The Grape-Obsessed Tentacle Monster
“Kyaaaaah!”
“First, go take some voice-changing herbs. The effect’s worn off.”
“Unni, what do I do?”
“Calm down. Your concept’s fallen apart. And since when am I your unni?”
Chris had fallen into a full-blown panic. Failing a life-or-death gamble was one thing—she could always cut her losses and start over. But having every last asset liquidated? That was an entirely different story. She clutched her head and collapsed onto the bed, looking utterly miserable.
I watched her with a pang of sympathy and spoke slowly. “If you’re younger than me, that makes you sixteen or under. How did someone your age manage to save up that much money? Did you start with a large initial capital?”
“……I succeeded at this kind of gamble five times in a row over the past year.”
“So you weren’t a traveling merchant after all—you were a gambling addict?”
From what she’d said, even after five consecutive wins she still hadn’t accumulated much capital. She must have started from rock bottom.
“If this one had worked, I could’ve finally opened my own trading company……”
“That’s a shame.”
“Unni, I’m so sad.”
“I feel like I might cry too. Also, are we dropping honorifics now?”
“Unni……” Chris’s voice cracked. Real tears welled in her eyes. I supposed anyone would react this way after losing their entire fortune. …No, correction. Even if I lost everything, I wouldn’t cry. What if I lost all my magic instead? That might be similar.
Chris muttered while raking her fingers through her hair. “I was just starting to think I could finally stop this tiresome cross-dressing……”
“You did it so people wouldn’t look down on you, right?”
“Once you run a proper trading company, being a woman doesn’t matter as much. But when you’re just a traveling merchant, some people refuse to do business with you at all because you’re female.”
This sweet Happy Mid-land didn’t like women becoming merchants. It wanted to protect them from stepping into a world overflowing with desire and filth. Truly. It had nothing to do with the idea that “women can’t calculate rationally.” Believe me.
By the way, the wine had been stolen. A sudden thought struck me, and I asked Chris carefully, “Is the wine that was taken the same as this one?”
“Was it you who stole it, Unni?”
“I received it as well.”
I handed the wine bottle to Chris. She accepted it, sniffed the contents, took a small sip, and narrowed her eyes.
“This is the local specialty wine. Mine was from a different region. Completely different.”
“Is that so?”
“Unni, where did you get this? It’s top-grade wine.”
“I received it while passing by.”
I’d already told her the wine uncle was a kind, good person. Anyone who accused him of theft should step forward and present their backside for punishment.
I tilted my head. “Was the wine you lost stored in the carriage?”
“Of course not. I rented a warehouse. Who would leave such expensive wine sitting in a carriage?”
“And it was still stolen from the warehouse?”
“That’s what’s strange……”
A warehouse should have had locks. If someone had broken through them, they must have been dealing with a particularly vicious thief.
“Is there any chance the warehouse owner took it?”
“I thought of that possibility first, just like you. But after seeing the scene, it doesn’t seem to be the case.”
“How exactly was it stolen, then?”
“You’ll have to see it for yourself.”
Left with no choice, I followed Chris to the warehouse. The moment we arrived, I nodded. She was right—this was definitely not a normal situation.
I ran my hand over one of the oak barrels stacked inside. A fist-sized hole had been punched into the spot I touched. That was extremely odd. The barrels contained wine, not jewels. If someone wanted to steal them, they would have taken the whole barrel. There was no reason to drill holes like this.
Drilling holes and transferring the wine into other containers? That would only make sense if the barrels had tracking devices attached. Otherwise, it was the most pointless act imaginable. Unless the thief intended to drink every last drop inside, there was no reason to do this.
“Maybe dozens of men held a drinking party here?”
“That’s possible.”
Chris pointed at the floor. I followed her finger. Wine had spilled and was rolling across the ground, as if someone had been carelessly pouring it during a party.
“Judging by the amount of sediment, they didn’t dump all the wine on the ground. It looks like they only spilled a little. What does that mean?”
“That’s why I said it wasn’t the warehouse owner. In fact, I’m starting to doubt whether this was even done by a human.”
“It could be a deliberate attempt to create a mysterious incident and remove themselves from suspicion. If that’s the case, the containers they transferred the wine into should be somewhere. We just need to find them.”
“……That makes sense.”
Hope returned to Chris’s expression. If I was right, the wine hadn’t been destroyed—it had only been misplaced. If we recovered it, everything could be restored.
Chris stood up. “I’ll sneak into the houses of the people I suspect.”
“Will they just let you in?”
“Unni, I’m a merchant. Getting naturally invited into people’s homes is a basic skill. If I couldn’t do that, I would’ve starved to death long ago.”
“Go with Leon. It could be dangerous.”
“Got it.”
If this was the work of a human, it was an extremely meticulous and well-planned crime. Dangerous situations could arise during the investigation.
“Oh, right, Unni. Can’t you track it with magic?”
“There are spells like that, but I can erase traces—I just can’t locate things.”
“That’s a shame.”
“I’ll investigate the places I suspect on my own as well.”
With that, we left the warehouse and split up.
Shade Grapeton’s grape festival lasted an entire week. Even at this late hour, the streets were packed with people, and the entire town reeked of wine. Tracking by scent was clearly off the table. Time to move on to the next plan.
“Have you seen anyone drinking particularly good wine?”
“Well, if it isn’t the chess monster.”
“Hello.”
“Wine? Everyone in town is drinking good wine right now. Why do you ask?”
Failure. Next plan.
Theft was an immoral act. In other words, if I found someone whose sense of ethics seemed loose, I might be able to identify the culprit.
“How’s the arm-wrestling betting going?”
“We’re ruined. Completely ruined.”
“It’s not like a monster’s going to pop out from there.”
Unfortunately, the two gamblers weren’t in any state of mind to steal anything. I decided to change my approach—put myself in the thief’s position. Where would be the best place to hide stolen wine? There was an old saying: to hide a tree, use a forest. Sometimes the most obvious place was the safest. According to that logic, there was only one location in the village where wine could be hidden right now.
The vineyard.
I immediately ran toward it. Shade Grapeton’s vineyard was enormous—that was why the festival existed in the first place. After the harvest, there were so many grapes they would rot if not celebrated. I walked across the vast vineyard owned by Count Shade. The world had long since grown dark, and only lanterns lit the way. I raised my lantern and examined various spots in the vineyard.
Where was it? Where had they hidden the wine?
At that moment, in a place the lantern light barely reached, a massive shadow appeared briefly before vanishing. It wasn’t a tree. From the silhouette alone, it looked round and tall—as if something had been stacked up.
Found it!
I sprinted straight toward the enormous shadow and raised my lantern. There was a rock.
“Hello.”
I greeted the rock and leaned against it. Rocks didn’t belong in vineyards. If anything, the person who hid oak barrels here was the strange one. Who would stash stolen goods in such an open place? Realizing I’d made the wrong choice, I leaned back against the rock and looked up at the sky. White jewels poured down to the earth. I let the starlight-like strands of hair slip between my fingers, then pulled the wine bottle from my pocket and poured some into a glass.
Sorry, Chris. I think this is as far as I go.
Glug, glug. The fragrant scent of wine tickled my nose. It really was top-grade wine. Just the smell made my body tremble. I set the bottle down on the ground, brought the glass to my lips, and lowered my other hand to steady myself against the earth—only to lose my balance and fall forward.
Have you ever stepped forward expecting stairs that weren’t there? That was exactly what just happened to me. I’d reached out expecting solid ground, but there was nothing.
What was this?
I shone the lantern to investigate and found a fist-sized hole in the ground. A mole. Moles were pests—if you saw one, the usual response was to exterminate it. Just so you know.
With that mystery solved, I cheerfully downed the wine. Drinking wine in a vineyard under a starry sky—what an elegant combination. I couldn’t resist. One more glass.
I reached for the wine bottle I’d set down earlier. But my hand grasped nothing. Was it not here? I stretched my arm a little farther, but still found nothing.
What? Had the bottle rolled away? If the cap wasn’t on, the contents would’ve spilled everywhere. Startled, I shone the lantern to the side—and blinked at something wriggling.
I looked down. The fist-sized hole I’d noticed earlier was now completely filled by the creature’s body. The thing that had emerged from the hole was writhing, diligently moving something toward the tip of its body.
It was the wine bottle.
After transporting the bottle, the creature split open the end of its body and crunched down on the bottle, devouring it whole.
Witnessing the entire scene from start to finish, I shot to my feet and shouted,
“It’s a tentacle monster obsessed with grapes!”