I'm a Stingray?

Chapter 297: Hope

It took a few more seconds for Timothy to gain a better view of his surroundings. But one thing that he understood for sure, was that these marvelous shrimps could help raise his health.

That was why he put in a little attempt to swim forward. Such effort managed to move him just an inch, but the pain that came with it, stung worse than a thousand bees!

It did hurt, but also managed to wake the hero up just a little bit more. Which was convenient, because he had to be somewhat conscious in order to chew.

That was when the system decided to acknowledge that the situation was even worse than expected.

[Through the few moments when you were almost completely unconscious, you have lost another three-health-points]

[Total health = 26/121]

[I advise you to eat those marble shrimps right away! Your condition had never been this bad]

And he began doing exactly as the system recommended. Even though it took a lot of effort, for the dark-grey stingray to chew through just one of these critters.

It was not that these shrimps were big, they seemed even smaller now, thanks to the fact that Tim had a few growth sprouts...

But the overall numbness that still enveloped his body, made it difficult to chew; even through a small creature, that could be easily swallowed if not instantly broken apart.

But yet regardless of this difficulty, progress was still progress. Even though the first meal didn't prove to be effective, he began feeling a few tiny benefits from the second one.

The difference was still small, since crunching through these couple of little critters only gave a single health point, but a tiny bit of progress was better than nothing.

Pain began making itself present, after he crunched through the fourth meal.

Such a result felt a bit contradictory, since pain was supposed to go away when health raised itself; but this result still managed to make sense, due to that very reason.

Massive amounts of pain had managed to make him numb and drowsy just earlier. But now, that numbness was going away, because technically he was healing right now.

So ultimately, the reduction of pain allowed the most massive discomfort of this wound, to slowly unravel itself.

Such levels of pain will likely be there for a good few hours, as marble shrimps could only do so much. But the options were to either deal with this situation, or succumb to it.

And he wasn't exactly one who gave up, so eventually he ate the entire small mountain of marble shrimp. It was a tedious process really, especially since he had it difficult to chew.

But a few good after-effects came along thanks to this effort. Apart from his health rising a little bit; the sharp pains that continued to unravel themselves, had almost entirely woken him up!

That was why he could think a little bit straight now, and ultimately managed to make a plan for Osira to follow. It wasn't exactly a complex idea, but still had its own unique value.

He began ordering and praising at the same time, "You did great, now find me more of these marble shrimp. As many as you can."

It was no secret that the black-grouper was ready to oblige. She was happy about the tiny bit of progress, and managed to gain a bit of hope here thanks to the same reason.

So the good lady was ready to beam in many directions with such a goal, but Timmy had more to say.

He tried to speak normally, but the pain made him give out a low-toned mumble. "After that, hunt for a great barracuda... it should help me move my fin again."

"Okay, don't worry I got you!" She shouted a little bit, for the sake of assuring.

And then she dashed towards a close by spot, where she suspected for such critters to be in.

While she was putting in all of that work, the hero was trying to keep himself sane and stable. The pain didn't exactly cloud his mind in any way, but the pain itself was too much to handle.

At this point he felt sure that a few bones of his were broken. Because simply any bit of movement, managed to cause quite a few sharp pains!

Once Tim tried to move, he ended up jumping instead. Which might sound good to a certain extent, but it simply meant that the pain was too plentiful.

Broken bones in the midst of these seas did not sound good whatsoever; and he feared that it could bring along a lot of other problems.

So after a desperate sigh that solely featured pain, he asked. "System, can my bones heal? I don't want to live like this forever."

[It will take a lot of effort to heal them, especially since you have numerous bones broken in several places]

[They won't heal entirely, even if your health-bar fully replenishes]

[So you will need to purposely lose health in the future, just to replenish it again so your bones can heal]

"First cancer, then that weird mind silver thing... and now this?" He complained, even though his sentence was halted a little bit due to a sharp spike of pain.

This might not be the best form of self-expression either, but it still managed to make sense to a certain extent. Life in these oceans is becoming far tougher than he expected.

And as he waited for Osira to arrive, it seemed that the best way to kill some time, was to ask about health.

So after enduring a few more waves of pain, he asked. "How many points did those shrimp give me... the leggy crabs?"

[You have eaten exactly eight-teen of them, so you have attained nine points of health]

[You've also lost two more health points due to your bleeding]

[Total health = 33/121]

[The good news is that those shrimps barely took any space in your stomach,]

[So at this rate, you could eat three more rounds of the same quantities, and you would still have a little bit of space left in your gut]

Such a handful of sentences had managed to give him quite some hope, even though it was stated that health was still being lost.

Regardless, he also began understanding how important it was to complete tasks. Because due to the milestones he had achieved on tasks, his primary bars had been upgraded by a tenth, each time.

Its use proved quite important, especially in this dilemma. Because now he had a higher survival-rate, simply because his gut could fit more food that raised health.

Which was why he made a reasonable goal, which featured him chasing more of these tasks. The chances of survival seemed heavily depended on them, so this idea seemed more like a necessary goal.

As for now, curiosity had made Timothy open to the third-person-view map. He wanted to look at the wound.