I'm a Stingray?

Chapter 121: Dots

The lady had obviously in all odds expected the worse, but to her surprise, the fish on the other side casually asked. "Do you know any place where I can find uh... western rock lobsters?"

In this case, he nearly didn't have a reason to explain exactly why he was looking for such a species and just expected an answer from the fish he had spared.

The needlefish let out a sigh of relief but then shook her head left to right, trying to recall where she had heard that name. It took a little while before she answered, "They are, well... quite far away from here."

"How far away?" He asked, tad pissed of the fact that this fish wasn't getting directly to the point.

Unwillingly sarcastic, she answered. "To the west, so it's far away."

An irritating glow began itching portions of his skin, and by now he was recounting the reasons why this lady was spared. "Be more specific."

Sensing the little anger, she swiftly rushed through a sentence. "You just need to go close to the reef and then cross it. Keep following the borderline and you'll eventually see lobsters of many sorts."

Still a bit confused, Timothy asked. "Uh, how do they look like?"

Thinking for a little while, fear struck in her heart even further as she tried to explain. "I'ts hard to explain, just ask around for them once you get there. I'm sure they will respect your word, you're like... a great fighter."

Seeing that she had started to slightly shake, the stingray just cited. "You can go now."

The thin fish rushed through the tunnel at maximum speed and was seeking for the exit. While behind, the young hero easily managed to come into terms. "Looks like the new upgrades are still far away. From her description, the lobsters I'm looking for are at least 10 kilometres away."

"Well at least I can do a couple of things at once. I'm supposed to lead these shrimp to the reef anyway." After making that brief decision of the upcoming feature, his attention fixed towards the biggest body here.

And then with a slow swim forward, he began munching on the enemy who in the very dawn of this battle, was the cockiest in the group and fairly the strongest. The long cut was still across it's abdomen, it seemed a bit graphic but he ignored those features and just continued eating.

The little man wasn't in a rush, especially since it would probably take time to fully organize over 5,000 shrimp whom had gone outside.

He could only chew through half of the fish, the little stomach couldn't handle more than that. But the system was tad happy to explain about the most important portion, [Total health = 70/100].

...

Finally making his way to swimming outside, the first thing that managed to capture most of the little guy's vision, was the whole ground itself painted in white.

Thankfully, there weren't bodies on top of bodies laying dead and the sight made him feel a bit proud as a new king. Only now he managed to understand just how many 5,000 shrimp are when they walk near each other.

Although he was no math wizard, it was easy to assume that the circle this community had formed in a circular matter, stretched somewhere around 400 meters in width! It was like a super platoon of soldiers but since this species is small, it just looks as big as a full human platoon.

A bigger shrimp approached the little man and spoke with a language he could understand, "What is your next command, your highness?"

"The task we have is simple and shouldn't cause us any losses unless we are very unlucky." He introduced and the shrimp below knew what was coming next although he pretended to be dumb, "We're going to the reef and then we will make our way to the middle of it."

Wanting to assure that the whole community understood their new fate, he exclaimed just for the sake of striking fear. "Our community will forever live in the reef, be prepared for a better life!"

At least this portion wasn't a bluff. Because although living near the border seems cool, life in the reef is better and it will become amazing soon as the reef begins restoring its overall health.

The big shrimp spread the command on 10 others, it was phrased shorter compared to what the new king had said. But it was spread to other shrimp right away and before he knew it, the entire massive coating of white species began yelling out the same command and it was loud enough to cause Timothy a bit of ear pain.

Everyone began moving towards the reef in no time and the young man felt excited about it, although the distance was a good 6 kilometers before they even touch the reef's coral, not to mention the other 2-3 required to travel towards the center.

...

They've made a good kilometer of travelling by now, it was fair to say that they got just a little tired but thankfully their speed was similar to each other.

The young stingray's vision was still at level 12 although it was at the edge of the time span that was pre-set in the very beginning. Regardless of the threats from before, he didn't really bother to look around enough and just focused on the reef who remained as a blur in his vision.

Suddenly he heard commotion from the crowd underneath and just a bit after it turned into a shared scream, with a bit of focus on the crowd, he could notice a few dots swimming above the shrimp in the distance.

Focusing on these dots even further, his vision merged towards a super zoom and he attained a clear vision of whom had given them a visit.

The group carried 5 barracudas and each one of them was bigger than any of these species he had faced before. That's where he remembered the brag about killing a barracuda before, so naturally a lot of shrimp will rely on him now!

Dashing straight forwards with the aim of reaching the accelerating battlefield about 100 meters away, his super zoom was still doing work and noticed that a few bigger shrimp have already indulged into battle for the sake of protecting their kind!

Once again, he was angry about the speed that was limited to a low level. The battle wasn't too far away but it surely felt like forever. His fins were working to their furthest extent for the sake of dealing the damage of his own as soon as possible.