Salad?
Dark viridian stems wound around Palsigi's entire body.
The slender leaves split into several strands the instant they touched the creature's hide. One became two, two became four, and it took almost no time at all.
Then all four of Palsigi's arms moved at once.
Crunch!
It seized the seaweed stems and tore them apart. Blue fluid welled from the ragged cross-sections.
"Miyeok-i!"
The shout tore out of me before I could think. I wasn't sure when I had started worrying about a piece of seaweed. I had known it longer than I had known Palsigi, at least. And anyone looking at this fight would have called it the one on my side.
The torn pieces of Miyeok-i writhed on the floor. A moment later, each severed fragment began crawling toward Palsigi's ankles.
"…Did it just split?"
"So it's not hurt?"
"Seaweed multiplies when you cut it anyway."
Dozens of dark viridian stems lashed around Palsigi's legs. The creature lost its balance.
Boom!
That massive body crashed onto the kitchen floor. One arm crumpled the refrigerator. The remaining arms flailed, raking the floor and the walls, and every swipe crumpled appliances and sent chunks of concrete flying. The harder it thrashed, the deeper Miyeok-i burrowed into its flesh.
The vertically split mouth wrenched open.
SKREEEEEEE—!!
It was the first sound I had ever heard it make. For three months the thing had never once cried out. It had only crouched beneath my window and waited for me to come down. And now it was trying to run.
Palsigi gathered every last scrap of strength and hurled itself toward the window. Miyeok-i's stems pulled taut. The creature's body inched forward. At last its fingers found the window frame.
One.
Two.
Each arm that joined the grip dragged it a little farther ahead.
I could not let it go. Palsigi already remembered my room. It had enough intelligence to understand that the gun was dangerous. If it came back the moment I let my guard down, I would have no way to deal with it.
"Hold it!"
I shouted without even knowing who I was shouting at.
Miyeok-i answered. The stems coiled around Palsigi's chest gathered into a single point. A thin line opened across that dark viridian surface and plunged into the wind-hole I had punched earlier.
SKREEEYAAAK!?
A sudden jolt of pain stole the strength from its arms. The balance of force collapsed, and its body was yanked backward.
Miyeok-i's body swelled. It split open from side to side.
Trrrrrip.
No teeth. No tongue. Inside, there was only a black space where even light could not survive. Too deep to simply call it a mouth.
Palsigi's upper body was sucked into that dark. Its four arms clamped onto the window frame, the wall, the sink.
Crrrk!
Nails ripped free. Fingers snapped backward. Palsigi held on anyway.
Miyeok-i's mouth opened once more. Twice as wide as before. Wider than Palsigi's entire body.
And then—
SKREEK—!
CRUNCH!
The mouth closed.
Palsigi's torso vanished. The two legs left on the floor twitched once. Dark viridian stems dragged those in as well.
Crrk. Grnk.
A few sounds I did not want to hear, and then it was quiet.
The monster that had occupied the space beneath my window for three months was gone without a trace. Not a drop of blood. Not a scrap of flesh.
The dark viridian stems slowly contracted. The body that had been large enough to swallow the room shrank, and shrank, until it was no bigger than a finger again. Five strands of Miyeok-i slipped meekly back into the pot.
Wriggle.
They floated on the water as if nothing had happened at all.
Silence settled over the room. I stared at the pot. Harin stared at the pot beside me. The tears from earlier had all been wiped away. The genre had shifted from romance to thriller.
"Harin."
"What."
"Weren't we going to eat that yesterday?"
"Technically, you were going to eat it."
"You should've stopped me."
"I did."
Inside the pot, Miyeok-i shook itself. It looked like a puppy wagging its tail. A puppy that had just swallowed a two-meter monster whole.
Wriggle.
One strand of Miyeok-i coiled around my finger. Cold, slick, and somehow a little cute. I couldn't see any hostility toward me in it.
The tension bled out of my shoulders. And before the fact that I had survived could even settle, one thought arrived first.
More importantly.
"Can I get a refund on the gun?"
Harin stared at me like I had lost my mind.
Miyeok-i was still coiled quietly around my finger. Minutes ago, this was the creature that had swallowed a monster without bothering to chew. I did not move. More precisely, I could not move. If I tried to pull my hand free and it took that the wrong way, I might end up as the next course after Palsigi.
"It's not about to eat me, right?"
"Could be sampling the finger first."
"Don't say creepy things."
I checked the inside of the pot. Miyeok-i floated there, perfectly well-behaved. Only one of the five strands had wrapped around my finger. Of the form that had blanketed the entire room while swallowing four arms, there was not a trace. I wanted to believe I had imagined it. The wreckage of the apartment was arguing otherwise, loudly.
"Miyeok-i."
Wriggle.
"Mind letting go of the hand?"
Wriggle.
"Is that a no, or a yes?"
Wriggle.
Conversation was not easy. Still, it was a slight improvement on Palsigi. At least this one was not drooling over the prospect of eating me.
I lifted my hand, slowly. Miyeok-i came up with it, offering no resistance. All five strands left the pot. Lighter than I expected — about the weight of a wet handkerchief. Miyeok-i crawled up over the back of my hand and wound itself around my wrist. It looked like a dark viridian bracelet.
"The design's not really—"
The seaweed on my wrist gave a light squeeze. I shut my mouth. Compliments only, from here on.
"Our Miyeok-i's a good kid."
Wriggle.
"And brave."
Wriggle.
"And doesn't eat its owner."
The pleasant little swaying stopped.
"…Why'd you stop reacting at the last one? Miyeok-i? Right?"
"Guess it's thinking it over."
"About what?"
"Whether to eat you today or tomorrow."
Even as a joke, it put a chill down my spine. I changed the subject in a hurry.
"Treatment first."
My chest throbbed where four arms had hit me. I hiked up my shirt and found a bruise spreading in the shape of a palm. If this hadn't been the body of an Awakened Being, a few ribs would have been broken. Fortunately, it only ached, tight and sore, every time I drew a breath.
I searched the shop for a recovery potion.
Looks like more tips had come in since earlier.
Coins Held: 0
Everything I had — the advance, the tips from the novel after that — gone.
"There go fifty Coins."
"Still, oppa. You did put a hole in the wall."
I decided to look on the bright side. I still had the pistol. The mana rounds would recharge with time.
Max Capacity: 3 rounds
Time until full charge: 23:41:51
Come tomorrow, I would once again have the power to put three holes in a wall. That was reassuring.
Then gallery notifications flooded my vision. I had posted that I was in a hurry and vanished. They must have assumed I was dead.
Having people who worried about you was a good thing. They were all in different worlds, so none of them would make the funeral, but they were the sort who would at least write a post.
I put up a proof-of-life.
Comments landed immediately.
I nodded along to the veteran users, who were rude as naturally as breathing. I took a picture of my wrist and posted it.
The comments stopped. A familiar silence. Everyone was zooming in on the photo, by the look of it.
A moment later, the first comment landed.
The second.
The third.
The fourth.
That did not sound good.
I looked down at my wrist. Miyeok-i was stuck there, perfectly well-behaved. This thing? The mouth was big, sure, but it did not look like it had the stomach for a forest.
The scale had jumped from a forest to planets.
After planets came gods. I was afraid to read the next comment.
That was when SpaceStray posted.
A story that had swollen all the way to planets and gods shrank, in a single comment, to the size of a lunch menu.