Two more days passed and we were close to the halfway point.
We had only reached the halfway point… There were still so many days to go…

“Sis, can you give me two more?”
“Sure thing.”
“Nn, thanks.”

After I took the mana orbs from Karen, I absorbed the mana from them before feeding it to the tentacles. The tentacle growth quivered happily, devouring the mana.

“These little gluttons… Okay, that’s enough.”
“Good work.”
“Nn.”

I let myself fall back onto the tentacle floor. The tentacles below me were squirming in protest, but they made for a pretty comfortable bed.

“Hey, Sis… Did we feed them too much?”

The tentacles definitely had grown in size over the past few days. They had become really squishy and comfortable, so I didn’t mind it that much but...

“We should probably hold back a little…”
“Nn… It’d be troublesome if they didn’t fit into this room anymore.”

Before, when I tried to stand on the actual floor, the tentacle growth would reach a little over my ankles. Yet, now they reached halfway up my calf. We fed them every day until they were full and that was probably the reason why they had grown so much. Each and every day, they needed more mana, too.

“At this rate, they’ll starve even if we don’t make any pitfalls or do anything else with them. That’d be a problem. On the other hand, I am a little curious how much they would grow if we just kept going…”
“Yumi… You do know we’ll get a place in the fort, right? Let’s do stuff like that there.”
“... Guess you’re right. Oh well.”

Time to put them on a diet.

“You heard her? You guys have to thin up a little.”

I pat the thick tentacles below me, causing them to squirm around. It seemed like they were a little less energetic after my words but that might have been just as well my imagination.

“I wonder if there are any exercises we could make them do.”
“Would that even work, Yumi?”
“Why shouldn’t it?”
“It doesn’t look like they are working for you, at least.”
“... Good point.”

The training Rina and I had to go through hadn’t borne any fruit so far. At least, for me.

“Guess we’ll really have to feed them less then. Too bad for you guys.”

Ah, they were squirming again. They definitely didn’t like that. I wouldn’t like it either so I could relate a little. Unfortunately, it wouldn’t change the problem.

“Anyway, we’re done feeding them. What’s next on the list, Sis?”
“That was the last thing we had to do.”
“Already?”
“Yes.”

Well now, that was good news.

“Should we go back to studying then, Yumi?”
“Nn, actually… I wanted to ask if we could take a break from it today.”
“Huh?”

We had been studying every day after we finished our chores. Honestly, while it was nice making progress in learning the Aldreighan language, it was… also quite tiring. Learning a language was, without a doubt, not an easy feat. And I needed a little bit of change once in a while.

“I mean, we can… Did you have something in mind, though?”
“Nn. Remember that the captain gave us permission to do a bit of research on our own again?”
“Yes.”
“Well, there’s not much point in having permission if we don’t find the time for it. And I need a change of pace.”

Korwen had told us that there wasn’t that much of a hurry with getting the Space Magic stuff working. Either way, we definitely wanted Ria around for that next time. Alas, that wasn’t everything we could look into. There was the stuff Elina had told me about that had given me an idea about something. Plus, there were still plenty of tentacles I knew nothing about. Many of them seemed to have more… sexual purposes. But not all of them. Some of them had needles for injecting fluids. There was that weird tentacle that seemed to rapidly absorb my mana as well.

Actually, now that I think about it, the latter one is definitely a no-go without Ria’s help.

In other words, there were still things I had to look into. And wasn’t now the best chance I had? There was nothing else to do, after all. Plenty of time and no particular hurry.

“Mm… That’s fine with me, Yumi. Then, what did you want to do?”
“Nn… I think I’d like to try strengthening myself.”
“... Strengthening? You could do that?”

Karen furrowed her brow, clearly confused.

“Well, I don’t know if I can? But Elina told me about, err, mana purity and mana density. That gave me an idea. If the amount of mana in a monster material determines its strength, wouldn’t that also apply to the monsters when they are alive? And, of course, to me.”
“Then, you want to increase the amount of mana you have?”
“Kind of?”
“But it gets absorbed.”
“That’s the problem.”

As long as my mana crystal kept absorbing mana like a broken vacuum, there was no way for me to strengthen myself in the long term.

“But if I am consciously keeping the mana from being absorbed, it should work out. At least, for a while.”
“Mm… I think I get that...”

That was as good as agreement, right? Great.

“But how do we test that you actually got stronger?”
“... That’s actually a good point.”

Relying on just intuition wasn’t a good idea here. Especially since I wanted to know how much stronger I would get. Assuming I did at all.

“Do we have anything I can squeeze with my hand?”
“I… don’t think so?”
“Well, great.”

Something to squeeze, something to squeeze…

“You could also try to lift something, no? Wouldn’t that be easier?”
“I guess it would but…”
“But?”
“If I lift something large, I think I’d be using a lot of my body for that, right? I mean, I can try but I don’t know if I can keep enough mana around inside my whole body.”
“Ahh…”

So, nothing, huh…

“Well, let’s first just get an impression, I guess? I can just squeeze some of the tentacles.”

They were resilient enough, after all.

“They probably won’t like that.”
“Can’t change that.”

Better than trying to test out my grip strength on something that might break.

“Either way, first, I’d have to see whether anything changes at all. So, Sis, could you give me one mana orb.”
“Sure.”

She handed me one fresh mana orb, brimming full of energy.

“Well, here goes nothing.”

I extracted some mana and let it flow into my arm. It was still under my control so the mana crystal wasn’t going to absorb it anytime soon.

“Mm, doesn’t feel like anything has changed.”

I moved my arm and… Nothing of particular note happened.

“Okay, time to give them a small squeeze. Paw.”

The tentacles… didn’t do anything. Dog tricks weren’t working, huh?

“Yumi, what are you doing?”
“Realising that we have to train them.”
“... I see.”

Evading Karen’s stare, I took one tentacle into my hand and squeezed it lightly. It was squishy.

“So?”
“No idea. One moment.”

I gripped the tentacle, keeping a little bit of strength and removing the mana from my arm.

“Oh? Ohhh.”

It became just slightly harder to grip. It… actually worked?!

“Then…”

I moved the mana back into my arm and… Yeah, it became slightly easier. I moved some more mana from the orb into my arm and it procedurally got easier to squeeze and keep up the grip.

“Did it work?”
“Nn, I think it actually did. But it does need quite a bit of mana…”

The moment I released the control, the mana in my arm was slowly absorbed into my crystal. It only took seconds for my grip strength to return to normal.

“Hey, knowing about it is already something…”
“But can you actually make use of it?”
“Well… I do have to concentrate on it quite a bit. But there might be occasions where I need a bit of strength for a moment so, maybe?”
“Mm… But until you find a way to stop it from absorbing mana…”
“Nn… It won’t be super useful. It’s a step forward, at least.”

At least, I might be able to get the flag out of the ground now without Karen’s help.

“I wonder why it even absorbs so much mana in the first place… it never stops, after all. And mana doesn’t just… disappear.”
“Probably to get stronger, no? That’s what that professor told us, at least.”
“Nn… I guess that’d be the case. Maybe I’ll get stuck in some egg again?”

Chances were pretty high for that.

“But I’m a little worried about what exactly is going to happen then… Either way, I’d be stuck in it for days again… Ah.”
“Yumi?”

If I was stuck inside that shell for days again, then I didn’t have to get bored all the time.

Great case of misguided motivation, myself!

Be that as it may, it was something to think about… Honestly, I was worried about it. But I couldn’t afford to worry about these things forever. I had to face them at some point. It totally wasn’t because I was so bored out of my mind that I was jumping at the chance to just skip the whole travelling process.

“No… Let’s ask Ria later what she thinks about it.”
“About the egg thing?”
“Nn. I mean, I’m worried about what will happen to me, sure… But I can’t evade it forever, right? At some point, it’s going to happen anyway.”

As long as I couldn’t find a way to stop the mana absorption, at least. But if I just left it alone, it might happen again at some rather unfortunate time. But if we could force it to happen, wasn’t this trip a pretty good opportunity?

“Mm… If you think so. I don’t particularly mind.”
“Are you sure you’ll be fine for a few days without me, Sis?”
“What are you talking about, Yumi? Of course, I won’t. But I’ll stay with you.”
“Oh… Wait, you...”

She was intending to get stuck inside it together with me again?

“It was fine the last time.”
“Sure but what if it isn’t this time?”
“But I could say the same about you. We don’t know if you will be fine.”
“Ugh…”
“So, give up.”

So forceful… But that was just like her, wasn’t it?

“Got it. We’ll be together, Sis.”
“Good.”
“But first, we should ask Ria. For all we know, it might not even be the same as last time.”

Korwen told us that we shouldn’t do anything potentially dangerous without Ria. And this probably counted among those. Plus, if we really were going to be gone for a few days, we should inform Korwen either way. I didn’t want another scolding.

“Okay, first we ask Ria about what she thinks about it. If she says it should be fine, we ask the captain for permission. Songs good?”
“Sounds good.”
“Great.”

Hurray for skipping the boredom!

“But, Yumi.”
“Nn?”
“Assuming, that actually works out… Then you likely will… change a little, again, right?”
“That’s… probably going to be the case.”

Last time, there, thankfully, weren’t any outside changes. I was hoping it would be the case in the future, too, but whether that wish was going to be granted… I had no idea.

“Wouldn’t it be only reasonable that you figure out the changes from the first time before you do that, then?”
“... Ah.”

That… probably was a very reasonable idea, in fact…

“That’s… true…”
“The trip is still going for quite a while, so how about we figure things out first?”
“Nn.”

But… even if she said that…

“How do we even go about that?”
“Well… There were several tentacles you never really tried out, right?”
“Nn.”

Actually, we did… attempt to, once. It just, very quickly, devolved into a different kind of activity. I wouldn’t be surprised if something similar was going to happen if we were to try again. Not that I minded.

“A few have needles and seem to secrete or inject something and there’s that one that is always absorbing mana. How do we even go about testing what they inject? And no, Sis, I’m not going to let you try it.”
“Eh? Why not?”
“Because we don’t know what they will do.”

With that in mind, how would you go about trying them out? Inject a monster with it? Or an animal? Actually, that probably was the best idea…

“Are there any others you haven’t tried out yet?”
“Well… There are but...“
“But?”
“They’re clearly for sexual reasons…”
“Ah…”

There wasn’t that much need to try those out, thanks to that.

“That reminds me, there was that one tentacle that sucked on my chest.”
“Nn. Like that.”
“Then, we could try those out.”
“...”

Just why did I expect this to turn out like this? Probably because it wasn’t actually hard to predict.

“I guess… we could try them out tonight?”
“With pleasure.”

Yeah, someone was definitely motivated for that.

“Haa… But outside of that, what else is there…”
“What about when you were stuck on the floor?”
“Oh, that… But I think I tried everything I could think of.”

The most notable thing about it was that I actually gained some strength during it. Especially with those tentacles. But I was completely immobile and probably not exactly a welcome sight for most people either. I was interested in why I actually had some power in that form but…

Too bad that we can’t ask that professor again...

It was a shame we had already left the capital. That monster-obsessed professor might have had some pointers for us. He knew a lot about monsters, after all. Unfortunately, we didn’t get the chance to talk with him before we left.

“Then… we’re stuck?”
“Nn… I think so?”

Most things we could think of needed either Ria’s help or weren’t doable on such short notice. We’d have to wait at least until lunch break.

“Haa… In that case… Sis, do you have some thick cloth and a container?”
“I think we do. I’ll bring them.”

Karen stood up and disappeared into the other room. I could hear her rummaging behind the door for a while, before she returned carrying a shirt and some mugs.

“Are these okay?”
“Nn, I think they should be fine.”
“So, mind telling me what you are planning?”
“Well, none of the things we could think of are things we can do right now, right?”
“Yes.”
“But even if we can’t do them completely, we can prepare for them.”

Once in a while, even I might have one or two good ideas. Okay, most of them backfired and I got scolded but… Ehh, this time it would surely work out fine. I had reflected properly on my past mistakes.

Definitely the kind of thought someone would have before screwing up, right?

Still, I hoped for the best. And with that in mind…

“Do we have something other than mugs? Something with a lid?”
“With a lid? A lid… I don’t think so.”
“Nn…”
“Ah, wait, actually, we do.”
“Oh?”

Once more, Karen disappeared through the door. Not long after, she returned, holding a leather bag. Or rather, a waterskin.

“... I’m not sure I want to use those for that.”
“I got a few spares from Mr Kohno.”
“Nn… Well, it’s better than the mugs, I guess.”
“So, now that I brought them, could you tell me what you are planning?”

Ah, right, I forgot to answer that.

“The tentacles that inject… something, right? That should be a fluid, so I was thinking we could collect it and have Ria take a look at it.”
“Mm… But would there even be enough liquid to put into the waterskin?”
“I don’t know.”
“How about we first collect it in the mug and then pour it into the waterskin?”

First in the mug, huh… As long as we were careful not to spill it, it was probably fine. And the mugs could be washed later.

“Nn, that’s probably fine.”
“Then, let’s do it like that.”
“Okay. And what do you need the cloth for?”
“Well, I don’t know if I can just let them squeeze out whatever liquid it is so I was thinking I could pretend to stab something with cloth?”

Whether it’d work was a different question, though.

“I see.”

Karen sat down next to me gain and spread otu the mugs, the waterskin and the cloth.

“Then, here you go.”
“Nn, thank you.”

I took one of the mugs with one hand and then changed my other arm into a bunch of tentacles. As usual, it looked utterly misplaced on my body but what could you do? I checked the tentacles and changed them all into different ones, four in toal with a needle-like appendage.

“Then, let’s try it first without the cloth...”

I moved one of the tentacles to the mug, holding the tip right over it. Then, I tried to squeeze the tip.

“Oh? It actually comes out.”

How convenient. The cloth was probably not necessary then. But…

“It’s slow.”
“Nn, it is.”

One drop every few seconds fell into the mug.

“It’s clear liquid. Are you sure it’s not water?”
“Water isn’t that viscous.”

When I tilted the mug, the liquid moved very slowly. No way that was simple water.

“Can I touch it?”
“Sis, what did I say about not making yourself the guinea pig?”
“I don’t know what a guinea pig is but just touching probably won’t do anything, will it?”

Karen looked at me with a pleading gaze. Just why did she want to do this so much?

“... Only tou— No, wait. I won’t get tempted again. We’ll bring this to Ria as is. No touching.”
“Ehhh?”

I had to be firm here. These were the kinds of decisions that had led to disaster every single time in the past. I was capable of learning, too, you know?

“Anyway, seeing how viscous it is, it probably wouldn’t spill even if the mug flipped over.  And there’s too little to put into the waterskin.”
“Yumi.”
“Nn?”
“That liquid contains mana.”

Wait, really? Wow, she was right. The liquid really contained mana. Whenever I tilted the mug, you could watch it move very slowly. And if you watched it through mana sight, you pretty much saw the mana doing the same thing.

“Weird. I didn’t know liquids could contain that much mana.”
“Maybe that is its purpose?”
“I don’t think so. It’s Lust-attributed mana, not raw mana…”

The liquid itself was clear but the mana had a distinctive pink hue to it. Maybe the mana was what gave it its effect? Whatever said effect might be.

“Either way, I don’t think I need to squeeze out more of this stuff. Let’s try the next one. Err, where do I put this?”

I shoved some tentacles aside and placed down the mug, then told them to keep that mug in place and, most importantly, steady. Didn’t want it to spill.

Actually, if the tentacles can hold them steady, maybe I didn’t have to worry about spillages?

Now we had the waterskins, though. And they probably were safer for this.

“Okay, next one.”
“Here you go, Yumi.”
“Thanks.”

I received the mug from Karen and then repeated the same thing with another tentacle. This time, the liquid was way less viscous, looking perfectly like… water. Several drops fell into the mug, forming a small puddle. Karen peered into it for a few seconds, then furrowed her brow before addressing me.

“Yumi, I think I know this one.”
“Huh?”
“It’s the aphrodisiac one.”
“Really?”
“The smells.”

The smell? I didn’t really smell anything... Oh, actually, it did smell slightly sweet.

“Yumi. The waterskin.”
“Sis?”
“... I’m getting horny.”
“Ah… Ahhhh...”

In a hurry, I poured the liquid into the waterskin and closed it, sealing the aphrodisiac. Karen sighed in relief, seeing it gone.

“I would have thought you’d like that one, Sis.”
“What do you think of me? Well, it’s true I do…”

Wasn’t I thinking exactly the right thing then?

“But we’re working right now.”
“So, you’d be fine with it later?”
“... Let’s try the next one.”
I can probably take that as a yes.

With a smile on my lips, I received the third mug from Karen. Repeating the progress again, a liquid gathered at the bottom of the mug. It wasn’t as viscous as the first one nor was it as thin as the second one. Somewhere right in between. Also, it was pink. A beautifully pink liquid with beautifully pink mana. No smell or anything else.

“So, any ideas?”
“No.”
“Great. Next one then.”

The final liquid was… again pink.

“Not sure what I expected other than clear or pink…”

It was as thin as the aphrodisiac one, just pink. And it also contained mana. By the way, the aphrodisiac also contained mana.

“All four of them are mysterious magical liquids. Great.”

We filled the third and fourth liquid into the waterskins, finishing up our work. Except for the first one, we could fill them just fine.

“Hopefully, Ria can somehow work with that.”
“She should be able to. She is a proper researcher, unlike us.”

We just did whatever we could think of, after all.

“We probably should make notes about what we just did, for future reference.”
“Should I do that, Yumi?”
“Let’s do it together, after a short break.”
“Okay.”

Now that we had run out of things to try out on the spot, we couldn’t do much more than laze around until lunch. It probably wasn’t that much longer until lunch anyway. I let myself fall backwards again, lying on top of the tentacle growth.

“... They might have grown fat but they’ve also become a lot more comfortable.”

If we could grow a single tentacle large enough, maybe it could serve as a comfortable bed?

“But they take too much space.”
“Right…”

I poked the tentacles nearby, watching them shiver and squirm in response.

“Yumi, you can change these tentacles as well, can’t you?”
“Nn? I can. I think I can have them do the same things I could.”
“Then, you wouldn’t even need to do that yourself, would you?”
“... Now that you mention it.”

I sat up again and beckoned one of the larger tentacles over. Taking it in my hand, I changed it into one of the needle-like ones. Notably, the first one with the viscous liquid. Then, I picked up the mug and held it in front of the tentacle.

“Drop some of the liquid in here.”

And sure enough, it did. And a lot more compared to when I did it, too. Much, much more.

“Stop, stop. Too much! Ahh, safe… Safe.”

Just barely, the tentacle stopped. The mug that had only a small puddle at the bottom, was now filled to the brim with this jelly-like stuff.

“Err, this is bad… Where are… Ah.”

I picked up a second mug and filled it with some of the liquid. I really didn’t want any spillage.

“Seriously, why can they squeeze out so much of this stuff… Next you tell me they know what it is used for…”

Wait…

“Maybe they do? Sis, can you hold these for a moment?”
“Sure.”
“Thanks. Okay, you guys. Left hand is yes, right hand is no. Tap one to answer. Understood?”

They tapped both.

“Yes, I’m sorry, I was an idiot.”

What did I expect? But the dolls were weirdly smart. So why couldn’t the tentacles follow suit?

“Yumi, look closer.”
“Nn?”

The tentacles in my hand were… No, only the one in my left hand was squirming a little. Was this… a yes?

“Count me surprised.”
“Now you can ask them.”
“Nn.”

Okay, then…

“Do you know what that liquid does?”

Left one squirmed. Yes.

“Will it do something when injected or consumed?”

Left. Yes.

“Is it harmful?”

Right. No.

“Mh… But what will it do then?”

While it was nice they could answer with yes and no, we weren’t able to get any details. But at least knowing it wasn’t harmful was already good. Although, what the tentacles would consider harmful was a different matter.

“Yumi, can I try?”
“Sure, go ahead.”
“Okay, then… Will it affect the body?”

Left. Yes.

“Is it temporary?”

Both squirmed.

“What does that mean?”
“Maybe it has temporary and permanent effects?”

Right.

“Doesn’t seem so.”
“Then… maybe the amount is important?”

Left.

“Ohh… Then, a little only does something temporarily and much has a permanent effect?”

Left. Yes.

“The amount in one of the two mugs. Would it have only a temporary effect?”

Left.

“If drunk?”

The left ones squirmed. So, the liquid had some kind of temporary effect. And if a lot of it was consumed, it would be permanent.

“Yumi. Can I?”
“No. We’ll try it out on something else first.”
“Ehhh?”

Why the heck was she so adamant on taking these? It was beyond me…

“Anyway, we figured out a little thanks to the questioning. But in exchange, I got a new question.”
“That would be?”
“How the heck can tentacles be so smart. And the dolls, too.”

I had gotten used to this, sure. I wasn’t going to get creeped out by them anymore. But it still baffled me nonetheless. They were smart enough that you could have a conversation with them. More or less, at least.

“You could try asking Ria.”
“I’m pretty sure she was wondering about that as well.”
“Then… I don’t know. Maybe Yumias?”
“Before I can ask her… Where is she anyway?”

She mentioned she was.. .taking care of something or so. But that had been quite a while ago already.

“She’ll surely pop up sometime again.”
“I wouldn’t be surprised.”

Speaking of which, she had raided Korwen’s alcohol stash. She wasn’t keeping away out of fear of his wrath, was she?

“Anyway, can’t ask someone who’s not there. I already got more than enough questions I could potentially ask her. Maybe I should make notes of all of them.”

Although, I was certain she wouldn’t even answer half of them. And the other half, who knew if she was going to say the truth.

“Haa… For now, I need a break.”
“After we get ready.”
“Nn? Why?”
“We’re stopping.”
“Oh, is it lunch time already?”

Time sure flew.

“Lunch is as good as a break.”
“We wanted to talk with Ria. Did you forget that already?”
“No, even I don’t have that short of a memory.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yes. Probably.”

Karen chuckled, then ruffled my hair.

“Come, let’s get ready.”
“Nn.”