Her Tentacles 99

Chapter 99: Extra 1

It was night.

The typhoon was approaching, and it was also the fishing moratorium. The beautiful seaport of Nancheng, which was usually bustling with tourists who loved to see the sea view, was now deserted. Even the fishermen who relied on the sea for their livelihood had turned off their lights early. Only a few lights were on in the windows of the sea-view hotels facing the sea.

The few roads leading to the port had all been closed. Because the meteorologists had observed that the wind speed had reached level 16 when this sea cyclone was forming, and the water vapor brought by the cloud rotor was huge. Although its moving direction had deviated several times as it approached land, the big data still predicted that it would land in Nancheng—

At this moment, all the departments in the city were on high alert for this typhoon. A few days in advance, they had used the internet, television, text messages, and grassroots inspections to do their best to let all the people in the city be on high alert for the typhoon, and to minimize unnecessary casualties and property losses.

On the highway outside the hotel, the lights of a patrol car gradually faded into the distance.

On the side facing the sea.

A figure slowly walked toward the restless waves.

Her feet stepped on the cold gravel, and she could even feel the fine, hard-shelled creatures hidden inside, which dug deep into the soles of her feet when her weight sank in.

Bacteria, viruses, parasites carried by marine life…

Countless knowledge flooded her mind.

She paused for a moment, but then walked forward again. When the cold seawater submerged her ankles, what appeared in her mind was hypothermia, drowning, and her nasal cavity, lungs, and stomach being filled with seawater and seaweed.

The ocean, which had merged with the dark night, was at this moment like a dormant giant beast.

It aroused the deepest fear in the human heart.

The sea waves seemed to have sensed the sacrifice that was actively walking toward it, and so the waves it stirred up were higher and higher, coming and going with a rush. When the waves reached the girl’s knees, they pushed and rolled her without question, and her figure disappeared from the beach.

Along with the footprints she had left behind, she disappeared without a trace.

…

Gurgle, gurgle.

For a person who could swim, it was a very luxurious thing to deliberately try to drown.

Before her breath was exhausted and she opened her mouth, the instinctive action that had been deliberately suppressed would, against the will of the brain, choose to follow the instinct to survive and begin to struggle in the seawater.

By the time she had reacted—

She had been washed ashore again for some reason, but she couldn’t tell which beach it was. There was no soft fine sand like before, and there seemed to be a high cliff behind her.

Under her body were all kinds of sharp stones, and her whole body was in pain.

It was as if this sea had scooped her up and tasted her, and finding that it didn’t like her taste, it had disgustedly thrown her away again.

She lay on the beach with her limbs spread out, on the beach where small fish and shrimp were jumping. She let the seawater occasionally pour over her ears, the tip of her nose, and her eyes. She stared at the sky with a blank expression, and did not speak for a long time.

Until the moon briefly poked its head out from the clouds and glanced at the beach under this cliff.

She heard a very light gurgling sound.

The woman turned her head to look and saw a giant shadow that had at some point… also been washed ashore by this wave.

An ominous black and red covered its huge body. One of its tentacles was turned over powerlessly, and the countless suckers on it were covered with dense, sharp fangs, like thorns, and were facing her.

Her heart thumped heavily.

She was covered by an incomparable fear.

She instinctively opened her mouth, as if she wanted to make a sound. In the end, she remembered the purpose of her appearing on this dangerous coast, and closed it again with a self-deprecating smile.

She just thought aimlessly.

What is this?

A giant deep-sea octopus?

A sea monster?

One person and one monster lay quietly on the beach where no one would pass by, blowing in the cold sea wind and waves. Just as the human was uncontrollably convulsing and trembling from hypothermia, she suddenly heard a very blurry voice, which sounded directly in her mind:

【You’re going to die.】

She opened her eyes again in a daze, and only then did she find that the moonlight had at some point become particularly bright, so much so that she could see the big monster, which she could barely see even when she looked up, clearly, including its two black eyes in its soft torso.

They were round.

They had a strange cuteness that was inconsistent with its terrifying body.

She began to feel hot, and thought this was a sign that her sensory nerves were starting to get confused. Perhaps this monster was her illusion, and its voice was also her illusion. Everything was just an absurd experience before her death.

Her fear vanished inexplicably, and she replied calmly, “Yes. Are you going to eat me?”

That big octopus glanced at her.

It seemed to have sized her up for a moment before it said lazily, 【You don’t look delicious.】

She: “?”

It’s strange. I have the feeling of being disliked as an ingredient.

So she retorted, “You’re not delicious either. An octopus of your size, the meat is too old and too hard, and it’s difficult to season. At most, after it’s dried, it can be put in an ocean museum as a specimen.”

That voice went quiet, and did not speak.

She suddenly felt a little bored again, so she had a little bit of curiosity she shouldn’t have. She looked at the waves, which were more turbulent than before, and should have drowned her long ago, but because the guy blocking her was too big, they were all blocked by its body.

So she suddenly asked, “You… aren’t you going back to the sea?”

The big octopus, which was still thinking about what an “ocean museum” was, glanced at her again. Although it was a species it had never seen before, it was unexpectedly more interesting than all the creatures it had seen in the abyss.

For example, the strong loneliness and despair that she was exuding at this moment made the [Monarch Slayer] feel a little empathy.

So it glanced at her again.

It threw the question back. 【Aren’t you going back to land?】

It could feel the warmth exuding from her body. This kind of warmth was not something that a creature living in the ocean could have. And looking at the cliff and the land behind her, and this night that could rotate with the sunlight, it guessed that a creature like her should be able to be in the sun often.

Mmm.

It was a very warm, and completely different from the [Lighthouse], fiery and bright light.

The kind of light that could dry it into an octopus jerky.

While she was still thinking about this strange travel experience, the person lying on the ground spoke again. “Oh, I don’t want to go back.”

This time, she had also learned to answer first. “You don’t want to go back either?”

The big octopus: 【Mmm.】

…

So strange.

She thought.

Which normal person’s fantasy scene before death would also have a big octopus that didn’t want to live, and then one person and one fish would lie side by side on the beach and wait for death?

But the fact was indeed so.

At an unknown time, a wave came with a strong wind, but it could only hit that octopus. She finally spoke again. “Why?”

“Your size… doesn’t look like you live in the shallow sea. It’s not easy to grow so big, right? And you can even communicate with humans. You don’t look like an ordinary octopus either. The sea monsters in mythology are just like you, right? Is there something bothering you in the sea? The fish aren’t delicious? The seawater is polluted and you’re not satisfied?”

She admitted that she was a little confused.

What kind of situation would make a sea monster run to the shore and dehydrate itself to death?

The big octopus didn’t say anything.

Although it was the one who had started the topic, now it was frequently closing its mic in the chat.

Noticing that it was looking at her again, the woman found that this sea monster was quite deep. Anyway, it was the last thing she would see, so there was nothing she couldn’t say. If it weren’t for the fact that she was hot and weak all over at this moment, she might have been able to sit up and count on her fingers with it.

One by one.

“Well, I’m different. I have many reasons.”

“For example, when I was a child, my family had no money, and they didn’t do prenatal checkups. They also favored boys over girls. When they found out I was a girl, they casually gave me to the richest family in the village as a child bride. But then that family went bankrupt, and they threw me at the entrance of the town’s orphanage—”

“Later, I was adopted two or three times, but I was still returned. In the end, I got annoyed and didn’t want any family or kinship anymore. I swore to study hard and make a name for myself.”

“I did very well in my exams, and the major I chose was also very good. I liked it very much.”

Which medical student doesn’t have the dream of saving the world?

Until she had been floating in the sea of learning for year after year, and had finally memorized one thick book after another, and had taken one anatomy class after another, what she faced was the more difficult problems of internship, rotation, residency, regularization, promotion, and so on.

By staying up late to study every day, she could barely maintain a top-ranking score in her professional courses. When she entered a more complex work environment, even if she worked hard, her withdrawn personality was really hard to please.

She was not the kind of transcendent genius. She had no skills that would make the big shots particularly favor her. And even because her personality was withdrawn and she looked too cold, she had been complained about by patients and their families several times during her internship.

Of course, the big city hospital didn’t have to keep her.

Interns who had graduated from good schools like her were everywhere in major hospitals. She was average at her work, and she was not good at socializing. She also had no family or teachers to help her with recommendations. Even if she wanted to be a consumable, she might not be able to last until the end.

And on the back of this camel of hers, there was one straw after another.

When she found an internship, her biological parents, who thought she had graduated and had a job, came to her door, hoping that if she gave them a little love, she could repay them with money.

They brazenly, in the name of “you have to support us in our old age,” blocked her at the entrance of the hospital where she worked, making her already difficult work even worse.

When she was rotating in the emergency department, after staying up all night for several days, and was angered by them and fainted in public, she, who was carried onto a hospital bed by her colleagues, was diagnosed with a malignant brain tumor.

The tumor was pressing on her brainstem, and in the future, it might affect her heart, limbs, and so on. Because the location shown in the imaging was too tricky, the success rate of the surgery was only ten percent.

When she woke up, she saw that the couple had not left. She had thought that their conscience had been pricked and that they wanted to get her treatment. Who knew that they were desperately pulling at the passing doctors, saying that their hospital was heartless and was forcing people to die.

Now they were insisting that the hospital compensate them with a sum of money.

As for whether that money would be used for her treatment?

She thought about the mentally handicapped son of the rich family in the neighboring village, whom she had accidentally heard them talking about. She felt that she might be sold by them one more time before she died, and they would make another sum of money.

Or perhaps.

She could also make a sum of money after she died?

Given that this couple was so immoral, and was so bad at using their brains to make money in a proper way, if they could find some kind of ghost marriage channel, they would surely be happy to sell her horoscope again, so that her ashes would not be at peace even after she died.

Compared to the fish living in the deep sea, humans living on land had to face too many, too many troubles. Work, career, family life, just by picking a little from a person’s finger, one could leak out countless sorrows.

After saying all this aimlessly, she felt that her head was a little muddled.

Coincidentally, at this moment, a wave was too fierce and rushed over the big octopus’s head. The cold seawater fell all over her face, and she licked it with difficulty.

Ah.

I forgot.

Now her tongue was already numb, and she could no longer taste anything.

She thought so, and tried her best to satisfy her curiosity before her consciousness blurred. “So what about you?”

As if it had seen that her vital signs were gradually dissipating, the big octopus, which had been preoccupied and unwilling to speak, quickly answered:

【Does there have to be a reason?】

【It’s also fine if there’s no reason, right?】

There was no reason why it had to die, and there was no reason why it had to live. Because it was just a wanderer who had been driven out of its homeland and was just going with the flow.

When it was born, when it died, it was all fine.

The human who heard its words chuckled, and seemed to have gladly accepted this. “Of course it’s fine.”

She said, “It sounds like you’ve been living in the sea for too long and are tired of that boring life—”

“Since you’re on shore today, why don’t you consider experiencing a new world?”