Defense specialization and one mouth.

Maple, having been flung outward from her body, glances upward and confirms the tentacle remains. She flies again, like a bullet, toward her mouth.

This time, not to be pushed out...

Maple expands her volume at the entrance of her stomach through [Fur Growth], then hardens into stone through [Crystallization], sealing herself tightly shut. As if swallowing a boulder.

She cannot move at all now. But this state—Maple’s crystallized, woolly mass—means she is preparing to detonate.

At this moment, a tentacle emerges from the black mist and presses directly against Maple’s face, trying to push her out.

But it cannot move. It simply pushes her face inward, steadily, relentlessly.

You tried to eat me, didn’t you! If you keep trying to run, I’ll devour you instead!

Maple cannot move until the crystallization wears off. To gain even a small advantage, and for revenge, she bites down on the tentacle pressing against her face.

Though the black mist appears ominous, it is nothing more than an octopus, shaped as it is.

Compared to the poisonous fruit in her inventory, or the mushrooms clearly inedible by sight, this tastes remarkably normal.

“Mmm… surprisingly good.”

As she chews, the crystallization effect ends. She fires immediately, igniting all the bombs within the wool. The explosion tears through her body, and she is flung out through the mouth—the only opening left for recoil.

“Hnn!”

The tentacles, black mist issuing from their mouths, had vanished—downed, damaged, still. Maple redeploys her weapon and rises to the surface.

“Pphh…! Alright, now—!”

She readies herself firmly, securing her gear. This time, she braces against being pulled beneath the water.

The downed octopus rises again, clawing at the ground, flinging water upward with its limbs.

“[Frozen Earth]! [Predator]! [Toxic Dragon]!”

Maple’s [Frozen Earth] halts the tentacles’ motion just before impact. She hurls a mass of poison. The two abominations lunge, biting into it. Maple bites too—just one more mouthful.

The more she bites, the stronger the taste grows.

Aiming at different targets, she lunges into the tentacle that has raised its great shield from the weapon’s explosion.

“Whoa! It’s torn!”

The tentacle splits midway, collapsing to the ground, severed by Maple’s [Carnivore]. The others sag listlessly onto the shallows. Maple sees her chance. She raises her great shield and charges forward. One, two—each impact cuts the tentacles clean away. Flight from the blast limits complex movement, but straight lines are her strength.

With a single strike, Maple severs all the tentacles. A vast black mist appears. From within, the octopus from the seabed transfers, collapsing in the same limp state.

“Got it! Now—right, then…”

Maple reaches the mouth, inserts the cannon with a sudden motion, as if already certain of the weak point. Inside, the bullet ricochets, accelerating damage. Maple bites into the tentacle with the predator.

“Nnffu… muug… can I take back that severed tentacle too?”

She checks her HP bar. It dwindles to almost nothing. The relentless assault within has taken its toll.

“That’s it! If I’m going to do it… then now—”

Maple halts the firing just before the end, takes one final bite of the tentacle.

The octopus dissolves into light. Only the severed tentacle remains.

Yet from it, black mist pours forth. The size does not diminish, no matter how much she eats.

Maple gathers every piece. She checks her skills.

One unfamiliar skill appears.

[Call from the Seabed]

Accumulates paralysis status abnormality on targets restrained or attacked by tentacles. The lower the target's 【STR】 value compared to her own, the longer the duration of restraint.

"Yosh! Hehe, gotta take it when it's within reach! Uh, let's see... [Call from the Seabed]!"

Maple attempts to activate the skill, but lacks sufficient MP to do so. She considers her options, then sets the skill to her great shield's skill slot.

The voracious appetite requires no MP, unaffected by the limited-use, zero-MP activation—convenient.

There is nothing she can do about 【STR】—it is simply unavoidable.

"Yosh... then, again!"

Maple activates the skill. Her arm holding the great shield transforms into a two-meter-long bluish-black tentacle. It exhales a black mist—undeniably unnatural, not something a human arm should be.

The great shield itself has transformed into the tentacle, as if bound to it.

"Ugh... should I not have eaten it?"

Maple steps onto the appearing magic circle, testing the skill, and exits outward.

Returning to the small island where she was captured, Maple dons a snorkel and directs the tentacle toward fish beneath the water.

"Will it paralyze?"

When Maple moves her left hand, the tentacle—coiled like a serpent—snaps open and encloses a fish.

"Gotcha, yesss!"

Maple tightens the tentacle. The fish vanishes, as if swallowed by a god.

She pulls the tentacled arm upward. No fish remains anywhere.

This skill was set within the great shield. Before paralysis or any such effect, the tentacle retains the nature of 【Greed】.

The way it devoured what it gripped was not like that of a human.

"Should I… how should I introduce them to everyone…?"

Maple considered how to speak of it as something ordinary. In the end, she decided to tell it straight, as it was.