I'm a Stingray?

Chapter 172: Different effect

But contrary to expectations, ugly looking shrimp didn't pop out of the pool after a few nerve wrenching moments. In fact most of the scene was anticlimactic, for the hero at least.

The rest were mostly watching in fear as their couple of friends were being devoured by the holy tar! It first started out with their form being as if melted, which was a good sign that a mutation was nearby.

These shrimps even began expanding in size right after, terrible to comprehend really because along with these changes came along ear piercing screams. And just when Timmy thought that the mutation was close to being over, the couple of shrimp exploded!

Limbs and other body parts of theirs were splattered across the sea-waters, and some of them even landed above the heads of other allies. It was gruesome at least but the stingray was smiling about this, because now at least he wouldn't have to fight any mutants.

Noticing that the entire large group has been left in shock, he shouted out. "Okay now let's get back to work! Don't fall in the tar, you saw what happened."

A few translators amongst them followed along by explaining the command to everyone, and within a half minute everyone went back to work. This situation ended up better than expected, but it doesn't mean that it didn't cause more questions.

The last time he saw a fish drop in the holy-tar, the effects weren't exactly like what he saw today. Back when he witnessed a dead body being tossed in the holy tar, the effects were not so different from being tossed in lava. The body slowly melted and there was no way to stop that.

But the carcass didn't explode which made this situation a whole lot more difficult to understand. It is as if this was a whole different patch of holy-tar.

It was difficult to make up a theory on something that even the system didn't have information for, so these thoughts were quickly abandoned. The holy-tar tribes don't need to be understood in order to be destroyed.

Although frightened to the core, the white-legged shrimp continued to work and hoped that this day would end soon. Although what they could carry wasn't massive, nearly a hundred of them contributing into covering this pool, had an effect fast enough for the naked eye to notice it.

It became boring to watch them work so the young one asked, "System, are there any upgrades that I can buy?"

Upgrading in front of everyone would be a tremendously bad idea, he wasn't dumb enough to do that. But just wanted to do something with his time instead, the situation was boring.

[The cheapest upgrade is 250 system points so you can't buy anything]

"Of course, things are only becoming more expensive." After a bit of pondering, he came up with a small little idea. "Maybe I should hunt another barracuda."

[That would generally be a dumb idea for someone of your size. But in this case, your tail is in no condition to fight]

"I forgot about that." He answered and tried to move the tail a little bit, only to feel pain that caused a flinch.

It took a good couple of hours before the tar was buried down a few feet between rock, coral and dirt but it stood evident that the job was well done. No fish would be strong or dumb enough to smash heads against a pile of nothing. Even if they did, the aftermath would surely be something they regret.

With this situation handled, he gave out a command for everyone to stop working so they could go back home. And such a command was valued as if sent by god, because they were simply sick of working.

...

They arrived back at the closest by, white-legged shrimp tribe in a short time and began settling in their surroundings. Some were relaxing a tad bit before preparing to travel once more, because their tribe was located a few tens of meters away from here.

While everyone was doing with their time what they wanted to, Timothy was looking for the president of this whole community. Considering what a face the little hero was carrying, one would think that a war would break out soon.

But that wasn't the case, the boy was just confused and in exchange carried facial expressions, that were no different from a bull frog who couldn't find a mate.

These shrimp observe the king's motions every second, so the talk regarding what he does, spread fast amongst the tribe. In a few seconds it became certain that the president was looking for the king, more than the other way around.

And they eventually met, the elder immediately showed his manners. "Greetings sire, I heard you've been looking for me."

"Bad news first." The blue-dotted menace answered, as if the topic was about news to begin with. "A couple of your shrimps have fallen in the tar and exploded."

"What!" A shout erupted from the latter. But upon a bit of pondering, he decided that this was expected.

Right after, the young one continued with the topic he had planted seeds on, citing. "The good news is that the pool of holy-tar has been completely covered. Crazed fish won't come from your tribe, at least not because of that pool."

"You frighten me." The old shrimp was quick to assure, and had to ask. "You're saying that there are more pools out there?"

Feeling a bit smart, he immediately asked about a topic he had been building up conversations for. "Most likely yes. I was going to ask if these shrimp have reported anything weird, like that pool we just covered."

Wearing a pale look on his face, even paler than a shrimp's overall skin, the president shouted. "No, of course not! How would anyone know about these bastardous clans you follow!"

A bit confused regarding why this geezer erupted, the young one expressed. "I don't follow them, they just need to be destroyed and clearly neither of you could do that."

"Well we haven't heard or saw anything." The latter answered and then just broke out the conversation by crawling away, adding. "I need to manage the men now, have a good day."

Such reactions were best described as weird, but the young one couldn't make anything out of it and just swam away, to look for any other tribes. That's when a weird tone reached his ears.

It sounded weird at first but after a while it was subconsciously categorized as a whisper, "Pst... we need to talk."