The Tentacle Awakens

by J. J. Pavlov

Somehow this has become a journey of eating various kinds of monsters. But I'm not a master combat cook who travels the world to gather rare ingredients for the ultimate meal. I just swallow things whole with no room for enjoyment of taste.

  That doesn't make for a great adventure, though.

  I spot a lone wolf-beast again. Without hesitation, I lunge at it and wrap my body around its mouth, before taking it into my depths. This is getting easier, and my reluctance has completely disappeared. In only a few hours, I've become a participant in the struggle for survival in this untamed wilderness. There's no room for thinking about the sanctity of life if nobody else around you does it.

  For example, over there a gorilla-like creature with an incredibly muscular frame and orange stripes on its fierce face is leaning over the carcass of a wolf-beast and ripping flesh from it with its bare hands. So, these wolves are only small fry in this place then? To think it felt like such an achievement to defeat one at the very beginning.

  Ah, it saw me.

  Well, it doesn't look like this ape has metal skin, and it's only barely larger than the wolf-beasts, so my offensive and defensive abilities should be enough to handle it.

  It stands up and looks at me curiously. I'm back in my sports uniform-slash-body paint, so it should be something it has never seen before. It sniffs the air and grimaces, then pumps out its chest and beats it a few times, just like a gorilla.

  Then, without warning, it sprints towards me on all fours and throws up both arms to let them crash down on me. Ending it with the hedgehog move would be the fastest, but it's boring, isn't it? Instead, I extend my right hand into a blade once again, dodge underneath the muscular arms and stab at the ape's exposed abdomen. Feeling it connect, I step sideways and cut open the beast's belly, from which a bunch of organs falls out.

  While grabbing at the intestines to push them back into the gaping wound, the gorilla's eyes roll up in their sockets, and it collapses forward. Well, that was really easy; I half-expected the pattern where it calls out its friends and a whole army of its kind will arrive to take revenge. This one was most likely quite a bit stronger than the wolves, but I'm on a whole different level compared to these. And now that I'm getting a better grasp of my capabilities, I'm going to leave them in the dirt.

  There has to be a monster between these and the cyber-dinos that I could get a little more thrill out of without having too much of a level difference.

  Actually, I'm interested in seeing how I would fare against a human warrior now. But from on top of the tree, I didn't see anything resembling manmade structures, so I guess that's something for the future. I mean, the demon queen did say that the humans and elves attacked her gates yesterday. So if I don't wake up anytime soon, I will get to experience a war between a human-elves coalition and the demons eventually.

  Well, I won't take this half-eaten carcass of a wolf, but the ape goes inside my pocket dimension of a stomach, where it quickly begins to dissolve. I'm getting faster at digesting stuff, so I wonder if I can also slow the speed and keep something alive inside me? I'll experiment a little next time I come across something living.

  Which just happens to be another wolf-beast.

  This is getting repetitive...

  I quickly ensnare and absorb it, while willing myself not to outright digest it within seconds. I can feel its heart beating in the depths of my body, but I'm sure its breath will run out sooner or later. I haven't been inside myself, so I can't tell whether there is even any space in which something can remain without getting crushed by my matter. Regardless, this is an experiment I can conduct while on the move.

  How many hours have I been here now? I think at least half a day of walking and eating has passed, but I don't feel tired at all. Must be part of my constitution.

  But mentally, I start to feel exhaustion creeping up. I've been on my toes since coming here, and I've done things I would have been either grossed out by or never even considered doing before. Just earlier, disemboweling the ape came naturally to me and I didn't bat an eye at it, but when I think about it from the point of view of a simple high school girl from peaceful Japan, I suppress a shudder.

  Really, what's wrong with my subconscious? Is this dream trying to process some repressed urges I never knew I had? Do I have the hidden desire to kill all kinds of living beings and eat them? Am I a closet murderer and cannibal?

  Ugh, when I think about it so much, I'm beginning to feel sick. What would happen if I threw up now? Of course, a sparkling, rainbow-colored fountain of half-digested animal parts would come flying out.

  I stop for a moment and heave a sigh. I never knew being surrounded by nature could be so nerve-wracking. I enjoyed running in the fields and on the forest paths when visiting my grandparents' home near Aomori, but real nature is completely different. Here, I don't have a way to retreat to humanity when I feel overwhelmed by all the greenery; aside from being in the depths of an untouched forest, I'm also a monster.

  Suddenly, I feel like waking up from this long dream... I can give myself a little pain and do just that, right?

  I pinch my cheek since I'm in a human body and have fingernails. But instead of pain, I only feel my skin extending more than it should. At the same time, it's clear that I do have sensations in my body. Otherwise, I wouldn't have been able to feel the stuff I swallowed, or my skin extending just now.

  Don't tell me this isn't a dream? I really died and reincarnated as the daughter of the demon queen, ate a human's steamed head by inserting it into my chest, and just absorbed more than a ton of wild animal carcasses that I killed, using my monstrous body?

  Then the heartbeat of the wolf-beast I tried to keep alive inside me stops.

  Urp...

  A sparkling, rainbow-colored fountain of half-digested animal parts shoots up into the sky.

  Chapter 3 - Facing Reality

  All around me are the bits and pieces of meat my body didn't digest yet, and its sight is enough to make me want to throw up again. The shock of learning that this is reality was just too big. I don't want to believe it, but my instincts tell me that everything that happened so far has been real. I really ate a human and killed dozens of animals...

  I died somewhere between the bath and going to sleep. Don't tell me it was actually in the tub? Did I fall asleep and drowned? Or slipped and hit my head? Either death would be more than lame and not even funny as a joke.

  At least I certainly can't laugh about it.

  So this means I can't go back? I'll never meet my parents again? Unlike those protagonists who cross over to other worlds, who are all useless human beings who seem to have no parents and no social life, I had a proper place in the world. I was the sporty type, had friends at school and loving parents at home. If I had continued with my track and field activities, I'm sure I could have entered the Olympic Games eventually.

  Granted, I've never been in a relationship and never even kissed, so I wasn't a complete norm-

  I died a virgin!

  It's been less than half a day, and my somewhat happy dream adventure has turned into a nightmare. Only that this isn't even a dream, it's reality!

  At least I wasn't dumb enough to try out dying in this world, to see if it wakes me up. I don't know whether dying here will allow me to reincarnate somewhere else or just ends my existence altogether. In the first place, am I even still myself, considering it's an entirely different body and a different world?

  Argh, this isn't something a high school girl should be thinking about!

  Well, I guess I'm not a high school girl - or a girl at all - anymore. I'm something like an evolved slime with a body that defies the laws of physics.

  I hold my head, feeling like it should start aching at any moment. This is too much for me to handle. What should I do now?

  My body is shaking. I did so many dangerous and horrible things, thinking that it's just a strange dream. Even though they weren't humans, I took more than a dozen lives without batting an eye.

  But
it was for survival, so I should be forgiven, right? Except for that lasts one, which was just an experiment.

  Ugh, I'm a horrible human being.

  Except, I'm not human! I want to cry!

  That wolf beast is still inside me, in a different part of my insides that I didn't vomit out. It's dead. I have a dead animal still inside me, beginning to rot.

  The noise of a nearby buzz saw derails my train of thoughts. It's one of those cyber-dinos! It must have been attracted by the smell of my discharge. Cutting a path through the forest with its massive jaw, it approaches my location.

  I have to run; I can't fight that. Now that I know this is reality, I'm seriously scared of dying. I don't want to die again without having done anything with my life!

  The tree line breaks apart to reveal the beast, its massive head turning slightly sideways to see me with one of its lens eyes. It's completely lifeless and not a hint of malice can be sensed from it. It's merely a machine that kills without emotions.

  Much like how I must have appeared to the last few animals I killed.

  It seems to have decided that it wants to eat me, as it begins to charge forward with its jaws wide open. The machinery in its mouth, serving the sole purpose of cutting and rending victims into small pieces, approaches me with a dreadful finality.

  I know I can outrun it, but now that I'm aware of my situation, and the fact that I can die, my legs won't move. I'm afraid of messing up my escape and dying anyway. What if I stumble? What if I get caught by surprise by some other monster while running away in this unfamiliar land? There are so many ways my life can end.

  Something I can only describe as a black rift in space slashes through the air and goes through the neck of the cyber-dino. It walks a few more steps before the head comes off cleanly, revealing the inner mechanisms of its body such as severed tubes and cables. Then it falls forward and slides across the ground before coming to a stop right in front of me. The buzz saws in its mouth slowly spin out, but there's no fire or an explosion. Just a machine ceasing to function.

  "Ah, there you are, Chaos-chan!" A familiar voice remarks and I look in the direction it came from. The demon queen is standing a short distance away and waving at me. She's being accompanied by a figure wrapped in heavy dark blue robes with a bandaged head, who's holding a gnarled wooden staff. Maou-mama walks towards me, an apologetic look on her face. "Are you unhurt?"

  I look at her blankly. Why is she here? Did she come to get me? So was this actually just training and it's over for today? Or was this all just a test? Regardless, Maou-mama is like a radiant angel coming to save me from this cruel world.

  Ah, crap, I think I'm tearing up.

  "Mama!" I finally call out, before jumping up and running into her open arms.

  "M-ma-?! Ahhh, what a great child!" Surprised at first, she expresses her delight at being called mama. She embraces me softly and strokes my hair with tender love. I'm seriously crying into her voluptuous chest now, though from relief rather than from fear.

  "It must have been scary, right? I did not intend to put you through this..." She actually sounds sorry. Hm? Something feels wrong here.

  "Wasn't this training?" I separate from her and look her up and down. She seems a little fidgety and her eyes are swimming around. What's going on?

  "Well, yes and no... I mean... Mama made a little mistake, you see... We were meant to go to another place together, but I have bad control over transportation magic, so we were separated." She looks away with a sheepish smile, trying to avoid eye contact.

  Look at me, oi.

  "Oho, I see... a mistake, huh?" I cross my arms and look down at my mother with a deadly glare. Now I'm seriously pissed.

  "Teehee~" She sticks out her tongue and winks in a cutesy manner that makes her look like a child. It unexpectedly suits her otherwise mature appearance. But for the current me, that's the last straw.

  Something audibly snaps in my head.

  Since a certain demon queen has terrible control over magic and accidentally threw a level one character into a level eighty area, even though she only wanted to teleport somewhere together, I'm now all the way back in the throne room of the palace again. At least she was able to find me just in time, or I would have come after death to haunt her.

  By the way, the person in the dark blue robes who came with her was introduced to me as the court magician named Mithra. He has the unique ability to teleport people without using a magic circle, and when he does it, it's also much more stable than Maou-mama's. Instead of the flashing lights and violent pulling forces, there was only a gentle stream of colors and a light breeze.

  Using Mithra's abilities, Maou-mama was able to find me, even though a teleportation accident like mine apparently always results in the person ending up somewhere completely random. The place I just got rescued from is called Yagrath, also known as the Dark Continent. And there are no transportation circles on that entire continent, so even if I had known teleportation magic, I wouldn't have been able to return from there by myself.

  If Mithra didn't exist, I would have been stranded there forever.

  "You did well in surviving for so long. Many expeditions have ended in the jaws of the vularen packs that roam Yagrath, and even powerful lords were ground into mincemeat by quakemaws." Maou-mama comments as we walk through the palace. I assume vularen are the wolf-beasts, and judging by the description and their names, quakemaws must be the cyber-dinos.

  I killed a whole pack of those vularen single-handedly, but normally they would be considered pretty dangerous? Aren't I pretty amazing then?

  I'll keep that to myself for now.

  "Now, Mithra will send us to the right place, so that we can begin your training." With these words, Maou-mama motions to signal the court mage, but I interrupt her.

  "I just came back, mama. I'd like to rest a bit first." Even though I'm in perfect shape physically, I'm mentally exhausted. I'd love to take a long bath and lie in bed until I get over the fact that I died and reincarnated in the body of a monster.

  "I understand that you had a tiring experience, but it is best we start early before too many false preconceptions about yourself become ingrained into you." Stroking my cheek softly, the demon queen explains why we have to do it now.

  But I have no idea what she means by false preconceptions about myself. Something like how my body works or my position in the food chain of this world?

  "Mithra, bring us to the Blood Pits of Rodens." Gesturing at the cloaked mage, my mother orders him to use his magic.

  Blood Pits. That sounds exactly like the place I want to go right now... not!

  Once again, I'm enveloped by a stream of soft lights. Maou-mama and Mithra seem to be standing on an invisible floor next to me, as we don't actually move physically.

  Within seconds, we arrive at our destination, and the stream of light fades, revealing a muddy trench. The ground is plastered with wooden panels, and the walls have been dug out from the dirt ground. There is an overwhelming stench of blood and decay from all around us.

  "... what are we doing here, mama?" I turn to her and see an excited expression on her face, as her eyes are fixed on something behind me.

  Turning around and looking up, I find a giant man three times my width and two heads taller hunched over and towering over me. His skin is light bronze and covered in scales, with shoulders directly connected to his head and lacking a neck. And he has the face of a crocodile's.

  It's literally a humanoid crocodile!

  I very nearly turn into Hedgehog Mode to instantly kill him before I get attacked, but I don't feel any hostility from him as he turns his head to look at me with a yellow-green eye featuring a vertically slit pupil. There is curiosity and wonder in his expression, though since he's still basically a crocodile, I can't be too sure about that.

  "Nilotec, how is your father?" The demon queen greets him in a somewhat casual manner. She knows this bipedal crocodile.

  "As always, he's grumpy and complains
about the foot he lost in Your Majesty's last campaign. But the old snapper's actually happy he was taken along instead of being kept in his fortress." Speaking in a low growling voice that seems to suggest anger, his words hold a completely different meaning; he seems to be a pretty friendly fellow. Then he turns to me. "This your new child?"

  "Indeed. She is a really good girl." The demon queen practically raises her nose in pride, a big smile on her face.

  New child? Does it mean she's producing children all the time?

  "So, the usual?" Nilotec bares his sharp teeth, and his lack of expressions only makes me think that he's trying to intimidate me. That must be his version of a grin.

  "No, she survived on the Yagrath for almost half a day." At these words, the croc's eyes widen as he turns his head again to look at me more closely. I guess having the eyes on the sides of your head makes it hard to use both to look at the same person when they're very close.

  "Then we'll skip forward to the test." Now I can tell that he's joyful, most likely looking forward to conducting this test.

  I have a bad feeling about this.

  Apparently 'the test' consists of dressing me in slave clothes and throwing me into a small arena with about thirty captive humans. It's to test my combat capabilities against intelligent and organized enemies, huh? They are all wielding weapons while I haven't been given one myself, although that isn't much of a problem for me.

  The problem is the fact that my opponents are humans.

  I'm standing amidst the prisoners looking just like one of them, so they aren't aware that I'm their enemy. A middle-aged man wielding a wooden club and wearing torn rags comes up to me with a haunted expression. He's nervously peeking up at the demon queen's spectator's box, from where she's watching with Nilotec standing by her side.

  "Ya alright?" The man has a pockmarked face and bad breath, and I can barely hold myself back from shirking away. He reminds me of the creepy homeless man whom I once encountered on my way back home after going out with some friends in the evening. I couldn't understand his boondocks accent as tried to talk to me, while he followed me in the dark for a whole block.