Chapter 63: Chapter 53- Grinder

The first monster to rush at me is a giant barracuda with half of its face seemingly bitten off. 

It came at me from the front with dull eyes that remind me of blind people, confirming my previous guess.

My enemies are mindless puppets lacking in both technique and skills, but they have a huge numerical advantage.

Also, pretty much my entire skill set was just sealed except for melee combat.

Another problem is that I don’t actually know if and how undead can be ‘killed’ in this world, my information outside the anime the scope of the anime is seriously lacking.

What’s the weak point of these ones? Do I need to cut off their heads? Or am I supposed to completely obliterate their bodies?

What should I do if they’re the type that requires you to snuff out their soul fire to kill them? Can they even be killed?

I have no idea. Frankly, I didn’t even know undead were a thing in this world, they were never shown nor mentioned in anime.

Soo, yeah.

This time, I’ll follow that subconscious habit that humans have formed over their millennia of biological evolution.

Shiny colorful stuff are definitely important in some way or another!

Stab.

My spear effortlessly passes through the barracuda’s head and goes out from the it’s back in a way reminiscent of Segawa’s kebab skewer preparation.

I mean, that colorful core is probably more attractive to me than light to a moth.

Might as well just hand a banner with an arrow pointing at it and the words Hit this on it, y’know?

And surprisingly, it worked! The barracuda’s already dead corpse went completely still after the core was crushed.

Through Spiritual Cognition, I could see the veins connected to it gradually dimming as the energy contained inside of them started leaking out into the surroundings from the core’s position.

Wait, this stuff is… MA energy?! Who would control these through MA energy directly?!

Sure, rulers have the ability to interact with MA energy, but I’d definitely say they’re dreaming if they thought they could manipulate it on such a large scale and with such extreme precision!

So, there can only be one explanation. Whoever or whatever created these creatures must be a god or at least a god-level being.

Did I just catch the attention of another god…? Am I some kind of divine magnet?!

How many gods are there by now? Alkreya, D, Ouri, and Sariel, right?

That’s four. FOUR– potentially five freaking gods!

Sigh… There’s also that one administrator whom Kumoko met after killing the fire dragon.

That guy will be added to the list sooner or later, so it’s actually six gods...

Personally, I believe I’m a totally normal person except for maybe my ever-expanding eldritch horror soul.

Hey… now that I think about it, those guys don’t regard me as an infinite food source, do they?

Eeehh, could I have possible gotten my self in a very stick situation without realizing it…?

Whoosh!

Whoops! This really isn’t the time to get lost in thought, Tomoko.

Shifting my attention back to the ongoing battle, I stab through another monster’s chest– oh! 

It’s a marlin fish this time! These ones are cool.

To my surprise however, it’s still alive and kicking even after I completely crushed its heart.

Taking another look through Spiritual Cognition, I quickly discover that the core has actually shifted its location to the fish’s head.

I hastily scan the incoming tide of monsters, only to find that all of their cores have also moved.

The new position is completely random, each undead’s core just flickers, disappears, then reappears in different but completely random part of their bodies.

This marlin’s core is now in its head while the core of the orca over there moved to the end of its tail. 

Is it a built-in automatic defense mechanism or is the puppeteer hiding behind the scenes and actively controlling them…?

Ahhh, whatever. I don’t care which one it is.

I have four gods backing me up, so I believe I can bear the price of offending at least one god!

All the complicated assumptions and theories should be left to Sage! I’d rather just focus on the hack n’ slash experience!

Flinging both of my arms upwards, one of my glaives bisects the marlin while the other stabs right through a shark’s core.

Taking advantage of my body momentum, I turn that swing into a backflip and rapidly dive to the depths in order to escape from the mid-formation encirclement.

Lower depths might have bigger and stronger fish, but shallower depths are a lot more abundant in species’ quantity and diversity.

Since these undead creatures depend on their number advantage to overwhelm their prey, it’d be stupid to just stand there and let them have their way.

I don’t mind fighting stronger enemies as long as the numbers are low, my stats have reached ridiculous numbers by now anyways.

Besides, these guys aren’t intelligent enough to use their advantages and strength to the fullest. In fact, they do the exact opposite.

Clever monsters like dragons and taratects almost always use some tactics like magic or traps  in order to expand the full potential of their skillset.

These undead don’t even have their basic instincts from back when they were still alive, so they just charge at me without thought which makes the fight very simple.

As long as I mark the most recent location of their cores, I can just stab at its rough location or just cut the entire thing into two halves if possible.

Watch this. See this shark trying to block me? Whoosh!

There, now it’s gone. Its core was in the dorsal fin which made killing it quite easy.

A large squid tries to catch me with its tentacles, but I dodge with minimum movements then use my glaive to cut off the arm where it’s core is.

Cutting a lolicon’s limb is a positive example of upholding justice, isn’t it?

The overall situation isn’t quite optimistic though.

My weapons are simply too short to reach the core if it’s hidden deep inside a blue whale’s body for example.

Also, the total number of undead pursuing me has increased even though I’ve already finished off tens of them.

Though, contrary to expectations, the pressure on me seems to have actually decreased…?

Basically, their aggressiveness has climbed to it’s peak, but I’m not their target anymore .

You are reading story So I’m a Fish, So What? at novel35.com

Oooh? What’s happening over there?

A rather large group of undead have actually stopped chasing me and started fighting each other for some reason.

Manager-san, analysis!

{Scanning memory… Complete.} {Analyzing creatures… Success.}

{Possible answer: Individual Fallen Beast might be suffering from Hunger status condition, Energy Starvation status condition, or both.}

Crushing a dolphin’s head using the back of my weapon, I catch my breath while searching for the area with the least zombie density.

If what Manager-san said is true, then the reason why the pressure decreased is because their target shifted from me to the corpses of their companions.

Wait… If that’s the case, then I might have a way to get out of here.

Skewering a pale-skinned orca, I consciously weaken the durability of my weapon to the point where it can hardly withstand its weight.

Then I proceed to swing my weapon to the side with all my might.

As you’d expect, that caused it to snap in two. One part remains firmly in my grip while the other flies into the horizon with the corpse attached to it, crushing a bunch of weaker undead on its way.

I wasn’t just trying to kill more monsters however, my goal’s to observe the collective reaction of these guys to their dead companion.

They ignore it at first, but then their eyes snap back towards the corpse as soon as the first bit of MA energy leaks into the surroundings.

So, it’s energy starvation, huh? Well, I guess it’s only natural for them to seek what their environment is missing.

Just like a human would seek warmth when exposed to extreme cold, the animalistic instinct of these undead has degraded over time until nothing but the instinct of replenishing energy was left.

In fact, this might not just apply to the marine creatures and animals, I have a feeling that the environment itself is devouring the energy in the air.

If you apply this to a larger scale, it’s as if the planet itself is trying to supplement for the lack of MA energy by absorbing whatever it can get it’s hands on.

In the information I got from Taboo, the system appears to be a very cruel mechanism that exists for the sole purpose of harvesting soul energy from its users after their death, but I’m starting to think it’s actually a very gentle existence…

However, that thought is quickly thrown out of the window as soon as I remember the identity of it’s creator.

That hateful woman took my first time and ran away without taking responsibility!! 

And not only did she not contact me again after that, but I highly suspect she’s the one who turned off Mischief and forced me into this place!

I’m 100% sure that woman’s intentions in creating the system are by no means good! 

She’s probably waiting for the time when someone destroys the system, so that she can savor their reaction upon discovering that they just destroyed the only barrier standing between the living and these abominations.

I refuse to believe that a person who can make life harder for the cute me without feeling a smidgen of guilt is actually a good person inside, hmph!

Enough of that, since I have already confirmed the undead’s real goal, there’s no need for me to entangle with them anymore.

Choosing two of the more powerful monsters, I swiftly pierce their cores and throw them in opposite directions.

After which I turn off all the system skills I can control and use the Illusory Soul ability to disguise my soul as one of theirs.

And by all, I mean ALL. My entire status screen has gone gray except for the stats column.

I don’t have any control over those, and I wouldn’t turn them off if I could.

If I do that, I’d lose my speed, strength, and stamina. Worst case scenario, I might instantly starve to death or something like that.

Honestly, I’d be fine with losing all of the system’s features except for the stats part.

Anyways, my makeshift stealth works great, allowing me to swiftly pass through the gaps between the undead tide and slip away into the depths.

As expected of the great me! I’m truly a genius!

The only problem is… I’m still stuck in the dead area.

Neither Mischief nor my teleportation spells are working, so I can’t make my way back into the living area.

Just go back over the wall, you say? Oh, how I wish I could.

However, the number of dragons standing over there is honestly ridiculous.

It’s like every single dragon in a hundred kilometer radius decided to keep watch and make sure I never go back alive!

And this time it’s not just Water Dragons, I can see Ice Dragons and Poison Dragons mixed in underwater.

There are even Wind and Thunder Dragons waiting for me above the water’s surface!

Like, what the actual fuck?! I’m not some international fugitive, am I?!

Ugh, I don’t why I suddenly became the number one enemy of the dragon race, but the option of crossing over the wall can be crossed out.

If I ask any of my divine acquaintances for help, I’ll probably be rejected.

Ouri and Sariel seem like the kind of gods that’d say this is a trial you must face on your own while D would probably throw in a stronger monster just for kicks.

Yeeeaaah… Spare me that, thank you very much.

Well, there’s another option, but I’m afraid it’ll take too much time.

I can keep moving away from the wall and try my luck at finding some other ancient abandoned facility.

If the environment devours internal energy, then I just need to find a place that blocks the energy devouring. A place that’s covered by an insulator or something like that

Should I fail in doing that, I can always detonate a bunch of those bombs I used back at the underwater laboratory.

The environment absorption speed is rather slow, so I could take advantage of the energy released during the explosion to quickly construct and activate the teleportation runes.

Hmmmmmm…

Yup, I think I’ll go for the last two options. Might even get my hands on some more ancient creations and blueprints.

I just hope the enemies around here are only basic zombies like these ones.

Should be fine, planets don’t know about Overlords and Elder Liches… They don’t, right?

Ahhh, I really hope not.

Onwards, we go!