Trash in the Apocalypse

Chapter 270: Hunting All the Mutated Fishes

Animals that eaten corrupted beings tend to mutate. The mutation could cause good or bad effects depending on the mutation.

For the dogs and cats, it was their increased body size. The improved intelligence happened to everyone who had the capability to think. Even insects like mosquitoes were being economical by keeping their prisoners unconscious but alive, so they could harvest more blood as much as they could get.

On the other hand, their intelligence might have not increased but their instincts surely did.

These first batch of fishes can't be sold at the marketplace for consumption, yet they have no choice but to hunt them.

Gilbert continued narrating their experience yesterday and it gave everyone the understanding that as long as you don't swim towards the fishes, they would never catch up to you when using Waterstriding.

The veteran fishermen only brought harpoons yesterday, and only killed several fishes that got devoured by their friends in mere seconds. If they were able to suck metals, the harpoons would have been devoured together with the dead fish.

"How many fishing nets did you bring today?" Jun inquired. He already informed Gilbert about the fishing rod and fishing net suggestions that he had.

"We brought a lot. Actually, we already tried capturing them with fishing nets yesterday but they just nibble at them and got away. This time, we would layer the fishing nets and will successfully get them out of water." Gilbert excitedly said, "We win as long as we fish them out!" 

It didn't take much time for them to arrive at the fish pond. Jun took the lead and jumped underwater to assess the situation.

The boat's engine scared away most of the fishes and yet he could see a school of milkfish swimming towards him at top speed. The theory of the most populated species might be true seeing how things are looking.

Moving underwater was hard and swinging a weapon was much harder. Fortunately, he didn't need to think of what to do as he could just position a sword forward and use Waterstriding to dash forward with a single stroke. He could run underwater and the only problem was slashing.

Why bother slashing?

Let them come to their deaths on their own!

Jun would take sidesteps and the fishes would pass by his iron sword and cut themselves in half.

The problem came when the blood scattered on the water and blocked his vision. The more he killed, the more blood blocked his vision. Even with help from everyone, killing a school of fishes would waste a lot of time.

Jun signaled everyone to get out of the water and have a meeting on the boat.

"They're weak, but it's probably because I have high stats," Jun stated, then explained. "I let one suck me but it didn't hurt. However, their nibbling was strange... Forget it. Let's manually net them out. We'll work by groups. Four people take each end of the net while one person acts as bait. Five people will wait at the boats to receive the net. The people waiting at the boat should be the strong ones to be able to pull the full weight of the fishes."

After receiving the orders, everyone paired up with the veteran fishermen and started the plan.

Though the fishes were great in numbers, they still had the same small brain they had. With their eagerness to eat the new source of energy they found, they charge straight at the bait and got caught up in the layered fishing nets.

The fishing nets formed a huge cage that strangled the fishes together. The human bait and the net holders would easily get into action once the fishes swooped down at the bait. With everyone's Waterstriding in full action, they were able to run underwater as if they were on land. The veteran fishermen even swam like they were mermaids flapping their legs in one slick motion before catching every fish that targeted the bait.

After hauling a big catch, every net holder worked together to tie up the corners and rapidly swim up to the surface. The first attempts at bringing the fish to the boat resulted in failure. The fishes were too heavy and the boats could accidentally capsize.

The team thought of various plans. One of the closest they got to bring the caught fishes to the boats was through throwing it. They simply swam upwards at top speed and used their momentum to jump on the surface of the water, wanting to throw the haul of fish into the boat. Unfortunately, the moment the fishing nets filled with fishes got out of the water, they suddenly weighed in tons and caused everyone to plummet back down to the water.

In the end, Gilbert had to step in.

With animated movements of his hands like some cultivator drawing energy from the surrounding, he brought his left hand down while his right hand went up. His action seemed comical, however, to the people from the marina, it was a magnificent action.

The water rose up and formed a ramp towards the boats. It was the Waterbending skill learned from the Waterbending Manual that he received from Jun after he resuscitated Edward from drowning when the town defense at the lake happened.

At first, he wasn't interested in the skill book, so he asked for a vote on who should learn it after returning to the marina. However, everyone voted for him and resulted in him keeping the book. He wanted to give it to his wife, Helena, but even her rejected him saying it was a gift for him.

The skill book has a very simple requirement, the owner's creativity. Anyone could do anything they want as long as they have enough energy and control over the skill. Currently, the skill is at level two and costs ten energy per second.

Gilbert knew he had no creativity whatsoever, and yet no one wants to take the skill from him. In the end, he could only rely on practice and create water pillars rise from the water surface. His max was three simultaneous water pillars, two of them were controlled by hand and one by his feet. He tried pushing for four, but he doesn't have enough control and it would usually end up in failure. Besides, at the time he tried for the fourth water pillar, his energy would already enter the danger zone for energy backlash and would stop training to recover energy.

The fishermen, both veteran and not, watched Gilbert train daily at the island where the Tree of Life is found. Its a kind of bonding for the husband and wife.

After the water ramp was built, the Elite group from Black Haven and even Jun himself was surprised.

Gilbert only smiled at them sheepishly. "Please work faster. The energy cost isn't cheap for my current level."

With his reminder, every net holder dragged the haul into the boat. Everyone celebrated with their first successful haul. 

Gilbert was removed from bait duty and focused solely on creating water ramps. He also were given energy fruits in case he needed it.

Jun was never stingy with rewards. Especially if the person was making achievements left and right.

They repeated the fishing net method and successfully caught every wandering fish in the nearby vicinity. The group even mapped the whole size of the dungeon through calculating the outskirts where milkfish would respawn. They had to make sure that every last first-generation summoned wild fish were hunted.

In the early afternoon, everyone was basically done scouring the lake's vicinity and guaranteed that future milkfishes caught were pure and safe for consumption.

With their prior experience in hunting the fishes, they realized a lot of things to improve on. They must use a real fishing boat if they want to haul more fishes. They can't just rely on Gilbert's Waterbending since it requires a lot of energy. Also, if one could develop a skill related to underwater breathing, or increased breathing capacity in general, things could be improved for the incoming batch of recruited fishermen.

It was also decided that Cardona would be revived and be used as a fishing port. A suitable place would be turned into a marketplace where fish would be slaughtered and sold for EXP. The buyer would also receive the fish and bring it home for food. With this plan in motion, food would be stabilized and the not-so-courageous people who can't fight regular carriers could come here for EXP.

The Cardona wild fish pond dungeon would be owned by Black Haven solely and would control the supply and demand. They won't severely limit the number of fishes sold and would actually make sure that everyone has at least five fish per person.

It was a generous scheme and some people could even take advantage of it. However, Black Haven could just sell more. No matter what, they control the supply and has control over the price.

Other survivor camps could also luck out and find a treasure trove of resources like this. However, they first need to secure the whole town or city, then make sure that the dungeon would become wild by destroying the portal.

Until now, no known methods were available to repair a destroyed portal. Random carriers would continue coming out of them every day.

Whether the infinite resource was worth the trouble?

No one knows.