The Kingdom of Egret is made up of two islands. There are two islands: the long island of Igland and the island of Marlette, which is about a third of the island.
　On the smaller island, Marlette Island, the four of us and two animals - me, Sue, Linse, Sakura, and Kuroshio and Coral - set foot on the island.
　The three members of the Lufu tribe are heading towards the royal capital Letrabamba with the [Gate] I opened earlier. We came to this island because we were worried about what happened to the sea dragon that was defeated by the giant squid demonic beast, Tentacler.
　The back of the cave, which is the sea dragon's lair, is connected to the transference gate of Babylon's Laboratory. After transitioning from there and going through the cave that still looked like a secret base, we came to an open area. It's like a little underground lake.

''Fuyao-san, that's........''

　Linze, who was accompanying him, pointed to the depths of the subterranean lake. There was the figure of a sea dragon lying there with a wounded body.
　The upper body (?) Only one of them was lying on the ground and the rest of its body was submerged in the surface of the sea. The beautiful sapphire-blue scales were peeling off in places and were caked with blood.
　The breathless sea dragon catches my figure with its slightly open eyes. I put my hand on the body of the sea dragon as it tried to move. Wait for me, I'll heal you now.

''Come light, Goddess healing, mega-heal.''

　A wave of light enveloped the sea dragon, and its wounded body recovered in no time at all. The scales also regained their original sapphire blue glow.

''Are you okay now?
'Yes, sir. Thank you. Ruri-sama's principal, Fuyuya Mochizuki-sama. We have shown you something very disgraceful.
I got the gist of it from the guys at Egret. I heard you had a run-in with some guy called Tentacler or something?
''Yes. 'Yes, they have rudely entered my domain. Their tentacles were so strong that they could have crushed the bones in my body.

　Hmmm, crushing the bones of a dragon is a lot of work. The Tentacler looks like a squid in appearance, but it might have elements of an octopus in it as well. As I recall, an octopus is 90% of its body is muscle.
　Furthermore, among the invertebrates that live in the sea, the squid's swimming speed is the fastest.
　It may be a surprisingly incredible monster.

I've been asked to kill the monster as well, so take some time off. When it's over, you can take care of Iglet again.
"Thank you so much for your generosity.

　The sea dragon lowers its lifted head. It's still a human-like dragon.
　However, there is one thing that bothers me.

''You said 'those guys' earlier, but isn't there just one Tentacler?''
'Yes, sir. Yes, there is more than one. I fought two of them and escaped when the third one appeared, so I don't know how many for sure.

　That means there are at least three of them........ This is going to be a pain in the ass.
　Saying goodbye to the sea dragons while switching the gloomy feelings, we followed the memories we got from Totora and transferred to Letrabamba with [Gate].




"So this is the royal capital of Iglet, Letrabamba. This is the royal capital of Egret, Letrabamba?

　Lethrabamba is located on a hill along the coast, and the landscape below looks like a tropical resort with palm trees lining the white sandy beach and the emerald green sea.
　The town was lined with green lawns and colorful birds were fluttering in the sky. The town was built of stone buildings, with tall towers and temples visible in the distance. Some of them look like pyramids left by the ancient Aztec civilization.
　The mountains in the distance are lush with greenery, the sky is blue, and the sea is blue. The mountains in the distance are lushly green, the sky is blue, and the sea is blue.
　However, as I looked closely at the landscape, I noticed that some of the palm trees had been broken and some of the houses had been destroyed. Damage from the storm the other day? As I expected, the damage was severe.
　There is a big building in the center of Lethrabamba, is that the castle here? I decided to walk down the street of the capital to go there for now.

The people of the city are somewhat listless, you know.
'I hear there's a food shortage. I've heard there are tenterhooks in the ocean and the mountains are in danger of landslides.

　I didn't need Linse to tell me, but I had seen the people of the Igrette Kingdom who had also lost their power to me.
　Not all towns would be like that, but it seems that the damage to us as a country is still significant.
　The royal capital isn't so bad, but I've heard that the mountainous areas and the fishing port cities in the north were devastated. Landslides and rivers have flooded, and traffic is probably stagnant.
　I suddenly realized that a carriage was coming from the other side. No, maybe "carriage" isn't the right word. The one pulling the carriage was not a horse, but a bird. It was a bird like an ostrich, but with a larger neck and head than an ostrich.
　The carriage (so we call it for now) stops in front of us. Two (two?) On the gosholder's platform of a standing, roofless four-wheeled carriage, the younger of the Ruf siblings, Lyricara, held the reins.

'We are up for you. My king awaits you at the castle.

　You came to pick me up. Thank goodness.
　But just as we were about to get into the carriage, a scream went up on the beach and a crowd of people began to murmur.
　We looked down from the iron fence at the top of the cliff to see a giant squid-like monster poking its head out of the sea and attacking people with its tentacles outstretched.
　Do those guys even crawl up to the ground?
　The outstretched tentacles entwined with one man and lifted him up. Tentaclers are carnivores and prey on dolphins and sharks, but sometimes they even eat humans.

''Water, come, limpid sword blade, Aquacutter!''

　The water blade released by the cherry blossom sputtered the tentacle of the tentacle that was lifting the man up!　And cut it off.
　The man who fell on the sandy beach runs away in a hurry, and Linse's magic is activated this time on the blue blood-splattered Tentacler.

''[Flame, come, fireball of purgatory, fireball]'

　An oversized fireball explodes on the head of the tentmaker who is out of the sea.

''Pugyaragaa──!

　With an eerie voice, the Tentacler retreated into the sea. I also fired 【Fire Arrow】 in pursuit, but before it could hit, the Tentacler sank into the sea and disappeared.

''I let it go. What a shame.
It's smaller than I've heard, you know?
You're a child.

　Even if it was a child, it would still be vicious.
　The tentacle that was cut off is still undulating on the beach. Ugh, that's freaky.
　I can't go out to the sea without worrying if there was that thing in there. Come to think of it, how many Tentaclers are in the waters around here?

'Search. Number of Tentaclers in the waters around the Kingdom of Ygret.
'Searching.........end of search. Fifty-three deaths.
G....!

　I can't help but exclaim at the unusually large number that emanated from my pocket phone.
　Even including the larvae (I don't know if it's a larvae or not) like the one I just saw, that's still too many!
　As I recall, the guild book said that the Tentacler is an oocyte like the squid, but unlike the squid, which lays a thousand eggs at a time, it lays only a few dozen eggs, and of those dozens, only a few hatch and successfully become an adult....
　Could this be another anomalous phenomenon that occurs in the aftermath of the world fusion?
　Landing on the sandy beach, I put Brunhild into blade mode and slash at the tentacle left behind by the tentmaker.
　The slippery mucus shifted the blade line and I couldn't cut it well. The next time I poked it with the cutting edge, it stabbed normally, though there was a certain amount of resistance.
　Perhaps because it was stimulated, the tentacle moves again wiggling. Ew.
　I might be able to cut it off if I had arms as long as eight layers, but it would be difficult to do so with a larger individual. The magic blade seems to be effective, though.

''What is the attribute of the magic that works on the Tentacler?
I'm sure the fire or wind or lightning attacks and light magic will be fine. I'm sure the water attribute will be effective for slashing spells such as the Aquacutter, but it's not very effective for things like the Mailstrom.

　Hmmm. But fire and lightning are less than half as powerful in the sea. Lightening would be refracted from the sea.
　Then we'll have to drag them out of the sea. Should I fish out of the sea?
　As I was pondering on the beach, a brown-skinned man with a golden feather ornament on his head came in, accompanied by several soldiers. He's also accompanied by Totora and Lilikala's Ruf siblings beside him.
　He was probably in his early thirties in age. His slender but well-trained muscles were painted with unique tattoos, and he wore a Native American-like national costume on his person.

''You did a good job fighting off the demonic beasts. Thank you, His Majesty King Brunhild.
And you?
"Lefan Retra, son of Leraure Kocha. King of the Kingdom of Egret.

　It was His Majesty the King. Because of his appearance as a strong warrior, I thought he was a warrior chief or something.
　I grasped the proffered hand. The hands are the hands of a warrior who spends his days training and carrying weapons.

I'm the Duke of Brunhild, Fuyuya Mochizuki. It's a pleasure to meet you, His Majesty King Lefan.

　Next, I would like to introduce the three fiancées behind me. I've emphasized that they are each excellent wizards rather than fiancées, though. Feeling like a resort with multiple lovers?　And that's what they think.
　Fortunately, many of them had seen the battle just now, so they seemed to be easily convinced.

''I just checked the seas around here with search magic, and it seems that there are more than fifty Tentaclers.
Fifty...!　My God ... that's no way to go fishing even if you had a boat.
We can provide you with a new ship in our country, and all we need to do now is destroy the Tentacler. The new ship is in the middle of the ocean. We'd like to somehow pull them out of the water and kill them.

　Since King Lefan had given his approval that it was okay to troll the cape a bit far from the royal capital Letrabamba, we decided to make that the site of the extermination of the Tentacleer.
　Well, that's just the way it is.

'Black Day. Do you think this is edible?
What do you think?　I'm sure it's safe because it's not toxic. I don't know if it's tasty or not.

　With the back of the coral that was floating wobbly around me, Black Day answers.
　I checked it out with [Analysis 《Analysis》, and it's certainly not toxic. It means there is no problem even if you eat it. I don't know if it's tasty or not.
　I cut off a thin slice of the tentacle arm that finally stopped moving, rubbed it with salt, washed it well and took out the slime. I sliced it into thin slices and put it into the bowl I took out from [Storage].
　I also took the Yisheng soy sauce and ginger from [storage] and mixed the grated ginger together in a small dish. Early on, it was squid somen.

''Your Majesty, Your Highness.......you don't think you're going to eat that?''
I thought this might help with the food shortage. I don't really like it either, but this is how it was eaten in Yisheng and where I'm from, so I thought I'd give it a try.

　They usually eat squid and octopus in Yisheng. As long as they're not poisonous, they should be edible.... The rest is just a matter of whether it's good or bad.
　While the people at the Egret were surprised, I took the Tentaqulah somen, not the Squid somen, with my chopsticks, dipped it in a small plate of ginger and soy sauce and sipped it. Mu...................

How do you like it?

　Linse asks with a worried look on her face.

''........It's surprisingly good. I don't like the squishy texture, but with this, well, it's not inedible. The taste isn't bad either. If you like it, you might like it.
I'm going to eat it.

　Following me, Sakura also sipped on her ten-takurahsomeen. Soo was next, followed by Kuroshio and Coral, and finally Linse also took a bite.

''Surprisingly delicious.''
I don't think straw isn't your thing...
It's crunchy and delicious. If you change the sauce, you can enjoy a different kind of flavor, can't you?

　Each person seems to have a different opinion about it, but the conclusion is that it is not inedible, and some people find it delicious. It tastes like an octopus or a squid, sweet and light. I wondered if I could cut it a little thicker and use it as sashimi.
　The people in Egret, who had been watching us with wrinkled brows, eventually became curious, first Lu's brother Totoora, and then his sister Lilikala, who took a bite of it.

'If you ask me if it's very good, it's certainly not, but it's not inedible.
'I like it light and refreshing. It suits this shogajoule.

　After all, there seems to be a difference in tastes. Finally, His Majesty King Lefang also spoke of the Ten Takurah Soumen.

'....Hmm. It's not as bad as I thought. I had some resistance at first, but after I tried it, it's nothing to sneeze at. There's nothing I can't eat with this. A little more flavor would be more to my taste, though.

　His Majesty the King didn't find it very tasty. It's something I've never had before, so I guess that's about it at first.
　In this case, do you want to try various squid dishes on the side?
　Fried squid covered with batter and raised in oil. Sweet and spicy fried squid and garlic buds. Baked in butter and soy sauce. Grilled ginger. When I tried to make various dishes, the people in Egret recognized that these are ingredients.
　As you would expect of a professional chef, he came up with something more sophisticated than what I made. The pulse herb fried ten-takler was very good.
　Squid can be preserved as well. I think you can do it with a ten-takler, too.
　I'll have to catch more and more of these.
　With Lindsay's frame gear, it's not impossible. In particular, Su's Ortlindeoverlord is the most powerful of all the specialized Valkyria machines. One or two of the Tentaclers could easily be dragged out of the sea.
　Even if you take them down, you're going to use them as food, so you shouldn't damage their bodies too much, right? Huh?　Well, I think my grandfather once said there was a way to kill a squid or an octopus with one hit....
　I'll have to do some research on the internet.
　Let's see, 'stick an ice pick between your eyes'............................oh.