Chomp. Munch Munch.

Hmmm. Puaahh.

Chomp~.

Thanks for the meal.

This guy surprisingly tastes great. Ahhh, I hadn’t had a good meal in nearly a week, I was this close to going insane.

Note to self: The only reason you’re still sane is the tasty food. Never give up the tasty food, no matter what the reason is.

It’s a shame I didn’t get to absorb that wyrm’s soul with Conquest though... I really didn’t wanna risk it, that Greed snake made a big mess of my soul.

But I’m glad I dealt with it before things went out of hand.

Now that I think about it, there’s really no need to stick to the game-like way of leveling up in a biome, then heading to the next one. You can imagine how much influence that illusion had on me.

This world is a real one, not some MMORPG where I can farm and level up carefreely. Combat experience, skill experimentation, and martial arts expertise are all vital parts of your effective strength.

A slow and gradual strength increase is not what I want. I chose this world to escape from the mundane modern society and seek the thrill of tough battles.

Another crucial factor to consider is time. I don’t have enough time to go through the slow process of skill grinding.

It’s been close to three months since I was reincarnated as a fish, this means that human reincarnations only have a bit more than 6 months till they’re born.

Judging by the fact that Ms Oka told the elf patriarch about reincarnations as soon as she found out about her reincarnation skill, I have about 7 months, give or take to increase my strength to the point where I’m comfortable protecting a newborn baby while under the siege of a hundred elves.

You might think that I’m exaggerating, but you should remember that I might have to fully take care of both a baby Aiko and a baby Segawa, all while being pursued by the obnoxious long ears.

I’d love to take the girls into my underwater domain, but it’s impossible for human babies to survive in this environment...

Hey, D. I don’t know if you’re listening, but I’d really appreciate it if I got some sort of skill to transform others into my race in the future!

Well, I believe that all my hard work will be totally worth it. I mean, just imagine being called mommy by Aiko or Segawa!

Ehehehe~.

Ahhh...! Somehow, I started drooling even though I’m underwater. This should be the legendary power of love, right?!

Wait for me, my lovely girls, I’ll make sure no one lays a hand on you!

Taking advantage of my soaring motivation, I leave this god-forsaken biome and charge towards the delicious food biome—Ahem, the mushroom biome.

All while completely ignorant of the two complicated gazes directed my way by two different beings for different reasons.

 

The large worms that inhabit the mushroom biome are very different from the ones that were near my hatching area.

Hidden underground below me is a long worm with a total length of over 15 meters. That’s literally over 15 times my own body size, and that’s without considering the width difference!

The worm’s body consists of multiple 1-meter-long ball-shaped sections connected to each other. Each section is covered by hard metallic scales that hide two pairs of tiny legs under them.

Its tail ends in a very hard spiky ball that can easily crush me with one hit while two large horizontal pincers grow out from both sides of its mouth.

If I had to describe this freak of nature, I’d say it’s a worm fucked an ant and then their offspring suffered from both deep sea gigantism and radiation mutation.

Now for stats, this guy is what you’d call a proper meat tank.

 

 

I mean, look at that freaking HP bar!! It gets even more ridiculous when you take the defensive stats into perspective as well. It’s impossible for me to depend on any physical means to hurt this monstrosity.

Luckily, this guy has very low resistance to magic and attribute attacks. This is probably the reason why you can only find this species in the biome only.

The three main monsters around here kinda keep each other in check. The eels are very strong against the worms with their magic, but weak against turtles that seem to have shells with high magic defense.

Then there are the turtles that easily swarm and consume the eels, but a random worm can easily grab one of them and burrow underground to escape.

That’s how the three species resting atop the pyramid of this biome’s ecosystem interact.

As for me, I’d be dead meat if I ever go against the turtles or the eels, but while worms prove to be just as much of a tough challenge, I can still see a chance of winning against them if I don’t mess up.

They’re a much better matchup for me as my poison is super effective against them and their hiding tactics don’t pose a problem with my Spatial Awareness sphere.

Now then, let’s start testing pest extermination strategy 1.0.

Taking a deep breath, I turn off my Stealth skill for the first time since I got it.

Immediately, the worm senses my presence and starts charging towards me by digging tunnels through the earth.

I slowly swim upwards while growing some extra spikes on my tail. If anyone’s watching this battle, they’d be astonished by the scene where a total of 17 spikes suddenly grew from my tail.

Keeping a close eye on the worm through the sphere, I reach a suitable height where I can avoid being instantly caught by the worm as soon as it surfaces while denying it the space it needs to take advantage of its body flexibility.

Close... Closer... Any second now...

ROAAAR. THUMP.

Making full use of my thought acceleration, I launch two spikes right at its wide open maw while Manager-san launches the remaining fifteen a millisecond before me.

The worm flinches when hit with the spike barrage, giving me enough time to dive underneath its exposed body sections and promptly turn Stealth back on.

What I’d normally do in such fights is to stay in the enemy’s blind spot and wait for the poison to kill them, which is just what I had wanted to do, but it seems that this strategy gets less effective the stronger and more diverse the attack methods of the enemy are.

Although I had both Thought Acceleration and Future Sight on, I couldn’t see a way to dodge the worm’s retaliatory attack, I could only swim a small distance forwards to dodge his tail mace, but that resulted in me getting slammed by the section connected to it instead.

Ughh. When did they add trucks to fantasy worlds...?

{Warning: Incoming attack!}

Ahh! Yes, sorry!

Promptly recovering from my stupor, I dive downwards, dodging another tail sweep.

Unfortunately, I wasn’t quick enough which led to my dorsal fins and spikes getting grazed by the spikes growing from the tail.

Hiss, those injuries certainly look scary.

I’m really REALLY glad that I have Suffering Nullification, I might’ve fainted without it.

The situation isn’t any better though, my HP bar is certainly going down at a worrying rate while I can see the image of the worm trying to crush me with its pincers through Future Sight.

Rolling out of the way, I take the chance to shoot another barrage of poison-filled spikes and then flee towards the colorful biome.

The worm recovers from the pause after being hit again, then resumes chasing me.

Well, I certainly won’t continue acting like before and become a sitting duck for you, freak!

Increasing my speed, I swim upwards while keeping an eye out for any surprise attacks by the worm. Although I might get noticed by the eels, swimming higher is certainly a better choice than sticking to the ground.

Also, I don’t need to worry much about the eels, they’d target the large prey instead of the puny little poisonous fish anyways.

By the way, there are actually no wyrms or dragons in this biome because the huge mushrooms block them, though they probably won’t come here even if it’s not blocked.

Fighting against those eels is not a joke, I tell ya. Swarming tactics are certain to fail when matched up against spell barrage attacks after all.

Back to the fight, I take a quick look at my current stats which show that my HP bar is in the red and it’s slowly decreasing due to bleeding.

My anxiety skyrockets as I struggle to find a way to fix this, but without any healing-related skill except for my HP recovery, there’s nothing I can do. Even if I use skill points to boost the recovery skills, it won’t do much as my skill point number is below three digits.

 

{Proficiency has reached the required level. Skill [HP Auto-Recovery LV 6] has become [HP Auto-Recovery LV 7].}

{Proficiency has reached the required level. Skill [Life LV 4] has become [Life LV 5].}

 

Good. Great. Wonderful.

Although my HP doesn’t recover, that continuous damage due to bleeding has been stopped by the extra recovery.

I can’t relax yet though, any weak monster in the drug trip biome has the ability to kill me in my current state. There’s only one way to get out of this predicament.

Steeling my resolve, I slowly decrease my swimming height while regenerating another barrage of spikes at my tail.

My pursuer wastes no time as it lunges at me with its entire body weight behind it, anxious to end the fight before getting noticed by its natural predators.

Unfortunately for it, my calculations included its max power lunge in the equation.

Manager-san instantly shoots the newly generated spikes into its eyes one by one while I stop descending and swiftly swim upwards to escape the worm’s pincers.

As the worm gets closer to my body, the first two spikes land into both of its eyes, causing agonizing pain and robbing it of its sight.

The worm opens its mouth to roar in pain but is promptly greeted by the rest of the poison-filled barrage entering its mouth and piercing its soft insides.

One final cry comes out of its mouth, echoing through my heart. It was a death throe to be accurate, signifying the death of my foe and my successful survival of another close brush with death.

 

{Acquired skill [Burrow LV 1].}

{Experience has reached the required level. Individual laethoul ramae has increased from LV 3 to LV 4}

{All basic attributes have increased.}

{Skill proficiency level-up bonus acquired.}

{Proficiency has reached the required level. Skill [HP Auto-Recovery LV 7] has become [HP Auto-Recovery LV 8].}

{Proficiency has reached the required level. Skill [Evasion LV 8] has become [Evasion LV 9].}

{Proficiency has reached the required level. Skill [SP Recovery Speed LV 9] has become [SP Recovery Speed LV 10].}

{Condition satisfied. Skill [SP Recovery Speed LV 10] has evolved into skill [SP Rapid Recovery LV 1].}

{Skill points acquired.}

 

Manager-san’s heavenly voice, my refilled resources, and the increasing stats finally confirm the facts, I won.

Heh... hehe... hehehehe. I’m still alive, you fucker!!

My rapid heartbeat echoes loudly in my ears, and the adrenaline gradually fades from my system.

While nothing can be seen when looking at my flesh body, my mental expression can only be described as a maniac smile filled with ecstasy.

Yes. This is it. This is what I’ve been seeking.

This feeling...! Ahhh, this divine feeling!

Only fighting can make me feel alive like this.

The reward is pretty good as well, I see no reason to choose the safe slow grinding method over this.

I’ve decided. I’ll be grinding mini-bosses from now on!