Chapter 24

God dammit it itches so much! The repair job was taking its sweet time, and in the meantime, I was left with a feeling of a thousand ants crawling on my body.

It seems that general movement is not recognized as a primary system, and thus, I'm still stuck here. Alright, nothing more to it, let's get upgrading!

=======

-Advanced defence system - 10 grams biomass, 5 crystalline molecules, ???

-Advanced offence system - 25 grams biomass, 8 crystalline molecules, ???

-Advanced movement system - 20 grams biomass, 10 crystalline molecules, ???

-Primitive conversion system - 0,01 micrograms biomass, 1 crystalline molecule

-Upgraded energy storage - 2 micrograms biomass, 1 crystalline molecule

-Extracellular offence system - 1,2 micrograms biomass

-Additional basic modules - 0,3 micrograms biomass

-Photoreceptors - 3 micrograms biomass, 1 crystalline molecule

=======

So many choices, and only one that I truly want. Just in case, let's buy 20 more cell modules to avoid that stupid message.

=======

-Purchased ‘Additional basic modules’ - x20

-Cannot purchase 'Photoreceptors' insufficient amount of free modules.

=======

REEAALLY?

Even after 20 more? Can't you just show me how much of them I need beforehand? Alright, here goes 20 more modules. Now, I should have 40 or more, free. Would be cool if I knew the exact number, but we can't just get all the nice things in life. Blah, blah, blah, something, something a life lesson. I mean, I can currently feel so much more, but that doesn't mean I know specifically how many of them are free.

=======

-Purchased ‘Additional basic modules’ - x20

-Purchased ‘Photoreceptors’

=======

And Kevin said - “Let there be light” - and there was fuck all. Point being, there's no trusting Kevin with playing God.

Seriously though, I can't see shit. This was supposed to fix my inability to notice that there is a freaking shark right in front of me before I decide to bump it on the nose. Let's be honest, that has to be a shark, else it makes the whole thing even less cool. If you have to be a shit, you should aim for being a… I honestly don't know where I was going with that joke. I can't be a professional comedian in every situation, sometimes, even I suck.

I can't be all that bad, there are still two persons hanging around me. Maybe they're stuck? Well, sucks to be them.

And if you have to ask, yes I'm being an escapist by distracting myself of the fact that I just had my hopes crushed.

=======

-Purchased ‘Primitive conversion system’

=======

Oh look, I found something I had a use for ages ago. Looks like this thing automatically converts materials into biomass. That seems useful, right? Wrong! The conversion is a small pittance compared to what I currently have. I shouldn't have expected anything more from a “primitive” conversion system, but I'm getting really desperate here. Well, where is the more advanced one then? Okay, let's look at this from a bright side - if I finally get to sleep for decades it might come in handy. Who needs work anyway, when you can just take a nap for a few hundred years and come back to a full bank.

"Neeext!”

=======

-Purchased ‘Extracellular offence system’

=======

I guess it makes my offence better or something. I dunno, I find it hard to be excited about anything anymore. It's like my midlife crisis all over again. How did I survive the last one? Oh right, mom told me I'm only 22 and I couldn't be having a midlife crisis and it was more of teenage angst, so I magically became better… No, not really. I went hard into living a solitary life that consisted of mundane work and gaming. I stopped trying to contact my friends and after a while, they stopped trying to contact me. Before I realised my mistakes, everyone had already moved on, and I was alone in my apartment. Everything else was a downward spiral from that point onwards.

“Sorry Susan, I didn't mean to sound so depressive. I'll try to go back to silly jokes and lame comments about the situation at hand.”

Hey, good news - I got my basic movement back. My tail, aka flagella, is still being repaired, but at least I'm not a sitting target anymore. Let's just slowly search for anything interesting. Worst case scenario, I call always resort to humping plants with my improved ‘touch’. It's what animals do, right? Or was that only my neighbour’s dog that did so?

And after raising my body from the ditch I was in, I see a light.

Graced with new hope, I rush to surface. Up there, is my last hope. No more of this horrid game. I either finally get what I want, or we are dive bombing the next shark that comes by and ending this nightmare.

It's beautiful…

That tree or stone or flower or hill is so pretty. It could be any of those, but that grey indistinct shape is amazing. I can finally see. Granted, I currently only see vague grey shapes in a field of black and white, but it's more than I could have hoped for. Turns out that if you have your head stuck under the sand, all you see is darkness. Who would've known?

I'm currently at surface level, looking outside. Everything I see requires a degree in modern art to even start to guess at what is what, but it's enough for the current me. I'm thankful for the lack of tear ducts, as manly tears would be shed otherwise.

I look down and the abyss looks back. It's pitch black, and only the surface area has some semblance of shapes, that I can see, moving through it. They too remain indistinct, but at least I can judge their size. I'm not returning down there, I think my fear of darkness is resurfacing. Sometimes, not knowing is the best you can ask for, but I would never go back to the state before. It's time to turn a new page on my journey. It's time to take matters into my own hands! No more random encounters! We are upgrading this old JRPG to a western 'Choose your own adventure' style.

I look at the surface level and spot a shape my own size. I see it moving away. It hasn't noticed me. Scratch that, I don't even think it can. I swim closer, ready to turn tail at the sign of any danger. No murderous crocodiles so far, and just like that, I'm near it. Even before the first bump, my improved combat drones, aka vesicles, swarm the enemy. At first, there is no reaction, but soon it dashes away and I follow it closely.

It seems so obvious, now that I have sight, that the running away mechanism for all these creatures, is not based on any conscious thought, as it starts to move in circles with no obvious tactics behind the manoeuvre, sometimes even closing in on me. A few bumps later and the grey thing stops moving. I go in for the kill.

*Bump* - The target slides away from the impact.

Okay, what is it now? Why does every time I finally have fun, something inevitably fucks up? As I try to move in to swallow the thing, it keeps bouncing off my shell without being pulled in. Why, why, why??? Just die already, for fuck's sake! Let me eat you!

I keep on assaulting the bloody thing, but it just doesn't go in. Am I too small for the job? Will I keep going with even more sexual innuendos? All these fine questions and no answers in sight.

Why now tho? It almost always worked before? The only things I couldn't absorb were still alive and too big. This thing, already lost one-third its mass from my toxic attacks. It's a hundred and ten per cent dead.

By coincidence and sheer madness of my assault, some part of it finally gets pulled inside. I feel my left side absorbing the floating parts, and just like that, I got my answer - you can't eat with your eyes.

It might sound stupid, but if I think about it, I'm 90% eyes and nerve bundle. Most of the new modules went for housing my sensory systems. If I had a mirror, I would look like a giant eyeball connected to neural bundle with a tail behind it. Behold the beholder.

=======

-Purchased ‘Additional basic modules’ - x100

=======

Yes, let's just skip the unnecessary hassle and spend all my money in one go. I will keep some biomass for emergencies, but that is most of it gone. I try to imagine where the new parts should go, and either It worked or my body knew where to best place them, even without my input. I could feel my sides widening and stretching, trying to better adapt to this dangerous environment. I hover my body near the rest of the dead cell mass, and, finally, can feel the usual sensation of engulfing a new prey.

=======

/Absorbed:

-Multicellular organism - x1

=======

There was nothing new I could currently do, and everything else I could, require too steep of a price. I didn't quite pay enough attention at that moment as my thoughts lingered on my impending doom, but those crystalline molecule thingies must've come for the food inside the fish that ate me. I never did get any of it when I dug the ground, but as a cell, it was only a few centimetres deep hole. It's probably one of those rare elements like uranium or unobtainium.

I was lost in my thoughts when a shadow crossed my vision. It was twice as large as my last foe, but seeing as I easily took care of that one, I should have no problems upping my game.

Meh, let's go for it! Susan, Kevin let's show these peasants, who's the real boss around these parts!