Chapter 97: Sea Competition 4
Her relationship with Shane Rhodes and his two companions was currently one of mutual benefit. They needed her resources, and she needed their protection.
Yes, protection.
No matter how powerful she was, in the eyes of outsiders, she was just an eighteen-year-old girl, newly an adult and orphaned.
Being an orphan meant she had no family, leaving her all alone. If she were bullied, no one would stand up for her.
Eighteen, young, inexperienced with the world, naive and easy to fool. And she possessed a vast amount of supplies.
As much as she hated to admit it, in the eyes of others, she was a prime target—the kind everyone wanted a piece of.
Society was still prejudiced against women, especially a textbook case like Moira Lynch.
While Moira could teach those people a lesson, it was too much of a waste of time.
Even if she did, it would only keep them at bay for a short time. Once the fear subsided, they would just come back for more.
Seeing the valuable items she used to defend herself would only make them even more relentless.
Half an hour later, Moira Lynch finally found the one among a pile of sea ears that contained a Sea Pearl.
This sea ear was larger than any of the others she had seen. Standing beside it, she looked quite small in comparison.
Moira Lynch spent a full ten minutes struggling with it before she finally managed to pry the enormous sea ear off the reef.
Next was the search for the Sea Pearl.
Thanks to her spiritual power, Moira Lynch easily located the Sea Pearl hidden within the sea ear’s body.
Its surface was pure black, but it shimmered with an iridescent luster under the sun.
’So this is what "iridescent black" looks like.’
’It’s surprisingly pretty.’
"I found it!" Moira Lynch shouted to the others.
Hearing her, Shane Rhodes and the other two immediately dropped what they were doing and ran over.
"Really? How did you find it!"
Moira Lynch pointed at the enormous sea ear behind her. "Don’t just focus on the small ones. Look for the big ones like this. Your chances of success are higher."
The three of them thought she had a point and all began to search for larger sea ears.
Seeing this, Moira Lynch decided to head underwater and check things out.
She ate a Yoyo Fruit, popped the Sea Pearl into her mouth, and then leaped into the water.
The sudden sensation of drowning was extremely disorienting, and Moira Lynch instinctively began to struggle.
Fortunately, the feeling didn’t last long.
With the help of the Yoyo Fruit and the Sea Pearl, Moira Lynch quickly adapted to moving in the water.
Like a real fish, Moira Lynch surveyed her new surroundings with curiosity.
After acclimatizing for a little longer, Moira Lynch began to swim deeper.
According to the information she had previously gathered from the Cetabeast, the invaders were all active on the seafloor.
As she swam, she noticed the surrounding water was exceptionally clean and clear. But as the saying goes, "Water that is too clear holds no fish."
The clearer the water, the fewer nutrients it contains. In nutrient-devoid water, plants cannot survive, and without plants, fish naturally cannot survive either.
Moira Lynch continued her slow descent. Along the way, she saw pitifully few fish.
When she finally saw the seafloor, the sight was so densely packed it nearly triggered Moira’s trypophobia.
The seafloor was a dense, overlapping carpet of black. Many of them were piled on top of each other, as if there weren’t enough room.
The spines on these sea urchins were constantly moving, a sight that would make one’s blood run cold.
What’s more, each of these sea urchins was an estimated two to three meters in diameter—and that wasn’t even counting the length of their spines.
’Tsk tsk. A single one of these would be enough for several people to gorge themselves on sea urchin.’
However, before she started collecting these sea urchins, she needed to confirm one thing.
"Patience, these sea urchins are edible, right?"
[Sea Thorn Ball, the bandits of the seafloor. They have tenacious Life Energy and will eat anything. Wherever they pass, nothing is left alive.
Anyone who brings Sea Thorn Balls to Planet Aelmar will be sentenced to life imprisonment.
Non-toxic and edible, but few people would eat them.]
Moira Lynch nodded. ’As long as they’re edible.’
She extended her spiritual power and began collecting vast swathes of the sea urchins—no, the Marine Spikebacks—from the seafloor into her storage space.
However, she didn’t toss them into her small ocean; she was raising a lot of fish in there, after all.
If she put these things in there, her fish would be done for.
After about ten-odd minutes of collecting, the seafloor’s original appearance was revealed, but the empty space was quickly filled again by the surplus Sea Thorn Balls.
Moira Lynch felt her spiritual power becoming depleted, so she stopped her work and started swimming back to the surface.
On her way up, she continuously tossed out handfuls of purifying moss.
When she returned to the reef, she heard Kai York exclaim in delight, "I found one too!"
Seeing Moira Lynch return, he hurried over and helped her onto the reef to rest.
"What took you so long? Was it dangerous down there?"
Moira Lynch shook her head, spat the Sea Pearl out of her mouth, and said, "It wasn’t dangerous, but there was a swarm of sea urchins down there. They *looked* dangerous, though."
"Sea urchins!"
Kai York thought of the spiky picture on his Task Book. "Don’t tell me those are the invasive species?"
"I’d say so."
"Then I’m going to go take them on right now."
Before Moira Lynch could say another word, Kai York tossed the Sea Pearl into his mouth and jumped into the sea.
Watching his disappearing figure, Moira Lynch could only shut her mouth. She went back to collecting sea ears, recovering her spiritual power at the same time.
Following her tip, Shane Rhodes and Hugh Finch also found their own Sea Pearls, one after the other.
About ten or so minutes later, Kai York returned to the reef. He looked at Moira Lynch reproachfully. "Why didn’t you tell me sooner that those sea urchins were so huge?"
Moira Lynch shrugged. "You didn’t give me a chance to."
Kai York then described what he had seen on the seafloor, and both Shane Rhodes and Hugh Finch listened with grave expressions.
They knew about sea urchins. Even on Caelus, you had to wear special equipment to catch them and avoid getting poked by their spines.
They never expected that the invasive species they had to fight were sea urchins—and super-sized ones at that, five to six meters each.
"The Boss and Kai York might not be looking for the same thing," Hugh Finch suddenly said. "The pictures for your tasks are different. Kai’s is a spiky ball, so he has to deal with the sea urchins. Boss, yours is a five-pointed star. It could be some kind of starfish."
Moira Lynch wasn’t interested in their conversation. She was just support and couldn’t help much with their main objectives, so she figured she might as well collect more sea ears and handle logistics.
’Something this size probably would have broken a world record before the Great Heat.’