I'm a Stingray?

Chapter 137: Food situation

With one glance at the elder's hesitant face, it was easy to determine that something was wrong. But thankfully this old lobster wasn't too shy to talk, "Yes, something is very wrong."

Now he realised that the system given task might take longer than expected, and therefore a dissatisfied sigh was unleashed. Afterwards, he had to request. "Tell me, what do I need to fix?"

Still a bit hesitant, the geezer let silence stretch for a while before answering. "This place is new for us and we don't really know where to find food."

"You're like a whole army!" Timothy pointed out the obvious and began feeling that governing this community was a bad idea.

Well a couple thousand lobsters is way better than gathering up other marine life one-by-one. So he decided to ignore their incompetence and wanted to add something.

But the elder lobster cut his word off before it elevated, "You told us not to hunt for anything in the reef."

"But the rest of the ocean is right there." The hero pointed out the obvious with a nod.

The bumpy line that separated the reef from a patch of lumpy sand, was just 30 meters away - it was visible even with his poor eye-sight.

But this lobster didn't want to give up here, so he contradicted. "I've sent a few men to explore the area, all they managed to find were some marble shrimp. They can't feed our entire community."

Although it was tempting to go eat those little critters, it would have been a terrible idea because this community was already slowly starving.

It became evident that matters had to be taken on his own hands, so the young one pitched. "I'll explore the area for your men, but at least 30 of them have to come along with me. I don't want to travel all day just to show your men where I found the food."

"That's fair." The elder answered and turned to his own kind, several shouts were heard after but to Timothy it felt like flesh yelling at flesh - considering that he couldn't hear anything.

The elder worked fast. Once his majesty agreed to fix the problem, he didn't even wait but immediately sprung into action like an angry badger. A little while later, his vision was blessed by 50 big lobsters whom each stretched at least half a meter.

Obviously more than requested but such a quantity can put in a lot more work. If they found food, these 50 lobsters can work their asses off and tame the hunger situation a bit faster, even if they can't feed the entire community with one delivery.

Tim didn't want to waste any time. After helping this tribe, he had to go back towards the hidden den which was a bit far away. There he has business with the great white shark, that young fellow perhaps knows where to find squids - so the system given task would be a step closer to being finished.

So with a shout, he demanded. "Okay, follow me."

The team dispatched from the tribe right after and had a bit of spring on their step, a bit ignorant on the fact that they would need to travel at least a kilometer. They have forgotten that this task might not be so easy.

But thankfully the hype eventually died down so the young one could focus a bit more. His vision continued to be terrible since it hasn't yet been upgraded but a blurry overview of his surroundings still managed to inform a bit of possibilities they could try.

The inbuilt permanent map on his vision, also managed to help a little bit. Because it showed a clear-ish view of the sand around them, so a view from the top managed to become a bit more useful.

This map helped locate about 3 holes on the sand, close to each other. Although he ignored the first ones because they seemed too small, the last one spread a meter across so it felt a bit logical to explore it.

They had swam half a kilometer from the community by now, but a question still had to be asked. "Have you been in this hole before?"

Most of these lobsters did not understand his stingray language, but a couple of them were fluent. Therefore they answered, "No. I don't think that anyone has gotten this far."

"Well then that's why our community is starving. I don't know how you survived before but food won't jump in your mouth. You have to look for it." Typically, seeing someone dumber than him would have sparked in joy.

But for the bar to go this low, where standards are barely visible? Timothy feared that he might need to come here a few times just to make sure this community doesn't get wiped out, thanks to starvation.

Knowing better than to go directly in a hole, and since the group wasn't arguing back, he nodded at one of the biggest lobsters and said. "Go down that hole."

This one didn't understand his language but another lobster was quick to translate. Most of the team did not understand why the king had made such an odd command, but the biggest lobster was in no way hesitant. Therefore he stepped forward and poked his head down the hole before carefully following what seemed to be a tunnel inside.

"Good, it's safe." The little sea-pancake celebrated but that's when a brief disturbance was felt in the waters.

Something rushed out of the hole. Well, more like it spiked upwards in a pace so fast that most did not understand what was going on - it was like a blur whose origin was tremendously difficult to determine.

It was difficult, before the fast moving animal had stopped. With one peek at it, Timothy managed to notice that this was a great barracuda, one of the most fearsome predators he had met.

It was under a meter long, average at best but such size still couldn't be underestimated. Especially since the very lobster whom had gone in the hole, was hanging on the long fish's jaws ~ 10 meters above the sand.

It became evident that a battle had to break out. But none of these lobsters could swim 10 meters high so this all became dependent on the young king.