Chapter 265

Defense Specialization and One Bite

After being blown out of the octopus’s body, Maple looked up and confirmed that there were still tentacles above her . Then she turned back to the mouth and shot forward like a bullet .

“I won’t get blown away this time…”

When Maple was at the entrance of the stomach, she activated Hair Growth in order to increase her body mass, and then used Crystalize to harden like a rock, and block the passage . It was as if the octopus had swallowed a boulder .

On the other hand, she herself would not be able to move . But the fact that Maple was now a crystalized ball of wool meant that she would explode .

And then, in order to push her out, a tentacle came out of the black mist and pushed Maple’s face, which was sticking out of the wool .

However, she was stuck and could not be moved . And so Maple’s face continued to be smushed to no avail .

“You caught me because you wanted to eat me! If you try to get away, then I’ll eat you instead!”

As Maple could not move until the effects of Crystalize ended, she began to bite the tentacle . This was to do as much damage as possible and also for revenge .

While the black mist looked terribly ominous, the monster itself was still just an octopus, both inside and outside .

It tasted rather decent compared to some of the things inside of Maple’s inventory, such as the obviously poisonous fruits, and inedible mushrooms .

“Chomp… You’re surprisingly good . ”

As she continued to bite, the effects of Crystalize finally wore off . At the same time, Maple fired her canons and detonated all of the bombs inside of the wool . She wrecked the inside of its body as much as she could before using the recoil to fly out of the only hole the shockwaves could escape from .

“Mm!”

Maple held a tentacle in her mouth as she looked up and saw the tentacles take heavy damage and then disappear . Seeing that she had a chance now, she deployed her weapons again and rose to the surface .

“Puha…! Good . Now that I have a chance!”

Maple put on her equipment again and this time prepared so that she wouldn’t be dragged into the water again .

And then, the recovered octopus jumped out of the water as if tearing its way through the ground . And then it swung its tentacles at her .

“‘Frozen Earth!’ ‘Predator!’ ‘Hydra!’”

Through activating Frozen Earth, Maple was able to stop the tentacle right before it hit her . At the same time, Maple hit it with a mass of poison, and the two monsters bit into it . She herself joined them as a third mouth .

The more she chewed, the tastier it became .

As a different attack, Maple detonated her weapons and raised her great shield as she flew towards the tentacle that started to move again .

“Ah! It ripped!”

Due to Bizarre Eater, half of the tentacle tore off and fell to the ground . At the same time, the other tentacles all fell down limply in the water . Seeing her chance, Maple raised her great shield and charged forward . One, two, three . Every time Maple’s great shield touched a tentacle, it was torn in half . Maple wasn’t good at making precise maneuvers when flying after an explosion, but she was good at moving in a straight line .

And so in one move, Maple was able to tear up all of the tentacles that had fallen down . And with that, a giant cloud of black mist appeared, and the octopus that was at the bottom of the water was teleported to her in its limp state .

“Yes! Now that I…good . ”

Maple waddled up to its mouth and inserted her cannon into what she knew was its weak spot . Once again, bullets bounced around inside of its body, accelerating the amount of damage that was dealt . At the same time, Maple and Predator tore into its tentacles .

“Mmmmph…mmmgg… I wonder if I can take some of this back with me?”

Maple looked at the HP bar and saw that it was almost empty . Her persistent attack on its innards had been very effective .

“That’s it! I should end it with…”

Maple stopped the firing at the last moment and bit into a tentacle .

At the same time, the octopus turned into light and disappeared . Only the torn tentacles remained .

However, black mist poured out of the tentacles and they shrunk down in size .

Maple gathered them up and then checked her skills .

She found that a new one had been added .

‘Invitation to the Ocean Floor . ’

Use tentacles to attack and bind a target while adding the Paralysis status . If the targets STR is lower than your own, you will be able to bind them for a longer time .

“Great! Ehehe . I better take what I can get! Uhh… ‘Invitation to the Ocean Floor’!”

While Maple tried to activate the skill, she was unable to as she didn’t have enough MP .

She wondered what to do and then decided to set it in her great shield’s skill slot .

As Bizzare Eater didn’t use MP, it wouldn’t be affected when she was out of MP .

As for STR, there was nothing she could do about that .

“Alright… Let’s try this again!”

As Maple activated the skill, the arm that held up a great shield transformed into bluish-black tentacles that were nearly 2 meters in length . This thing that spat out black mist was clearly not something that had any business being on a human’s arm .

Furthermore, as she had set it on her great shield, the great shield itself had transformed into the tentacles .

“Uhhh… Maybe I shouldn’t have eaten it?”

And so in order to test out the skill, Maple stepped on the magic circle that appeared and teleported to the outside .

She was then returned to the island where she had first been captured . And so Maple put on the snorkel and pointed her tentacles at the fish in the water .

“Maybe I can paralyze them?”

As Maple moved her left hand, the tangle of tentacles opened up and wrapped around one of the fish .

“Yes! I got it!”

As Maple made the tentacles squeeze, the fish vanished as if it had been spirited away .

She pulled the tentacles back, but the fish was nowhere to be seen .

Yes, she had set the skill into the great shield . Because of this, these tentacles had the properties of Bizarre Eater, and the paralysis had no time to kick in .

Whatever she picked up would just disappear as if swallowed . The sight of this was terribly inhuman .

“Uh, how am I going to explain this to the others…?”

Maple wondered if there wasn’t a way to make this seem very mundane and normal . After a while, she decided that she would have to give it to them straight .