I Reincarnated Into A Single-Celled Organism! - I Reincarnated into a Single-celled Organism! - Chapter 41

A few nights after Mara’s birthday party, I was awoken to a presence. Well, I didn’t really need to sleep, per se, but I could easily induce a trance-like steady state where time passed by rather quickly for me. It’s how I spent most of the time I wasn’t watching Tanner’s family or working on my experiments. That said, I would still wake up if there was a disturbance, and at that moment, I detected two humans getting very close to me.

“Shh! We have to move quietly?” I heard a slurred voice.

“Daddy… why do we have to do this?” A female voice asked.

Slap! “Because I said so! Now you listen to your daddy and stay quiet!”

The drunk fool made more noise in that moment than his daughter could have possibly made. It wasn’t enough to alert Tanner’s family, but that wasn’t the point.

“I will, daddy…” She spoke with a whimper, clearly on the verge of tears.

“Baby, don’t be like that. It’s just… these Tanner folk make me so mad. They think they’re better than us. They invite everyone over to gloat over all their wealth. I heard the wife is a daughter of some noble family.”

“If that’s true… shouldn’t we avoid em’?”

“Shut up, you stupid bitch! Don’t you get it? They disowned her! That’s why she lives like us common folk. It just pisses me off that he gets to be with such a beauty. Meanwhile, I have to make do with your cow of a mother.”

He just said it, didn’t he? I wasn’t sure if I should applaud the guy or condemn him. He was jealous of Tanner’s having a pretty wife and his life. However, I had seen how difficult that life had been. I didn’t know if Carolina was some noble, but she certainly did have assassins chasing after her and her baby. The two had experienced a lot of grief. After building his farm, Tanner nearly died and the whole place burned down.

The only reason the farm had come as far as it had was the hard work the two of them had put into it together. It didn’t hurt that Tanner was a level three evolved. I had a feeling this guy didn’t know that. I had a feeling that evolved farmers were a very rare thing, but it wasn’t my place or my ability to ask Tanner any of that. Either way, the drunk farmer’s insensitive words irked me to an extent. I continued to watch as the man and his girl got closer. He seemed to have a shovel in his hand, and she was carrying a large sack of something that looked far too heavy for a girl her age.

“Pour it into the pond,” the drunkard ordered.

“Daddy, won’t this kill all the fish?”

“That’s the idea, stupid!” He slapped her upside the head.

“Owie!”

“We’ll start by killing the fish. Then we’ll poison his crops. When they start struggling to survive, he’ll have no choice but to sell his wife to his neighbors. Oh… I can’t wait. I’d even pay a silver for her.”

“A silver? All I get is a few coppers!” His daughter whined.

“Be lucky you got my good looks and not your mama’s or the local men I find wouldn’t even pay you that much!” He snapped.

Wow, this guy was a piece of work. When I left home and joined a gang, I met all manners of creeps. I still didn’t meet someone quite as detestable as this garbage. It was like he was trying to win an award for being the biggest piece of shit alive.

The man snatched the bag from his daughter’s hands and then poured the contents into the pond. I allowed this to happen. I controlled the composition of my pond anyway, and I had already moved the fish away from this area to a safe place behind a filtration layer of cells. I was a bit curious about what he was pouring inside. Despite having a sensitivity range at the microcellular level, I still hadn’t been exposed to many chemicals. First, I isolated the toxin, and then I analyzed it. With a bit of research, I could find both a way to make it myself and to counter it.

From the drunkard’s point of view, he poured, and nothing happened. He started to frown, and I decided it was time to put on a show. I started making bubbles as if the poison was having some powerful reaction with my pond water.

“Hahahahaha! Good, very good!” He laughed fiendishly.

“It’s working?” The girl asked nervously.

“Of course it is. I’ve done this before. It’s the only way to get rid of the competition. You’ll understand when you get older. For example, that Mara girl looks like she’ll grow up awful pretty. You should find a way to scar her so that the boys don’t favor her.”

“Really?”

Hmm… I felt a bit of anger at that comment. I decided it wasn’t enough to let him think he won. That wouldn’t be satisfying enough. I grabbed a few of my weakest but fatty fish and killed them. I let one come to the surface right at the edge of the pond. The guy blinked and then laughed. He reached out and pulled it out of the bubbling water.

“Haha, and dinner? This is a good day.” He laughed to himself.

“Is that safe to eat?” The girl asked.

“Shut up! Of course, it is! Stupid girl.”

As much as letting him die on his toxins sounded like fun, there was always a chance he could pull through. Instead, I caused another fish to pop up. This one was a bit farther out. His eyes went to it, and he pulled it from the water happily. A third fish plopped up, even farther. He kneeled, reaching to grab it. The more fish he got, the more excited he became. It was fine, he could have one more. I let it rise to the surface.

He reached, but it was just too far. He made an irritated sound, and then grabbed the shovel he had brought with him and pulled it out. He used it to scoop up the fish. As he started to pull the fish from the water, he let out a laugh, but suddenly he reached some resistance. He pulled, but he couldn’t seem to bring the fish up out of the water. Was the shovel snagged on some seaweed? It certainly seemed that way. He made one more desperate tug, and then I tugged back.

He cried as he went flying face-first into the water. As soon as he was in my domain, I snatched him. He barely let out a cry before I dragged him off to the middle of the pond. There I shoved water down his throat, drowning him without remorse. I left his body for my fish to clean up. Once he was nothing but bones, I had ways of breaking those down too. I was very efficient and getting rid of evidence. Speaking of which… the girl standing nearby just watched as her father was sucked into the pond. She had not attempted to rescue him. I wasn’t sure if that was because she wasn’t clever, or because she didn’t care to save him. Either one could be the truth.

Congratulations! You have reached level 8.

You have unlocked the skill, Cognition.

I was a bit surprised I had leveled, but I supposed in creating my evolved fish, I had killed thousands of lines as I grew others. After six years since my last level, I guess I had just been waiting for a push. Cognition was a Perception skill that linked all of my senses together. It seemingly allowed me to use them in unison far more efficiently than before. I noticed the girl still standing there.

I created a large bubble and then caused it to rise to the surface like a burp. It erupted, and water splashed the girl’s face. It was at that point it had finally dawned on her that her father wasn’t coming back. She let out a scream, turning around and running and she did not stop screaming. Of course, her fleeing shrieks finally woke up Tanner. The lights turned on and about fifteen minutes later, Tanner came to the pond with a lantern. He found the shovel and the empty bag of chemicals. He gave me a single look before picking them up and walking away with them. It was anyone’s guess what he was thinking at that moment.

However, the disappearance of the drunken man became known. His daughter frantically spoke about a water monster eating him, but everyone laughed it off. They all assumed he had gotten drunk and drowned in some pool, and this was his daughter’s way of coping. Without her pimping her out, she ended up getting pregnant by one of the farmer boys. I heard her momma turned it into a shotgun wedding, and the poor guy was forced to marry her. I supposed that was as good of an ending as a girl like she deserved.

I didn’t think I’d need to worry about girls and boys, but it seemed only a blink and five years had passed by. Mara was thirteen, and she was growing increasingly popular with the boys in town.