Do Tentacles Dream of Humans?
“First, we replace the dantian with a tentacle!”
“Whoa!!”
“Then we swap out the legs!! Legs that transcend the limits of humanity—my gift to you!!!”
“Whoa!!!!”
“Next, the heart!! And every last organ!! We replace them all!!! Leave only the brain and the hands—everything else gets swapped!!!”
“That’s amazing!!!”
Jamiseong was cheerfully drafting the Ship-of-Theseus plan for Gong Ryun when it happened.
—Kuuuung…
The palace of the mindscape shuddered.
Jamiseong identified the cause at once.
“An impact from outside…?”
Someone was touching the little conch. A casual tap or two could never make a mindscape quake like this.
Jamiseong focused swiftly on the conch’s sensory organs.
It could see. The “outside.”
The one touching the conch.
What came into view was a woman.
Nine tails. Fox ears. Sly, slanted eyes.
A galactic succubus. And a high-level one at that.
“What!!!!!!!”
Jamiseong reeled in shock.
A succubus!!!
Even the kindest spin could not call Jamiseong’s relationship with that species a good one.
What was this? Some kind of scheme?
Jamiseong doubted the legitimacy of the entire situation.
Why would a succubus be here—of all places, of all times?
…
In truth, the reason was simple.
Gong Ryun’s car had driven itself here and had only just arrived.
Before he passed out earlier, he had set the autopilot destination to the newly relocated tteokbokki shop, and the car had diligently carved across the gray wasteland toward the city. Even while Gong Ryun was playing with Jamiseong inside the mindscape, the vehicle had kept right on moving. It passed the city gate (sailing through on the high-pass without stopping), rumbled along the urban roads, and pulled up at the tteokbokki shop with a cheerful flourish. Engine still running, it sat there waiting.
Night had already grown late. The autopilot had taken a few too many wrong turns on the way, which accounted for the delay.
The shops were closed; streetlamps lit the roads. Most people had already gone to bed.
The tteokbokki place sat on a low-traffic stretch, so the night street was quiet.
And on that quiet corner, with a car parked motionless in front of the house, the lady of the tteokbokki shop had simply come out to see who had arrived.
The headlights were blazing down the alley with aggressive self-importance.
Honestly, the kid needs to sleep—what’s with blasting my eyes like this~~~? She stepped outside in her pajamas with nothing but a cardigan thrown over them, only to find Gong Ryun collapsed across the driver’s seat. Oh my~ Someone’s here~~~
But something strange was stuck to Gong Ryun’s ear.
“Oh my~~~ A bio-device for soul-subjugation techniques~~~? As far as I know, there’s only one bunch that makes junk like this~~~?”
The tteokbokki boss tapped the conch with a fingertip as she spoke.
“The Jamiseong Cult, of course~~~? Making creepy little toys like this~~~? Our kind doesn’t do this sort of thing~~~ As a fellow specialist in the field, I’m honestly embarrassed for you~~~?”
This time she struck with a touch of inner force. The tentacle flinched in visible pain.
“No wonder~~~ I thought it was weird when you suddenly gifted me that bath bomb~~~ Well~~~ A little hypnosis when you’re young builds up the resistance, doesn’t it~~~ How very youthful~~~”
Then the Succubus Boss lifted her tail—a fox tail of black fur, the exact shade of her hair.
At its tip, like a scorpion’s stinger, sat a fist-sized organ shaped like an inverted heart.
—Ssssss…
The organ whispered a delicate sound and unfurled like a flower bud. The lotus-like tip of the tail resolved into an array of impossibly fine filaments, as precise as ultramicroscopic surgical tools.
She brought them to the conch.
“Gong Ryun~~ You’ve had plenty of fun by now, so I’ll just go ahead and remove this~~~? It might sting a little~~~?”
A specialist in the field, she was completely at ease.
Succubi as a species were built for this sort of work.
What was a succubus, after all? A race that “enchanted others” and “absorbed their vital essence.”
Enchanting others = soul-subjugation arts (hypnosis).
Absorbing essence = essence-draining arts (qi absorption + seduction arts).
In other words, succubi and tentacle monsters worked the same trade. The two races could fairly be called rivals in the same field.
“Well, we don’t build weird gadgets like this~~~ We’re not some slimy tentacle—we win fair and square with proper seduction arts~~~?”
In any case, as a peer specialist, she could dismantle it.
An expert’s delicate procedure was about to begin.
At that moment, a sound came from the conch.
But the tteokbokki lady was not the least bit shaken.
“Don’t wanna~~~? I’m dismantling you~~~?”
“Star?”
“Hmm~~~? Aha~~~ You can only do short answers~~~? A tech limitation, is it~~?”
Indeed. Normally it could only manage brief, simple expressions of intent—things like [Yes.], [Correct.], or [No.]
Actual conversation required a direct tentacle link.
“What are you trying to say~~~? Don’t tell me—because you’re a ‘star,’ you won’t stand by if someone causes trouble~~?”
“Oh my~~~ Look at you talking nonsense~~~ You’re not Jamiseong—you’re a fragment~~? Where does a mere fragment get off putting on airs~~?”
“You’re the main body, are you~~? Then I suppose the will of the gunk under my nails is also my will~~? Cut the crap and get purged quietly~~~”
She was right. The conch here was a fully independent individual from the main body—a copy of a personality, a consumable. The fragment-consciousness itself was well aware of this.
The main body would not rage over the death of a single fragment. It was only one among an immense number of replicas.
“Alright, procedure starting~~?”
Even so, it could not allow itself to be purged here.
There was still work to do.
The tentacle hurled one resolute word.
“Hmm?”
Then the conch’s tentacle began to writhe.
Gong Ryun’s body writhed with it.
And then—
—Ssshhk.
With truly astonishing speed, the tentacle abandoned the conch shell and plunged completely into Gong Ryun’s ear.
Clink. The empty shell tumbled across the ground.
Bare as a slug, the tentacle rode the ear canal straight in and seized control of the brain.
Inside the mindscape of Jamiseong’s fragment-consciousness—
In the collapsing golden palace, as Gong Ryun was still slurping down the tentacles that remained intact, Jamiseong whispered sweetly.
“My child. I have a favor to ask.”
“What is it?”
“Offer up your flesh.”
“What’s that mean?”
“Ahh. Nothing much. Just… hand over complete control of your body for a moment and dedicate yourself to me, that’s all? It won’t hurt a bit. You’ll feel wonderful.”
“Uh… hmm…”
Gong Ryun thought it over for a moment, then—
“Please use it cleanly!”
—brightly granted permission.
“Ahh, of course. I’ll use it cleanly and give it right back.”
Jamiseong extended a hand.
Gong Ryun took it.
The world went black.
And “Gong Ryun” opened his eyes. Human sensory organs came flooding in.
“Gong Ryun” sat up from the car seat and moved the body slowly.
The hands moved first.
Clenching. Opening. Clenching again.
Ahh.
Beautiful.
What overwhelming tentacle-resonance was this? The compatibility with this human surpassed all imagination.
As if the body had always been its own. A possession so vivid, so natural.
This body was extraordinary.
The hands especially. Were these truly a human’s hands?
It felt as though real tentacles were attached. What could be done with these? Even the main body’s techniques would almost certainly run without strain. Jamiseong felt a sense of omnipotence, as if it had become the main body itself.
“Oh my~~~~~~????? You fucking tentacle monster bastard~~~~~? So you finally crossed the line~~~~~?”
An unpleasant voice shattered Jamiseong’s reverie.
Ahh. Right—it had meant to speak with that one. That had been the original purpose.
Well, a proper conversation should settle things. What problem could civilized beings fail to solve through negotiation and hard bargaining?
And besides, this side had not been the first to do wrong, had it? Offer a reasonable price and she would send them on their way.
Pride was the likeliest issue. A rival faction had waltzed into her territory, so of course her feelings were hurt. This damn self-important fossil of a species. Using crude seduction arts and still putting on airs.
Ah—could this child be someone under that succubus’s command? That was fine too.
Talent of this caliber was worth any price to bring into the cult.
There was a saying about the right person in the right place. In Jamiseong’s judgment, this body’s gifts could only truly bloom upon meeting a tentacle. Would anyone else be willing to pay a price as steep as the cult’s to take this child? Certainly not. And so Jamiseong was smiling.
In every age, the world of scouting was a cold one.
It had already headhunted this body—physically. This child would listen to no one else now.
As for the succubus, a transfer fee would do. If contact could just be made with the cult, the cult would mobilize every resource it possessed to claim him.
Jamiseong was at ease.
And so it attempted to negotiate.
“Ahh… Mic check, one-two-three. Hmm. Nice voice. Well then, succubus—shall we have a talk? I bear you no ill will. Why not each go our separate ways? I only need this body. No need for us to become enemies, is there?”
But what came out of the succubus’s mouth was nothing like what it had expected.
“He’s my nephew.”
“…? What…?”
“I said he’s my nephew. Sworn sister’s first disciple, so that makes him my sworn nephew.”
“…”
Jamiseong clicked its tongue hard, inwardly.
Family.
In that case, negotiation might not work at all.
In truth, the boss was not doing this purely out of family feeling.
She wanted to screw over a tentacle. That was the larger part.
“Hmm. Is that so? How unfortunate. I’ve taken quite a liking to this child. I can promise the highest tier of treatment. No interest in letting him go independent? However deep the rift between our two races may be…”
Jamiseong spoke on, buying time.
And inside, it was plotting something entirely different.
From this moment, it would begin remodeling Gong Ryun’s body.
Just as it had once embedded tentacles into a cult leader’s flesh to strengthen him.
Ahh. What possibilities did this body hold?
The tentacle was still only infant-scale, limited in capacity, so it could not fashion a full tentacle exoskeleton the way it had for the leader—but it could still recalibrate the body’s internal power and restructure it for efficiency.
What to fix first?
Right. Its specialty: the dantian.
Jamiseong circulated qi and checked Gong Ryun’s dantian.
…
……
………
And then it found something insane.
“Sangongdok?”
A dantian that bore the nature of Sangongdok.
A form of dantian that should not exist.
In that instant, Jamiseong took every plan it had ever made and hurled them all into the trash.
“There will be no negotiation.”
Jamiseong’s eyes flared wide.
“This is mine.”