Tentacle Queen (3)
The tentacles protruding beside my head looked identical to the others in body and form, but their tips were lined with sharp teeth, snapping with sharp clack clack sounds. A chill ran down my spine.
"Ugh...! Hnngh, haaah...!"
Right next to me, Grape thrashed her legs, her upper body swallowed by a massive tentacle as she let out muffled moans. Her plump ass and perfectly shaped pussy were gushing fluids, growing messier by the second.
On the road below, countless ... were seizing women and mating with them, spraying fluids everywhere. It was an abnormal, lewd, and utterly terrifying sight.
Even in this situation, my body betrayed me with arousal. Like some primal instinct kicking in before death, my head spun with surging lust.
That's when Esther's cute yet haughty face turned toward me with a bored expression, her voice carrying that oddly irritating lilt despite its cuteness.
"Hey, you like quizzes?"
"Huh?"
I froze at her words, delivered with a menacing smile, blurting out a dumb response. At the same time, memories flooded back from all the videos I'd obsessively watched while chasing magical girls.
"...Esther Quiz?"
"Aha~? Oh? You know about it?"
Esther extinguished the fiery sword in her hand upon hearing my answer.
The Esther Quiz was an event from her ViewTube channel back when she was still a magical girl. Contestants who correctly answered multiple trivia questions about her won prizes, as I recalled. Her channel had a decent subscriber count, but it was during the peak hype around Rapid and Ash, so there weren't many participants or winners. The event eventually got scrapped.
"Five questions. Get one wrong, and I slice off a wrist or ankle each time. Miss 'em all... ahahaha! Whaddya say? Wanna play?"
Hanging there with toothy tentacles biting into the fabric of my cheap suit near my shoulders, tearing it with grinding sounds, I nodded anyway.
There was a reason I nodded so blankly, even knowing she'd cut off my wrists and ankles for wrong answers.
Esther crossed her arms, smirking as if to say give it a shot, and started with the first question.
"What does the name Esther mean?"
"In Persian, it's a word meaning 'star.' She chose it hoping to shine brightly like a star in a monster-filled night sky, becoming the one everyone looks up to."
"You a magical girl fan, huh?"
"Pretty much...?"
Esther's eyebrow twitched oddly. She seemed thrown off by my instant correct answer, so I flashed a slight smile and replied.
Solving the questions melted away my tension naturally. I'd been on edge the moment I saw her, but quizzes from Esther? Always welcome.
Others might find them tough, but not me—a diehard fan on even the Maginsha forums.
"Second question: My favorite color is red. My least favorite?"
"Scarlet. Red and scarlet are different! She hates colors that fake the real thing."
Esther's ViewTube channel was the pioneer that kicked off every magical girl starting their own. The originals were Ash, Rapid, Lily, and Esther.
Back in the early days, the only way to catch even glimpses of Rapid on video was to watch Esther's streams religiously, saving and dissecting every one.
Her live streams ran on a paid subscription for fan club members only, and to subscribe, you had to prove your fandom by acing her quizzes. It didn't start that way, but over time, she got hooked on testing her fans. She'd even gift free subs to top scorers, so to save cash, I'd jumped into every quiz, grinding answers hard.
"My favorite food and why?"
"Lettuce salad with burrata cheese. Loves the combo of soft and crunchy textures, and salads don't pack on pounds. Want me to name your favorite drink too?"
"...Don't answer what I didn't ask. Next!"
Prizes for the Esther Quiz included tea time with magical girls. It was a recurring promise: nail ten straight quizzes per stream. But the event ended before I could claim it—a real shame.
I'd memorized every video, fast-forwarding at 1.5x speed from oldest to newest, all to chase that prize. After Rapid ditched her own channel post-fan meet fiasco, Esther's became the best spot for Rapid crumbs, so I kept subscribed religiously.
Even after she got infected by Negatives and the channel died, I'd grinded her fan club to special member status just to stalk Rapid intel.
"...Height and bust size. Exactly."
"Public info says 164cm and C-cup, but that was a staff error calling it small next to others—actually D-cup. Height was fudged with heel inserts in her sneakers during shoots. From the shoe shopping episode, those were 3cm lifts, so real height's 161cm."
The comparison boobs? Rapid's. Can't blame 'em next to those H-cups.
"Wh-when's... my birthday?"
"Officially 'August 8th, under the red sun-scorched midsummer sky like her hair,' but actually December 4th."
That flowery line's the opener on her fan cafe profile. Total bait. Before her magical girl debut—her awakening stage during an idol trainee event amid a Negative raid—she'd revealed her real birthday as December 4th.
No official footage left, but the trainee-to-magical-girl twist and public awakening piqued my interest. Digging into how awakenings work, I lucked into raw debut footage. The birthday mismatch stuck with me.
"You... "
Esther, having heard all my answers, blushed shyly—adorable mismatch for her menacing look.
Perfect score. Probably no one else in the world could match it. Even on Maginsha, few stalked her streams as obsessively for Rapid scraps.
No one else crammed every video at 1.5x just to snag a fan meet lottery loss consolation: her tea time.
To me, Esther was more knowable than secretive Ash or Defense Force-shielded Rapid. I subscribed for indirect Rapid hits, but overdid it. She's the magical girl I know best. I'd crush anyone on Esther Quiz.
Her face flushed deep, eyes sparkling as she grinned wide and shouted.
"You! What's your fan club number?!"
"124. My birthday number. Nobody on the site bought it, though."
"Kyaaaaah!! Kyaa!! Kyaaaaah!!"
She squealed like a schoolgirl, clutching her face in joy. Hard to believe this was the Tentacle Queen who'd just crushed Grape and sicced ... on crowds. Pure cuteness overload.
Eyes gleaming with excitement, she grabbed my hand like any magical girl meeting a superfan.
"124! Nobody guessed it was your birthday? That 88 jerk claimed it matched his and demanded special treatment—nearly killed him when he bombed the real one!"
"Uh... you met 88 too?"
"Met 1, 88, even 100~ But you're the first with perfect answers, 124!"
124 was luck. Joined the club hoping for live Rapid sightings, then learned her real birthday. Didn't target it.
A genuine joy she'd never shown post-Negative—girl in ecstasy. Thrilled at a true fan, red mana flickered unstably around her, bursting like flames.