Chapter 267: Rain Rain, Go Away

While the notion of calling more people up when the rain slowed sounded good, the rain was not in any mood to cooperate.

And that was causing an issue that nobody had expected.

The river was running nearly three metres above its normal levels, and was beginning to spill over its banks, turning the area outside the city into a shallow lake. And while that was normal enough during heavy rains, what was not normal was the feeding frenzy that it had triggered.

They had been planting fast-growing crops all through the floodplains, and now that the river had created access to the fields, the fish were in a frenzy, headed for the fresh plant life.

And the feeding frenzy had drawn creatures from the ocean into fresh water.

That had caused chaos outside the city walls, and it was quickly becoming a learning experience for the residents of Marimgar that were on wall watch.

Not only were there sharks, which had been caught by the fishermen, there were whales breaching just offshore, and some incredibly large eels that had come out to the flooded plains to hunt for freshwater fish.

Mostly for the grass carp that were abundant in the river, but anything that they could catch was fair game, and they were incredibly agile swimmers.

Fortunately, they didn’t appear to have any unnatural intelligence, but that was only a small relief to the wall guard when they saw the first few octopus groups coming ashore.

The creatures were huge, easily ten metres long if you stretched their tentacles out, and they were smart enough that they were running a hunting formation, where they encircled an area and rapidly closed a net of tentacles around the fish that were inside.

And they seemed to know just where to go.

Even without searching the murky water, they rushed to surround flooded fields, where the tuber plants and others poked above the floodwaters, and closed the circle to catch as much as they could.

For the city, that might be a good thing.

The more of their crops that survived the torrential rain, the better. But for the fish supply, it was devastating.

They didn’t stay long, though. After closing the net and clearing out a field full of carp, the group retreated to the ocean, away from the freshwater floods. The water didn’t seem to bother the eels, and they remained. But when the octopus groups got close, the wall guards could see the churning waters as they swam away.

The ocean was not a kind place for anything, it seemed.

Even the sharks had natural predators, as many of them showed signs of massive bite marks, or tentacle damage in the form of round sucker marks.

So, while they lived by the ocean, not a one of them was actually eager to go into the ocean more than a few dozen metres. But on the other hand, they were eagerly fishing in the river where it ran alongside the city walls.

That might not be the most efficient way to get the fishing quest, but with everything swarming, they had plans that they were hoping would work.

A nutrient bar soaked in bacon grease, cut into small slices that then had a hook stuck through them, was their bait of choice, and the fish were going for it. That was definitely a result of the bacon grease, nothing would willingly eat a nutrient bar, but every fish was one for the quest.

Normally, only a few would complete the quest during a shift, as it relied on fish swimming right by the walls. But the flooding had caused a feeding frenzy, and they were biting at everything today.

So, dozens more rods were baited, and cast out over the walls into the floodwaters, with no thoughts except that they could catch the requisite fish to fill the quests.

However, they had forgotten one thing. While they were chumming the waters to bring fish in to catch, the sea monsters were hunting for concentrated areas of fish to eat. The combination of the two would have only one logical outcome.

"Shit, fuck, dammit all to hell. Grab my rifle, there’s an octopus attacking my line, and it’s coming up the wall."

The man next to him laughed, and blast.ed the octopus with a single shot from a pulse rifle, then three more.

"Shit, it’s actually tough. Someone hit that thing with a pulse cannon."

The others along that section laughed, but they joined in with rifles and skills, as shooting a Pulse Cannon at their own walls was a terrible idea.

The octopus fell into the water after a surprisingly high amount of firepower was levelled at it.

But that only encouraged more of them to come to the area, scenting the blood in the water.

"Pull up your lines! Don’t attract the octopus swarms up the walls." The man who had caught the first one shouted.

The lines were all quickly withdrawn, ending the fishing frenzy, but not ending the swarm of sea monsters toward the city walls. Everything wanted to be here, as they could smell monster blood, which was far better than some common fish.

If they could get a share of that, they were set.

The waters churned with violence as the swarm arrived, and the fighting began, which led to more fighting, more blood in the water, and more monsters coming their way. The frenzy came to a fever pitch, and then everything changed.

"I see metal in the water," someone shouted.

"Someone call the Coordinator!"

"Just shut up and do it, we need her here."

Kalli frowned as she heard the radio message about strange things in the water outside the walls. But she went running through the knee-deep water anyhow, thanking the fact that she hadn’t built a basement to anything but the hangar bays, which were sealed.

What she found when she reached the walls was not at all what she had thought that she was being called for.

There were mermaids in the water.