Chapter 1 Instead of Becoming an Adventurer I Chose to Fish

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A new series I have been slowly working on. It's something I have wanted to write about for a while, and finally, I came up with a world I liked and would fit where the MC is an Angler.

Also sorry for the spam :)

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A version of Earth had been anchored in one spot of reality for billions of years. On a day like any other it started to rise like its anchor had been cut.

No one on Earth noticed anything, as there was nothing to notice. Despite that, Earth continued to rise upwards, passing worlds that had risen above this particular Earth long ago.

It didn’t take long for it to be surrounded by a wake of mana that was getting thicker and thicker as it continued to rise ever higher in the fabric of reality.

All of this went unnoticed by its inhabitants, in the wider reality, eyes started to turn toward this world that was causing ripples of mana that disturbed hundreds of worlds.

Concerns were raised as this Earth didn’t stop. Eventually, it reached so high that even the bubble it caused while constantly moving upwards couldn’t stop all of the mana from getting to the world below.

In just a few hours, from a spot in reality that had not a whiff of mana, Earth had reached the very top, finally starting to slow down as it reached the realm that only held mana and nothing else.

Its speed was still great enough that when it crashed into that barrier, a visible scar opened up across the sky that could be seen by everyone. Mana thundered in, changing all that it touched, seeking life to corrupt.

***

I pulled with all my strength. The line wrapped around my hand was squeezing it so tightly it started to hurt even through my leather gloves. Was the drag system still broken? But then I finally heard the ratcheting sound as the line started to move.

“Yes!” Finally, it worked. Quickly I went to the reel to inspect it, but everything seemed to be holding up.

This was an older model I had purchased and restored just to add to my collection, but otherwise this was way too powerful to use around here. With this you could probably catch yourself a shark. But I was never going to go out to the ocean to fish, it just wasn’t what I liked to do.

What I enjoy most is sitting or standing on a shore. That feeling is something else. Going out on a boat does not come close. Perhaps I would enjoy going fishing on an ocean beach, but my job wouldn’t allow me to go away for that long.

I sometimes envy some of my friends who have regular jobs and aren’t employed by themselves, as they get to have vacations.

“But what will I do with you now? Feels kinda wrong to just put you on a shelf without ever using you. Do I even have a heavy enough lure for you to use?”

I had an entire cabinet full of lures that were just sitting here because they weren’t good for fishing around these parts. What fish went after depended quite a lot on where they lived and what they could hunt there.

I have a habit of buying a lot of things online, so I have quite a big collection of anything to do with fishing, most of it I cannot use here, as the fish simply don’t go after them.

In the world, there are other places where fish can get really big, unlike here. Our waterways are simply too small for that. Well, there are some monsters out there, but they are only a few left.

Testing the different weights, I remembered a large spoon that I bought a few years back. Taking it out and holding it in my hand, I guessed it was 260 grams.

Putting it on the scale, it was 265 grams. That brought a smile to my face. It was close enough for my liking. This one should at least give me an idea of what this reel can do.

Next was the rod. For that I also needed something from storage, a really expensive spinning rod meant for saltwater fishing. This wasn’t my wisest purchase, but it was half off, so at least it wasn’t that bad. Yeah, who am I kidding, this was still a stupid purchase.

Next was the line that I already had on. It was my strongest, braided line that could handle over 100 kilograms. I have found that there are other uses for it as well other than fishing, so while expensive, it was sometimes incredibly useful.

Now it was time to assemble the whole thing. Rod and reel didn’t really fit together that well, but I had enough other parts to make it work. The rod barely bent at the top when the full weight of the spoon was dangling on it. Damn, that’s awesome.

But now, where to test it? I could take off the hooks and go to the river close by, but I have lost so many lures to that bottom, even while taking the hooks off.

No, but now I have my own almost-a-lake. The small fish I released this spring would never go after something so big, so there shouldn’t be anything to worry about.

That’s perfect, because I really don’t want to drive again today. It was also quite a nice day, so it was a perfect day for some fake fishing. That thought made me smile.

As I was heading out, my eyes caught one of the newer packages that had arrived. Inside was the most powerful harpoon gun on the market that was still legal for fishing.

Another not-so-wise purchase, but nowadays you never know when you need to protect yourself, and legitimate fishing equipment that could easily kill anyone seems like a good idea.

Yeah, better test this one out too. It was already loaded up, so I just grabbed it in my other hand and started to walk out of my workshop.

The walk to my new lake was about 20 minutes from my home. It was surrounded by natural grasslands. The only thing I did was cut it twice a year. It was good feed for my cows, and I could sell some of it to the dairy farm close by.

Even better, because it was so natural with different types of wildflowers on it, the government was paying me a bit of money to maintain this and not farm it. Of course, the lake wasn’t natural, which they wanted to argue against, but what I did was perfectly legal and overall it didn’t mess up anything.

Before, the entire area around here was quite flat, but now I needed to climb a small hill to see the beauty that was in front of me. The grass had reconquered a lot during this year, so basically up to the shore there was grass once again, except for one location that was still covered in sand, but that was on purpose.

As I have seen from this summer, it’s going to be a bit of work maintaining that, but having such a nice place is worth that amount of work. The lake is shapes like a crescent moon. This was something that I planned, but sometimes good things happen.

I walked down the slight slope and soon I was entirely cut off from the rest of the world and in my own little universe. The walls that made the small hill around this lake were from the turf being pushed away to reveal what was underneath.

Originally, I just wanted to get some sand and gravel for some construction work I was doing. I remembered that this place had some, as there was always a spot here where the grass didn’t grow as well. After some digging, I realized that this place held top-grade sand and gravel.

It didn’t take long for proper machinery to be up here. To clear out a large area and to dig out the excellent sand and gravel mixture.

It brought in quite a lot of cash, and I ended up with a lake that was almost 700 metres long and 300 metres at its widest. At its deepest it was almost 20 metres.

We finished the excavation of the good stuff in the middle of last summer. It took the winter, which was quite snowy, for the lake to finally fill up. During spring, I planted specially bought plants that were excellent for oxygen production and something the fish could eat.

So now the entire sides of the lake were covered in vegetation. Those were the shallows, as I called them, which I created myself with the large earth-moving machines when they were done with the digging.

The shallows were perfect for smaller fish. I didn’t want the entire lake to be covered in vegetation, so I picked very carefully what plants I planted.

One thing that didn’t want was for the surface of the deeper parts to also be covered in plants, but I also didn’t want there to be just a muddy bottom.

Fortunately, there are a lot of different types of water vegetation. Currentlythe bottom of the lake was now filled with about 30-centimetre to metre-long plants that will not grow any longer.

Once again, a good place for fish to live, especially bigger ones, as these plants didn’t crowd each other too much. Currently, the only fish were the ones that didn’t hunt other fish. When there’s enough of them, perhaps I would introduce a few predators, but I’m not entirely sure.

I was currently at the tip of the lake, the only side that had a proper gradual slope into the depts of the lake. This would be a safe spot for anyone to swim in, as it took a bit to get truly deep. There also weren’t plants here blocking the way, as the bottom was entirely made of smooth round rocky. That took a lot of hours to make.

Finally, it was time to cast. It was good that I brought my gloves, because when I was setting up to cast this beast of a setup, as always you needed to hold the line with your finger, and I was not certain if I could have held the line like that without any protection.

With a sudden swing, the lure flew through the air. From the spool the line was perfectly being let out. The lure hit the water with a satisfying splash. I could now close the line guard, stopping the line from unravelling.

Pulling back on the rod was a lot harder than I was used to, but it wasn’t difficult. This time the rod bent a little bit more, but obviously it could take a lot more weight.

Reeling it back in was a different kind of experience, but one thing was damn sure, trying to use the twitching method on this one was going to be difficult. Probably with such big lures, stop-and-go is the best way to go.

For right now, I simply reeled it back with a steady speed, keeping the lure close to the surface so I could see the lures action. Unfortunately, there was a rainstorm just yesterday, so the water was a bit cloudy.

Actually, that didn’t make much sense. When the sides weren’t grassy, that happend, as quite a lot of sediment washed into the lake, but now that wasn’t the problem. Yeah, this is weird.

I’ll need to look into this a bit later to see what’s wrong. Right now, I prepared for another cast. This time I really put some strength into it, and after I let it go my heart skipped a beat as it flew way longer than I expected. I was just hoping it wouldn’t hit land.

Fortunately, it came down faster than I expected, probably because of the weight. Still, I started to reel it back as soon as it hit the water, as there were water plants where it landed. It got snagged a few times, and I was pretty sure I was pulling out a few leaves.

Having reeled it back and pulling it out of the water, there were three leaves attached to it, one of them having a larger stem. Yeah, I need to be more careful.

While the length of the lake was quite long, it was in a crescent shape, so the cast that I did—that was, I’m guessing, almost 150 metres long—was actually affected by that shape.

Of course, it would have been nice to have a straight lake, but the shape is the way it is because of how the deposit of good sand and gravel was inside the ground. We got nearly all of it, and while there was a lot more sand and gravel to be gotten, it wasn’t the best grade, not even close, so it wasn’t worth digging up, at least for me.

The wind started to pick up a bit, but it was weird. It wasn’t that it was cold, but it did send a shiver down my back like something was wrong. Looking around, I couldn’t see anything, as there was a hill blocking my view. A lake like this really was quite isolated from the outside world.

Controlling my strength better for the next cast, I tried the stop-and-go method, but I needed a few more casts to get it down, adjusting to the extra weight of the lure.

I tried the twitching method, but it didn’t seem to work very well. After a few more casts, I thought I got a proper feeling for the lure. Next to me was the harpoon, perhaps it was time to test this out as well, but for that I would need to go into the water.

Another cold shiver ran down my back. Was I getting sick, or was something going on?

Then I saw some weird movement. Near the shore, some of the water plants there in the shallows moved quite violently.

“That’s weird.”

I decided to cast the lure near it. I was happy with my aim, as I didn’t hit the plants there. Letting the lure sink a bit, I started the stop-and-go method. Then the rod was almost pulled from my hands as something definitely hooked onto the lure.

My grip hardened, stopping the rod from flying away. To my utter surprise, the sound of the drag system clicks rang out. It surprised me for a moment, as I never expected to hear it.

The line continued to be pulled out. Quickly my hand moved while trying to hold on to the rod, adjusting the strength of the drag, making it harder for the fish to pull it.

I think the reel could have handled more, but it was starting to get even more difficult to hold the rod in place and not let it be pulled out of my hands.

With two hands back on the rod, things got a bit easier. Then I needed to start reeling it back as the fish started heading not away from me but towards me.

If there was too low tension on the line, the fish could always escape by getting the hook out of its mouth. Sometimes that’s not possible, as some fish are quite aggressive and swallow the bait quite far, but even then sometimes they can escape.

This didn’t last long, as soon the fish started to escape further away and deeper. The drag system was doing its job, making it harder for the fish to swim, tiring it out.

That’s the brilliance of this type of reel. If I were to try to fully stop the fish from moving, it would either rip off the hook from its mouth, the line would simply break, or something else, like the rod itself.

Otherwise, we would need lines and rods so strong that it would make it hard to actually hook a fish, as even they aren’t that stupid to go after something that seems too strange to them, and an incredibly thick line would do it.

You would need to use harpoons or nets, but I wasn’t the biggest fan of those. Actually fighting the fish like I currently was, was a feeling like nothing else.

For the briefest of moments, I realized that something was really wrong. There shouldn’t be a fish like this here, but this was one of the best fights I’ve had in a long time, so I didn’t really care that much about the reasoning. I could figure that out later.

We continued our fight, with the fish sometimes quickly moving towards me, making me reel as fast as I possibly could, otherwise risking the chance of losing the fish.

The fight continued, it easily swimming sometimes so far away that I thought the land itself would become a problem, as it was able to swim so far that the shape of the lake started to be a factor.

What I needed to do was move as much to the right as possible to give myself a better angle, but even then, the line started to get snagged on the shallows and on the plants there.

This fight had been going on for 10 minutes, and the fish was slowly starting to show signs that it was getting exhausted. It was learning like I was learning, so it was a constant battle of seeing who could outsmart the other.

It learned to quickly swim towards me, as obviously then the hook wasn’t pulling on it constantly then dive deep to try to yank whatever was pulling it out of its mouth.

 had been fishing for most of my life, ever since I was old enough to hold a small rod my father made for me. And ever since I was old enough to properly fish by myself, I’ve always preferred casting lures rather than waiting for the bobber to indicate that a fish was on. So I was ready for whatever this fish tried.

After about half an hour I was exhausted. But I had made a lot of progress. The fish was not 200 or 300 metres away as it was at the start but I was guessing only 50 meters out. It was still stubborn as hell. Every so often it made another powerful run, pulling the line out to 100 metres, but every time it tried, it didn’t get as far.

I was now fully sweating, my hands were numb, as it had been over an hour and a half. For the first time, I saw the monstrosity as it leapt out of the water for a moment.

I do not know what kind of fish it was, but it was big, at least a metre and a half and quite thick as well, with multiple fins unlike anything else I’ve seen. And I’m pretty sure I know at least every popular fish type in the world.

Was this some kind of old nuclear dump site? Was one of the fish that I released here mutated into something this crazy? That was the only explanation I could think of, even though I knew it was impossible for something like that to happen.

The fight continued. Now it was at the 2-hour mark, and once again I managed to get it close enough that it jumped out of the water. It was about 15 metres away now, and I could swear that this thing had grown. Was it now 2 metres long? What was happening, or did I just see it wrong before?

As it landed back in the water, I could swear it caught a glimpse of me. I expected it to once again try to escape, but no, it jumped again. This time we made eye contact the entire time it was in the air.

“What the fuck?”

It did it once more, and then as soon as it hit the water, it started to swim towards me. I expected it to get stuck in the shallows as its body was big enough for that to definitely happen. But no, it pushed forward, driving itself with power I did not know it had. It then jumped at me flying through the air.

It opened its mouth and it was filled with multiple rows of razor-sharp teeth. It had five eyes, why did it have to have five eyes? All of them were way too intelligent as well. Fortunately, it was too exhausted from the fight and it landed a few meters away.

It now pushed with its fins. It had so many, and they seemed powerful enough to move it. I had just stood there dumbfounded, not knowing what the hell was happening. But the snap, when it bit down on the rod and broke it so easily, awoke me from my stupor, and my fight-or-flight response kicked in.

Instead of running away like I probably should have, as the fish was still coming towards me, I bent down and picked up the harpoon I had brought. The fish was now entirely out of the water, but it didn’t seem to care as it was locked on to me.

I could see its muscles bunching up. It was going to try to make another leap, and it was now close enough to easily reach me. Before it could, I aimed the harpoon and pulled the trigger.

My tired hands couldn’t hold on to the kickback as the compressed air rushed out, launching the harpoon straight into the brain of that monster. This interrupted its jump, but the thing wasn’t entirely dead just yet.

I loaded the backup harpoon and fired it again, putting this monster out of its misery.

“What the fuck was this?” I pulled out my phone, but it was dead. I wanted to call someone and take a fucking picture of this thing, but my phone wouldn’t turn on.

The monster smelled wrong, because of course it did. Just in front of it was my broken rod. It was in pieces with even the line being cut. Picking up the reel, I was surprised to find it completely fine. Did this thing actually managed to pull this monstrosity in?

This monstrous fish should easily weigh over 300 kilogrammes. Did it have such weight at the start? There was no way I could have reeled it in, not with how powerful it seemed. Did it really grow during the time I was fighting with it?

My head snapped up when I heard splashing in the lake. Once again I saw the water plants move the same way I saw them move before.

“Oh no, are there more of these things there? What the fuck is wrong with this lake?”

“System initializing!”

All of a sudden, a bluish screen was in front of me, and no matter what I did it didn’t disappear. So I have gone crazy.

I heard violent splashing, and saw two fish fighting half out of the water. They looked more vicious than sharks, and one of them was obviously winning. Then a third one showed up, this one being at least twice as big as the one I caught, easily biting one of the others in half.

I stumbled back, falling on my ass. Scrambling back up, I started to run away from this monster-infested lake. The screen was still in front of me, not changing.

Just before I managed to get to the top of the hill, the text changed.

“You have earned a class slot. Please place your hand on a system obelisk.”

As soon as I finished reading it, it disappeared.

“What the hell does that mean? Floating worlds? What the hell is going on?”

My words didn’t have any effect. I was still completely in the dark as to what was happening, at least until I reached the top of the hill.

I saw thick smoke coming from the distance where the village was. There was so much of it that I wouldn’t be surprised if the entire place was on fire.

Looking toward my own farm, I saw it completely destroyed. There were cows fighting each other, my horses were dead, and the cows weren’t normal, nor had the horses been. But it seemed like the cows won, as some of them were eating those horses.

None of my animals were as I recognized them, and all of them have grown so large. One of the cows had just crushed my car by leaning on it. The biggest one seemed to be the size of a bus and was making sure that my childhood home was nothing but rubble.

None of that, however, mattered when I saw what was even further away. It was like the space was split open, and a scar was running deep into the earth itself. The entire horizon seemed like a hellscape.

I just stood on top of this hill completely broken. My entire life was gone in an instant. Nothing was left except for the fact that I was still alive, but who knows how long that was going to last.

To the back of me was the monster lake. It was only a matter of time before only one fish was left, and then it was going to try to find more food. I was going to be quite appetizing, even if I was just a small snack.

Then there were the ten cows that survived, visibly still growing larger. As soon as they noticed me, it was over. The harpoon could do nothing against those behemoths.

It was then that I noticed I didn’t even have the harpoon. Looking back, it was still near the shore. I must have dropped it when I fell to the ground. In my left hand I still held the remnants of the rod and, of course, the reel with a lot of line still on it.

Perhaps I could use the line to strangle myself before I was eaten alive. Then I heard something that once might have been a cow making a pleasant sound but now filled me with absolute terror.

Looking toward the cows, it seemed they had noticed me. They started to rush towards me. There was no point in trying to run away, they were already running at a speed I could never outrun. Hopefully, they would just trample me to death so it would be fast. One of their steps would be enough to end my life.

I watched, feeling myself growing numb as death was approaching. Between blinks, I heard and then saw how one of the cows was pinned to the ground by what looked to be a huge arrow.

The cows tried to stop the charge, but more and more of them were simply skewered by the largest arrows I’d ever seen. Looking towards where the arrows came from, I saw a huge floating ship firing what seemed like ballistas toward the herd of cows, each one of them hitting their mark.

I was most definitely dead as this all was too crazy to be something real. But the question was, did the cows reach me? Or did I die well before this, having a stroke while testing with my new rod?

The huge ship continued to approach, getting closer. Looking back towards the cows, they were all dead. The ship must have been around 300 metres long, one of the largest ships I’d ever seen. It looked like an old sailing vessel, but on the sides there were glowing crystals.

Rope was thrown out, but none of the five people I saw used it. They jumped out; the ship was still easily 50 metres in the air, but they didn’t seem to have any problems landing without getting killed.

One of them seemed like a lizard man, another looked awfully like an elf, while the other three were human. They spoke to me words that I didn’t understand, and then they tried to step closer. Involuntarily, I took a step back.

All of them were wearing what looked like fantasy/medieval armour. Over their heart they all had a symbol of six balls that weren’t uniformly colored in connected by a thick lined circle. They all also had shoulder patch with a complex design.

One of them glared at one of the humans, who mumbled something under his breath.

“We aren’t here to hurt you. Come with us, you aren’t safe here,” the same one who tried to speak before now once again spoke, but I could now understand him perfectly.

I wanted to speak, I really did, but I just couldn’t get any words out. Now I felt my entire body shaking, but I managed to take a step forward before everything went black.