Chapter 113: Idle Fishing

Jimmy did not want to deal with the massive downside that the Human Communicator threw at him. He wasn’t in the learning mood right now.

He was tired, both physically and mentally. The cure to his mental fatigue was supposed to be the Human Communicator itself, and the endless possibilities it could have revealed in an instant, but that didn’t quite work out like he wanted it to, so he was down in the dumps.

Zoey, Julia and Vorin came back with some food, twenty minutes later. They brought him a foot-long fish.

It was still flopping around, so for a moment, he found himself wrestling the fish down, as if it had limbs to fight back.

Jimmy didn’t eat a lot of fish back in the meadows. The ones across the creek were usually small, and hard to catch, so they were not worth the calories spent hunting for them. Not for him, at least.

The rules were obviously different here in the Lakelands.

"That’s the smallest one we could find," Vorin said, "Sorry, you’ll smell like fish for a while, but they’re tasty."

"No, this is a good catch," He said, "Have you eaten?"

"We did," Vorin nodded, "The bones are hard to break, so you should just peck at the meat."

"Nah, I can manage the bones," He said, "You should’ve brought your fish to me, I could’ve roasted them for you."

The ladies, and Vorin, didn’t care about roasted meat. They were used to raw meat, as in any case, it would be considered a delicacy for the average crow.

The three of them simply nodded along, and then found a spot in the thick branch to sleep on. The moon was rising, and as creatures who were far away from being considered nocturnal, they respected the rise of the moon nearly religiously. Their bodies also gave out after a heavy meal.

Jimmy was hungry, but he took his time. The team had brought him a live fish, and although he was certain he could manage to swallow it whole if he tried hard enough, he decided that it was safer to peck at it. Pecking at a fish who was still alive was too cruel, even by his standards, so he waited until the fish suffocated.

"There you go, he stopped flapping." He whispered.

Afterwards, he held the fish down with one claw, and slapped a Red Fireball against it with the other. Then, he did it again. Several times, until the fish was fried, not charred.

Fish were easier to fry. He discovered this the moment he hit it with a fireball, and so he wanted to fry the whole thing, for a truly good meal.

"It’s ready, Virena," He said, "Come eat."

Virena had been salivating. Not greedily, she just knew that she was going to need a little bit of extra help to consume the fish.

She started tearing off small pieces, and ate until she was full.

Jimmy also tore pieces, but they were close to being fist sized. Meat, bones, scales, organs, he didn’t care. He ate them all without a worry in the world, because he was sure that his stomach could melt iron at this point.

The foot-long fish was consumed in twenty minutes. Both of them were full.

Well, Jimmy felt still a little bit peckish, but it wasn’t anything that he couldn’t manage through the night.

Finally, he and Virena joined the team in a deep, well-deserved slumber.

...

Jimmy woke up half an hour before the crack of dawn, before everyone else, because as usual, he was hungry. His metabolism tore through that fish he ate last night so fast, that he woke up seeing stars and butterflies. If he had slept half an hour more, he would’ve started his path to an untimely death.

"Fuck me..." He grunted, and stretched.

Dropping down from the tree he slept on afterwards, he dropped a load of crap that could contest that of a human’s, and then he scoped the area, before he headed towards the lake.

Ideally, he wanted to get some deer meat in his gut, Venison, because it was the only sort of meat he knew of that his fast metabolism would have trouble devouring, but he highly doubted that there would be any deer around here. If there were, he figured that the humans hunted them to extinction a while ago, because there were barely any trees, or bushes that the deer could hide behind.

The few trees that were not cut down, seemed too old, and too curvy for the humans to bother with. Still, not good enough for the average deer to hide behind.

With that considered, he had to settle with the sort of meat that was highly abundant in these Lakelands. Fish.

It took a minute to walk to the lake. Now that he was here, he tried to figure out the best way to fish.

"Fuck... I can’t focus." He grunted.

Severe hunger was a burden stronger than most. More often than not, he was tempted to actually reduce his body’s size. He had that option, the Evolution Tree provided it, but he figured that it would only complicate matters. His bigger body made him a greater threat, which was why he didn’t want to give up on it anytime soon. Also, he figured that it would be very hard to grow back in size, after a size reduction, and this was a matter that made his head hurt whenever he thought about it.

"Okay, focus, focus," He said, "How do I catch a fish? I need a big fish. A catfish, maybe? Those bastards are monsters on any planet."

Jimmy stared at the waters, but he couldn’t figure out a single way to fish. He never caught a fish in the creek back home.

For a moment, he had half a mind to spam a bunch of fireballs in the lake, and hope for the best, but that seemed ineffective.

Slamming his hammer in the water would also be ineffective, which was why he didn’t bring it with him to begin with.

"I need a fishing rod," He said, "Did they invent fishing rods yet? They must have. How else would they fish in these lakes?"

Jimmy walked across the edges of the lake, until he found himself close to the village that he initially wanted to stalk.

Close to the village, there were plenty of crates neatly stacked on top of one another. Ten or so feet away from the lake.

There were twenty of them, maybe, too much for a small village to put into proper use. The crates towered over him as if they were placed here to behave like a great wall.

"Perfectly good crates, and they left them out here?" He muttered, "What if they get stolen? Wood is rare here, and these crates are probably imported."

Jimmy could not help but get indulged in unnecessary matters, but his gurgling stomach insisted otherwise. He had to focus, and in this case, as the situation had it, he found something useful on top of the nice, un-guarded crates.

"That looks like a hook," He said.

Inspecting the item further, he saw that the hook was attached to a cord of plant-fibre. This was best known as the casting line of ancient times.

Back on Earth, this was how humans used to fish before the commercial fishing rods were invented. It really helped remind him of where this world stood in terms of technological progress, as if the lack of electricity, and better hygiene weren’t enough of a hint.

Nevertheless, he dragged the line towards the lake, smashed a couple of insects, and with great effort, he stabbed the bugs on to the comically large, metal hook.

To keep himself from literally starving away, he slapped down, and ate nine more bugs. There were plenty of dragonflies that flew across the edge of the lake.

[+11 system points]

[Total points: 6,566]

To be safe, he instinctively avoided the mistake that the average human made in these times. He did not tie the other end of the line to his body.

Instead, he tied it to the biggest rock he could find near the edge of the lake, and then, he spun like a ballerina, and tossed the baited hook into the lake, as far as he could.

This got him dizzy, so he fell in the waters. Quite a splash.

The cold water woke him up more than his hunger ever could. His average stream of concentration was restored.

"Why didn’t I just fly the hook over to a good spot? The line is long enough." He said, as he walked out of the lake, "Maybe there’s some humanity left in me after all, because that was a very human mistake."

Despite the challenges, the fishing line was tossed, set, and ready to hook his breakfast.

As he waited alongside it, he couldn’t help but think of the large fish that the team brought him last night.

"They couldn’t have been fishing with a line and hook," He said, "How the fuck did they catch the fish? Am I that stupid?"