Players?! (edited)

Shara groggily came to awaken from her torpor, the pain in her body long gone after resting. She groaned and stretched her stiff body a bit before bouncing right back up, full of excitement.

She expectantly swung around to take a look at her new body upgrades and what she saw made her beady black eyes shine.

Her front Dactyls now had short backward curved spikes running down the sharp underside of her scythe, designed solely to impale it's target. The additional impaling damage only made this upgrade even better. Thorned Scythe, Shara was very excited to try these out later.

Next was her antennae, Acute Sensitivity. Apart from being able to sense the waves of vibration in the water better, her antennae didn't really change all that much. Hopefully this heightened sensitivity of hers would help her notice approaching enemies faster. She very much disliked having her back get bitten.

Lastly, the carapace upgrade she was quite happy about.

Veiled Carapace, a remade version of the body part she acquired, Veiled Scales. Being the shrimp that she was, Shara had no scales, so the system decided to alter the body part into something that would fit her more, or at least that's the simpler explanation of it.

Now then, how was she going to use this? Was it automatically gonna make her invisible or is it controllable? Shara felt eagerness bubbling in her stomach.

"Open my Profile." Shara commanded the System. She wanted to have a look at herself.

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[USER PROFILE]

Name: Shara C. Linn

Username: Arctic_Leviathan

Status: Player

Species: Hatchling Reaper Shrimp

Rank: Lesser Monster

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[Body Upgrades]

Dactyl: Thorned Scythe

- Attacks will cause a lasting Impaling effect that makes the target keep taking damage for 5 seconds. (1 damage every one second)

Any spikes that was cut off or broken will be replaced with new ones within an hour.

Antennae: Acute Sensitivity

- Water fluctuations caused by movement will be immediately sensed by the user for as far as 10 meters. The user can sense everything around them in a 360 degrees.

(Note: Vibrations made by natural causes will not be registered as they were not made by a living thing.)

Carapace: Veiled Carapace

- The invisibility effect is passive and will always be active to keep the host hidden from plain sight.

- There will be a 4% buff in your defense when you are hit. (This is a property inherited from the Velosteos)

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Shara nodded is satisfaction. She won't have to worry about monsters sneaking up on her anymore. If a monster does manage to get past her senses, she now has the ability to fight back. Hiding won't be a problem now either.

Unless it's someone that spends their Body Upgrade Points on the senses stat, she highly doubts that anyone else would be able to find her even if they were crawling on top of her.

Since this is still her first body upgrade, her choices were limited. If she keeps on collecting more BUP and Body Parts on stronger monsters, her list of choices would also increase and become even better.

×BUP is short of Body Upgrade Points. I will also be using this term on future chapters because it's shorter.

However, in this game, the Evolution System did not exist. This meant that no matter how many BUP or Body Parts she collected, she could only keep on upgrading her mutations to get stronger. Shara would remain as a shrimp type monster forever, even if her body became deformed to the point of looking like an entirely different monster because of her upgrades.

This didn't bother Shara at all and she just giggled in delight. Since there's no Evolution System, it also meant that there's no limitations on how strong she could become. In most games, when a monster is finished evolving into it's strongest form, it would stay like that forever until it died, but that mechanic didn't apply here. Of course, because of this, the food chain was absolutely wack.

Calming down from her initial excitement, she could feel the familiar, hungry ache in her stomach telling her to eat.

This made her confused, with the large amount of meat she previously consumed, why was she still so hungry? Also, why did her body feel so weird?!

"Hey, System? I don't feel so good..." she told the System, expecting it to give her a cold shoulder, when to her surprise, it actually responded!

[Your body is still adjusting to the trauma of Evolution Overdrive.]

"Evolution Overdrive?" what was that? She hadn't heard of that before.

[Evolution Overdrive, a process which includes rearranging and changing your body in order for it transform. Your body was sent into a state of shock when you were undergoing your body upgrades.]

Shara blinked at this unexpected problem. "By 'state of shock,' does it include symptoms of paralysis by any chance..?" she asked slowly, afraid of the answer she would get.

[Correct.]

'Ah, I feel a headache coming' she threw her head back in disbelief.

It was a good thing she looked for a shelter first before deciding to upgrade her body. If she was off wandering out in the open like an idiot, she would've become fish food! Scratch her praises for this world, she hates everything! Screw you, game developers!

Fortunately enough, this risk only existed whenever she was upgrading her body parts.

Although she wasn't a follower of any gods in particular, Shara felt very blessed. First, surviving a sneak attack and somehow managing to win against the attacker. Second, finding a safe place and eating plenty of rich meat while having more to spare. Third, upgrading her body without knowing the risks and then succeeding in doing so.

She really was one lucky shrimp!

It took a bit of effort to move around inside the coral since she kept bumping unto the sharp walls. She felt that something was a bit off with the whole place ever since she woke up...

Actually, why did her spacious shelter suddenly become so small?

It took Shara a few good seconds before finally realizing that she had actually grown five times larger after she finished her body upgrades.

Since she couldn't fit in her shelter anymore, she would be forced to move out soon.

Shara's mandibles clacked as a frown at this troubling obstacle. She wasn't sure if she was ready to go outside and fight again. Having her back get bitten and almost ripped out made her a bit paranoid to going outside.

But she didn't really have a choice, did she? When the time limit hits zero, she would still be exposed to danger more or less later on. From the looks of it, this part is probably just a tutorial to introduce the new Players to this world since the game decided to assign them with a Scenario immediately even when they were just beginners.

A sudden loud thud outside of her shelter startled her out of her thoughts. She became more alert when her antennae picked up the unusual water vibrations traveling inside the coral.

There were two disturbances waving the water with violent force outside. The direction of the waves were unstable and kept on moving around everywhere, as if the two were thrashing.

'A fight?' Shara's bad mood turned even more bitter. Judging by how the coral trembled when the resounding thud echoed, the two bastards were having a brawl outside of her shelter!

Managing to squeeze herself out of the coral, she took a small peek outside.

A small black lobster, armoured with a hard carapace with small spines on its back that traveled all the way down to it's tail was raising its claws defensively, it's sharp pinchers covered in gleaming red blood.

There were cuts all over its carapace, one of its legs was missing, it looked really beat up.

It's bleeding opponent wasn't doing that good either.

In front of it was a baby eel, a few inches long. It's mouth was wide open, displaying it's set of needle sharp teeth as an act of aggression towards the lobster.

Thankfully, they both were a whole lot smaller than her at the moment so she wasn't intimidated by them at all. It's like looking at a toddler holding a knife... Hold on, she should probably still keep her guard up just in case.

She wanted to scare them off of her property but then she saw a tag floating on top of the two fighting monsters. A cold frost stabbed her heart and chilled her entire body. She knew what that was.

It was a Username tag. One she would see from another Player.

There were two Players fighting outside her home, and they're attention was now locked towards her.

Oh sh*t.