So I’m a Fish, So What?

“Both of your questions require some backstory to answer and they aren’t all that important, so I’ll temporarily skip them.” I dismissed Sachi’s previous question with a casual excuse. “Getting familiar with your environment however, is vital. Let’s begin with a quick rundown on this world’s settings first, shall we?”

I put my hands together in applause, showing no intention of changing my decision.

Sachi fell silent for a short moment before helplessly nodding in agreement.

“Reasonable, though I highly doubt your motives. The newly discovered aspects of your personality don’t exactly paint you as a good guy, no offense.”

“As blunt as ever, Class Rep.” I chuckled, giving her an appreciative nod. “Fine by me, I dislike those who dance around with their words and I never labeled myself the good guy in the first place.”

Taking a sip from my soda, I moved my eyes to the bright moons hanging outside the window.

As a master-tier storyteller, I need to make sure my audience is always hooked.

To do that, suspense is but a basic requirement!

It’s not that I wanna enjoy watching Sachi nervously shifting around.

Definitely not, fufufu~

Therefore, I kept my silence till I felt Sachi starting to fidget around uneasily in her swaddle.

“Just like your typical manga protagonist, we died and reincarnated in a fantasy world that has a game-like system governing it.” I suddenly began speaking.

Sachi swiftly recovered and her eyes darted to mine with focus so intense you’d think I’m telling her the method to gain eternal life or something.

The thing is, even if I’m doing so, it’s literally impossible for her to miss or mishear a word in the first place.

Telepathic messages are transmitted directly to the brain through a mental connection with distance being the only practical limitation.

Cutting off that irrelevant train of thought, I nonchalantly took another swig from my soda before continuing.

“You know how it goes. Swords and magic. Blah blah blah. Elves, dwarves, and beast men, Yada yada. Sadly, there is a serious lack of diversity when it comes to the latter.”

There are only four main intelligent races running around this world: Humans, elves, demons, and dragons.

All other intelligent, humanoid creatures are essentially monsters that achieved a one in a million chance evolution through pure dumb luck with the only exception being us reincarnations.

Whether it’s beast men, dwarves, fairies, spirits, or any of those miraculous races, they don’t exist.

As a matter of fact, demons unexpectedly turned out to be genetically modified humans.

And considering the elf chief’s cyborg body, I have a foreboding feeling that the elf race came about due to similar circumstances.

Adding to that the information I received upon maxing taboo, I came to a tragic realization.

Rather than a fantasy world of sword, magic, and monsters, this world is more of a post-apocalyptic one– just long after the apocalypse has passed.

I was lied to.

I was tricked.

I was freaking bamboozled!

None of those fuckers are an actual fantasy race except for the dragons!

As such, I made the most obvious decision.

I decided to… create my very own fantasy race!

A REAL fantasy race, not some genetically modified human sham.

If cute cat-eared girls aren’t a thing, then Imma make them a thing!

Ready yourself, little vampire Sophia, cause I’m gunning for your skill!

“So the voice that asked me if I want Telepathy belongs to that system thing?”

Sachi’s voice brought me back to reality.

Quick on the uptake, she immediately connected the few puzzle pieces I gave her together.

“Yup-p! That voice is usually called ‘The Word of God’ by the natives and there’s even a huge religion that revolves around worshiping it.” I nodded, not hiding the ridicule in my tone.

“Religion, huh? It is one of the foundations of human civilization, after all.” She mumbled before going abnormally silent.

I could sense her silently trying to do something, but I was ignorant of what it could be.

Despite there not being much time left till dawn, there was more than enough for her to attempt a thing or two, so I didn’t interrupt her.

“Why isn’t it working?!” She suddenly exclaimed without any prior warning.

To say I was startled would be an understatement.

Yelling directly inside someone’s head would shock them even if they were prepared, let alone doing so when they’re totally oblivious.

Holding my head in pain, I watched Sachi squirming around cluelessly.

Unfortunately for her, her attention was currently directed elsewhere, so she missed the momentary irritation flashing in my eyes.

“Why is what not working?” Collecting myself together, I looked at her blankly while feigning confusion.

Well, I was genuinely confused, but it’s for a different reason.

 

“If it’s a game-like system, then there should be something like a status window, right? Don’t tell me I have to yell ‘STATUS OPEN’ out loud every time I wanna pull it up.” She groaned apprehensively.

I just continued staring at her dumbfoundedly for a few seconds before breaking out into a fit of laughter.

“Pfft. Ha-ha-ha-ha! That’s what’s bothering you?!”

It was so unexpected that I forgot to use Telepathy when retorting.

My loud voice woke her parents up, of course, but that minor issue was swiftly resolved.

A tiny spike filled with weak sleeping medicine can do wonders, I tell ya.

“Ha-ha-ha. Is your new baby body affecting your thought process, Class Rep? You can just ask me, y’know?” I snickered maliciously, wiping away a tear from the corner of my eye.

“....”

Her face went red, and I could sense shame building up inside her.

Saving her from the embarrassment, I promptly clarified her doubts.

“Status windows are indeed a thing, but accessing them is quite the difficult task. You need two specific skills raised at a high level if you wanna do so.”

“So troublesome?? How do ordinary people keep track of their strengths, then?” She asked in a perplexed tone.

“The system’s voice notifies you whenever you level up, acquire or level up a skill, or acquire a title, so you can roughly estimate your strength as long as you keep records.”

As I explained, I conjured a notebook and a feather pen using Alchemy, and held them up to make my point.

“Anything more detailed requires the skills or a special magic tool carrying them.”

“I see. What are those skills called?”

“Appraisal and Heresy Nullification.” I promptly answered, a cunning grin making its way to my lips.

Oh, this is gonna be fun to watch.

Fuck serving revenge as a cold dish– Serving it while it’s is piping hot is much more satisfying.

Sachi went quiet for a moment before replying.

“Appraisal…. Got it.” She announced, evidently buying the skill with skill points without consulting me. “I can’t seem to get my hands on Heresy Nullification though.”

“I would be surprised if you could. It is technically a level 21 skill, y’know? Not to mention the highest of its own branch.” I honestly revealed.

Ever since I got the Outer skill series, I stopped referring to skills by their different stages and just sorted them all into multiples of 10.

There’s also level 31 which I designated as the prestige level.

Skills like Kumoko’s Height of Occultism, Celestial Power, and my Trickster belong to this category.

They don’t have a specific level of their own, but they integrate several level 30 skills into themselves, meaning they’re of a higher level.

I’m assuming that’s the highest you can achieve within the boundaries of the W system until I happen upon something that integrates them.

“Do I really need such a high-level skill just to check my status? Isn’t that a complete overkill…?” Sachi pointed out her doubts hesitantly.

“Well… You CAN use Appraisal without Heresy Nullification, but it’s not a pleasant experience.” I truthfully divulged. “Y’know what? Just try it out on these and you’ll understand.”

Gesturing to myself and a couple of objects scattered around the room, I watched her next actions with anticipation.

I did pause for a moment to consider the consequences of doing this, but ultimately decided to go through with it.

It’s not like she could die on my watch anyways.

I get my revenge while also having fun watching her writhing in agonizing pain, so it’s a win for me.

At first, her eyes wandered over a few select items with wonder and a pinch of disappointment.

But it wasn’t long before I heard her first grunt of pain, throat-rending screams following soon after.

Quickly jumping to her position, I covered her eyes with one of my hands while casting weak Healing Magic on her head with the other.

I continued doing so until her screams died down a bit, then I finally spoke.

“You should be able to hear me now. Turn off Appraisal and clear your mind of any distracting thoughts. If you know how to meditate, do so.” I urged her gently, hiding my euphoria under a distressed expression.

It’s officially confirmed, ladies and gentlemen.

I really am a closet sadist.

The more you know, huh?

“What….. the…. heck…. was… that?!” Sachi’s intermittent thoughts reached me.

“That, my dear Class Rep, is what I call information overload.” I revealed with a theatrical gesture. “It occurs when your soul receives too much stimulus from the outside world all at once.” I explained with a sly grin.

There aren’t really many ways you could experience an information overload within the system boundaries.

In fact, I only know of four different ways that could happen.

Overusing Appraisal, Creature Training, and Kin Control are three of them.

Using Detection is the last and most painful one.

Luckily, you become immune to information overload once you acquire Heresy Nullification.

“Why… not…. warn me?!!” She snarled with gritted teeth.

“Hmmm?” I placed a hand under my chin and acted as if in deep thought. “To teach you a lesson, I guess?” I answered, tilting my head cutely.

“What lesson is that… pray tell?” She growled angrily.

“Don’t trust strangers? Also, don’t scream in other people’s heads, perhaps?” I responded with an innocent expression, my head still tilted.

“Oh…. Thank. You. Very. Much” She clearly understood why I did it, but each and every word coming out of her mouth was dripping with sarcasm.

“You’re very welcome, Class Rep!” I happily chirped, ignoring her discontent. “But for real though.” I suddenly turned serious. “Don’t trust anyone – even other reincarnations – unless you have an interest based bond or if they are naive. And you shouldn’t fully trust them even then. This is advice from a friend who has experienced the cruelty of this world.”

Well, I didn’t personally experience it, but I have witnessed how cruel it is first hand.

Neo and Alexia are living examples of it.

Not gonna tell Sachi about that though.

“Tch. I got it. So why and how did you find me?” She forcibly shifted the subject.

Taking notice of how late the time has become, I decide to stop playing around and get this all over with.

Neo is sleeping alone at the inn in Alleius right now, and I’d rather she doesn’t wake up without me next to her.

I’ve already given her the bare minimum information required for survival in this world.

A game-like system in an isekai fantasy means there are monsters and incredibly strong folks out there.

If she’s not smart enough to connect the dots, then she wasn’t worth my effort in the first place.

“As I said before, our entire class was reincarnated. I made sure of that both through skills and using my own eyes, by the way.” I noted.

“How so?”

“Well, you see. Unlike most of you guys, I actually started moving around 9 months ago. Everything was fine and dandy until I sensed a soul connection forcing itself on me a few days ago.”

I then went off on a sidetrack, explaining the visible differences between reincarnated newborns and ordinary newborns you can spot through Appraisal.

I specifically emphasized the existence of a unique reincarnation skill in each of our status along with the characteristic n%I = W skill that D stamped on our status.

It’s basically a bar code that only us reincarnations have for lack of a better description.

And let’s just say, she wasn’t impressed knowing that her oddity was as obvious as a spotlight in the dark.

Can’t blame her though.

I personally felt very anxious about it until my Camouflage evolved into Concealment, allowing me to hide the aforementioned skills.

“What I did was basically to transform the one-way foreign soul connection into a two-way one, hack the source, and steal whatever information was available on the other side.”

I simplified my explanation as much as I could and used modern terms just so that she could understand.

In reality, reversing a soul contract is by no means as easy as I made it out to be.

There’re a few risks on doing so, like the connection getting forcibly cutoff or being noticed by the other side.

D has most likely noticed what I’ve done the moment I did it, but I’m certain Ms Oka is totally clueless about it.

Ms Oka doesn't have any experience in dealing with souls, after all.

“The information contained a full list of the previous life names and place of birth after reincarnation of us students. I just happened to be near one of the locations when I got this piece of information, so I went ahead and confirmed that information myself.” I generously admitted.

“You found others before me?” Sachi asked, surprise evident in her tone.

“That I did.” I nodded. “I didn’t directly contact them like I did with you though”

“Why though? It’s not like I’m special in any way, am I?” She doubted, curiosity evident in her tone.

“Well, if anything, your charisma and leadership ability is enough for me to invest in you or at least establish a friendly bond. However, after reading through the details of your reincarnation skill, it became apparent that such a weak connection isn’t enough.” I professed, licking my lips excitedly.

“Uh-oh.”

She was visibly put off by my predatory grin, but I paid her emotions no heed.

From the moment I found her, her life and death were already in my hands, so why should I care about such trivial issues?

If the fish takes the bait, there is no reason for the fisherman to let it go.

In this world we’re nothing more than acquainted strangers.

And I already told you not to trust strangers easily, little Sachi.

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