🙡 Chapter 5.1 🙣

Outside

[British nature documentary music playing in the background]

In a certain possessed forest, an innocent tentacle monster—a truly extraordinary creature—was crawling on the root-covered floor, trying to get away from the predator just behind it. The poor thing—merely a newborn—knew it was too weak, too slow to run away, but following its survival instincts it fought on! And then it used a clever trick—it threw away it’s earlier loot, a hood brooch. A marvelous distraction! It crawls away! As dust gathers, a small trail of blood on the glowing road!

...But its predator was too fast. The countless shining tentacles were no match for the evolutionary adaptation of the bipedal hunter. The hope extinguished, as the hunter smiled, catching its prey in its powerful arms.

A few tentacles moved away in protest. The creature raised its hand… And smacked the innocent creature on the head while making its battle scream “Bad monster!”, after which it began its feeding.

Small animals are the favorite prey of young girls. And their hands are hungry. Hungry for ”smol” and “kyut”. No “good boy” should be unpet and unhugged. The young tentacle monster tried to protect its dignity from falling, and chin from being scratched, but it was for naught, its young appendages were too weak to fight off the more mature predator.

⚯

The time spent travelling back to the gate was a blur of me fighting against being treated like a lap dog, and fighting against falling asleep. I know I’m not safe, but listen- I’m one day old. Sleeping is an important part of growing healthy, okay? And hugging seems to instinctively make me more relaxed.

Still, this is outrageous! Why the hell am I so weak! A literal CHILD is stronger than me! Is this how earth's cats feel?! Stop it or else I shall write you down in the grudge book as well! I mean yeah, being scratched feels nice… Also why would a tentacle monster be ticklish?! Isn’t tickling supposed to be a trait of social animals? And who is this molester, this type of behavior should only extend to close friends! It’s our first meeting!

Oh yes, my god it feels GOOD!

… Fine. Rejoice! I shall kill you last. Okay, now that this is settled, I really need a bath.

I’m not the only one having a hard time staying awake—I could feel the girl's pulse, she was about to faint herself. And yet she still decided to carry me around. Her snakes fortunately were too busy looking for outside threats to pay much attention to me… even if the white one looked at me warily from time to time. It did look funny though, a big moving ball of heads, eyes and tongues, scanning for any signs of movement.

Fortunately, we were finally there, the magic-fence. In the dark of the night the barrier glowed similarly to the pebbles spread around the path, a calming blue-white. Not only that, the pillars were also emitting a kind of fog, slowly seeping inside, becoming less and less visible the deeper into the forest it went.

That sight by itself was magical enough to wake me up, but this world was not done destroying my common sense. As the girl got closer to the gate, she did something with her hand and an item she got from her pouch… and the spring river froze. I don’t mean It became ice, it froze in time! I could see droplets unmoving in the air, a few fish resting in my trap not breathing… And then, she just walked on it to the other side. Yeah, WALKED ON WATER. The mysterious sight of the first night of my new life, surrounded by magical artifacts, bizarre phenomena in the sky, and tiredness of life and death escape was a memory that I was not going to forget for the rest of my life.

*SPLOSH* >NooooOooo! Damn it!

No no no no! Woman don’t let me go now! I can’t swim! Oh wait, I can float. Welp. A voice in the back of my mind was telling me it’s time to run.. But I have a lot of time, don’t I? Why not take a nap first. Or soon. And the girls' arms were so warm. Why not rest there for a moment, using her as my guard, and then just split after I rest for 10.. 20 minutes?

Visibly frustrated, and barely stopping herself from crying, the girl climbed on the land again. After thinking for a moment, she touched one of the pillars, and, apparently reacting to it, it started glowing yellow, a thin beam extending from its pyramid-top towards the sky. Then, she took a sip of water from a water-fountain like feature on the obelisk, before finally, she just sat down.

I floated down, plopping on her shoulder, and after giggling for a moment she took me back into her arms.

>I’m going to call you Sir Yarnball Floaty , because you are floating and look like a yarn ball, and they are great. And you are great... A great knight, because you helped me when I was being attacked by a monster, which is what knights do. You don’t mind, do you?

> He likes it!

… Why do I think something bad just happened?

Her snakes seemed to be very interested in me again. Especially the biggest, white one—the very same one that bit me. It was a bit weird that a creature this similar to a snake exists in another world, but then, they are not the most unique of creatures… And isn’t it the second one I’ve seen? And once again, a hand found itself around my body, and as I was about to be scratched in this great spot, just where my tentacles are connected to my head

*Hissss!*

>Icicle! Don’t be rude to Sir Pillow!

Yeah, even if most of her “hair” seemed to poke with their snouts, sniff me, or just look curiously—wait, one of them is asleep!—that particular one seemed to treat me with vigilance…

Wait a moment... Could it be? Is it feeling jealous? Am I stealing its petting-time? I might not be a snake person, but I do not want to be bit again… Well, whatever. I raised my tentacle to its snout, to let it sniff it, and then scratched and petted it.. It closed its eyes in pleasure, only to open them in a moment and try to bite me again. Ohh a feisty one! come here you cute little… I tried dodging the lazier and lazier bites, as she got more and more comfortable with the touch. It seems the girl could also feel the sensation, as she also made a blissful face… so now, we had 3 bliss faced idiots sitting in front of a dangerous killer forest, full of demons. But I just couldn’t think about anything hard anymore, my mind was drifting off and I was about to fall asleep.

>Oh look how cute he is! Aren’t you glad to have made a new friend, Icicle?

Once again, child! I can’t understan… understand… zzzzz…..