Tentacle Lilith Raid (2): Practice Day 2 Morning
Practice day two, morning. After a light breakfast, we boarded the same carriage that had brought us from the academy to the Ludbekia Marquisate and headed to the site where Tentacle Lilith lurked.
Kiiiek. The massive gates of the great wall, which had been firmly shut until yesterday, swung open powerfully to either side. These weren't opened by human hands but by magic—a colossal expenditure of energy, enough to burn through an entire core each time, given how thick and heavy they were. But this was the Monster Zone. The easiest place to secure cores, and if we really pushed it, we could stockpile enough to open and close those gates thousands of times.
Now, in that very Monster Zone—where gale-wind wolves had been rampaging just yesterday—we raced forward in our carriage. Esta the instructor sat at the driver's seat, while the low-ranking Old School Building special class students filled the spacious interior.
"Why are you tagging along again, senpai?"
"Oh? Can't I?"
And Yurha Silverstar too.
"How about thinking of me as a sort of practice support TA?"
"If you're aiming for grad school, I could put in a word with Instructor Cardisha."
"I'd sooner dump all my Silverstar Merchant Group stocks and bail than go to grad school."
"......."
"There's a time and place for jokes, you know."
She said it with such a straight face that for a split second, I thought I'd messed up. Sure, I couldn't exactly say What's wrong with grad school? since I had zero plans to go either, so I just clamped my mouth shut. Yeah, I got it. Yurha would rather pour every spare moment into running Silverstar Merchant Group and its affiliates than waste it on grad school. She had an ironclad sense of time and hated wasting any of it.
Which made it all the more baffling.
"I doubt there's any benefit for you in following us around."
There was zero reason for Yurha to tag along for our practice raid on an A-rank monster, whether as an observer or participant.
"Got some motive or something?"
"What if this carriage only moves when I'm riding it?"
"That's not it. There's no magical linkage or anything."
She'd tried to spin some magical pretext, but Unia shut it down instantly.
"No linkage? If I infuse mana, I could make the wheels turn automatically. Right now it's horse-drawn, but swap out the front setup, and it could run on magic power alone."
"Anyone with wind-attribute magic could do that even without you, senpai. I don't sense any setup that makes the wheels or axles only turn when you're here."
"Hmm. Should I bring one rigged like that next time?"
Yurha replied with an overt chuckle, and Unia turned to look at me. She was sitting on my lap, of course.
"Phoenix, should we walk next time?"
"Walking to hunt monsters like it's a picnic sounds fun, but then Yurha-senpai would probably just follow on foot."
"Oh? Then I'd bring my own ride."
"...Exactly."
Now Unia had taken the baton.
"So why do you keep insisting on hanging with us, senpai?"
"Because it makes money."
"Monsters we catch in practice don't drop loot or anything, right?"
"Just watching you raid monsters is valuable experience—and if you succeed, that's money in the bank~"
Unia was openly showing not-quite-hostility, trying to keep her distance, but Yurha brushed it off with a breezy laugh.
"Don't give me the cold shoulder like that. Once we're back at the academy, I'll treat you all to that dessert buffet at the eastern terminal."
"For real?"
It was a tempting offer.
"Really?"
"Of course. My treat—even Instructor Esta's share."
"That sounds even more suspicious..."
"Hehehe. Unia, you seem like you're not in the mood to hear logical reasons right now... but whatever, I get it. I have a rough idea of how you're all feeling."
Yurha crossed her legs and tapped the magic panel on her wrist—a Silverstar model, different from the ones instructors used. It lit up, projecting footage in front of us that differed from the educational materials Esta had shown.
"What kind of damage does it cause?"
"Well..."
Yurha blushed slightly and cleared her throat at Rydmila's question.
"It might be a bit embarrassing, but is it okay to explain?"
"Of course. We're heading out to raid it right now—we need to know what kind of damage it inflicts to prepare properly."
"It stuffs women together into the same fruit."
"...Pardon?"
Rydmila shifted awkwardly in confusion.
"Women... together?"
"Yes. Like this."
As one of the videos played, a truly horrific(?) scene unfolded before our eyes.
Hunters trying to raid Tentacle Lilith were fleeing. Their Silverstar-emblem-embroidered clothes marked them as part of a Silverstar-affiliated hunter guild.
"Cecilia and Andrew...? Aren't they that B-rank hunter couple?"
"Yes. They got married, then divorced. And that divorce was..."
The scene showed two women, gripped by vine stalks, rubbing their faces against each other furiously. How to describe it? A giant had snatched the two women and was playing with them like dolls, using tentacle-like vines as fingers to mash them together and grind them relentlessly.
"From here on, it's 19+ content, but since you all have to raid it, I'll let it play."
Riiip! Tentacle Lilith tore their clothes clean off by force. It stripped them bare, not leaving a thread behind, then wrapped them tight in vines, slamming their bodies together and dragging them into its main body.
"Tentacle Lilith captures two women like this, entwines them, and forces them to lick and suck each other nonstop—from a week short to four weeks long. In a way, it's a utterly insane monster."
"...They don't eat anything that whole time—won't they starve?"
"No, you can't just leave a monster like that alone!"
Evangeline shouted indignantly, jabbing at the footage.
"Why has something like that been left untouched until now? Even if it's A-rank...! Wait. You said no fatalities..."
"Right. Even when people get captured like this, no one's died. ...Ha, seriously."
Yurha sighed and played another clip.
"...What the?"
"The captives have one job: bite, lick, grind against each other until Tentacle Lilith is satisfied. They lose fat, gain mana, skin gets smoother."
"...What is that?"
"Right?"
Unia and the others shook their heads in disbelief—Unia included.
"Such a weird monster, huh? It bats away men or other monsters with branches before they even get close to the body, but the second human women show up, it grabs them and turns them into this."
"...So the rumors were true."
"Rydmila?"
"After the couple divorced, I heard the wife Cecilia and sister-in-law Emily formed a duo party. They even share a bed at inns..."
"They bonded inside Tentacle Lilith. ...Whether they bonded too much is debatable."
"Uh, um..."
Unia glanced complicatedly between Tentacle Lilith and me.
"Um, Phoenix?"
"Yeah."
"You're not thinking of using that for something, right?"
"What."
"Like, getting us caught by that Tentacle Lilith...!"
"As if."
"Eep?!"
I grabbed Unia's mana pouch.
"Would it be better if that thing grabbed two people, pumped them with sap, or if I squeeze and tweak your mana pouch like this to tune your mana?"
"O-Obviously you'd do it better...!"
"I picked Tentacle Lilith for a different reason."
I stretched past Unia's shoulder, pointing at the monster flailing vines everywhere.
"I hate monsters that use tentacles."
"...Huh?"
"Personal taste aside, tentacles just feel like they're designed to violate and torment women. Reality's a bit different, but Tentacle Lilith fits the bill. What I want is its core."
"Cores... other monsters have those too."
"Sure. But with this A-rank core, I think I can unlock something special."
"...Like getting tentacles yourself?"
"Something like that."
"Huh?"
"Humans have two hands. But process this core a bit, get Cardisha's help with magitech..."
Squeeze.
"...And I could massage someone else too."
I gripped Rydmila and Evangeline's thighs, nodding at Yurha with a smile.
"Wanna try my massage sometime?"
"Hm."
Yurha smirked and lifted her shirt hem slightly.
"Does it have to be naked?"
"Th-That's not it!!"
Unia shrieked.
"At least keep underwear on!"
"Hmm... Is that so?"
Yurha grinned at Unia and slid her hand downward.
"Phoenix's hands? I wouldn't mind."
"??!!?!?"
Crash, clatter. Somehow, the carriage pressed on toward Tentacle Lilith.