Pulling herself up onto what is left of the raft, Bug, dripping with water and looking like a drowned rat, lets out an exhausted breath as she collects herself. Nearly drowning has her rightfully stressed out and she wants to take a moment to calm down, but it doesn’t look like she will be getting the chance. The once calm waters of the underground lake are now turning and stirring with raging water, with large waves splashing about as some dark shadow rampages beneath the dark water’s surface.
In just the couple minutes it took for Bug to get out of the water and back to ‘safety’ three more of her Undead Kappa had been destroyed. All Bug can do is watch the raging water while gripping the wood in a death grip, fighting to not get thrown back into the water.
What the heck is in there? I thought we just crashed or something, but whatever is down there must have wrecked my raft while I was out. What could it- Shit, just lost another Kappa!
“You two! Get over here and push, quick, get me the hell out of here!”
The two Undead Kappa that had pulled Bug out the water quickly swim over and grab hold of Bug’s piece of raft, pushing with everything they have as they speed away from the underwater battle.
Ok, priorities. I need to get to land, I can’t fight in the water. Why the hell didn’t I think about the possibility of falling in the water?! I don’t know how to swim! Second, I need to see if I can rescue my skeletons. I don’t want to lose them all yet! How far away is land?
Bug looks away from the raging waters and towards her destination on the other side of the lake. Regretfully, even in the time it had taken to have a nap (Rudely interrupted), her journey across had only reached about two-thirds of the way there and still has some distance to go.
Giving some slight adjustments in direction to the pushing Kappa, Bug returns her gaze to the battle and tries to find her three missing skeletons. There is no sign of Bob, Sam, or Zax, and when she tries to follow their pull on her mana, to get a general direction of where they might be, Bug finds herself looking down into the depths of the lake.
Great, they sunk to the bottom… Not too surprising considering how heavy they all are. At least they are all still functional, that’s all that matters. Ok you three, try to walk towards me. Just follow and I’ll fish you out on the other side of the –
A large splash and a shadow blocking out the lights distracts Bug from her orders, compelling her to look up. What she finds leaves her speechless and her mouth agape as she gawks, wide eyed, at the thing that just jumped out of the water.
Big enough to make a shark look tiny, and as orange and red as a sunset, the majestic and bulbous creature is a thing of shining beauty with scales that shimmer under the soft lights imbedded in the ceiling. With fins like royal banners flowing through the wind and being as wide as it is tall, and fat like an overfed cat, the thing, this fish, is almost as comical looking as it is gorgeous, what with its big round head and bulging eyes and all. But more than that, it is also horrifying in that its mouth is almost wide enough to swallow several fully grown men whole in a single bite, which would translate as being easily several of Bug.
Trapped in its mouth and holding on by the lips is another of the Kappa, fighting desperately to not fall into that bottomless depth of the monster’s mouth as it and fish and all are still up in the air. When the fish slams its mouth closed, the arms of the Kappa snap off and it disappears somewhere inside, the massive fish only now starting its descent back down towards the water.
But what is noteworthy is what else is up there in the air with them. The reason for why it is that this massive thing is currently rampaging.
Attached to its body in several places like leaches and eating into its august scales, is a swarm of Undead fish that are attacking it with suicidal abandon. The little Undead fish are torn up and missing parts, reduced to bloody little things, but they are no doubt giving their everything to try and kill the much larger fish and are pissing it off horribly.
But none of that matters. All of it gets registered by Bug, yes. With her current stats and her enhanced eyes, these things are all easy to take notice of. But none of it matters. NONE of it!
And that is solely because her attention is now entirely fixed onto one part of the majestic creature that is before her eyes. She feels no fear at the idea of being eaten. The stress of nearly drowning is gone and forgotten. Even the concerns for her sunken skeleton and her new Kappa are cast aside like useless trash.
There is only greed now as Bug gazes longingly, almost lustfully, watching as the fish meets the water and disappears into the dark depths.
A single scale. Gold and shaped like a tear, this single scale is easily as big as Bug is tall and is the center piece of the fish’s enormous round head.
The fish disappears and Bug is still staring at where she last saw it, the image of that amazing treasure seared into her eyes as she is left there with her mouth wide open.
“I… I… I…”
She can hardly find the words with her whole mind so filled with just that single golden scale. When Bug finally manages to find her words, she can only speak three and three alone.
“I. NEED. IT!!!”
Did you know this story is from Royal Road? Read the official version for free and support the author.
The water moves off to the side, the beast still fighting as it is swarmed by countless Undead fish and Bug’s Kappa skeletons. Her head snaps to the side as she follows it motions like a cat watching a koi in a pond, her eyes almost bloodshot with greed.
Pushed by desire, Bug acts.
“Command Undead!”
With a pulse of Death mana escaping her body and spreading as a wave in every direction, Bug immediately takes control of every single Undead fish in the lake, her Turn Undead Spell having been among her upgrades that came after beating the Cleaner. Now, she no longer needs line of sight to take control of the Undead, but can now simple capture everything around her.
Apparently, the Undead fish that her Kappa had accidently made had been very busy while Bug was napping, as now most of the lake is almost full of them as the zombie fish had been killing and eating all their old fishy friends.
Bug points and commands, “Swarm! Kill! Devourer!” as she holds the image of the giant fish in her mind. “But you are not allowed to damage that scale! It is mine!”
Even with the thousands of fish that just fell under her control, Bug’s mana has only fallen by about a third. The fish themselves are all normal, regular, run of the mill fish. As far as the System is concerned, these fish, even up to the largest bass, would hardly even be considered as Level 1. But even still, a thousand fish, no matter how weak, are still a threat. The only reason that Bug hadn’t been aware of them until now is because the fish had no reason to try and bother her, not with her Winter’s Deathly Aura passive making Undead see her one of them. Even when she fell in the water earlier, she was perfectly safe from all the zombie fish.
No, the only threat in these waters is the golden beast that she now hunts, and Bug will not rest until she has what she desires!
The Undead fish swarm by the dozens of hundreds. Massive schools of the bloody things swimming though the water as fast as their Undead strength can propel them until they are swarming the massive fish en masse. The water practically erupts as the first school makes contact, soon followed by the second and third, each one smashing into the underwater beast with suicidal abandon. Bug’s remaining Kappa, pushed by Bug’s greed, redouble their own attacks on the fish and fight with everything they have as they claw at its sides and tear at delicate fins and gills.
But the beast refuses to die. It continues to fight and rampage and writhe under the water as it smashes its tail side to side and bites down on anything it can capture in its large mouth, gobbling down and devouring entire schools of fish with a single bite or breaking them with a slam of its long tail. Even as the dark water’s surface becomes more and more blood stained, and more and more fish are re-killed and their broken bodies float to the surface, the massive golden fish refuses to give up.
Bug watches it all from what is left of her raft, refusing to look away as her army of aquatic zombies is smashed apart and broken to pieces by the dozens every second. Inpatients is quick to take her along with worry. What if it manages to get away? What if it kills all her Undead and she isn’t able to pursue it, to hunt down and claim HER treasure!? Bug can’t let that happen! It will be Bug's!
The treasure MUST be Bug’s!
Not thinking straight, Bug throws open the Skill Store and quickly buys some Spells and a Skill she had previously disregarded because she didn’t think she would ever really have much of a need for them. They could have been useful later on, she figured, but on land, they would have been largely useless.
Now though? These spells are the difference between having treasure and losing it forever. And that is simply unacceptable.
‘Swimming Lvl 1. There is no shame in not knowing how to swim. Plenty of people don’t know how. I mean, sure, babies and most animals can swim without ever having to learn how, but you’re an adult, and taking swimming lessons would just be embarrassing. Just take this Skill and make it easier for yourself. You always knew how to swim; other people don’t need to know you bought this. 1 Skill Points’
‘Respiratory Mutation. [Discounted] Breathe in deep and smell that fresh air! Don’t you just love being able to breathe? To smell? To be able to process oxygen and convert it into life giving energy that you quite literally can’t live without? Yeah, we know you do. And now you can breathe in a bunch of other ways, how exciting! Lungs, gills, cutaneous respiration, maybe you always wanted to be a tree and breath CO2. Grow some leaves then if you want! It’s your choice how to breathe now. [6] 4 Skill Points’
‘Grow Tails. [Discounted] Tails aren’t for everyone, but they do have their uses. Maybe you just need the extra balance. Maybe you want something prehensile that can grab stuff. Maybe you just think tails are cute and want to give yourself something fluffy or scaley to wave around. We don’t judge, and it is your body. You do you! [4] 2 Skill Points’
‘Bioluminescence. [Discounted] Light up your world in style and become your own light source! Fabulous, beautiful, darling you’re gorgeous! With bioluminescence you will never be without a light and can always be gloriously incandescent. Yes, technically, its purpose is for warning away predators and confusing prey, but we both know you just want to look good. And baby doll, I can’t blame you. Pick this Spell and become a STAR! [2] 1 Skill Points’
//Notice. Your new Spell [Grow Tails] has fused into Become Weapon!
Three Spells and one Skill downloading and all her Skill Points spent yet again, Bug ignores the twinge in her brain as the loading bars fill up before her eyes. It’s interesting that she can still feel headaches despite Pain Nullification, but right now she couldn’t care less about that. Refusing to take her eyes off the fight, Bug immediately activates her new Spells the moment they are ready to go.
Along Bug’s ribs, her scale coved skin splits open on both sides as gills are born and connected to her existing respiratory system. Activating Become Weapon, Bug’s tail immediately heals as the broken bone mends and her rat tail mutates into a scaled and much thicker tail like that of a lizard with membrane connected spikes running down the spine to end in a pair of vertical fins like a shark. Between her fingers and toes, webbing grows to connect her digits and turn hands and feet into tools better built for swimming.
Diving into the water, Bug continues to change her body further, pushing Grow Eyes to progress the changes she had already made to include thin, transparent secondary eyelids that will allow Bug to see unobstructed underwater, with Bioluminescence kicking in last to fill in the spaces between her scales with glowing emerald, green lights.
With her body changed and fully submerged in the dark water, Bug has to hold back the urge to try and breathe with her lungs as her new gills wake up and start working. With water flowing over the slits in her sides and pulling oxygen into her body, Bug closes the membranes over her eyes and pushes her light to the max.
Once her brain is no longer panicking about potentially drowning, she is kicking off into the water and heading straight for the battle, swimming though clouds of blood and floating fish guts, her wings helping to propel her along even faster as a large pair of makeshift fins. With eight limbs and a modified tail propelling her forward, Bug cuts through the water like a shark as she pursues her prey.
No. Her treasure.