--- The next day ---
Erik and Inky woke up early, and also greeted their 4 new workers that were looking at computer screens, 2 were tiny, barely to Erik's chest, and the other 2 could reach his shoulders, they were equipped with poisoned harpoon guns to deal with resisting prey and daggers to harvest the meat and materials for him, it was nice having subordinates, he might have to think of names for them, they didn't seem to mind, but calling them scout 1 and 2, and hunter 1 and 2 felt kinda cold for him 'maybe...Susan? Ana? Cleo? and ... ah... I don't know, I will have to ask the elders about it in the future if they have names'.
He went to his own computer and controlled the small submarine probe and watched through its camera the kelp forest, there seemed to be barely any snakes on the outskirts, so he continued silently going in, it was also darker than last time as the ice was starting to extend from the poles to here on the surface, letting less sunlight through.
10 minutes later of going through the dense forest of tall seaweed that ascended to the surface, the microphone on the robot probe picked a sound like strong swimming or something, so he went to investigate, slowly avoiding the algae as he went. He came upon a surprising scene, a bigger snake was holding a smaller snake with its mouth by the neck, and putting its scaly dick inside it and thrusting hard as she struggled to break free, Erik was surprised, but something happened then though, from behind them a bigger snake came and pounced on the male, killing it, and then held down the exhausted female snake and penetrated her with a dick 2 times the last one, she hissed but she was held down and penetrated hard again.
He got a better look at them now and more like snakes, it would be better to call them armoured moray eels, with long interlocking fangs like crocodiles.
Erik could only sigh as he didn't install weapons on the probe, just a poison cloud function, although it wouldn't be so useful against the snakes.
"Rose, how long can they be at it? I wanna see if it gonna eat the dead snake after it"
[well, they are indeed cannibals, and bigger females eat smaller males, and bigger males also eat smaller males]
" Huh? with so many of them eating the males they don't go extinct?"
[No, they can reproduce by parthenogenesis, the females can fertilize their own eggs if there are no males]
"wow...thats handy I guess"
back at the kelp forest the big snake hissed loudly and came inside the female snake, letting her go, the smaller female snake looked at him resentfully and slowly went away, meanwhile as expected the bigger male ate the smaller one.
The story has been taken without consent; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.
"to where now Rose?"
[well, you aint physically there so I can't scan through you, but she should be on a cave in the middle of the forest]
they continued searching for 30 more minutes until he found a hole on the ground that could easily fit a truck, with bones at the entrance, the hole descended at a 45° angle, it was also too dark for the cameras, so he had no choice but to activate the lights and slowly go down, as he went down he also noticed that scales and dead skin were covering the floor at some places, if a snake lived here, it had done so for a long time.
He then saw something disturbing though... a pile of skulls of octopeople.
Then Inky got his attention and wrote:" long ago story about monster eat people from the village, kelp forest is forbidden area" her face was looking pale and scared.
Erik could only grind his teeth in anger, even if he didn't meet them, they were his people now, and their grudge was his grudge also, no one wants to see their fellows eaten by monsters. Something happened as he was distracted with the bones, he heard a weird clunking sound from behind and saw a couple of skulls rolling on the ground, and point the camera up, only to see a snakehead the size of a truck, looking at the probe explorer.
Erik reacted swiftly and released the poison cloud, quickly backtracking at maximum speed, he almost managed to get out but then something hit the explorer, it kept sending a signal feed, but couldn't move, something seemed to be checking the explorer as the camera that was pointing towards the exit kept moving around, it didn't eat it in the end, but... what it recorded then was terrifying nonetheless, it recorded the enormous snake exiting, the explorer quickly shot its only secret weapon, a radio tracker, this would only tell them if the snake was far or close, but it was still a huge advantage.
Minutes passed as he was thinking of a plan, when Inky quickly woke him of his reverie, pointing anxiously at one of the screens, he saw it too as his face paled, one of the perimeter cameras had recorded a snake army going to the now deserted village of the octopeople and now seemed to be tracking the scent.
Erik quickly told Inky.
Erik:" Inky, quickly tell all the octopeople to promptly stay inside their new city, use the secret tunnel"
Inky quickly nodded and left, Erik quickly thought and said.
"Rose, we need more weapons, start printing this in my mind"
[...isn't that just a big bomb?]
"if it can deal with submarines then it can deal with unaware sea creatures"
[ it won't be ready in time]
" that's okay, start printing 3, we will try with that, directional underwater explosions, they should also severely disorient them"
The devices consisted of hydrogen and oxygen tanks with a valve on one side, they would absorb water in a back chamber and pressurize the entire thing using the hydrogen and oxygen generated from electrolysis, and then it would be ignited, opening the front valve and releasing all that pressure in one direction towards the enemy, the deposits could also slowly move and point, it was a clunky weapon, but it was perfect against naive and unaware enemies, it would only work once though. He would also use superhydrophobic ammunition by heating metal balls inside, and make a claymore kind of effect.
(https://youtu.be/R9mn2vZ9d5U)
Erik quickly put the clams and kelp near the entrance the garage inside and at the back of the garage, and waited outside with his armor and weapons on, only through him could Rose hope to detect them as the tracker just indicated the position of the mother, he was safe near the entrance anyways and could earn some time until the cannons finished printing.