Reincarnated as a Land Shark???

Chapter 18: Breakfast Hunting

When I finally come back to my senses, the sky is already bright. The sound of the waterfall's roar draws me further into consciousness as I shake off the last vestiges of sleep, dreams fading from my mind.

A quick look up at the sky tells me that I have indeed slept later than I intended. It's well past noon for god's sake! From now on, no more all-nighters unless absolutely necessary.

My stomach growls as I stand, causing me to frown. It has been a while since my last meal, I should probably head to shore and look for something to hunt.

That leads me to a new problem. I've hunted in the water before, and I've seen how the swarm hunts. Members of my species were not meant to hunt on land alone, and so I really have no idea how to do it. It doesn't help that my silvery skin makes me stand out like a sore thumb. At best I could try to find a rocky area to use as camouflage, but since I operate on a time limit in terms of how long I can be on land I can't just sit around and wait for something to get close.

That means I actually have to learn how to hunt things on land.

Well, considering my journey is going to take me further and further inland, now's as good a time to learn as any. If all else fails I can try my luck with the small animals that think they're safe hiding in trees or flying in the air.

Well, my chances of finding something are automatically higher than they'd normally be considering I'm near water. I'll probably do best to stay near the river while I hunt.

I tread across the riverbed for a while, heading upriver and looking around. Not much is out today...

It's only when a duck on the river sees me and frantically wings itself away that I realize what the problem is. Ah, of course nothing is going to approach the water while something like a land shark is roaming about on the shore looking hungry.

I pause, sit down, and consider my next course of action. I could get in the water and swim upstream, but at the same time I need to get used to hunting on land. The underbrush here is really tall, so I think that if I crouch down I'll be relatively hidden.

With that decision in mind, I slink into the bushes, crouching down like a big cat. Okay, now how do I do this?

My 'stealth crawl' is hardly stealthy at first. All the bushes rattle and creak like they're going to be ripped out of the ground every time I take a step forwards. Drawing my fins in as close as I can to my body doesn't help much considering just how much mass is attached to said body. Yeah, this isn't going to work if I keep doing it like this.

And so I try to weave between bushes, keeping myself as low to the ground as possible. I'm sure that damn fin on my back is sticking up high enough to be visible through the bushes anyways, but there's not much I can do about that. Let's just hope all the land animals are stupid enough to not realize what that is.

I continue my walk forward, scanning the area for any signs of life. My eyes land on a deer, but it's on high alert, eyes darting across every strip of ground in nervous agitation. I'd go for it, but not only are deer fast as all hell compared to me, it's also at the other side of the river. The second I try and get into the water to swim over there it'll be gone.

Looks like no luck there, then.

There are ducks on the water as well, but they'll likely be the same story as the deer. I'll have to head upriver more and get in the water, then swim down and hope to ambush them. I highly doubt normal ducks will even give me that much EXP even if I do catch them, so they're not exactly an enticing meal... and considering the size of my stomach I'm not even sure they'd be worth the effort. I can eat a lot of food. I damn near picked that saltwater croc clean and it was almost the same size as me.