Chapitre 19: Chapter 19: It speaks?
*Clack clack!*
'Be quiet...' Oliver thought to himself as he slept peacefully.
'Damned birds always being such obnoxious little sh-'
Wait what?
I opened my eyes to see a crab much bigger than all of the previous crabs I've fought before right in front of my eyes. Its got a shell that's a shade darker than all the other crabs I've seen before, and the largest pincers I've ever seen in my life.
Crap! Is this the momma crab?!
Is he here to avenge his children and feast upon my flesh just like I've done upon his blood?
I'm sorry mister crab! I really didn't know they were your kids!
I swear I'll never attack ano-
"Sh*t, an octopus!" The crab yelled out as it brought up its pincers in front of its face ready to fight.
...
'I guess its the daddy crab...'
'Wait what the f*ck am I thinking?'
'Did that crab just speak?'
"What the f*ck?" I unconsciously murmured as I kept on staring at the crab, and the it too froze up as it heard my whisper.
...
We both stared at each other before it spoke up again.
"You can speak?", it asked me with its large claws still held up in front of its face
"That should be my question!" I exclaim back at it,
It flinches at my accusatory tone and opens its mouth again,
"I'm sorry, I just didn't expect any intelligent creature to be in this crevice! I know I walked in as you were sleeping but trust me! I didn't have any ulterior motives aside from wanting to hunt!" It the crab expresses back at me.
My eyes narrow, "Oh? So you came here to kill me?" I ask as I begin to raise my tentacles.
It's eyes bulge out as it realizes what it just said.
"No no no! I meant that like I thought that there was a wild creature in here and planned to hunt it! I didn't know that this cave was occupied by someone else!"
It waved its claws frantically in the air as it defended itself.
I keep on staring at it as the poor crab begins to fidget more and more out of nervousness.
...
After a few more seconds of silence the crab is unable to bear it any longer and speaks again, "I-I think we started off on the wrong leg, how about we introduce ourselves, yeah? I'll go first, my name is Shelton. Haha."
The crab looks at me as it eagerly waits for my reply.
"I'm Oliver" I say back.
...
The crab waits for me to say something else but I refuse to speak again.
...
"W-Well then Oliver, it was nice to m-meet you, but I should probably be going right about now, haha, the rest of my tribe is probably waiting for me." He began to shuffle away but I spoke up.
"Wait, you're seriously going to leave just like that? That is seriously rude of you dude."
"Ah, well what would you like as compensation then?" He says, anxiously shifting his legs back and forth.
"You said you came here looking to hunt, right? How about you help me hunt and we can share the food?"
I offered to the crab named Shelton.
One thing I had realized, was that with my current strength, I had no problem with dealing with the crabs around me alone, however when they got into large groups, I was fairly limited with my hunting speed.
If I could add another party member though... I should be able to increase my hunting speed tremendously since we could hunt larger groups of crabs at once.
This would not only let me get more experience, but also make the hunting quicker since we wouldn't have to be as pick as before with what targets we were allowed to attack.
"You, want to hunt with me?" The crab asked, confusion lining his eyes, "You realize I'm a crab right? Like a weak predator crab?"
"What about it?" I asked, not understanding what he was getting at.
He stared at me for a few second before asking me another question, "Are you from a tribe?"
"A tribe?" I asked back.
Of course I know what a tribe is, but I'm not sure I understand at what he's getting at, and I certainly don't think my definition of the word would fit in this situation.
"So you really aren't then..." He mumbles to himself
"What do you mean by tribe?" I ask as I fidget my arms feeling as though I've said something wrong.
"Ah! Sorry, I just thought that you were originally from some octopus family, but by the looks of it, you just happen to be an intelligent wild octopus." He utters...
"Is that a bad thing?" I asked.
"No, it's just surprising. Most wild creatures aren't intelligent, especially at the lower ranks like red."
I look at him, now suddenly nervous since I have no idea what he's talking about.
"Red?" I meekly ask
"Oh, sorry! I forgot you don't know what that means! Basically all creatures are ranked on their evolutionary status by colors, starting with white followed by red, orange, yellow, green, blue, purple, black, and finally the legendary silver rank. It's said that there actually another rank after that but the clan head says that's just a bunch of nonsense." He spouts out, explaining to me.
"Oh you can tell what rank I am then?" I ask.
"Well you seem to be about as strong as me if not a little bit stronger and since I'm at red rank I just guessed that you were at red as well." He says.
Something about this doesn't seem right. I can completely dominate a single crab of the same rank in a fight, but this big guy in front of me seems to be an equal footing with me!
"How many times have you evolved?" I ask out of curiosity.
He looks at me puzzledly, "Twice just like you? First from no rank to white rank, and then from white rank to red rank."
OH! That certain spells out why this guy seems so more menacing than the other crabs around me. This guy is actually an entire evolutionary rank ahead of me!
But does he just not realize that? Or is he trying to trick me? I study the crab who continued rambling about how he got lucky with his red rank evolution to get a shell mutation.
No, I don't think he's trying to trick me, so then he just thinks that I'm an entire rank ahead of where I actually am?
I probably shouldn't tell him this, cause if he knows, then he might think that he could take me out, and I no longer want to try my chances against the big guy.
"...So that's probably why you thought I was a higher rank then I actually am but don't worry, I'm actually just a red rank like you. I just got lucky with my mutations." He finishes finally as I ask again.
"So do you wanna come hunt with me? I think we could get a lot of prey and we can split the prey equally no matter what!" I say wanting him to make his decision as quickly as possible.
The more this guy thinks that I'm the same rank as him, the more he'll see me as an equal.
"If you wouldn't mind, sure! Let's do it!" He replied enthusiastically.
Shelton seems to have gained some of his confidence back after talking to me for so long as he's now no longer stuttering or covering his face.
"Then let's shake on it!" I say
"Huh?" He looks at me in confusion.
"I mean like, let's shake hands to seal the deal."
"O-Oh okay..." He nervously reaches out with his large pincer.
I wrap my tentacle around his pincer and shake it up and down as he trembles in his shell.
Aww poor guy, he probably thought that this was some sort of trap so that I could attack him.
Well whatever, I know that as long as I talk with him while were out he should lose his shyness again in no time.
Relieved that there was no trick, Shelton looks down at his pincer and grins, or at least I think he does, it's a little hard to read since he has no noticeable facial features but I would like to think that he did.
As we walk out of my little cave-tunnel-hole thingy I can finally get a good look at him out in the open, and I really do gotta say this guy is big! At least compared to me.
While he's not actually all that tall, height wise, I would definitely say he's probably around .5 meters wide so just a little under 50% bigger than me, although I'm sure he weighs much more.
I'm not exactly sure why he think's we are of the same rank though. I know that I personally would probably rank creatures based on their size but even though I'm this much smaller than him, he doesn't seem to have any doubts.
"Hey Shelton, would you mind answering some of my questions?"
He looks over to me as we both crawl over the seafloor and then turns back to look at our surroundings, "Sure. What do you want to know about?"
I think for a second before confirming in my mind the first thing I want to know about, "Could you tell me about mutations?"
État de l’alimentation hebdomadaire
-- Classement
Power Stone 
-- Power
stone