Shrimp?! (edited)

The moon above the night sky shone brightly, illuminating the loud ocean below that clashed with its tidal waves wildly. Most of the moonlight was reflected off of the water making it glitter and gleam as it was moved by the waves while some penetrated through the ocean surface, dimly lighting up the dark underwater.

Under the ocean floor, amongst the occasional shimmering of moonlight hitting the sand floor, an ethereal golden light shone brightly and emitted a boiling heat making the nearby water bubble up and pop heat to the surface.

The sudden appearance of the light caused a sharp change of pressure in the area, creating a strong shockwave that traveled underwater, pushing the sand underneath it.

All of the fishes nearby sensed danger and speedily swam away, the area filled with different fishes and mollusks quickly turned vacant as everything either swam away or got knocked away.

A little shrimp, no longer than an adults pinkie finger, appeared from the light and gently flopped down unto the sand, curled up and unmoving.

[{Arctic Leviathan} has joined the server.]

The light disappeared and the silence returned.

The little shrimp had a blue-green carapace on its back with spots and sharp edged stripes ranging from black, dark blue, and white detailedly spread out on its body. Its intricate black and white striped legs coiled around its small sleeping body protectively. It was a very strangely intricate looking shrimp.

Then, one of its arms twitched.

. . .

Shara hissed at the aching pain in her head and subconsciously curled her body. Her arm weakly reached over her head to pat away the pain. Her sharp claws touched her solid forehead and making small clanking noises.

Shara paused. 'Hm?' She pat her head again.

The sound of clinking resonated again, much louder this time. Shara felt worried, what was that sound?

She made the effort to remove the

arm covering her eyes and looked at her hands. Shara felt her mind turn empty when she saw her long stick-like arm that ended with an eerie spiked scythe.

'What.' She froze with a blank look.

She quickly stood up and stared at her alien arms, the abrupt movement making her four antennaes swoosh around her face. She twisted her body and saw 5 pair of long legs on her front and a long armoured tail fin on her back.

Shara felt all logic leave her brain. 'What?' She was very shocked.

After repeatedly swaying around the water like a salted worm, making sure to inspect every single area of her body, she stared at the ocean floor blankly.

"WHAT?!" Shara tried to say, yet all that came of her mouth was an unnerving screech.

Shara's mandibles opened in shock. She had become a shrimp! And a very cute one at that!

Before she went deeper into panic, a floating white screen popped into existence in front of her, similar to how a game interface would look. It even had a search bar and everything!

She read the following words written in the blue interface suspiciously.

+

[The server has reach the required number of Players needed. The Main Scenario will now begin.]

-

[MAIN SCENARIO: Prove Your Worth]

Difficulty: F (easy)

Conditions: Kill one or more living things and survive until dawn. Killing other Players is also expectable.

Time Limit: 12 hours

Reward: 500 Body Upgrade Points (Each kills)

Failure: Death

+

"Death?!" Sharaʻs heart jumped in fear, her panic worsening as she feebly tries to calm herself down.

Her mandibles grinded in confusion, her mind was quick to think about theories and conclusions to find the answer to this mind boggling situation. Her mind was calm but she couldn't stop the spreading anxiety in her heart that made her body slightly shake.

After a while of thinking, she thought of something. 'Was it because of that light?' Her beady eyes narrowed.

It was the most sensible assumption she could think of, though her scientific side refused to accept such an answer and continued to think.

Teleportation was impossible! At least it was still impossible in the current modern era she was in. It also doesn't explain how her body turned into a shrimp.

After brainstorming for an answer and only getting nothing as an explanation, she could only begrudgingly link this incident to one thing.

Re:Animal.

The game that she was playing before she was teleported into this place.

Shara knows that she sounded very silly, if she was back on Earth she would have smacked herself with a brick for saying something so dumb, but she really couldn't think of anything else.

'I've been reincarnated into the game as a shrimp.' Shara cringed at her own thought. She groaned and smacked her face with her new hands, being careful not to accidentally stab her eyes with her scythe, and clicked her mandibles furiously.

After thinking about it carefully, she thought that having a second go at life and being reincarnated wasn't so bad, especially inside the game that she adored so much. But out of every single playable animal in the game, why did they have to choose a flimsy tiny shrimp out of all things?!

Before she could complain more, Shara realized something and paused.

If she had been reincarnated into the game, and the world inside that game was real, was all the living creatures she killed in the game real too then?

A small pang of guilt turned her stomach. If all of them were real, doesn't that make her a murderer?

Shara slapped her face again. "Focus on the task, you idiot. Don't think such depressing thoughts." She quietly reprimanded herself.

It looks like guilt wasn't the only thing turning her stomach as she quickly realized that she was hungry. Scratch that, she was starving.

"Ugh..." Shara squirmed uncomfortably at the mild pain in her stomach.

She really didn't wanna swim off into an unknown place where there could be a potential predator that could hurt or even kill her, but the pain that was slowly spreading in her abdomen was very uncomfortable.

So far in her past human life, she had lived a comfortable and domesticated lifestyle. She ate whenever she wanted, she slept when she was sleepy, she stayed up and played games all night. That was the kind of life she was used to.

She wasn't trained to take in physical pain or how to adjust to abrupt changes of her environments, especially in such a dangerous one...

Shara sighed. She really didn't know that a blessing was given to her until today. Even with all the new problems in society, or humanity as a whole, being born as a human is truly such a luxury.

Without knowing where she was going, she swam to look for food, just anything to eat.

Behind her, a few floating eyeballs stared at her. Somehow, even when underwater, they moved around as if they were in air. Shara couldn't see them as there was a barrier between them which made these eyeballs invisible to her.

However, different to these eyeballs, two predatory eyes swam in the water and also followed behind Shara.

And so, she swam. Unaware of the stalking eyes that followed after her.