115. I Heard Keeping Tentacles as Pets Is the Trend These Days? (4)
115. I Heard Keeping Tentacles as Pets Is the Trend These Days? (4)
Clank.
Clank.
Clank!
Boom!
In a corner of the silent, deserted workshop, an abandoned sealed box crashed to the floor. The noise was loud enough to make anyone present turn around, but fortunately or unfortunately, no one was inside the moonlit workshop.
'A host... I needed a host.'
This body had obvious limitations.
That was the conclusion she had reached over the past three days of longing for freedom and attempting escape.
Over those three days, her escape attempts had already reached double digits, and every one had been thwarted by the huge man who had brought her here and the strange girl who radiated an uncanny presence. The situation was unbearably frustrating.
'Why in the world didn't it work?'
It made no sense. She had clearly made eye contact and attempted to brainwash them, yet instead of producing any effect, she had only been tormented for her trouble. She could not help seething with frustration.
'I couldn't believe I was being subjected to this humiliation! Unbelievable!'
She vented her rage while crawling desperately across the dusty floor. If she had possessed a mouth, she would have screamed loudly enough to wake everyone sleeping in Dawn Hall. But that was something a Grimoire without a mouth would never be able to do.
Still, unable to endure it without working off her anger somehow, she lashed out at an innocent table leg with a tentacle.
Perhaps the heavens took pity on her, for the table she struck wobbled, and an object atop it fell onto her tentacle.
'It huuuuuurt!'
The soundless scream set off a magnitude-8.0 earthquake inside her head. Overwhelmed by pain, she clutched her severed tentacle and rolled across the floor. Her vision swam. For the first time, she realized that her eye could shed tears.
'B-but I-I still had to escape!'
Ignoring the pain of her severed tentacle, she pressed onward. Less than five meters remained to the workshop door. Even as her entire body became covered in dirt, she didn't stop struggling to escape.
Three meters.
Two meters.
One meter.
She stuck to the door and stretched a tentacle toward the handle. One tentacle was gone, making her constantly lose balance and topple over, but still, she did not give up.
Hadn't someone once said that what mattered was an unbreakable spirit?
'It opened!'
Creeeak—
After a desperate struggle, she used her body weight to turn the handle and rejoiced inwardly.
Now, if only she could get outside—
"...Mew?"
'Kyaaaaaaaah!'
The ordeal was not yet over.
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"Yohan, are you feeling all right?"
"You treated me yourself. I'm fine, so don't worry too much."
"Then please don't give me things to worry about in the first place."
"I'm sorry."
"...It's all right. You got hurt saving someone, so I suppose it couldn't be helped."
It was early morning, with dew still clinging to the grass. I pulled Patrasche along and went for a morning walk with Karina.
Today, I had decided to escort her.
I might have been little more than an Escort Knight in name, but common decency demanded that I give Reni some time to rest when paperwork and escort duty were running her ragged.
Seeing her doze off with dark circles under her eyes had made my heart ache a little.
In any case, I carried Reni from where she had fallen asleep over her desk back to her room, strapped my shovel to my back, and began the day with a walk beside Karina before breakfast.
"I think this is the first time we've taken a morning walk alone together, Yohan."
"Didn't we sometimes do that on the uninhabited island?"
"The uninhabited island... It's already been almost three months. It wasn't that long ago, but it feels like years have passed."
Years, huh... Even after spending ten years there, it felt like something from the distant past. Those hellish days had become memories... my ass. Just thinking about them still made me curse.
"Y-Yohan, I don't think you should use such vulgar language!"
"Sorry. Thinking about the uninhabited island made me swear without realizing it."
After ten long years of unfair bullshit, there was no way I could think about it without swearing.
"I understand, but please be careful! Using vulgar language is not a good thing!"
"I'll bear it in mind."
This made me feel as though my mother were scolding me.
...Mom. Mom, huh.
What kind of person was my mother, again?
Honestly, I could not understand why my memories of my parents were fainter than my memories of the game. My recollections of my family were blurred like a mirror fogged with steam, as though something had interfered. Had something deliberately obscured my memories?
Just why—
"Yohan?"
"...Ah, sorry. What were we talking about?"
"We were talking about Elisa."
"Is she adjusting well to the work?"
Honestly, considering how insanely shy she was around strangers, I suspected she might still be adjusting. But Karina nodded at my question and gave me an unexpected answer.
"She is doing quite well. Reni was happy, saying Elisa had given her at least a little time to rest. Reni absolutely detests paperwork... If only I recovered faster, I could take those duties back..."
"She seems pretty capable for someone who hates it."
That was a side of Reni I hadn't seen in the game.
In the game, chances to speak with her were scarce, and personal conversations became available only after raising Karina's affection past a certain point. Given my memories of the boss fight, Reni was considered a one-trick brute-force fighter, so seeing her handle intellectual work so competently was fascinating.
"She used to assist me with simple administrative tasks back then, too."
So she was putting what she'd learned by watching from the side to use. Contrary to her image, she might have been quite intelligent.
"It's work I should have been doing... When I see her eat quick meals in the office because she considers even mealtimes a waste, I feel terribly guilty. My condition has improved enough that I try to help, but Reni refuses so firmly that I can't..."
Karina lamented with a gloomy expression. I listened silently and thought of Reni asleep in her room. How long could she keep going if she continued pushing herself like that?
"...Perhaps it would be better to simply hire more people."
"...It isn't easy to find suitable people to place close to the Saintess, after all."
It was not easy to select someone qualified to remain near the Saintess. They would be serving the Saintess herself, after all, so the requirements were inevitably stringent.
Even I had piled up enough certifications to build a house of cards and had only qualified after receiving recognition for escorting Karina to the academy.
As for Elisa, she had nowhere else to go because of her special bloodline. Unless she became corrupted, she was completely harmless, so they had somehow accepted her...
"Mew!"
"Yohan? Over there..."
The sharp cry shattered my reverie like glass, and I looked in the direction of the sound.
"...When did it escape?"
"Pardon?"
"That book—the one I obtained from the rift. It can move on its own. It seems dangerous... though I'm not certain."
I wasn't sure I could call a book running away while being pummeled by a cat's paw-punches dangerous.
I asked Karina to wait a moment, waved the cat away, and picked up the book. Its tentacles were a mess from being scratched and bitten. One had even been torn off completely, probably bitten through by the cat.
"...If it's going to be like this, wouldn't it have been better to just stay put quietly?"
At my words, the moist eyeball embedded in the center of the book looked up at me. Its eye brightened slightly, as though it was about to blink again. I turned the book over and tucked it under my arm. With nowhere suitable to put it, I had little choice but to hold it there.
I was reluctant to hand such an ominous object to Karina.
If that blinking was some kind of brainwashing beam, the situation would become extremely awkward.
"What a fascinating book. May I take a look?"
"No. It's a dangerous book, so it's best not to touch it."
"It's all right. I am the Saintess, after all. Ordinary curses and magic don't affect me."
"Aren't you currently afflicted with a curse?"
"Ah... that's true. Still, may I examine it briefly? It looks like a Grimoire, but I don't sense any sinister energy from it... though gloomy mana is seeping from it."
"Are those two different things?"
"It's difficult to explain, but they're somewhat different. Sinister energy is dangerous, while gloomy mana can simply be an innate attribute... as with Elisa."
Ah.
I understood immediately.
"...I'll show it to you while I'm holding it, so don't grab it with your hands."
I moved in front of Karina and showed her the book from about two steps away, covering its eye with my hand in case it fired another beam. Its tentacles slapped the back of my hand, but they were weaker than a cat's paw-punch and only mildly annoying. After studying the book in silence for quite a while, Karina spoke.
"...Because it came from a place overrun with zombies, I thought it might be a dark-magic book, but it feels somewhat different. Hmm... perhaps it resembles a kind of scripture."
"This thing is a scripture?"
That was the most astonishing thing I'd heard today.
A book with tentacles was a scripture? That was as shocking as learning that Millia had eaten every last carrot at dinner the previous night.
"It might not be. It could simply be a book infused with that kind of energy... My knowledge in this area is limited, so I cannot be certain. Perhaps you should ask Principal Merlin."
"...I suppose I'll have to."
Perhaps it was my imagination, but at the name Merlin, the tentacles seemed to cling more tightly to my hand.
...Did it know Merlin?
That was impossible.
I tucked the now calmer tentacle book under my arm and gripped Patrasche's handle with one hand.
We resumed the walk we had briefly interrupted.
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'That was the only method left!'
She had not been broken yet.