"… Huh?"
She accidentally said that aloud instead of keeping it as a thought in the back of her head, but her question was genuine. She couldn’t hide the disgust from her face as the Archive tapped the shrimp once again, beckoning her to drop to her knees and take a bite out of the fairy shrimp.
the Archive said, completely unperturbed.
“The points,” she interrupted, nearly falling over backwards as she tried to stomp the little water strider. “What do these ‘points’ even do? I don’t know about bug-slayers with classes, so—”
[Name: Marisol Vellamira]
[Grade: F-Rank Giant-Class]
[Class: Water Strider]
[Swarmblood Art: ???]
[Aura: 500]
[Points: 0]
[Strength: 1, Speed: 1, Toughness: 1, Dexterity: 1, Perception: 1]
[T1 Mutation | Striding Glaives Lvl. 1
[T2 Mutations | Basic Gills | Basic Hydrospines] 50P
the Archive said plainly.
She was no stranger to her mama’s rapid-fire dance technique lectures, but this wasn’t so much a lecture as it was information injected straight into her head.
the Archive continued.
That said, it a tad annoying hearing it talk so fast. Captain Antonio hadn’t been lying when he said it was going to be noisy.
The Archive paused momentarily before adding,
The little water strider tapped where there was fairy shrimp meat to be chewed on, so, tentatively, she knelt and felt around the water with her bare hands—recoiling with instinctual disgust as fleshy meat squelched in her palms. . She shook her head and forced herself to dig in with her nails, ripping out a whole strip of soggy, pinkish-blue flesh.
Her nostrils crinkled as she tried to place a smell, but it was just salty. And briny. The Archive nagged her to plug her nose and chew—it’d be difficult for her to digest the flesh otherwise—so she did exactly as she was instructed.
Honestly, it wasn’t that bad. If she just closed her eyes and pretended it wasn’t raining, thundering, and she was sitting on a firm chair on solid ground, the raw shrimp meat tasted almost rich. Deep and pure with…. salt. of it.
No, it was pretty bad.
she thought, forcing herself to gnaw through and swallow bite-sized chunks of meat one at a time, her stomach crying and flipping in protest.
the Archive said.
She scoffed in between bites, retching a little as she finally finished her first strip of meat. she thought.
Unauthorized duplication: this narrative has been taken without consent. Report sightings.
Then it skated over to a different part of the shrimp’s abdomen, waving her over with a little leg.
She crawled over, careful not to scoot right off the shrimp lest she fell into the sea.
The Archive looked at her like she was dumb.
she thought, clenching her throat as she ripped her second strip of shrimp flesh. At least,
it said hurriedly, and she briefly got the impression it was mocking her; she the one who’d told it to lie a little if she’d be more confident as a result.
She gestured wildly around at the sinking wrecks, at the violent, churning, frothy waves, and the Archive countered by pointing at something she’d been completely oblivious to: the three masts she’d used to impale the fairy shrimp with, still sticking up like giant bone spikes.
Though the masts were all drenched and cold from rain, just the thought of not having to eat shrimp meat raw was enough to get her moving.
Now, she didn’t have a match or two sharp flints to spark together, but she immediately did as she was told. She jumped to the tail of the shrimp, stomped out chunks of chitin in the way, and scooped out a sticky chunk of yellowish-red fat. Then she kicked the closest mast and made a small dent. She stuffed the fat in the dent, rubbing it all over the splinters, before pressing her glaive against one of the metal bands above the dent. She had to slide her glaive up and down as quickly as she could, and—though she had to try several times—sparks eventually flew from the metal bands and ignited the fat, creating a small flame.
Eyes aglow, she immediately pounced around the fire and kept it protected from the rain with her body, wrapping her strip of flesh around the chip so it’d cook on the inside—that’d have to be good enough.
the Archive urged, skating over to the other parts of the shrimp.
She was reluctant to move away from the fire, but eventually convinced herself to peel away from the comforting warmth. She knelt and ripped out a particularly sharp chitin scale from one of the shrimp’s legs, then repeated the process two, three, four more times. Once she had enough giant chitin shards, she stabbed them into the stake and used them as an umbrella for the fire.
Once the fire was well-protected, she immediately huddled under the chitin shards, shivering and biting her lip as she felt freezing water creeping up to her thighs. The fairy shrimp was sinking fast.
the Archive urged, the little water skater hopping onto one of her charring strips of flesh.
She sighed and grumbled to herself as she peeled off the first strip of flesh, not at all excited to gobble it down. It tasted a better, but that was such a low benchmark to pass that she couldn’t help but feel disappointed nevertheless. All things considered, the semi-cooked flesh was still disgusting to swallow down.
she thought, feeding herself and glancing at the rest of the fleshy shrimp as she did.
She shrugged.
She looked up as she kept eating, carefully scanning the stormy horizon so the Archive could get a good look as well. If the ‘perception’ attribute meant what she thought it meant, she wasn’t particularly perceptive. She couldn’t spot any islands or ships in the distance, but maybe the Archive could.
The Archive pointed one of its legs straight ahead. She squinted, seeing nothing but storm clouds, thunder, and death.
She scoffed.
It was a useless question.
As if it didn’t already know her resolve to push forward.
she thought, wiping her lips as she stood up wobbly; she couldn’t fit the giant shrimp antennae in her cloak, and frankly, she didn’t care for them too much.
The Archive obeyed her command, and her status screen popped up next to her head.
[Strength: 1 → 2]
[Speed: 1 → 3]
[Toughness: 1 → 2]
[Dexterity: 1 → 2]
[Perception: 1 → 2]
[Aura: 500 → 513]
[Points: 13 → 0]
she thought, turning her arms around and looking at them.
The Archive ignored her.
[Strength]
[+ Magimuscular System
[+ Boneframe System
[+ Neuroflow System
[+ Gastrolith System
[Speed]
[+ Magimuscular System
[+ Neuroflow System
[+ Breathweave System
[+ Hemasurge System
[Toughness]
[+ Boneframe System
[+ Fleshweft System
[+ Puricore System
[+ Hemasurge System
[+ Malapurge System
[+ Soulseed System
[Dexterity]
[+ Neuroflow System
[+ Magimuscular System
[+ Boneframe System
[+ Neuroflow System
[Perception]
[+ Neuroflow System
[+ Hormonether System
Then the Archive stopped rattling words off to stare at her.
the Archive said pointedly.
The Archive shrugged. it said, reappearing atop her shoulder as she skipped over to the head of the shrimp, sucking in a sharp breath.
With that said, a new status screen popped up in front of her face.
[Objective #2: Skate out of the storm and head towards the unidentified landmass]
[Time Limit: Undefined]
[Reward: Survival]
[Failure: Death]
Water Bug Facts #5: Unlike vertebrate flesh, insect flesh is often ‘leaner’, which means they have relatively low fat content. Insect flesh also has a high proportion of essential amino acids, healthy fats, vitamins, and minerals like iron and zinc. Their exoskeleton, primarily composed of chitin, is usually inedible, but in some cultures they are ground into powder to be consumed for their fibre content. Basically, insect flesh is a super sustainable and nutritious food source!
… Yeah, I’m still trying to justify that time I ate a boiled cockroach in Korea, what of it?
