After we left, Karen and I wandered around the camp a little, enjoying some time together. We still had some time until the captain would call everyone together, after all. Or when he would talk with Sele.

And as we wandered through the camp, we happened to walk by the miniature fort everyone built. The site of our small battle with Alma.

“She sure wrecked the place…”
“Ahh… She did.”

Half the barricades that the mercenaries had painstakingly built were torn down or damaged beyond repair. Thick logs that had splintered to the point that they were only scrap wood now. Even the miniature fort was severely damaged. Most notably the floor that Karen had crashed through.

“Miss Yumi?! Is that you?!”
“Nn?”

As I was lost in thought, a young mercenary ran up to us in a hurry.

“Thank the Spirits, it’s Miss Yumi!”

Well, wasn’t that one dramatic welcome?

“Miss Yumi, I’m sorry if we bother you but could you please help us?”
“Uhh, sure? Or rather, what’s wrong?”
“We can’t dismantle those pitfalls.”
“Ahhh…”

The pitfalls… The tentacle pitfalls… Yeah, I could imagine that being troublesome. They most likely wouldn’t let you fill them up with dirt, after all.

“Nn, I can do that.”
“Thank you very much!”

Glad to be of service. But he seemed a little too eager, didn’t he?

“Did something happen with the pitfalls?”
“Err… A few men… fell inside while we were cleaning up.”
“.... Ahh.”

I could imagine that being troublesome.

“We probably should have thought about that before setting them up… I didn’t think of the clean-up afterwards.”

Leaving the traps behind wasn’t an option either. In my old world, you would sometimes hear about minefields being left behind and how troublesome and, most importantly, dangerous that was. It was easy to just leave them be, but someone was bound to get hurt.

“What about the other traps?” I asked the mercenary.
“Most traps have been destroyed and the few that weren’t, we already dismantled. We don’t know what to do with the pitfalls, though… When someone tried to fill them up with dirt, the tentacles threw the first at him.”
“They threw the dirt?”
“Yes, they did.”

Damn… I would have liked to see that. Though, it only confirmed once more to me just how smart the tentacles were. The tentacles and the dolls both.

“Got it. I’ll deal with the pitfalls.”
“Thank you very much, Miss Yumi.”

Well, I put them there so I had to put them away again.

“Is there anything else we can help with?”
“Err… Well… We’re taking down the barricades right now.”

Ahh… that wasn’t the kind of work I could help with.

“Should I help with that?” suggested Karen.
“If you are okay with that, Miss Karen, it would be much appreciated.”
“Got it. I’ll help there then.”
“Then, I’ll get rid of the pitfalls and Sis helps take down the barricades. Sounds good?”
“Thank you very much!”

The man saluted. It was a little awkward, so maybe he hadn’t been with the mercenaries for long yet. Not that I had any right to speak about awkward salutes. I probably wasn’t much better, though.

“Then, I’ll take a look. Sis, I’ll join you when I am done.”
“Ah?! Wa— Yumi?”
“Nn?”

Just as I was about to leave, Karen called out to me in a panic. She was fumbling her words as if something unexpected had occurred.

“Something wrong, Sis?”
“Well… No, but… No, it’s nothing.”
“I see…”

It clearly wasn’t ‘nothing,’ though… I could guess what the problem was. She didn’t want to be apart. However, she had also offered to help with the barricades. I wasn’t sure if she had done that without realising that we had to be apart—however short it was—or if she suggested it knowingly.

Of course, I might be wrong about all of this. But I was pretty sure about it.

“Sis, if you need me, just call me. I’m not far, after all. And if I need you, I’ll call, too.”
“Yes… You’re right.”
“Nn. Then, I’ll be going.”

I parted with Karen and the other mercenary, making my way to the pitfalls. Karen would manage without me. If anything, I was more worried about myself.

Fortunately, I could more or less remember where we had placed all of them. Not that it was hard to find them.

I didn’t really think about it when I set them up, but you can actually see them with mana sight…

That said, if you weren’t specifically looking for them you were likely to miss them. It was akin to a vague hunch at most. A vague hunch was all I needed in this case, though.

I squatted down next to the closest pitfall, taking a look at it. The tentacles were just as lively as the last time I had seen them.

“Have you all been good? Hehe, you have, haven’t you?”

The tentacles wriggled around in response.

“That’s great. Hehe.”

I poked the nearest tentacle, which immediately coiled around my arm. It reminded me of a small child seeking attention.

But… I had to remove them now, didn’t I? If I absorbed the mana, the tentacles would dry up…

I feel a little bad about that… That’s basically like killing them…

With my free hand, I poked the tentacle again. Oblivious of its incoming demise, it wriggled around my arm.

“...”

Wonderful, now I felt bad about having to remove them…

“What do I do now?”

While patting and poking the tentacle, I pondered about the situation. The pitfalls had to go. There was no way around that. If I left them here, someone was going to get hurt. But I also didn’t want to, well, kill the tentacles…

“Hey, tentacles… I have to get rid of the pitfalls and… Well, you wouldn’t be able to somehow move away, would you?”

They wriggled around.

“...”

They were still wriggling around.

Great, I have no idea if they are trying to tell me something or not…

I was fairly sure they could understand me. I did manage to… communicate with them before. However, that had been limited to me asking them Yes-or-No questions.

What to do, what to do?

This was a little problematic…

If only they could move elsewhere…

Alas, they weren’t exactly what you could call mobile. It was possible for them to move the growth a little, but that was still very limited.

“Nn… Wait… I have an idea.”

I moved a little closer to the tentacle growth and searched for the mana crystal that served as its core. As usual, the tentacle with the core was a little thicker. I held the tentacle in my hand and asked it a question.

“Hey, tentacles. Can you move to a different, portable surface? If yes, pull a little.”

Oh, it pulled!

“That’s great. Now, I only need something that I can move you to…”

And most importantly, I’d need a lot of it… Maybe I should ask for some of the scrapwood that Karen and the others were transporting.

“Nn?”

Just as I was wondering what to do. The tentacle pulled again on my hand.

“Nn, is something the matter?”

They wriggled around.

Yeah, welcome communication problems…

Still, it wanted my attention for some reason. It wouldn’t pull my hand if it wasn’t important. At least, I hoped so.

“Err, I’m sorry, I don’t know what you are trying to tell me.”

The tentacles drooped down and lost some of their liveliness. Even I knew that they were disheartened.

“Sorry… Well… you can try pointing at something? Or… I don’t know… Maybe I should call the dolls? Maybe they can understand you and draw it?”

Actually, that would be possible, wouldn’t it? Though, it did assume that the dolls could understand them.

However, the tentacles pulled my arm yet another time. When I turned to look, I saw several of the small tentacles pointing at the big one.

“Okay so… something is with the big one?”

They pulled again.

“Is it about the moving stuff?”

Another pull.

“... Maybe you have an idea on how to do it?”

Again, they pulled.

Well, my wild guesses were surprisingly good. I’m amazing… But I still don’t know what they want me to do.

If they had an easy method to move, then that’d be pretty great.

“Okay… You wouldn’t happen to be able to move to that surface yourself?”

And… they didn’t pull. Of course not. That would have been too easy.

“Then, what do I need to?”

They pointed at the bigger tentacle again.

“... Yeah, I have no clue.”

Sorry but this wasn’t working out all that well.

“I wish there was an easier way of communicating… Actually, wait… Maybe… I could do that.”

The tentacles were, for the most part, their own little creatures. However, I could connect to them and share some senses. Maybe… it was possible to communicate that way?

“But the last time I connected with them…”

Maybe I shouldn’t… But if I could communicate with them it would be really useful.

“... I should probably call Sis first. Just in case something goes wrong.”

I let go of the tentacles and looked over to the barricades. It didn’t take me long to find Karen.

“Sis. Sis!”

I waved with my arms, drawing her attention to me. Fortunately, the other mercenaries saw me waving my arms and pointed it out to her. Moments later, she rushed over to me.

“Yumi? Did something happen?”
“Nn, no, not exactly. I was thinking of ways of moving the tentacles without absorbing the mana and… drying them out. It seems the tentacles know of something that helps but I have a bit of a hard time understanding them.”
“I see… But I don’t think I can understand them either.”

That would have surprised me if she did.

“Nn, that’s fine. I was thinking of trying to connect to the tentacles again. Maybe they can tell me that way? I’m not sure but I just wanted you here in case I faint again.”
“... So, if you’re assuming you will faint again, maybe you shouldn’t try it?”
“It’s insurance. I hope I won’t faint. I’ll be careful.”

Unsurprisingly, Karen frowned. Yeah, I wasn’t the most trustworthy when we were talking about being careful. I knew that. Still… I called her here because I was careful. Yeah.

“... Do you have to?”
“Well… I mean, it’s been a problem for a while that we can’t really communicate well, right? If that works out, it’d help a lot.”
“I guess so…”
“Right? So, can I count on you for watching me?”
“... You won’t stop even if I ask you to, right?”
“... If you really want me to, I will.”

I wasn’t going to ignore here for no reason. If she thought that I really really shouldn’t do it, then I wouldn’t.

“... Be careful, okay?”
“Nn, I will. Thanks, Sis. You’re the best.”

Karen averted her gaze, embarrassed as she was. I couldn’t help but smile a little.

“Anyway, I will try now.”
“Okay.”

I sat down next to the pitfall and moved my hair over to it. It was probably better to only connect a little strand or I would collapse again.

“Here we go.”

I closed my eyes and took a deep breath before connecting the strand with the tentacles.

“Ngh!”
“Yumi?”
“I’m fine… I’m fine.”

The tentacles all stiffened up and I could feel… the touch of the air with them. It was an unknown… almost otherworldly sensation.

“Good thing I only connected one strand… This is already… a little exhausting.”

But I hadn’t keeled over yet.

“Okay, let’s get this over with quickly. Tentacles, can you tell now me what you were trying to show me?”

The next moment I could feel something. The tentacles that had stiffened moved again. But I could still feel them. It was like my arm was moving without my input. An uncanny feeling.

I definitely don’t want to get used to something like this.

It wasn’t comfortable in the least.

I tried to focus on the moving tentacles. I had hoped for something… Well… Something a little clearer. Maybe like an image or similar. Then again, they had no eyes so that probably wasn’t going to be possible.

Nn… They movement is focussed around the big tentacle again. It’s like they’re telling me to focus on it. But it’s just wriggling around…

This was about as informative as their earlier attempts.

“Nn?”
Wait, that tentacle it’s… expanding? Or rather, it’s bulging?

It’s like it was tensing up at a certain part… around the mana crystal.

“... It’s not the big tentacle but the mana crystal?”

Ah, they wriggled around with vigour. So it was about the crystal.

“But… the crystal has a surface, sure, but it’s a little too small, no?”

At least, I couldn’t imagine all these tentacles fitting on a tiny crystal.

Still, the tentacles were wriggling around, as if telling me to try it.

“Yumi, how is it?”
“Nn… I think I know what they were trying to tell me. Well, I’ll try something, one moment.”

For now, I stayed connected, just in case they were trying to tell me something else. I touched the big tentacle and concentrated on the mana crystal. Usually, I would have just absorbed all the mana and removed the crystal but… since they said the mana crystal would work, I tried moving the growth towards the crystal.

“Woah.”

And much to my surprise, it moved. The tentacles shrunk, squeezing into the crystal. With the tentacles moving the crystal, the bent space of the pitfall was slowly returning to normal as well.

I moved the growth for a good while until the pitfall was gone in its entirety and I only held the mana crystal… except that the mana crystal had turned into a squishy ball.

“Yumi… what the heck is that?”
“The tentacles… I think.”

I squeezed the ball a little. There was something hard beneath its surface. I first thought the tentacles had squeezed into the mana crystal but maybe they shrunk and moved to the crystal’s surface. Either way, it was a very pink and very fleshy ball now, just the right size to fit in my hand. Occasionally, small tentacles emerged from it, touching my hand.

“I wonder what would happen if we hid this in Lily’s wagon.”
“Don’t do that. She’ll kill you.”

The scary part was that I could imagine her doing that. She really hated the tentacles.

“Anyway, I guess I, err, succeeded in moving them…”

I poked the squishy ball a few times. It was, frankly, a little disgusting. Especially since my hair was still stuck on it as well. It felt like I was touching and being touched at the same time. The good part was, that the tiny ball didn’t overwhelm me with sensations.

“And now you have to do that with all the other pitfalls again.”
“... Well, great.”

We made quite a lot of them, didn’t we?

“I guess I need a bag for all those balls… Maybe I’ll show Lily later.”
“Yumi, are you trying to make her hate you?”
“No, but I don’t want to be the only one suffering.”

Seriously… I mean, Karen and Rina weren’t bothered by the tentacles at all. Most of the mercenaries were… very practical about them, too. Lily was just about the only comrade I had when it came to the tentacles… Though I knew I had gotten used to them. Heck, I wouldn’t even have thought of ‘saving’ them before. Still, it was nice knowing that someone had a normal reaction here.

“Oh well… Let’s finish this.”

---

It took me quite a while to go around, removing all the pitfalls. Karen had returned to help with the barricades, leaving me to my fate, surrounded by squirmy fleshy balls.

By the time I was done and I had made sure that I really found all of them. We hid all the pitfalls when we set them up so I was worried that we might miss one but… it didn’t look like we did. In the first place, while Karen and I had been all over the place prior to helping out, the mercenary had made it a group effort to walk into every single pitfall at least once. The fact that I still found some pieces of equipment inside some pitfalls spoke volumes of their suffering. Apologies.

Except to the person who lost his underwear inside the pitfall. Please don’t leave your underwear lying around in public.

“And done. Yumi, we’re finished, too!”
“Great. Good work, Sis, everyone.”

The mercenaries sat on the ground, exhausted from the work. They had just finished dismantling the last barricade and moving the wood out of the way. There was still the miniature fort and the wood had to be moved somewhere… but that was a problem for later.

“Finally done… That took a while.”
“It sure did.”
“You finished everything as well, Yumi?”
“Nn.”

I showed Karen the bag with the tentacle balls. She grimaced.

“That looks a little…”
“I know, right?”

Apparently, the view of a horde of squirming balls was too much even for her.

“What are you going to do with them?”
“I wonder… We can probably put them away in a box for now?”
“That might be better.”

The sooner they were out of sight, the better for our minds. Really, the view was discomforting.

“Anyway, are you still going to help?”

I looked past Karen, towards the other mercenaries. They were resting currently, but that didn’t mean their work was finished. They still had to take down the miniature fort at the very least.

“No, they’re apparently going to take a break for now and do the rest later on.”
“Well, if they say so.”

The worst part was done anyway. They wouldn’t have to worry about any hidden traps anymore. Especially no pitfalls.

“In that case, let’s put these balls away for now. And after that… Well, we can think of that later.”

We had been helping for a good while now. It wouldn’t be long anymore until Korwen was going to call for us. Either for the meeting that he mentioned earlier or to talk with Sele. Either way, it wouldn’t be long anymore.

“And where are we going to store them?”
“... How about we show them to the captain and ask him?”
“Yumi…”

Hey, I wasn’t planning on scaring him. If I wanted to scare someone, Lily would be a way better option. And a more dangerous one.

“Joking aside, I don’t want to store them in our wagon either… Maybe we can throw them into an empty room in the fort?”
“I guess that could work…”
“Right? But we need the captain’s permission first, don’t we?”
“That’s true.”

My intentions were pure! For the most part. I couldn’t deny being curious about Korwen’s reaction.

With our next course of action decided, we made our way through the camp, carrying a bag of squirmy fleshy balls with us. Fortunately, Korwen was already out and about again, near his tent.

“Captain.”
“Mr Captain.”
“Yumi, Karen, you came at just the right time. I was just going to call for you.”
“Is that so? For the meeting or to talk with Sele?”
“The meeting. That’s the more pressing matter, unfortunately. We might have to delay talking with Sele until tomorrow.”
“Is that so.”

I frowned. I could understand where he was coming from but… Sele was my friend. I wanted to solve that sooner rather than later. Sure, things might have gone well until now and it didn’t seem to negatively affect her anyway but it still didn’t sit quite right with me.

“Just so you know, I’d rather talk with Sele first, too.”
“Hmm…”

Korwen smiled wryly. I probably made quite the face if he pointed that out to me.

“So, why did you two come here? You weren’t going to ask about the meeting or Sele, were you?”
“... Nn, we wanted to ask where we could put these.”

I showed Korwen the bag I was holding.

“Mm? What are these?”

He put his hand into the bag and picked up one of the fleshy balls.

“Just what kind of absurd thing did you do this time?”
“... Somehow, that reaction is less than I hoped.”
“What?”
“Nothing…”

He wasn’t creeped out in the least… Heck, he could pick them up without flinching. Was this what it took to lead a mercenary band?

“So, what are these?”
“I was getting rid of the pitfalls we made. Instead of removing the mana, I tried moving the tentacles and… that’s the result.”
“So, they’re tentacles?”
“Yes. There’s a mana crystal inside, too.”
“I see.”

“He squished the ball and scrutinised it closely, watching for its reaction.

“And what can they do?”
“No idea.”
“No idea?”
“Nn, no idea.”

I mean, I just made them for the first time. I didn’t have time to think about any use for them yet.

“Then, you should figure out what to do with them.”
“We will… but I’d like to put them away until then first.”
“Why not keep them at your wagon.”
“... They’re creepy.”

Korwen smiled wryly at my all-to-honest response.

“I think it would be better if you just kept them there but I guess they are a little hard to look at. But we can’t just keep these with the supplies. The children might find them and as long as we don’t know if they are dangerous.”

Even if they weren’t dangerous I’d be worried about those kids.

”We were thinking, maybe a room in the fort would be good for things like this.”
“Mmm… Well, it would be out of sight, that’s true. That sounds good to me. You can use a room there.”

Yay, storage for questionable items acquired.

“But first, we’ll have the meeting. We can look for a suitable room after that.”
“... What should I do with these until then?”
“They’re not going to run away, are they? Just put the bag in a corner.”
“Okay.”

He put the fleshy ball back into the bag. It was squirming around for a few seconds before settling back into the bag.

“Come, I already called for everyone.”
“Nn, we’re coming.”

We followed Korwen to the large tent that we usually used for meetings like this one. Apart from us, nobody was here yet. Korwen sat down at his seat, before addressing me once more.

“Yumi.”
“Nn?”
“Those balls? Spheres? Can they grow those tentacles even if you’re not around?”
“Nn? Well, they’re more or less a mass of tentacles already so… probably?”

We didn’t have time to try it out yet, after all.

“Hmmm… If we could make use of the tentacles even if you’re not around… that would be quite helpful.”

Helpful, huh? Well, that would depend on the extent of what they would be able to do. If, for example, I could make them turn back into a pitfall, then they could set up traps without me. And if they could set up the tentacle doors, then that would be incredible, even. I wouldn’t have to travel everywhere to set up those doors.

“Really, you do the strangest things seemingly at random.”
“Well…”

What was I even supposed to say to that?

“Captain, I’ve come.”

Before I could even figure out an answer, the entrance curtain was shoved to the side and the first person entered.

“Merim’s the first to show up? The heck is going on today? Next you’ll tell me that it’s raining frogs.”
“Wow, captain. You’re in a good mood, aren’t you?”
“I’m always in a good mood. Just some moods are better than others.”

Wasn’t that what you called bad and good moods?

The curtain moved aside again and another person entered and moved straight to a salute.

“Captain!”
“Fenna, come in, come in.”

And after Fenna it was Taddick, then Mrs Korwen, Greyward and Lily, the Elder and a few others that came in. Even Alma came, much to my surprise. Once everyone was seated, Korwen clapped his hands, drawing attention to him.

“Now that everyone’s gathered, it’s time to start the meeting.”

His gaze wandered through the round.

“We’ve learnt of some troubling news in regards to Aldreigh. We’ll discuss this news as well as our next course of action.”

And like that, the meeting was beginning.