this and take a closer look. One proverbial leap of faith later, I made my way into the side of the structure, well, should I really call it a structure at this point?

My temporary habitat was in fact, alive. I was very confident about that, because clearly the earth did not have scales, nor did it have openings along its sides that gave way to a tender, pulsating flesh.

Even if it did, that will still not change my opinion of being very worried for my safety.

There was also one more thing – I think I figured out how those mushrooms I imagined to be blue were sustaining themselves. They were most likely parasites, feeding on whatever this creature was. Whew, scary. At least they did not seem interested in growing on me or anything else.

Now, that begs the question. What the hell was this colossal beast of a sea creature feeding on? It's sheer width alone took me hours to cross. To sustain this size, even if you were mostly made of dead matter would take tremendous amounts of energy.

So far it didn’t eat me yet, but it could’ve simply been not hungry. There’s a pattern down here about not really eating very often, at least going off what I know in my previous life. That could... could? What?

Strange, I was feeling a little lethargic now. My mind was spinning, spinning. The nauseous state sends my thoughts into a pandemonium. With every idea I try to form, I immediately lose track of it and move on to the next.

Where was I?  What’s happening? My body seems fine. Why am I dying?

The jolt of information of information in my head, and the subsequent popup window was what I needed to get a moment of clarity.

I shot up, immediately getting away from this huge monster’s sides. Thankfully, my mind was the only thing that went sluggish. If it were also my body, I would have a lot more difficulty trying to swim up.

Was that pulsating flesh the sign of its breathing? Then, since my mind is the only thing that had a lack of supply… it breathes magic!

Maybe, it had the full body equivalent of [Arcane Mind], meaning it could sustain itself entirely off magic. Truthfully, that made a lot of sense for something of its sheer size, it could also explain why it could drain the ‘mana’ or whatever that was abundant enough to sustain my complex brain.

I touch down on the ‘ground’ that I now know to be its back. Sediments must have fallen on here, attracting the stickshrimps, then the parasite mushrooms found it convenient to make their home on it. From there, it could totally develop an ecosystem by things like the giant isopod and sea spider finding their way into its back.

With how big it is, it may as well be a natural wonder anyways.

 I think I had a lot less reservations about this humongous critter now than I did when I initially discovered its existence. Yes, he's a big, potentially scary gargatuan, but I think he’s all in all a pretty nice and harmless guy. I may as well stay here and hitch a ride downwards.

Beats poking around in the dark for who knows how long, at least here I knew what to look out for. Who knows what I’ll meet out there?

I’ll still dip out the moment there’s a sign the situation is about to go FUBAR.

Now that the most concerning thing was out of the way, time to move on to this message the system gave me. Apparently, I got rewarded for surviving one week in this place. Or was it surviving in general?

The system thingy seemed to have been quite specific on what I survived from so far, so I assumed it was a general ‘reward’ for me just keeping my precious little life.

Exactly one week though… I could have sworn it had been far more than that. You truly did lose track of time when there’s not even a way to tell when its day or night.

Not that day or night had any meaning here, it was a little over freezing point, pitch black, twenty-four seven. No more, no less.

Well, unless I find a creature that could basically influence their environment.

Wait… 1 orb per week… that would mean. If I get one orb a week, and it takes ten orbs to rank up.

To simplify it four in a month, eight in two months, finally ten in two months and a half.  Within a year, if this reward remains constant, I could gain an entire five ranks! Maybe the system thingy was more generous than I thought.

Oh, and it was good to know I could still do basic maths.

Huh, my dexterity, speed and endurance increased by a certain amount, still no change in the qualitative value though. The first two might just be thanks to a side effect of [Deeply Forked Tail], the third one on the other hand may have just been easy to raise on the sheer virtue of it being abysmally low.

Despite what I said about system thingy, the improvements seem nice enough. Optimistically I would be awarded five of those for simply surviving a year. Are the depths of the ocean really that dangerous that I get so much for the simple objective of surviving?

I shuddered to think how much power and improvements those that have lived two years have amassed, let alone a decade.

The creature I was swimming above may very well just have been a token example of what can arise from simply living long enough under the system thingy.

Anon_Y_Mousse

So normally this would be the end of the daily upload. Buut, I did miss two days and end up late on this one. So, I'll do another one tomorrow before moving on to a slower release schedule. It'll be extra long relative to the average word count of the usual chapter too!