Word count: 2,247
"Whew, that was so damn thrilling." Jenny couldn't help but cheer.
The scene that had just unfolded was a full-on assault on both sight and sound. Jenny's cheeks flushed bright red, and her heart rate skyrocketed to 180!
Cinema! Absolutely cinema!
"Ding. Beautiful girl, I suggest you go search the Aurora wreckage that crashed nearby. You might find some useful supplies." At that moment, Gaia spoke up to remind her.
"Aurora wreckage?!" Jenny recalled the massive chunk that had flown right over her head.
"You can check the bracelet for the exact location."
Jenny raised her bracelet. A beam of light shot out and marked the wreckage's distance from her position.
672 meters.
"Just over six hundred meters. That I can check out."
Jenny nodded. "Alright, let's go find some Aurora fragments first!"
No time to waste. She sprang into action, jumping into the sea and maxing out her underwater thruster as she swam toward the wreckage.
But soon, as she spotted the familiar patch of seaweed vines ahead, Jenny's brows furrowed.
This was exactly where Escape Pod No. 2 had crashed.
And she hadn't forgotten there was a three-meter-long monster around here!
Still, that monster should be down on the seabed, so it shouldn't be a problem, right?
With that thought, Jenny kept swimming forward, but she stayed alert and kept her eyes locked on the area below.
Then, right in the middle of a cluster of seaweed vines, she saw a deep shadow rising toward her.
Jenny's heart skipped a beat. The worst thing had happened.
It was a three-meter-long creature that looked like a crocodile, except it had no limbs. It resembled a gigantic catfish, with a massive maw that took up nearly a third of its body.
[Holy crap, holy crap, it's that crocodile monster!]
[Jenny, watch out! That thing looks like it's coming for you!]
[Yeah, it's swimming straight at you!]
[This game's realism is freaking me out. Right now I'd almost prefer it to be less realistic!]
At that moment, Jenny felt her scalp go numb and a chill run down her spine.
If she had to compare it to something on Earth, this was no different from being alone in a forest and running into a giant bear.
But Jenny was no longer the old Jenny. She stayed calm and quickly scanned it with her bracelet.
[Ding. Sea crocodile. Large carnivore with incredible bite force. Due to its body structure, it turns very slowly while swimming and lacks patience when hunting.
Assessment: Avoid contact. If forced into a direct encounter, try to escape in a curved path.]
Jenny memorized Gaia's words and immediately turned to swim away.
The sea crocodile, which had been stealthily closing in on its prey, instantly whipped its powerful tail and chased after her.
[Holy crap, that monster really is after Jenny!]
[It's catching up! It's catching up!]
[Damn, it's so fast! Even with her underwater thruster, she's not faster than it.]
[Game over. Feels like Jenny's done for.]
The viewers panicked.
At the critical moment, Jenny suddenly made a sharp, agile turn to the left.
She had remembered the sea crocodile's weakness perfectly.
The sea crocodile missed its strike, paused for a brief second in place, then laboriously swung its body and continued the pursuit.
But in the time it took to turn, Jenny had already swum five or six meters ahead.
Once she grasped the trick, Jenny repeated the maneuver with several more sharp turns, pulling the sea crocodile farther and farther behind.
"Damn, Jenny's movement is so slick!!"
"S-shaped dodging and everything!!"
"Has Jenny's swimming gotten this good? She's actually showing up a crocodile?!"
The viewers marveled, yet even so the sea crocodile refused to give up on this juicy piece of prey and kept chasing.
"What's going on, Gaia? Didn't you say it lacks patience when hunting?" Jenny frowned tightly.
"Biological habits are not set in stone." Gaia replied. "When it develops a strong preference for a certain type of prey, it will show far more patience."
Hearing this, the viewers suddenly understood.
[I get it now. This crocodile must have eaten the woman from Pod No. 2, so it developed a taste for human flesh!]
[So that's why! No wonder it's locked onto Jenny!]
[Sigh, I suddenly feel a chill all over.]
[There's this much detail in the game?! That's way too much.]
Jenny understood Gaia's meaning too. She clenched her fist and pulled out her pistol!
"I'll make you chase me!"
She aimed at the sea crocodile and pulled the trigger repeatedly!
Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang!
It was Jenny's first time firing the gun, but her aim was surprisingly decent. Thanks to the sea crocodile's huge size, three shots hit it squarely.
Three blooms of blood erupted from the sea crocodile's body.
It finally realized this creature was different from the last one and turned to flee!
Jenny remembered the desperate cries of the woman from Escape Pod No. 2. A surge of hot blood rushed to her head, and instead of running she chased after it.
"Let's see if you can still eat people!!!"
"Die! Die!!"
Aiming at the fleeing sea crocodile ahead, Jenny roared and emptied all twenty rounds from the magazine in one furious burst!
She didn't know how many bullets actually hit, but after the monster swam another dozen meters it suddenly stopped, then sank slowly toward the seabed.
Blood mist spread through the water around it.
This scene left the viewers completely stunned.
[Oh my god, Jenny actually solo-killed a crocodile?]
[Is this the same timid, scaredy-cat Jenny I know?]
[How did Jenny suddenly get so fierce?! I can't believe it.]
"Whew." Jenny let out a soft breath. For some reason, she felt much lighter inside.
Although she hadn't been able to save the woman from Escape Pod No. 2, at least she had avenged her.
Even though Jenny was just a delicate woman, at this moment she felt the satisfaction of settling a grudge!
Thinking of this, a smile spread across Jenny's face. She declared boldly.
"Chats, let me tell you something. If you play this game, you won't have a choice but to be brave. The game will find every way possible to train your courage."
"Anyone who feels timid or weak, come play. The bold ones can come test your guts too, hahaha!"
The viewers didn't doubt Jenny's words for a second. Why? Just look at how she was performing.
Back when she played Silent Hill, a simple door creak had scared her half to death. Now in Subnautica she could face a ferocious beast and counter-kill it!
This was the charm of New World Studio's games.
It trained your mentality in every possible way. Viewers who hadn't gone through that training really wouldn't dare to go head-to-head with a crocodile like Jenny had.
After successfully taking down the sea crocodile, Jenny went to find more jet flowers, collected several portions of sulfide, and reloaded more than ten rounds of bullets.
She realized guns were seriously useful. You had to keep plenty of ammo on hand.
Once her bullets were restocked, Jenny continued toward the Aurora wreckage.
With the underwater thruster helping, a few hundred meters took only one or two minutes.
"Buzz."
But just as Jenny was about to reach her destination, a sound suddenly came from the distance.
It was ethereal and far-reaching, echoing through the sea in waves.
[Is something calling?]
[That call sounds pretty nice. Kinda like whales back on Earth!]
[But it's so loud, the creature's probably whale-sized too. Jenny, be careful!]
[Holy crap, holy crap, I'm getting excited!]
The viewers instantly grew thrilled. Who didn't love giant beasts?!
Otherwise movies like King Kong and Godzilla wouldn't have been such huge hits.
Whale-sized, huh? Jenny had never seen a real whale in person, but she knew they were the largest creatures on Earth.
She sucked in a light breath and immediately felt nervous.
No wonder it was a game made by her little brother. She had just killed a crocodile, and now she might run into another monster. The thrills just kept coming wave after wave.
"Ding. Large biological call detected." Gaia's voice rang out at the right moment. "Based on the sound, it should belong to a gentle species. Don't be too nervous."
"Gentle, huh? That's good." Jenny patted her chest and muttered.
Thinking about it, the call was similar to a whale's, and whales on Earth were pretty docile too.
"Buzz."
The vast, low sound continued to echo. Jenny swam onward.
Soon she spotted a massive shadow up ahead that was impossible to miss.
"The giant beast is right in front of us. Let's keep going!"
Jenny swallowed hard and picked up her swimming pace.
Finally, the true form of the giant beast revealed itself before her eyes.
But what surprised Jenny was that what lay in front of her was actually a gigantic underwater island!
The island was enormous. From this close, she couldn't even see its edges from the front.
Jenny had to swim above it to get a proper overhead view.
Only then did the full appearance of the island unfold before her.
A rough estimate put it at over fifty meters long and more than ten meters wide. The surface was uneven, covered with lush coral and aquatic plants.
"What's going on? Isn't this a living thing? Why does it look like an island?"
Jenny was puzzled and aimed her bracelet at the island below.
Gaia promptly gave the information.
"Ding. Reefback fish, also known as Island Leviathan. A Leviathan-class creature. Its exoskeleton resembles solid reef rock and supports a small ecosystem of its own. This giant life form can grow to over a hundred meters as an adult. It feeds on plankton, has a gentle temperament, and is assessed as non-aggressive. Safe to approach."
[Reefback fish image:]
Hearing Gaia's words, Jenny and the others finally realized.
[So this island is actually a living creature?!]
[If you hadn't said anything, I would've thought it was just a giant rock in the ocean!]
[And it can grow to over a hundred meters? That means the one in front of us is basically just a baby in its species?!]
The viewers were thoroughly shocked.
After all, the largest whale on Earth was the blue whale, and even those only reached thirty-three meters at most!!!
Yet this baby reefback fish was already over fifty meters long.
An adult reefback fish could reach a hundred meters!
That was the length of three giant whales put together.
"Oh my god, that's way too exaggerated."
Jenny sighed in awe. Looking at the island below, she gathered her courage and swam down, stepping directly onto the reefback fish's back.
From up here, it really felt like she was standing on a piece of land in the middle of the sea. Schools of small fish and shrimp darted around, foraging.
The reefback fish showed no reaction to Jenny's arrival. It either didn't notice her landing on its back at all.
"Buzz, buzz, buzz."
It simply kept up its low call and swam slowly forward.
"I feel like I'm just a mosquito on its body right now. It doesn't care about me at all."
She ran her hand over the reefback fish's rough surface and couldn't help complaining. Sure enough, humans really were insignificant in front of creatures this massive.
[Tsk tsk. Life is so diverse, and humans are so tiny.]
[This is something that could only happen in my dreams.]
[Just for this alone, buying Subnautica is totally worth the ticket price!]
[It was already worth it back during the Aurora explosion, okay! Now it's way beyond that.]
[Even if you ignore the story, just coming in here to admire the scenery and play with the animals makes every penny worth it.]
The viewers sighed sincerely. Forget everything else. Just the chance to get this close to a giant beast? That alone was worth thousands of bucks, right?!
And the game only cost $100. The viewers had finally experienced what people meant by american conscience!
Because the reefback fish was so unprecedented, Jenny felt reluctant to leave. She played with it for a long time before finally swimming away.
By now she was less than a hundred meters from the Aurora wreckage.
She pressed onward.
"By the way, Gaia, what exactly are these Leviathan-class creatures you mentioned?" At that moment, Jenny remembered what Gaia had said earlier.
"Leviathan-class creatures refer to organisms with extremely large body sizes." Gaia answered concisely.
"Extremely large body sizes." Jenny's heart stirred. "Wait, Gaia. Does that mean this planet might have other Leviathan creatures?"
"Unknown at present."
"Are all Leviathan creatures as gentle as the reefback fish?"
"No." This time Gaia gave a firm answer.
Jenny froze for a second.
[Sigh. Doesn't that mean there could be other dozens-of-meters-long giant predators in this ocean.]
[Wow, that sounds terrifying!]
[Jenny, take it easy. A ferocious carnivorous Leviathan? Holy crap, just imagining the scene is scary enough!]
[And that's not something you can handle with a little pistol.]