Epic of Caterpillar
Epic of Caterpillar - Chapter 2: Delicious Fish

[Day 3]

I woke up and immediately could feel that my stamina had been restored, just before going to sleep my stamina was 18/100. But now that I have slept around 8 hours I have restored a whopping 78 points! Now I have 96 stamina points in total.

"I need to make sure I manage my stamina wisely if I get into a sticky situation like yesterday? I need to have stamina available so I can escape."

[Name: None

[Class: None

[Race: Common Forest Caterpillar

[Level: 2/10[XP: 110/150[Status: Fine

[HP: 8/8[MP: 0/0[Stamina: 96/100

[Strength: 3

[Defense: 4

[Magic: 0

[Resistance: 1

[Speed: 2

[Charisma: -1

[Luck: -2

I was thinking that I had gotten a bit stronger but my status is still low and disappointing.

"Hmm! It's a little less trash, but not by much so it's still trash… Sigh. Also what is this Blessing of ######### bullshit? What does it even do? Is it like one of those weird skills that the main characters get in those novels that the system can't show yet because they're too weak to use it? Or is it some kind of blessing from some mysterious being that doesn't belong in this world? Sigh…"

I was a little flustered over the lack of information I have about this new world I was suddenly transmigrated to.

"So many questions but I'm too weak to find any of them out yet… Alright! Time to go hunting! If I want answers I need to get strong first. That's how it is here, I understand!"

After talking to myself as if I were some kind of brave protagonist, I started my journey outside. I decided to go around to the West River because it seemed like the most peaceful place without many birds around. When I got near the river I saw crystalline water flow wildly, there I saw a reflection.

Finally, I could see what my face looked like. It was an almost black face with two strong haws and 4 eyes on top of my head, I had little whiskers on my cheeks and if it wasn't for the ugly scar near my two left eyes I'd almost look cute!

"I'm such an adorable little caterpillar! How could I have minus one charisma? This is complete bullshit!"

In the middle of my mental rambling, I felt a horrible presence watching me from below. When I looked down I saw a big fish that was looking at me with its ugly bubbly eyes! I quickly spend some of my stamina to get some distance between me and the river.

"Sigh that was close… I'm glad I saved my stamina but I wish I could have eaten that fish! It looked so meaty… so juicy… so tasty… Ugh, I miss fried fish, smoked fish, even raw fish! I miss you so much-"

Just before I could finish my thoughts the huge fish jumped out of the water and started walking towards me with its four little limbs.

"What?! Guaah! A fish that can walk! I should have expected this from a fantasy world! (Well there are walking fish on Earth too but that's beside the point.) I'm so careless! So careless! This is the second time something like this has happened to me! Is it because of my minus two luck? Stupid System! Stupid Mysterious Voice!"

With all the force I could muster I started to use my stamina to run as fast as I was able to away from the walking fish. I realized that its limbs were very little and not well adapted to walking for extended periods, after a while, it started to slow down. Then suddenly the fish realized it had walked too far away from the river and began to suffocate right in front of me.

"What? Are you kidding me? Are you stupid? How could you not tell that you were so far away from the river already? WAIT! This is my opportunity to have fish! I could eat it right now and it wouldn't be able to stop me!"

Common Caterpillar VS Walking Fish!

Fight!

I slowly dragged my little body towards the suffocating fish as I opened my tiny mouth preparing for the feast in front of me. The fish looked at me with immense fear in its eyes!

"Hehehehe, this isn't your lucky day Mister Fishy! Now brace yourself for you are fighting the strongest caterpillar in this forest!"

The fish tried to drag its body back towards the river but it was far too slow.

"Hehehe! It is useless! Thanks for the meal! WEAK BITE! NOM! NOM! NOM! NOM! NOM!"

With each bite came a delicious fishy flavor that was incredibly fresh and juicy.

"Uaah! You're so delicious! I'm so happy right now, I can't believe there is happiness in this world! That you so much for being so stupid Mister Fish! NOM NOM NOM!"

While I ate the fish alive it struggled with all the force it could muster, due to its struggles though it wasted all of its stamina and got to the point where he couldn't move and could only witness how a small caterpillar munched on its body.

"NOM! NOM! NOM! NOM! NOM! Mmmmmm! I'm in heaven right now! Mwahahaha"

The fish could only cry in pain as he slowly died from suffocation and blood loss.

"Gluooop! Gluuoop! Geeh…"

[You've gained: 234 XP]

[You've gained: 1 level]

[Level: 4/10 XP: 14/200]

After analyzing the system message I couldn't resist the urge to laugh out in happiness!

"Ohohohoho! Nice! Very nice! Mister Fishy may the wicked god of this world bless you in the heavens! Mwahahahaha!"

After dragging the rest of the fish's body using my thread over to the hole in the old tree. I slowly devoured the whole thing, not even the bones were spared!

[You've obtained a new title: Merciless Aquatic Killer]

[You've learned the following skills]

[Underwater Breathing]

[Fish Strong Gills]

[Dry Skin]

[Water Elemental Affinity]

"Oooh! Amazing! So many skills just from a simple walking fish! I guess since it was just so much meat compared to my little caterpillar body I was able to get all these skills! Yet somehow I was able to eat the whole thing, it doesn't make sense at all. Is it because of my Belly related skills? This is broken! Ain't that awesome? I'm already getting the hang of this! Hahahaha! Just watch Mysterious Voice! STATUS!"

[Name: None

[Class: None

[Race: Common Forest Caterpillar

[Level: 4/10[XP: 14/150[Status: Full

[HP: 12/12[MP: 0/0[Stamina: 136/100

[Strength: 5

[Defense: 7

[Magic: 0

[Resistance: 3

[Speed: 4

[Charisma: -1

[Luck: -2

"Ohohohoho! I'm so busted now! Watch out world, a new menace has arrived! Now that I am in my comfortable bed let's see what these new skills are about… First, let's start with Dry Skin"

Right after activating the skill my whole body became covered in a fish-like skin, it looked ugly and sticky… Without even a minute passing the skin started to dry out incredibly fast.

WAIT! DEACTIVATE SKILL!... Is this even a skill? It's horrible! I almost died! Maybe this was what caused that stupid walking fish to suffocate to death… Sigh… I guess it would be useful if I go swimming but not now! Definitely !"

I decided to test the other skills near a puddle with some underground water.[Fish Strong Gills]gave me fish gills around my neck costing me 10 stamina. It's supposed to make it so I can breathe underwater and make my movements underwater even faster.[Underwater Breathing]is self-explanatory and[Water Elemental Affinity]seems to be related to magic because even when I tried to control some water nothing happened.

"Maybe there is a Water Manipulation skill out there? Damn, I wish I had that… Being able to use long-distance attacks would make me overpowered! Anyways, this day was a good harvest. Time to sleep!"

[Day 4]

After waking up from my 7-8 hours of sleep I began to practice using my threat manipulation with the spare stamina I had accumulated by eating the walking fish. It seems like the more I use it the less stamina that it requires, as if the skill levels up on its own when overusing it. But every time I check my status screen or my skills nothing like that shows up.

"Hmm, maybe I need to be at a higher level to understand how skills work in this system? I'll leave that for another day I suppose, but I have become quite skillful in all this thread mastery stuff if I do say so myself!"

After spending about 4 hours in the old tree slowly making my nest inside the hole safer and also fixing up the ceiling that the bird had broken and adding some little pieces of wood and rock to fortify it.

"Thread manipulation is one of the best skills in this world isn't it?"

After finishing my little project I decided to go hunt for food, and probably store some of it inside of my nest. Thanks to my level ups yesterday my speed stat increased by 2 so I can now move a little bit faster!... At least faster than a slug without having to spend so much stamina.

"Wait this is my fourth day in this damned hell hole of a world, isn't it? I wonder… What is the name of this world? Are there humans? How many countries does it have? How many intelligent races live here? Are there more continents?"

Because this forest is so dense and dark I can barely see anything over the trees and I don't want to risk going to the top because a bird could easily catch me! If I want to learn more about the truths of this world I must become strong! Strong enough to not fear being eaten by birds!

"Now that I think about it could I use the same tactic as yesterday to catch more walking fish? Lure them out of the river and get them to walk so far that they suffocate before they can even get back."

Admiring my wonderful idea with a smug look on my face I nodded to myself and patted myself on my back with one of my little chunky legs.

"Yea that should work! I don't lose anything trying it out and now that I am more confident in my thread skills I could easily run away with it if things get too bad!"

And like that, I went directly to the West River where the crystalline water flowed down the forest.

"Hehehehe… Let's try it out then…"

I approached the river and started to look around at the water waiting for something to happen. And just as I predicted a huge green colored walking fish started to watch me while I slowly moved around and played innocent. Then again, just as I predicted the fish jumped out of the river and started to run at me at full speed!

"Here it is! Now run!"

I began running at a medium speed using my stamina as efficiently as I could, this created a feeling that the fish could catch me at any moment. To my surprise, the fish started to suffocate just after the 13th tree. Using this opportunity I jumped onto its head and started activating Weak Bite repeatedly!

"Take this! NOM! NOM! NOM! NOM! NOM! Hmm?! This one is even more delicious than the last one! Is it a variant or something?"

The fish struggled uselessly as it tried to push me away from its head… And after several minutes of agony, the fish finally died on the spot.

"Gluooop…!"

[You've gained: 283 XP]

[You've gained: 1 level]

[Level: 5/10 XP: 97/200]

"Mwahahahaha! It worked! It really worked! YES! See Mysterious Voice! I can handle myself just fine! I never needed any cheat skill, to begin with! Hahahahaha! Wait… I do have a cheat skill… Well, anyways I won!"

Just after the fish died I used my threat to completely wrap in like a mummy and dragged it to my nest.

"Hmmm… It all went perfectly, too perfectly… There are not even any monsters around? Why is that? Should I be careless with these safe opportunities or should I be afraid?"

Just after I started to ponder my luck a big bird flew over me, grabbed my fish, and went flying away, as if it was waiting for its opportunity to strike!

"WHAT?! Damned bird! It was so fast! I couldn't do anything! My food! You bastard how will lI recover my Stamina now? Eh?"

I wasn't even able to cry over my food being stolen by a bird since a weird mass of red little dots started moving in my direction at an increasing speed.

"What the hell is that? Are those ants? Those are ants that are all stuck together… WAIT this is horrible! They're going to catch me and eat me slowly! No way! Uaah!"

As I imagined how much suffering I would go through if I were to be eaten alive by millions of ants, I used all my stamina to run off as fast as I could, but the Ant Ball (Guess I'll call it that) didn't give up on my juicy and fatty self!

"Where do I even go? If I got to my nest they'll just destroy it and still eat me alive. Oh right! The River! I bet Ants can't swim in this world, they're just ants after all! Hahahahaha! Time to swim for my life!"

I activated my skills Fish Strong Gills and Dry Skin to let me swim easily in the river as I jumped in while my Underwater Breathing skill let my breath underwater.

"Ahh! They are still jumping in? What are they doing? Can they swim after all?! No… Wait… Yea nevermind they are just stupid…"

Just as I started to freak out the Ants began to drown without even struggling as the ball of Ants dissolved in the River.

"Yup they are just stupid… What's wrong with the monsters in this world? Are the birds the only intelligent beings here? Well, I'll take this opportunity to eat you all!"

The ants struggled but to no avail… Why did they struggle now but not when they were drowning? Whatever… I devoured the ants one by one and after I had eaten more than a hundred ants the rest had been washed all over the river by the strong currents.

[You've gained: 283 XP]

[Level: 5/10 XP: 97/200]

[You've learned the following skills]

[Group Command]

[Attack Command]

[Defense Command]

『Hahahahaha! I win this time Ants! I even got some pretty weird skills out of it.』

It seems bugs are usually very stupid so I guess I'm an exception being a reincarnated soul of an intelligent being.

"How convenient, but I wonder how a little caterpillar brain can contain such a strong human mind… Sigh… Another question I need to find an answer for in the future."

After the Ant feast, my stamina recovered by a fine amount. I got out of the river and then stealthily walked towards my nest.

"Sigh… I didn't get any fish today… That damned bird!… Sigh… I'm so tired, swimming really tired out my whole chunky body… Well, let's have a look at my status at least… STATUS"

[Name: None

[Class: None

[Race: Common Forest Caterpillar

[Level: 5/10[XP: 215/220[Status: Fine

[HP: 14/14[MP: 0/0[Stamina: 85/100

[Strength: 6

[Defense: 8

[Magic: 0

[Resistance: 4

[Speed: 5

[Charisma: -1

[Luck: -2

"Hmm! So it increases one in each stat every time I level up? Except for MP, Magic, Charisma, and Luck, that's kind of lame… But how could a stupid caterpillar even have a magical affinity? Aksi why do I have a level cap? Will I never be able to level up over 10? Or is it something else? Maybe evolution? No way… What could a pitiful caterpillar even evolve into? Perhaps some weak butterfly… I wish I could become some humanoid or a strong dragon! I wish I could see my evolution tree if there is one! I need to level up more!"

I tested the command skills but it seems that they don't work unless I have several minions at my disposal.

"I wonder if I could create something similar to those Ant Balls… I could easily travel through the forest without wasting stamina then. It would be the best! Anyways, time to sleep, I'll catch a fish tomorrow… NO, I'll catch TWO fish! Mark my words Mysterious Voice! Now, good night to me."