If You Spot Tentacles, You Gotta Go In
If you’ve discovered tentacles, the rule is you have to go in. The dopamine rush was hitting perfectly. For the first time since arriving here, I felt genuinely grateful to have been possessed into a romance-fantasy world. After all, romance fantasy is still fantasy, and fantasy means tentacles are fair game! To think I could witness such a flawless specimen with my own eyes and sketch it—pure bliss.
“Kyaaaa. This is the stuff.”
Scritch. Scritch. Scritch. My pen flew across the page. The slimy texture, those irregular yet bouncy curves. It should have been difficult work, but this body’s talent guided the pen like it had a mind of its own, sliding smoothly over the sketchbook.
“Mmm.” Make the stalk a little thicker. What are those vein-like ridges? The mucus carries more weight than I expected. Details you can only catch by seeing it in person. I captured each one, page after page, until—
“Save meeee!”
A sharp, high-pitched scream cut through the air.
“Haaaaang! Stop staring and come rescue me right nowwww!”
What the hell was that picture-book noble-lady speech pattern? I lifted my head and looked toward the source of the noise. A young lady with flashy golden-blonde hair styled in elaborate rolls was dangling in mid-air, her waist wrapped tightly in a massive bundle of tentacles as she flailed helplessly.
Oh, right. I’d been so focused on the tentacles I hadn’t even noticed the person. That roll hairstyle looked familiar. I dug through my memories. Had I bumped into her near the Annex Library? Or maybe during political economy class? Why couldn’t I place her? Who was she again?
“The Valenti family’s… Aaaaack! Hon—or haaaang! I shall treat youuuuu!”
“Ah.”
Right. It clicked. Lady Valenti. The daughter of Duchess Valenti, the professor of political economy. Despite appearances, she was a named sub-heroine who set trends in high-society circles among noble ladies her age.
Who did she end up with in the original story? I was pretty sure there was a sub-coupling. Kyle Balder, the Gold Sun, maybe? Honestly, my brain didn’t have enough storage to perfectly remember the romantic side-quests of supporting characters who strayed from the main plot. My own nose was already three inches long—how was I supposed to keep track of everyone else’s love lives? Anyway, that wasn’t important right now.
“You ill-mannered, brainless tentacle bastards! Do you have any idea who I am? I-I am the young lady of the Valenti ducal houseee!”
Lady Valenti screamed while suspended in the air, stomping her dainty shoes. As if mocking her, the tentacles sprayed sticky, viscous mucus and thoroughly violated her luxurious silk training uniform without leaving a single inch untouched.
Splash. Squelch. The sounds reverberating across the swamp were absolutely perfect BGM.
So what were the teammates who were supposed to protect her doing?
“L-look over there! Lady Valenti’s been captured!”
“She was our group’s only offensive mage…!”
“What are you all waiting for?! We have to rescue the young lady immediately!”
The noble students from the same group shouted in a panic, but not a single one actually stepped forward. Instead they all shuffled backward, quietly widening the distance. In a way, it was only natural. First, the tentacle monster wasn’t a ferocious creature that posed any real lethal threat. The real problem was that tentacle mucus. Once it got on you, it didn’t wash off easily. For days afterward sticky fluid would leak from somewhere on your body, and the unpleasant sliminess against your skin would cover you in goosebumps. Someone would have to physically jump into that filth pit to pull her out, but these sheltered flowers who valued dignity and reputation far more than life itself were never going to do it. Just imagining having to wash that mucus off was enough to make any noble refuse. Tsk tsk. These damn nobles.
I clicked my tongue and turned my attention back to the sketchbook when the demon senior who had been retreating beside me asked in horror.
“You can still focus on drawing right now? Can’t you see that?! A person is about to get devoured by a tentacle monster!”
“She’s not getting devoured, senior. Tentacles like that don’t eat people.”
“What? H-how would you even know that?!”
“At worst the mucus has a mild paralytic toxin that makes the body go limp, or maybe it slowly dissolves clothing. That’s about it.”
Of course, if you were lucky the tentacles might probe sensitive areas, but somehow I doubted this romance-fantasy world would go that far. A shame, really.
“The ecology of tentacle-type monsters is pretty obvious, don’t you think?”
When I tried to launch into an academic lecture about the greatness of tentacles and their behavioral patterns, Senior Dusik shouted with a face full of pure terror.
“H-how the hell do you know such disgusting information in that much detail, you crazy bastard?!”
‘Just what is this guy’s true identity?’
Dusik felt genuine goosebumps. To rattle off the ecology of such grotesque, nauseating tentacle monsters as casually as if he were writing a neighborhood dog’s observation diary. No matter how you looked at it, this wasn’t the kind of knowledge a normal first-year student should possess.
“I studied a little in the library.”
Ian answered with a completely shameless face.
The library? Did the academy library really contain things like mucus component charts and undressing mechanisms for such repulsive tentacle monsters? The scholarly zeal of the human race was so monstrous that even a demon like himself couldn’t comprehend it.
That aside. Dusik frowned and looked back toward the swamp. The situation was dire. It didn’t look like a single person was willing to jump in to save Lady Valenti.
“Let go of meee! You must save me! I’m going to tell Father everything!”
Lady Valenti’s screams were gradually growing weaker. Whether because of the tentacle mucus or not, her struggles had noticeably slowed. If left like this, it might actually become dangerous.
Contrary to popular belief, demons did save what needed saving. Just as Dusik clenched his fist, debating whether he should step forward—
Tap.
Ian closed his sketchbook and stood up. Then, without the slightest hesitation, he kicked off his shoes and began rolling his pants up to his knees.
Dusik’s eyes flew wide open.
“What the hell are you doing?”
“What does it look like? Getting ready to go in.”
“Have you lost your mind?! Why would you go in there?! Are you even close with Lady Valenti?!”
Dusik grabbed Ian’s shoulder in shock. Of course saving someone in danger was admirable. But the person in question was Ian Ash. For a guy like him to willingly dive into that filthy swamp to save a young lady he barely knew? Besides, there was an even bigger problem.
‘Lady Lena is watching with both eyes wide open right behind us!’
What would it do to the heart of a girl who had a crush on him, watching the boy she liked risk everything to save another woman? This was a fatal bad-ending route straight out of a youthful romance story!
“Are you out of your mind?! You’re really going to step up and rescue another young lady right in front of Lady Lena?!”
“What does that have to do with anything? And it seems you’re misunderstanding something.”
With an indifferent expression, Ian rummaged inside his coat. Clink. What emerged from his hand was a small, transparent glass bottle. He gave it a light shake, smiled like a back-alley informant about to share classified information, and crooked his finger.
“Lend me your ear.”
“…What is it?”
Was that bottle some kind of incredible artifact? Curious, Dusik leaned in. Ian whispered softly.
“I’m not going in to save Lady Valenti.”
“What? Then what the hell…”
“These kinds of tentacle monsters hide their main core at the bottom of the swamp. It’s tiny. If I secure it intact and store it in this bottle… I can cultivate it later.”
“……What?”
Dusik’s brain completely short-circuited. A core? Cultivate? Cultivate what?
Ian curled the corner of his mouth into a smirk and smiled with genuine rapture.
“It means I can grow my very own tentacle pet.”
“Why the hell would you cultivate something like that, you crazy baaaaastard!!”
Dusik’s desperate scream echoed hollowly into the clear blue sky above the academy forest.
Leaving behind Senior Dusik’s frantic attempts to stop me, I stepped barefoot into the squelching swamp.
Squelch. The lukewarm, sticky mud oozed between my toes. Fuck, the smell was goddamn awful. Still, this level of suffering was simply a noble process in pursuit of excellent drawing reference—or rather, my very own tentacle pet.
“L-look! Ian Ash is going in!”
“Isn’t that the villain from the Art Department?!”
The cowardly nobles who had only been spectating whispered among themselves when they saw me, but I ignored them. I slowly waded toward the center of the swamp where the largest, thickest tentacles were tangled together.
“Huk… haaang! P-please get these off me quickly…”
The pitiful voice came from above. When I looked up, Lady Valenti’s condition was far more excellent—no, far more serious than I had anticipated. The mucus secreted by the tentacles had completely unraveled her roll hairstyle, turning it into something resembling seaweed. Her silk training uniform was soaked through, clinging transparently to her skin. On top of that, the thick bundle of tentacles wrapped around her waist and thighs had bent her body backward like a bow.
“Y-you’re… Ian Ash?”
Every time she took a ragged breath, the dangerous curves of her body trembled visibly.
Wow, fuck. Look at that perfection. This was cover material. Absolute cover material.