I'm a Stingray?

Chapter 18 - Drunk Stingray

Tim was quite speedy. He swam three hundred meters deep, under the sea, and completed the task as a result. He didn’t get hurt either, as at some point he swam really slowly, just so he wouldn’t cross any physical bounds. His disk-like body was upgraded to endure three-hundred meters of ocean depth, specifically three-hundred, and he wasn’t willing to try his luck on the matter.

The system confirmed his success, the moment he hit the mark, she said. [Okay, that’s enough. You’re 300 meters deep, so we can mark the task associated with it as complete. Congratulations!]

Furthermore, she added. [As promised, you just got 30 system points as a reward. In total, you’ve accumulated 500 points, which isn’t bad at all for a guy your size! Good job, Timothy, very good.]

“Thank you,” He said, “You deserve most of the credit, though, for getting me out here. I got a hell lot of points, without working much for them… and I guess that’s why I need you as a guide in this new life. However, I have a question, system, why did you bring me all the way down here. It can’t be because of the points or the view, plus, I feel really weird right now, kinda tingly too.”

The system didn’t expect such a question from Timothy, and fairly so. He was presumably too dumb to ask such deep questions, so for a short moment, the system was stumped for words!

The system didn’t answer immediately, but when she did, she said. [The whole idea behind those three tasks I gave you, was to help you become more explorative. The reef is nice, and safe for a little guy like you, yes, but it would take an eternity to earn points there. You need to feel the sea weighing on your back, if you’re to become a true, powerful explorer. It’s as simple as that.]

Tim couldn’t argue with that ideology. The water pressure made him feel weird, yes, but then, at a certain point he didn’t mind it anymore. He found it interesting even, and spent a moment looking around. The depths he was in, featured utter darkness, so although he didn’t get to see much, it was still pretty interesting to be down here.

Eventually though, he spotted a little freckle, far below the sea, that was both interesting and intimidating! He saw many tiny, green dots, which were likely at the bottom of the ocean for some odd reason. They were at the bottom, yet they shone so luminously, which was the most interesting part about this, as simply, the light was powerful enough for the average eye to notice it!

Tim didn’t know what to think about them, he was really stumped, and so he asked. “System, why am I seeing those green dots? Are they dead sardines, because I saw a few green dots in that sardine storm as well…? I know I’m new to this world, but all this green stuff can’t be normal. It shouldn't be.”

[Such sightings are becoming quite a pattern, aren't they?] She followed along, and also added. [I fear that the smartest fish across the sea are planning something evil, they have to be. Now I don’t have evidence on this, but nothing about this world encourages such a constant appearance of green… products? Something is going on, and it’s new, so it's too modern for me to know about it.]

Tim was amused by this, he even cackled as much as a stingray could cackle, and then he said. “I never thought I’d hear you talk like a conspiracy theorist, system, but I’ll take your word for it. We’ll probably run into the jerks who’re sprinkling this green shit around.”

With that said, they could move on with their day. Tim had a couple of other things to do, and the next little task, included getting drunk. He wanted to eat a bunch of those rotter sardines, and then hunt Harold the eel to death. He planned to settle his vendetta today, and was happy that he had discovered the cruelest way to do so! He was ready to have some horrendous fun.

…

Tim had a good-ish, working memory. He was able to memorize where a few of the dead sardines had floated down at. He found several of them across the sand, somewhere in front of the reef. After he found them, he didn’t eat the sardines immediately, no.

Instead, he pushed and fin-slapped the sardines, just to form a big pile of them, all in one place. He figured that he wouldn’t be able to find so many of them if he was dead drunk, so he was preparing against that, before time. He pushed nine sardines together into a pile, and now, he was ready to eat them.

“I spent half an hour slapping these motherfuckers around, let’s see if they’re worthwhile. Harold won't see what's coming, hehehe!” He muttered.

The idea was to eat all of these sardines, and that was quite possible too, because they were really small, a few inches each, actually. He wanted to get really drunk, or in another word, really amped with power! Tim was quite hungry too, as he had been swimming around for a few hours now, so he ate all nine of these sardines within minutes!

At some point, he complained. “Hmm… where is the drunkenness?”

Tim waited for about ten minutes, but he didn’t really feel drunk yet. This was weird, so he briefly considered lurking around for more sardines, in order to eat them and encourage drunkenness even further, but that may not do him any good either. His stomach was full now, so he couldn’t fit more sardines in there, even if he tried.

With that considered, he started getting really irritated. For a second, he even wondered if the system had been wrong about the sardines and their promised powers. It was unlikely for her to be wrong, yet at the moment, he couldn’t help thinking about it.

However, what happened next was quite spontaneous! He was suddenly drunk, very drunk, to the point where he didn’t notice that he was floating upside down!

Tim noticed that he was drunk, about two minutes later. There were some key factors that convinced him about it, for example, his vision was very blurry, and he couldn't bear a single, coherent thought!

That aside, he was also floating upside down right now, and because of that, he had spent a good moment bickering with himself about the reef he was seeing. Tim didn’t know that he was upside down, so he kept thinking if the reef in front of him was new or not. He didn’t know if it was a new arrival, and these questions boggled his mind for ten whole minutes! He was bewildered.