Beach Walk (3)
People live their lives trapped inside buildings. Even if skyscrapers that pierce the heavens are not especially common, such towering structures are hardly necessary.
In residential quarters, buildings are packed as tightly as possible to wring every scrap of use from limited land, forming mazes of walls and roofs. Market streets are lined with stalls where merchants have thrown up rough boards just to claim a spot, while even the roadways themselves leave barely enough room to walk because peddlers squat illegally with their wares. The world is stuffed full of buildings and people, and nowhere is this more extreme than in the royal capital, where crowds pour in every day chasing success and a new life.
Chester did not dislike people, yet because he had inherited his father’s love of nature, the capital’s streets—scarce of trees, overflowing with humanity, buildings, and naked desire—often left him dizzy and unsettled.
Even inside the duke’s mansion or the academy grounds, little changed. In fact it was worse. Fewer people meant the empty spaces were filled instead by ambition, by damp intrigue, and by the arrogant, grating bearing of nobles.
Endless processions of aristocrats so fervent they traveled from the farthest edges of the kingdom just to see the duke, leaving themselves no free hours at all. Their greedy eyes rolling as they schemed for whatever they wanted. At the academy, the honeyed flattery and transparent schemes nobles poured over Monia and the prince, and the looks and manners they reserved for commoners.
That was why Chester cherished the quiet hours at the villa simply gazing at the sea.
An unbroken expanse of water stretching clear to the horizon, the vast sky above it, the clouds and sun embroidered across that sky. Every memory of oppression from his capital days, every sensation of being caged inside the world, blew away, replaced by boundless liberation.
So today, wanting to see the ocean from a slightly different angle and place, he decided on a change of pace and set out for a beach walk with Monia.
He had been fretting endlessly over how to melt the ore, sinking so deep into the problem that his head felt ready to burst.
Thus they left the villa and were walking across the rocky flats that the daily waves had carved into sharp edges when they found it.
The moment they spotted it, Monia nearly toppled over in shock; Chester, lunging to catch her, felt his mind go blank white. “It” was that horrific.
At first glance both Chester and Monia took it for seaweed washed ashore by the surf. Nothing about it suggested a living creature.
Then it moved, and they realized it was alive—and recoiled in horror.
How?
How could such a creature even exist?
Look at that body, collapsed like a smashed egg on the ground, and those legs flopping every which way like limp strands of seaweed.
“Ugh.”
“Wh-what is that?”
Every time it shifted, its form warped like water sloshing in a bowl. Its eyes—square, flat, slit sideways—stared at them in a way that made one want to look anywhere else. And the color! That body, as if painted head to toe in blood, a vivid scarlet! The grotesque shape plus the grotesque hue made the eyes swim and the mind reel.
“A demon?”
Without thinking, Chester voiced the same thought Monia had once had upon seeing a snake. Monia nodded frantically in agreement.
“That has to be a demon! How can something like that exist?!”
Those who know the creature call it an octopus.
Swept up by a massive wave and cast onto the Floating Island without warning, the octopus found itself staring at three monsters that had suddenly appeared before it.
They were bizarre beings it had never once seen in all its life in the sea.
How could such life-forms exist? Good heavens, could they even survive with bodies like that?
Looking at those hideously twisted shapes, utterly unsuited to the ecosystem of the sea, sent a chill through it.
At the same time, curiosity toward these strange beings it had never encountered stirred deep inside the octopus and rose to the surface.
Wriggling, the octopus crawled toward the grotesque creatures. The two large ones clutched the small one and scrambled backward.
“It moved! It moved!”
“Eek! It’s coming this way!”
“Why does it move like that?!”
“Good gods, what is that?! Its head is bent backward! And it’s still not dead?!”
“An immortal…?!”
Chester hastily drew a wooden spear and leveled it at the octopus while retreating.
—Grrrr…!
Ant, cradled in Monia’s arms, growled a warning at the octopus, but Monia hushed it and covered its mouth.
“Shh! Good boy, Ant. We mustn’t provoke the demon!”
Please just stay quiet!
Monia hugged Ant tightly and prayed.
How do we get away?
From the look of it, the demon seemed sluggish in its movements.
Maybe coming onto land has weakened it?
Despite that nightmarish appearance that screamed “demon,” it didn’t feel particularly threatening…
Just then Chester, so overwhelmed by the octopus’s shocking looks that he forgot the basic rule of watching his footing, stepped wrong.
“Whoa!”
Trying to recover his balance, he flung his arms out and accidentally thrust the wooden spear forward. It struck the octopus.
“Kyaaa!”
“Uwaaaah!”
Stabbed by the spear, the octopus startled and spat a jet of ink. Chester and Monia erupted into fresh panic.
“Demon blood! That’s demon blood!”
“A demon’s blood is black?!”
“D-does touching it curse you?!”
“Kyaaa! A priest! A priest!! Oh—there isn’t one here! Oh, gods above…!”
“The island is contaminated!”
After carrying on for quite a while, they noticed the octopus showed no further reaction despite bleeding, and they shrank back, watching it.
“…N-no reaction.”
“You’re right.”
“Maybe it used up all its power climbing from hell to the surface? I mean, isn’t it a bit small for a demon?”
“Y-yes, that does seem so.”
“…Can we finish it off?”
“N-no! What if it sprays more blood?!”
“Ugh! You’re right.”
Chester carefully backed away from the octopus.
The octopus that had spat its “blood”—that is, its ink—tried to flee after being pressed by something sharp, but on land it could not move nearly as fast as in the sea.
“….”
“….”
Chester and Monia watched the escaping octopus and whispered to each other.
“Looks like it’s trying to run, doesn’t it?”
“I-it does seem that way.”
“Think we can beat it?”
“…!”
While they spoke, the octopus found a narrow crevice between rocks and began squeezing its body into it.
“Huh? Huh?! Huh!”
“What is that thing?!”
“I-it’s going in! Where is it going?!”
“Impossible! Is its body made of water?! How can it fit in there?!”
“D-don’t you run, you demon bastard!”
Thwack!
Chester swung the wooden spear with all his strength; the octopus went flying far away.
Plop.
Watching it vanish into the sea, the two kept their guard up in case the demon climbed back out.
When a long time passed with no sign of its return, they finally exhaled in relief, rejoicing that they had escaped the demon’s clutches, and abandoned the beach walk to head back to the villa.
“Demons are scary….”
“Damn it, black blood. That’s way too ominous. How is that even possible? Did any get on me?”
“Mmm… none on you. Ant, are you all right?”
—Krrn?
That night, even though neither of them was particularly devout, they offered deep prayers out of fear that contact with a demon might have cursed their souls, then went to sleep.
“Captain Rotin, the fellow who was fishing says he caught an octopus.”
“What?”
Rotin, who had been calculating the Floating Island’s probable course from the sea charts, compass, and every sighting report he had gathered so far, frowned at the sudden mention of an octopus.
“Octopus? One of the poisonous kind?”
“No, sir. Safe to eat.”
“Hmm. Anyone hurt?”
“A new hand poked it without knowing and got a bit of flesh torn by the suckers.”
“Dunk him in the sea to disinfect it.”
“Understood.”
After packing away the charts, Rotin went to the ship’s galley and found several sailors boiling the octopus.
“Oh, nice catch.”
“Well now, Captain. Fancy a bite?”
“Yeah. Just one tentacle.”
“Yes, sir. One moment.”
A short while later, chewing thoughtfully on a boiled tentacle, Rotin suddenly recalled the day he had first seen an octopus, not long after setting out on his travels.
Back then, spotting an octopus for sale at a seaside stall in a foreign village, he had made a great fuss all by himself, calling it a demon—only to be thoroughly mocked and laughed at by the locals.
I did thrash the ones who mocked me, but damn it, right up until the day I left that village they kept calling me a coward who couldn’t even act like a man. Maybe I should drop by again on the way back once I have Monia with me.
Rotin swallowed the well-boiled octopus, which grew sweeter the more he chewed, and knocked back a mouthful of strong rum.