Hero, Female Knight and Tentacles -3
Hero, Female Knight and Tentacles -3
"······."
The Main Body froze upon hearing the Clone's confession.
Even though it heard it, could this really all be true?
The Main Body couldn't believe that it had actually done such a thing.
"You're not lying to me, are you, Main Body?"
"Of course not."
'Hmm···.'
I can't believe it.
A few tentacles transformed into mouths.
"I'll check it myself."
Jjjeoeok···.
The mouths approached the tentacles.
Kwaddduk
It bit off and tore into half as much as what had been detached from the Clone.
It ate part of that Clone.
The tentacle monster's absorption ability wasn't limited to humans or objects.
In fact, the Main Body could devour the entire Clone if it wanted.
Then its abilities and memories would all become the Main Body's.
No need to eat it all, so it tore off half and tasted it first.
Umul umul···.
It deliberately increased its size a bit, then ate some to extract the information.
And reached a conclusion.
"Whoa···. This is really true."
It hadn't thought the Clone was lying, but it had wanted to believe it was.
But after fully absorbing the memories and seeing the scenes itself···.
"What the hell did you do that for?"
"Give me some too."
The Main Body cut off more of its own tentacles and fed them to the Smart Tentacle.
Now the Clone knew the full situation too.
The two tentacles stared at the one that had done this insane deed.
"So you're the one who did that shit?"
"Technically, it was my Main Body that···."
The Clone that had split off from the Main Body.
And then the sub-Clone that had broken off from that Clone.
What the hell, it was like a subcontractor of a subcontractor—totally ridiculous.
"Ha, this is giving me a headache."
At those words, the tentacle that had absorbed the library's knowledge scratched at the part that looked like it had a head.
"Why?"
"The Hero got rescued anyway."
"So it's a happy ending, right?"
"If you've eaten that much, use your brain a little···."
The smart tentacle looked like it had a lot to say.
But since it was the Main Body, it held back for now.
"Think about it. The Hero who got done in like that by tentacles is still alive."
"That, ah······."
Only then did the Main Body seem to realize it and freeze up.
It extended one tentacle leg long.
Tak kong.
"You little shit! You're gonna get us all killed because of you!"
"Huh, why?"
"You think a Hero who went through that shit is gonna leave us alone once she recovers!!!"
Finally grasping the smart tentacle's line of thinking, the Main Body flew into a rage.
It had spent years playing dead, and now life was finally worth living.
And now it was about to die again.
"If we get stronger, we can beat the Hero, right?"
"The Hero?"
"You little shit, you still haven't learned."
No, don't hit it.
Just eat it.
Jjjeoeok.
The Main Body expanded its body and opened its mouth.
"Wait, wait!!!"
"Come heeeere!!!!!"
Getting absorbed wouldn't be a big deal, really.
The Clone's personality existed but didn't, in a way.
If anything, it would just assimilate into one of the Main Body's 'thoughts.'
Still, having your existence swallowed was unpleasant.
That's why the tentacle was running away.
"My Main Body only knew that much!"
"So we're all dying together?"
"We can just hide and live?"
Now it saw—this fragment was even more frustrating than itself.
"With the trauma the Hero has···. You think she won't check if we're around?"
It's definitely gonna die.
From the inherited knowledge, it knew how incredible the Hero's recovery power was.
And how terrifying her tenacity could be.
"Emergency meeting."
Now they had to seriously discuss how to survive from here on out.
"Sera, are you okay?"
"I, I'm Sera···."
The Hero's mind was recovering very slowly.
In terms of time, it was slow, but compared to what she'd endured, it was an insanely fast recovery.
She'd been under total control and pleasure torture for hundreds of years.
No way she'd recover all at once just because she was rescued.
"Can you tell me slowly?"
"So···. First, pee··· can't."
The Hero spoke like a little kid.
The sensation of thinking for herself was still creepy and scary, so she was barely managing to explain even this much.
"Urethra···. Too sensitive······."
"Yeah?"
The Female Knight listened intently for now.
She couldn't fathom how they'd shattered the always-energetic Hero in just a couple weeks.
"Urethra···. Clitoris···, brushes the root."
"Yeah, yeah. I'll cast a spell to dull the sensations as much as possible to help."
"Thank you···."
"What else, what else?"
She had to extract as much info as possible while the fits were mild like this.
Even if she seemed mostly recovered, certain triggers could still make her beg tentacles for mercy.
"Nipples, Clitoris···. Sensitive."
And out poured the Hero's weaknesses.
No, the places that hadn't been weaknesses before, forcibly turned into them, confessed one by one.
"Ugh······."
Even the Female Knight, who'd seen all sorts of awful shit, grimaced.
Contempt and pity flashed in her distinctive blue eyes.
"What the hell happened to you over those two weeks?"
"···Two weeks?"
The Hero shook her head side to side vigorously.
"Not two weeks······"
"Magic Tool···."
"Stretched time······."
Deul deul deul···.
"N-No···."
Calming the Hero as she started another fit was pretty damn tough.
The three tentacles huddled together and continued their talk.
In the end, the Main Body, which held the final say, reached a conclusion.
"I don't really want to kill all the humans."
"Whether the Demon King made me or not, I don't hate humans that much."
Of course, it wasn't pacifist enough not to fight back against attackers, but it didn't want all humans as enemies.
"But···. We have to survive too, right?"
So it would secure survival while minimizing damage.
"So let's tame the ones who could wipe us out all at once, like the Hero Party."
That was the Main Body's conclusion.
"Hiding is an option···, but with the Hero Party's detection skills, it's impossible."
"Sooner or later, they'll find us and subjugate the tentacle monsters that gave the Hero such trauma."
"That's right."
Even if they hid and ran, considering the Hero Party's power, they'd team up to take them down.
In the end, the tentacles were unwittingly dragged into a massive showdown because of the now-vanished Clone's Main Body.
"Either the Hero Party partially teams up to subjugate us, or we smash them all first···."
The smart tentacle trailed off.
It was gonna be a bigger showdown than expected.
A cycle of hunting and subjugating each other.
"But let's not kill the Hero Party. It's our fault."
The Main Body was groping for its own morality with a vaguely human-like sense of ethics.
The problem was that it clashed with actual human morals.
"Just neutralize them··· got it?"
In the end, it meant turning other threats into Heroes too.
If regular humans had to choose between the Hero's Conditioning or death, what would they pick?
It was a 'kind' tentacle that still didn't fully get why humans would choose death.
"For that, we need a tentacle with Conditioning knowledge."
Splitting into Clones divides memories and abilities too.
"Do you remember the Conditioning details?"
"Too fuzzy···."
The problem was this mischievous tentacle also lacked the Conditioning knowledge from the Clone's Main Body.
"There's another tentacle fragment from my Main Body equivalent (the Clone's Main Body)."
"If there's a living piece, merging with it might work somehow."
In the end, they were too short-handed.
"What about the blueprint for the 'problematic Magic Tool' that's key to Conditioning?"
"That needs one more real piece too···."
To start the plan, they had to find the fragments again.
"Hmm······."
The tentacles' worries just piled up.
"Then I can't leave my Mansion empty for too long, so take good care of her."
The Hero had recovered somewhat.
So the Female Knight decided to split off at the fork in the road.
Handpicked knights from the Female Knight were guarding the Hero.
The chance of anyone else interfering was low.
"Still, stay as vigilant as possible."
"Yes."
···Kkumteul.
Hwiiik!
Feeling something off, the Female Knight went into combat stance.
She drew her sword and spun around.
But nothing was there.
"Wh-Why, ma'am?"
"Just my imagination."
She sheathed her sword again, leaving the flustered knight behind.
"Anyway, take good care of the Hero."
"Yes."
The Female Knight thus separated from the main procession and headed back to her Mansion.
···But was that weird feeling really just imagination?