Heretical Fishing

Book 2: Chapter 81: Four-Legged Monstrosities

Night had well and truly descended within the forest, the light of day having slowly bled over the western horizon. The campfire was both a welcome source of heat and light, the latter of which was currently illuminating an absurd-looking creature.

Maria and I shared a worried look as it kicked around on the hook. Borks slunk over to sniff at it, taking care not to come within touching distance. Most of its features were that of a fish; it had tiny scales, fins, and was a light-brown color that would help it hide in the murky lake’s waters. Sprouting from the bottom of its body, however, were four decidedly non-fishy limbs. It was... a quadruped? They were like the limbs of a salamander or axolotl, scaleless and fleshy.

As it kicked all four of its legs feebly, my eyes were drawn into it.

Mature Jungle Mudminnow

[unknown]

[unknown]

What in the fresh fuck...? I thought, dismissing the information from my field of view.

“Unknown...?” Maria asked.

The System, my ever-annoying pal, demanded my attention. It wasn’t like any nudge I’d felt from it before; I got the sense it was trying to give me something. With more than a little hesitation, I accepted the message.

New species discovered: Mature Jungle Mudminnow!

Claim and identify species?

Claim and identify...?

I willed my ascent, and information about the creature streamed into me. It was unnatural—not native to this world. It had... mutated? Been created? I couldn’t exactly tell, but that it was alien to this forest was undeniable. The System tugged at my attention again, once more offering something. A little less hesitant, I allowed it to come.

New species identification bonus: +5 to fishing! Congratulations!

Mature Jungle Mudminnow

Unique

This fish is a creation of the followers of Ceto. It is unknown how long the Jungle Minnow has existed within the Kallis Realm, but in that time, it has stabilized itself within the food chain. This fish has become the favored prey of [unknown].

“Holy frack...” I said aloud, processing the many implications.

I turned to Maria, curious to know if she had gotten the messages too. Her face told me everything I needed to know. Her eyes were distant, likely staring at the writing in her field of view, and as I waited impatiently for her to come back to the present, golden light burst from her. There was no warning, even my enhanced sense of chi not alerting me to the advancement. The shine was blinding, and I had to squeeze my eyes closed against the gold brilliance lighting our surroundings.

With the light came an overwhelming euphoria that made my entire body tingle. A smile that wasn’t only a result of the sensation came to my face. The moment the light diminished, I opened my eyes, excited to hear from Maria what had happened. Instead, I found myself lurching forward, instinctively reaching for her unconscious form as she raced headfirst toward the forest floor. I easily scooped her up, bitter panic rising in the back of my throat.

“Hey... hey!” I cradled her head in my hands, my eyes locking on hers as I caressed her cheek with a shaky hand. “Maria! Hey!”

Borks dashed to our side in the blink of a cultivator’s eye, pressing his wet nose against her neck and sniffing intently. She stirred, my heart seeming to stop beating in my chest as I waited for another sign of life. She... giggled, squirming her head down against Borks to block out his wet nose.

“Borks! Stop!” She pushed him away with one hand, still giggling. “It tickles!”

I heaved a breath of relief, slumping to the forest floor as she sat up. My panic was still present, but drained away with each breath I took.

“Fischer? You okay? You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”

“Don’t ever do that again! You scared the life out of me!”

“Do what...?”

“You fainted!” I crawled forward, pulling her into a hug. “It was terrifying.”

She patted my back, laughing loud and free.

“What...?” I asked, smiling along but not quite understanding.

Her grin turned wry. “Do you know how many times you’ve done that to me? Just collapsed with no warning, then popped up like nothing was wrong? About time you got a taste of your own medicine.”

I shook my head, palpable relief still running through me. We made to stand, but Maria froze, her brow lowering. She reached underneath herself, grabbed a hold of something, then lifted it up before her eyes. A familiar tinkle came from the small brown bag.

Hey eyes knowing yet still curious, she opened the drawstring, leaning forward so we could both see within. Golden coins gleamed back at us, faintly illuminated by the campfire’s orange glow.

“What did the System say?” I asked.

“I got five skill points in fishing for discovering a new species. That fish—”

“Crap!” I interrupted. “The fish!”

With everything happening, I’d completely forgotten about the poor creature. Unlike us, it couldn’t breathe air, and I’d left it to suffo... cate? The Jungle Mudminnow, apparently unaware or uncaring of its inability to breathe air, was standing on its four salamander-like limbs, trying to walk back to the water. The fishing line was stretched to its limit, the rod too heavy for the small fish to drag it into the lake.

“Ew...” Maria said.

“Yeah,” I agreed. “I don’t like that at all.”

Still, I walked over to it, picking it up to remove the hook from its mouth. All four of its fleshy legs fought against my palm, tickling me as they squirmed to be free of my grasp. I lobbed it into the water, both feeling sorry for it and wanting it to be as far from me as possible.

“Didn’t you want to try using it as bait?” Maria asked, patting Borks on the head.

“I felt bad about forgetting it, but honestly, I think it may have been able to breathe air?” I shook my head, shuddering. “Why are legs on a fish so weird?”

“I don’t know. They just are.”

Borks ruffed his agreement, staring at the lake I’d returned the fish to.

“How are you feeling?” I asked Maria.

“Drained.” She tied the drawstring on her bag of coins closed.

“Too drained for a little fishing?” I asked.

Her eyes sparkled as she looked up at me. “Never.”

With a sabiki rig soaking in the water, my thoughts returned to the messages we’d received from the System, as did Maria’s.

“The descriptions said it was from the followers of Ceto, right...” she asked, curling a finger through her hair.

“Yeah. Pretty insane, huh?”

“No kidding...”

“Ceto is a God of the sea, right?”

“Yeah.”

I sighed. “I have a confession to make.”

She quirked an eyebrow at me. “Another one?”

“Would you mind keeping it between us for now? I think it might break Ellis if he finds out.”

Recognising how serious I was, she spun to face me. “Of course.”

“Most of the gods you all swear about in this world... I’d heard of them before coming here.”

Her head cocked to the side, her nose scrunching. “You did...? How?”

“From my world—they were the same gods an ancient civilization worshiped.”

“They were in your world?” she asked, her eyes flying wide.

I made a so-so gesture. “I mean... maybe? If not that, then someone from this world—or from another realm those gods had fled to—was sent to ancient Greece.”

“Ancient Greece... that’s where you know the gods’ names from?”

I nodded. “Yeah.”

“Huh. That’s pretty neat.”

“Neat...?” I raised an eyebrow. “That’s it?”

“Well, yeah. I’m more interested in the fact that Ceto’s followers could somehow make a new species of fish, to be honest.”

Seeing the incredulity on my face, she shook her head, smiling. “Fischer, you’re a regular man—or at least were a regular man—that was sent from an entirely different world. Spirit beasts, creatures that haven’t existed for thousands of years, pop up around you like weeds. You shoot beams of light that turn trees into splinters and send hellhounds flying across the sky like shooting stars.” She turned to the side. “No offense, Borks.”

He shrugged, a decidedly non-doglike gesture.

“On that note,” she continued. “You’re so powerful that you befriended a hellhound, a creature spoken of in the mythology here as the arbiters of the underworld that drag souls off to the afterlife. All those things considered, that our gods may have fled to your world at some point doesn’t seem that important to me.”

“Huh...”

“Though, I do agree you shouldn’t tell Ellis right now. His head might explode, and we need him for the mission to succeed. Feel free to tell him after, though.”

My chest felt light following the confession, and let out a laugh, shaking my head. “The Jungle Mudminnow alone might make him implode. He’s going to be so pissed that we didn’t tell him until after the mission—especially when he’s so close.”

Maria joined in with my mirth, covering her mouth as she let out a cute giggle. “How long has that information been bothering you?”

“Since I arrived here. I didn’t think it was that important, to be honest, but with how light I feel right now, it was weighing on me more than I thought.”

She leaned forward. I expected her to plant a soft kiss on me, but then she reached up, flicking my nose softly. “Stop keeping secrets, you big oaf. How many times do you need to relearn that fact?”

I rubbed the spot she’d flicked. “Point taken.”

Maria leaned back in. This time, she did kiss me, her velvet lips lingering on mine for a few heartbeats. When she pulled back, she smiled at me. “Now, can we talk about the fact that there are four-legged fish in here? That shit’s whack.”

Unexpected as it was, her use of Earth-borne slang made me chortle. “Yeah, it truly is whack.”

“If it was made by the followers of Ceto, and if Lemon’s memory of this world’s timeline can be believed, they must have been here for thousands of years, right?”

“It would seem so, yeah, unless there’re some secret followers of Ceto still kicking around. The fact it said church, though, makes me think that isn’t the case. It was from a time when Ceto, and presumably, the rest of the gods, were present.”

“And in that time...” Her eyes, twinkling with anticipation, darted over to meet mine. “These four-legged monstrosities have become the food-source of another creature...”

As if listening to the flow of our conversation, something bit down on my line. I shot to my feet and held my rod high, angling it past Maria’s rig as I slowly wound it in. My plan worked; the slow retrieve meant another fish had time to bite down on another hook. The moment I felt the extra weight on my line, I lifted it out of the water. Two Mudminnows flopped on the grass, their weird little legs trying to find purchase.

“Yeah, still gross,” Maria said, scrunching her nose.

I dashed forward, dispatching both of them and removing them from the sabiki rig before either knew what was happening. Both were smaller than my palm, and Maria and I immediately set about swapping our tackle for something more suitable. With the sabiki rigs removed and a single large hook tied above a sinker, we shared a grin, then each baited up with a whole mudminnow each.

“Same time?” I asked, smiling at Maria.

She nodded. “Same time.”

In practiced unison, we flicked the reels forward, cocked the rods back, then cast our lines out. They landed one after the other, twin splashes rising as our baited hooks hit the water’s surface. I took a slow breath through my nose, a small smile coming to my face as a sense of ease washed over me. Maria and I sat down, our legs touching as we got comfortable. Borks came to sit at my side, his reassuring weight resting against me. The night air was chilly, growing more so with each gust of wind blowing through the leafy canopy above. Warmth from the campfire radiated against my back, stealing away the night’s wintery kiss. I had wound my fishing line tight, and with a finger held to it, I waited for a bite.

As much as I idealized a life of peace and calm, chaos had been leaking into it over the past couple of months. In moments like this, though, the chaos didn’t matter. As long as I had fishing and the relationships that had flourished since my arrival in this strange realm, all the chaos in the world couldn’t overwhelm me.

“Oh... oh!” Maria said, sitting upright.

Her line went taut, her rod bending and bouncing as a hooked creature fought to escape.

Her face lit up, completely covered in a childlike wonder that made my chest feel light.

“Fish on!”