So I’m a Fish, So What?

It happened without any prior warning.

Three days after that incident with Wakaba, we were seated in class, listening to Ms Oka's lecture.

But then I heard it.

Even without {Space Awareness}, it was as clear as day.

The space around us was screaming; It felt as if the world was in agony.

After hearing it, I quickly locked on to its source.

Cracks were forming mid-air right above our heads.

A quick overview of the class let me confirm that everyone's oblivious to the situation, except for Shunsuke and Wakaba, who were looking at me and the crack.

One had an expression of fear and incomprehension while the other was still expressionless.

My mind goes on overdrive, instinctively trying to find a way out, but then I remember that this was my goal from the start.

I've given my family mental preparations the past few days, and I've already done all that needs to be done in this world.

Relaxing my tense body, I give the two people looking at me an excited smile while mouthing the word See you later! with my lips.

Then, agonizing pain assaults my body and I promptly lose consciousness.

 

{Condition satisfied. [Soul Archives Manger] booting up.}

{Warning! Soul invasion detected! Unable to block!}

{Activating entity [World Link] and turning on ability: [Super Intuition].}

{No malicious intent detected. Defense attempts halted.}

{[Soul Archives Manager] is being updated.}

{Detecting master's hopes for skill.}

{Confirmed. [Soul Archives Manager] has been upgraded and integrated into Skill [Sage].}

{[Space talent] has been integrated into Skill [Daughter of Space].}

{[Soul talent] has been integrated into Skill [Soul Seeker].}

{Messages from Upper Administrator Sariel are to be received and transmitted by [Sage] from here on after.}

{Previous logs are to be hidden under the request of Upper Administrator D. Condition for restoration: Apotheosis.}

 

 

Ughhh... That fucking hurt!!

I'm waking up in a warm dark place again, huh? Another pre-birth awakening...?

Manager-san should be back online, I need to turn on my sphere too.

Huh, why is my sphere's range this minuscule?!

It's been cut down to like a 5-meter radius. That’s over 99% of its range gone!

Wait, am I inside an egg right now?!

Manager-san, analyze!

 

{Unidentified marine creature egg: Egg belonging to an unknown fish species, similar to species egg: Pomadasys argenteus. Status: Ready to hatch.}

 

Ahhh, so I can’t get details from Divine Voice without Appraisal.

Appraisal should work miracles when combined with Manager-san as well, awesome!

All right, please use my skill points to get Appraisal!

 

{Insufficient Skill points.}

 

...huh?

That’s like absolutely impossible though, right?!

Appraisal should be very cheap to obtain since I already have a Manager-san which is considered even better.

The only possible explanation is that I don’t have any skill points...?!

I try out several other skills that I should be suited for like Concentration, Memory, and Arithmetic Processing, but not a single one works.

Yup, I have nothing...

But even Kumoko had 100 skill points in the beginning, why do I have none at all?

Maybe I got some sick OP skill that had to use up all my skill points?!

Argh, whatever, I can’t figure it out without Appraisal anyways so let’s focus on now.

I’m not even a humanoid, what the hell...

I hope there’s some sort of humanoid evolution like Kumoko’s Arachne available down the line.

At least I enjoy monsters’ advantages like faster leveling and others.

Well, c’mon me, no time to waste!

First off, I need to break out of my egg.

I slam my body into the shell, easily breaking through and emerging into the waters.

Marine creatures’ hatching is a lot easier than land ones; The eggshells are mostly brittle due to the water there are always soaked in.

Scanning my surroundings with my sphere, I find myself in some sort of vertical underwater cave system with bare minimum sunlight coming from above.

My smaller sphere can’t detect the roof and floor of this cave, but I’m guessing there's no roof as sunlight can clearly reach here unimpeded.

I’ll be using my sphere from now on, fish’s vision is really freaky.

Behind me is a ledge where tens of eggs similar to the one I just came out from lay.

I’m guessing some of them are brothers and sisters while the others are cousins...?

Well, I’ll mark this place to get the title Kin Eater later.

I start going through the information I have about Pomadasys argenteus, although it’s certain that my species is different in some way.

Pomadasys argenteus or just Silver Grunts are saltwater ray-finned fish with a single spiky dorsal fin, they average a length of 25 centimeters in adulthood though much larger ones have been caught before.

They generally prey on crustaceans, mollusks, and marine worms so they’re meat eaters.

I look around and immediately spot some crabs and worms.

Spotting them was easy; They are sticking onto the walls and ledges of the cave.

Crabs may fight back, and while worms are generally nothing but fish food on earth, they might be poisonous here.

Juvenile crabs seem to consider them as a staple food in their diet though, so they should be safe.

Deciding to go for the worms, I lock onto an isolated one near my position.

Uhh, I don’t really know how a fish normally eats, so I’ll just slurp this one up like spaghetti.

Sluurp!

Honestly, it’s below average in taste, like how veggies are for children, but at least it’s not unpalatable.

That also means it’s not poisonous, Great!  Manager-san also confirms that my body is unharmed.

Although it's quite terrible compared to my normal meals, I can make do with it.

For safety reasons, I’ll have to stay here and eat those guys for the upcoming period.

A newly hatched fish is the main dish for pretty much all marine carnivores out there.

I also need to get used to this new body, and I’m not sure how much water pressure I can handle.

Well, it’s feeding time, heh heh.

 

{Experience has reached the required level. Individual spina argentea has increased from LV 1 to LV 2}

{All basic attributes have increased.}

{Skill proficiency level-up bonus acquired.}

{Proficiency has reached the required level. Skill [Swimming LV 1] has become [Swimming LV 2].}

{Skill points acquired.}

 

This came up after two more worms entered my belly.

Ooohhh! So, spina argentea is my species’ name!

Wait... Isn’t that just the Latin way of saying silver thorn?!

Oi oi, were the administrators too lazy to name all the monsters on this planet??

Man, it’s like the one naming this found that their naming sense is bad, so they just tried typing in some cool shit into a translator.

Well, nothing I can do about it.

I still don’t have enough skills points for Appraisal, so I’ll assume that I gain 10 per level while Appraisal costs 100 points for now.

Also, my body didn’t molt after the level-up, and since I was careful not to get hurt, I don’t know if I recover like in the anime.

Not risking it for experimentation though, I only have one life.

My body did grow though, I gained two centimeters in length, putting me at a grand total of five!

If my maximum level is 10 before evolution, then I’ll be 21 centimeters long by then.

It seems that leveling means quick growth for my species, so I should abuse this and reach adulthood quickly.

My red stamina bar is probably full right now, as I can feel my stomach bloating a bit and my movement is slowing down.

Overeating is a skill I definitely want though, so I’ll drag some worms back to where I hatched.

Surrounding myself with other eggs is a makeshift security measure I can use until the worms are digested.

Let’s get to it then.

 

{Experience has reached the required level. Individual spina argentea has increased from LV 2 to LV 3}

{All basic attributes have increased.}

{Skill proficiency level-up bonus acquired.}

{Proficiency has reached the required level. Acquired skill [Night Vision LV 1].}

{Skill points acquired.}

 

And I’m 7 centimeters long now. That’s only after I killed five worms by biting their heads.

Gaining Night vision doesn’t really help much right now as I’m using space as a medium of vision instead of my eyes.

Not much difference can be observed in my fish vision for now though, probably have to wait until it's a higher level. 

Overeating should have gained some proficiency with this; I may get it by the next level!

I just realized this as well, but my sphere’s range is increasing with the growth as well.

It’s negligible compared to what it used to be though. Only half a meter per level. It has just reached 6-meters in radius.

My thought acceleration is unavailable as the fish brain is too small apparently...? Luckily, I don’t need it for now.

Manager-san has become more proactive, which is a very welcome change. Maybe she was affected by my reincarnation skill.

I’m really curious about what my reincarnation skills are, though. I don’t feel any boosts except for Manager-san’s changes.

This either means they require prerequisite skills, or they need to be actively used, like Katia’s Transition skill.

I’ll find out if my guesses are correct at level 10, I’m hyped!

 

{Proficiency has reached the required level. Acquired skill [Prediction LV1]}

 

...? That’s not normal, such mental skills normally take a lot of proficiency to level.

My reincarnation skill must have something to do with mental skills or souls.

I mean Manager-san is affected by it, so these two are the only branches I can think of.

Leveling up quickly is the best way for me to explore such things.

The worms in this cave only survived because I don’t want to draw predators to my resting area due to the high number of corpses.

Lucky bastards, I tell ya.

Since Manager-san is now proactive I can let her keep watch while I focus on fixing my soul.

Those chunks I marked Aiko and the others with are still hurting from time to time, I believe the only reason there are no other side effects is that not much soul strength is needed when controlling a human body or this fish body.

But this is a great hidden danger for my future evolutions, literally a ticking time bomb.

My reincarnation skill might help me fix it quicker though, let’s just hope for the best!

Well then, Good night.