Whoa, a new skill! It was just about time for this weird system to reward me for my greatness! I greedily commanded to see the skill, and a weird-ass animation played before I could read what it was.

  Man, this system was jank sometimes.

  The animation was full of confetti and lights, making me close my eyes. When I opened them, I was rewarded with the description of the new tool in my arsenal.

  [Skill - Bubble Flash]

  Type - Active

  Cooldown - 30 minutes

  You know how Mantis shrimp can punch so fast that there’s literally a flash of light when they kill their prey? Of course you do - you are one, after all.

  There is no water here, since watching this all play out under the ocean would be kind of boring for us, but we did want to transfer this skill to something usable even above water.

  Once activated, this skill will simulate the experience of picking up a phone in the middle of the night after you forgot that your screen brightness was maxed out. In other words, so your little crustacean brain can understand, your next punch will create a brilliant flash of light, blinding everyone around you. And we seriously mean EVERYONE.

  Please, use it on your allies in battle, okay? We are sure it would be hilarious to watch that play out.

  Wow, these fuckers would not stop making fun of me, would they? At least the skill was somewhat useful, even though nowhere near as much as [Bullet Strike] was.

  "Hey Mark, who is even making these messages, item descriptions and such?"

  He started, and seemed to get lost in thought. "I don’t think I can tell you exactly. It's a god, of course. But I don’t remember the semantics on this rule in particular, but I’d rather not go through the glitching again."

  That was fair, I supposed. It would just be another mystery that I wouldn’t get an answer to for who knew how long.

  Okay, whatever, the lack of answers would bother me for no longer! I needed to get stronger so I could fight stronger opponents. And that meant one thing.

  A step that would be unskippable. The most important thing for my ascension.

  I had trees to cut.

  ...

  And so I did. I spent the next several hours obliterating one tree after another, the silence of Mark (who occasionally had a remark) my only company. It honestly went by more swiftly than I thought it would.

  Sure, I had to take a break here and there, and also had to craft a new axe twice, and my hands began ebbing with pain a little, but it still felt good to work with my hands.

  Good? Holy crap, wasn’t I a Mantis Shrimp, an apex predator? Why did I feel good about working with my hands? I dropped the damned axe and looked at Mark.

  "That should be enough. I’ll need some people to work under me if you want me to get more. Royalty should not have to dally with cutting trees!"

  Silence, and then Mark started laughing. "Dude, you, being royalty? We’re skipping ahead a bit, aren’t we? Hahah. You’re really funny sometimes. But okay. Give me a second to see if we have enough wood."

  “Of course I am! I’ll make all the animals kiss my feet once I win this tournament!”

  Mark continued laughing. “Okay, whatever. All hail his Shrimpness, I guess.”

  I knew that was a jab at me, okay? I did. It didn’t make it sound any less amazing. His glorious Shrimpiness Shrimpie the Peacock Mantis Shrimp, the one to rule them all. How great was that?

  I watched him look over my inventory, mumbling some numbers that meant who knew what. Doing nothing made me realize yet another thing - I was so damn hungry. Have I eaten anything since I’ve gotten here to this strange world? I could definitely not remember doing so.

  As if on cue, a rumbling from my gut stopped the silence, and just did not stop rumbling in bursts. It eventually got so loud that it prompted even Mark to look up. "What’s up, Shrimpie?”

  “I want to go eat.” I didn’t even have enough energy to express my hunger properly, and it came out more like a statement than an order that it was supposed to be.

  ”Well, I think we have enough wood. At least for the walls and a roof, at any rate. Some spares for a woodframe and a basic crafting table, too."

  "And my food?"

  "You still have those crabs in your inventory, no? I think Crudia took the corpses of the Tengu, but I have no clue if those are edible."

  "They were birds. They ought to be."

  He didn’t bother looking back as he started floating in the direction of where we were supposed to meet. "Maybe, but they looked humanoid, right?"

  "And that matters why, exactly? Birds are birds."

  My lack of human inhibitions about eating something vaguely human seemed to bother him for some reason. Didn’t some humans eat their own, too? Or was that some kind of cultural thing I did not fully understand? I would certainly not let a completely okay dinner slip by when it was served on a platter.

  Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on the original website.

  He finally turned to me, a desperation in his posture that he tried to hide. He failed, though. "Just please don’t eat humans, Shrimpie. I suppose there’s nothing that bad about it from your perspective, but I don’t think I can take it watching you do so."

  Wow, so I’d have to restrict my eating habits too because of Mark’s human eccentricities, huh?

  I rolled my eyes, and nodded. "They're not humans. I'll just name them emergency rations, how about that?"

  Mark's eyes locked onto me, and then the inclined his head. "That works."

  Sighing, I just nodded and continued walking, watching my surroundings and the map for any sort of enemy approaching. I could see none, however, just as I couldn’t see the dot that represented Crudia. Where was she?

  Remembering that I could text her now, I pulled up the menu, looking for the channel that would let me do so. I opened it and let her know we were on our way.

  Typing human text was even weirder than talking or thinking. Sure, talking was weird, but at least it was the basic way of communicating. But texting? It was just something on top of that. What did humans use that for before this tournament?

  The small clearing in which we were supposed to meet soon became visible, prompting a slight sigh of relief from both me and Mark. The sun was already beyond its top spot on the horizon, but Mark assured me that we still had some time left until it started getting dark.

  "Yeah, we should be safe, don’t worry Shrimpie. I’ll take you through the crafting and building process."

  "More crafting? For god’s sake, does this ever end?"

  He giggled, though he still didn’t meet my eyes, instead looking at what I assumed to be his own menus and calculations. For how stupid he sometimes was, I had to admit that these calculations were truly something that I could not do. Or focus on at least.

  "The crafting should only be so prominent on the first floor, Shrimpie. The next few floors will have a completely different theme, different rules. They will definitely feature a new menu of some sort, though, so don’t get excited yet."

  That was good. I swore that if I had to collect and craft things for just one more floor, I’d rather just give up on the tournament. "Okay, I’ll hold on then. That better be a promise, though. I came to fight, not play human occupations here."

  "You didn’t come here voluntarily, let me remind you. Only humans had to be asked to come, since we were the dominant species on earth."

  "Wait, you chose to become this blue floating thing on purpose?"

  "No. To be precise, I-"

  Another glitch started then, blurring his words into a meaningless garble of sounds. It sounded like a volcanic vent farting air in the ocean.

  That would take a bit to sort itself out. And I seriously didn’t plan on functioning on an empty stomach for any longer. God, I was ravenous.

  I quickly took a few sticks out of my inventory, and went to place them on the ground. That was how the humans did it, no? But then, wouldn’t there be something in the crafting system to make it simpler? That was definitely the case with the axe.

  I tried looking for it, even using the cursed, god-forsaken search bar, and voilá- it was right there. A campfire. Without further ado, I crafted it, and placed it on the ground.

  I was so hungry that I didn’t even bother trying to understand the building menu - placing the campfire was all I needed for now.

  The fire came to life, and I prepared my dinner.

  As the crabs started roasting, I received a reply from Crudia, her optimism seeping even through these texts.

  Shrimpie : We're at the meeting place. When are you coming?

  Crudia : Got’ya! We’re on our way too, by the way! We should be there in 20 minutes or so. We’ve taken a lot of the grass from around here, and Talisha went to explain about what all we could make out of them. Did you know that-

  Ugh. She was like a human already. What was the point of texting it all out? She could tell me herself when she arrived. Or better yet, tell Mark and not bother me with even more crafting. I’ve been sapient for less than two days, and yet I already knew what my least favorite word was.

  Maybe if I prayed to one of the entities running this whole thing, I’d be able to fight a sentient crafting menu of some sort?

  Mark, reading through the chat, didn’t seem to share the sentiment, though. What a nosy guy! Did he have no sense of privacy? "Oh, that’s nifty. I didn’t know you could make beds and the other stuff from it. Thought we'd need to find sheep for wool or whatever. Whoever made this was very liberal with the usage purposes of the materials."

  Doing my best to avoid prompting him to explain more, I remained quiet and ate in silence, waiting for Crudia and Talisha to arrive.

  When they did, the blissful silence got replaced by Crudia’s excited tales of her discoveries, prompting me to chew even harder. Somehow, eating a warm meal made me less mad about everything, funnily enough. Maybe it was a human quirk?

  Crudia stopped pestering Mark, and chose her next target. Sadly, that would be me. "Hey, Shrimpie! We found everything that we wanted. I also went to look for those crabs that you mentioned, and I found some more. Are they yummy? I’ve never eaten anything like them - mostly ate bugs and smaller animals before. But they-"

  Tolerating it no longer, I showed a cooked crab straight into her open mouth. Finally. Silence.

  She sat right next to me on the ground, and proceeded to gobble the thing up in mere seconds, chewing so loudly that I feared that it could alert some predators.

  Mark was talking about something with Talisha, the older woman scolding him about one thing or another. Could we switch guides? Was that possible? Maybe I’d have a bigger chance of winning if I had someone with a good head on her shoulders.

  As if seeing my attention, the two of them turned, stepping closer. Mark took the lead, showing off his game knowledge, as always. "You two finished eating? Good. We’ll need to get a move on with that base-building if we want to make it before dusk. Shimpie, I’ll take you through building the walls while Talisha guides Crudia through crafting a bed and the basic crafting table."

  There was no place for any opposition, and though I groaned about yet another crafting menu, I just went with the flow. I spent so much time in these menus these two days that I was beginning to wonder whether I’d gain a skill related to them somehow.

  The building menu itself was super hard to navigate, though. Mark did try to explain it as simply as he could, but the damn wooden walls had so many parameters and needed to be placed so damn precisely, that I knew we were in trouble before he’d even said a word.

  Hastily, he tried explaining everything to Crudia too, since she was already done with her part. Apparently, a bed could be stored in inventory as well. How nifty! I did wonder how sleeping in a bed would feel like, truth be told.

  But we wouldn’t make it before dusk, no matter what. It was clear from the way the shadows got deeper, as if drinking the light out of our surroundings. Sure, we had two-and-a-half walls placed, but still no roof or doors were ready.

  And that’s when it started. Mark’s voice cut through the silence born of my and Crudia’s concentration.

  "Behind you guys, something’s approaching!"

  Finally, a fight. It was a reprieve after all that I’ve been through. My fists were ready for punching, like always. I turned, watching for enemies, already seeing several enemies’ bodies radiating heat.

  My map was, once again, littered with red dots.

  This tournament wasn’t that bad after all.