Chapter 7: Octopuses, Octopi, or Octopodi?
"HEEEEELP!" Sato kept screaming as the wolf-monsters dragged him off.
Itsuka's mind was going a kilometer a minute. Two of those wolves were fast enough that they could drag someone like Sato off with them, and they would still be able to outrun an athlete. There was no way in hell Itsuka would be able to catch them on foot.
"Aoyama, I need your help!"
The French blond nodded, ready to do anything to help.
"Get on top of that blue coral!" she said, pointing at the tall one that sort of resembled a mushroom. "It should have a good enough view for you to be able to use your rifle!"
"Quoi?!" he exclaimed, looking shocked. "But I might hit Monsieur Sato!"
"It'll be a better death than whatever those things will do to him, trust me!"
Following her orders, Aoyama climbed up the blue mushroom-like coral, propped up his M26 sniper rifle, looked through the scope, and saw Sato being dragged off by those beasts.
He wasn't called a sniper prodigy for nothing. In mere seconds, he calculated where his comrade would be, in order to avoid hitting him, while also finding the best parts of the wolves to target, ensuring that they would stop dragging Sato off. He could do this.
So, with a deep breath, he pulled the trigger… and fired.
"What the hell happened here?!" Momo demanded to know.
As soon as she and Uraraka took off to find Monoma's group, they could hear their assault rifles going off constantly. Heck, it was how they managed to find the trio so quickly.
Sure, she heard the distress call. Monoma's group was attacked by two dozen hostiles. But she was imagining a group of marauding humans, not some oversized stuffed animals.
"Ma'am, it all just happened so fast," her second-in-command began to report. "We were just exploring the area you assigned to us, when we suddenly heard some growing. One voice became two, then four, then eight, until we found ourselves surrounded by at least two dozen of them. They were hiding all around the coral, using the colors to camouflage themselves, and then they attacked. It was only thanks to our rifles we kept them off us as long as we did."
Momo looked around her, and started counting the corpses of the colorful monsters. "And even with all our combined efforts, we only managed to kill ten of them."
"Ma'am, their hides were like pillows," Awase said. "The type of pillows which are so fat and fluffy, even the speed of bullets gets slowed down by them. Their only vulnerable spots were their arms and stomachs. We would have to hit them at the same area constantly just to even leave a scratch on them. The three of us almost ran out of bullets trying to just kill those things."
Well, technically, the backs of their necks are also vulnerable, considering that's where myself and Uraraka aimed. Momo decided to let Awase finish before she brought that up.
"Bakugou considered throwing a grenade at them, but Monoma talked him out of it," Awase continued. "Something about damaging the environment, or something."
"Good call, Monoma." Momo looked around and summarized, "So, we have a species of large predatory monsters, capable of blending into their environment, and with fur so… furry… that most of their bodies are basically gunfire resistant, sans for three weak points."
"Three, ma'am?"
"Their underarms and underbellies, as stated by you, along with the area in the back of their heads where their spines connect to their skulls," Momo explained. "Sargeant Uraraka and myself aimed for those areas, and honestly, it was a miracle that it even worked. Now then, it's best we gather some photographic evidence of these things, and…"
POW!
Everyone immediately turned to the sound of the loud noise, but saw that no one in their group shot their weapon. Whatever that noise was, it came from over the distance.
POW!
Another shot fired. This time, Momo was able to ascertain that it was coming from the opposite end of the coral forest. "That's the sound of an M24, ma'am," Awase realized.
An M24. A sniper rifle.
Aoyama's weapon of choice.
Kendo!
Grabbing her radio, Momo said, "Sargeant Kendo, this is Lieutenant Yaoyorozu, do you read me? We heard shots fired. What happened? What is going on over there?"
Way before the shots were fired, Itsuka Kendo had run after her comrade.
She knew it would take a bit for Aoyama to get into position, so she did what she could do. She was a star athlete, so she ran after those wolf creatures as fast as humanly possible.
She saw them within her line of sight when the first shot fired. It was a direct hit to the side, making the wolf monster drop dead instantly. The second one was technically a miss, as it merely hit the tail, but it was enough to make it drop Sato and run off.
"Sato! Sato, are you all right?!"
"Oww…" the cook groaned. "I think my legs have friction burns…"
"Hmm… you're bleeding from the arms…" Itsuka analyzed. "How do you feel?"
"Like shit."
"Heh," she chuckled softly at that. "Yeah, I think you'll live."
Itsuka suddenly felt her radio begin to buzz. "Sargeant Kendo, this is Lieutenant Yaoyorozu, do you read me? We heard shots fired. What happened? What is going on over there?"
"Lieutenant Yaoyorozu, we had an encounter with some hostiles," the orange-haired soldier reported. "We got rid of them, but Sato is injured. Repeat, Sato is injured."
"I read you, Kendo. Stay there, my team and Monoma's are on the way."
"Read you loud and clear, over."
It had now been thirty minutes since Kirishima, Melissa, and Kodai decided to follow Death Arms to the magical shrine located in the center of the coral forest.
So far, the view was worth more than any conversation they could strike. The deeper they went into the forest, the taller the coral seemed to have gotten. They had seen entire schools of fish swim above them in the sky, and they even managed to climb up to these giant green and yellow coral pads, almost like giant mushrooms, to keep up the hike.
And the more they walked on top of the giant coral, the more of the reef they saw. They saw oversized versions of native Earth coral, and even types that seemed too bizarre for the likes of Earth. And walking through an alien environment that looked like it came straight out of a science fiction movie, it truly reminded them that they were indeed in a fantasy world.
"So, Death Arms," Melissa asked. "You said you're an adventurer. Do you have a party?"
"I did have a party, once," the white-haired man answered. "Four of us, and we all had nicknames. Me, Native, our ranger, Takeshita was our druid, and our wizard, X-Less."
"You all sounded close," she said. "What happened to them?"
"Oh, they're still around, in a way."
All that did was raise Melissa's suspicions even further.
"Here it is," Death Arms said, as he stopped walking.
They had arrived.
"Kendo!" Momo called out to her subordinate.
"Lieutenant!" she smiled. "It's good to see you!"
"What exactly happened here?" she asked. Momo had just noticed Aoyama running towards the group with his sniper rifle in hand, along with the dead creature next to a wounded Sato.
"We got so distracted by Monoma's distress signal, that we failed to notice these things," Kendo said, gesturing to the dead monster, "who managed to pin down Sato to the ground without making a single sound. They even began to drag him off, most likely to eat him."
"What exactly are they?"
"I dunno, they barked like dogs every now and then, but even weirder than that, they seemed to be capable of speech, even if it was a bit crude," the orange-haired soldier said. "Also, they're extremely fast. Two of them were able to outrun me while dragging Sato off for dinner. If it wasn't for Aoyama's marksmanship, we probably would have lost our cook."
"How badly hurt is Sato?"
"His legs have a few friction burns from when they were dragging him, and the little bastards sunk their teeth into his biceps to drag him off. There may be some blood, but I don't think that their teeth got too far in. But then again, I'm not a doctor. You'll have to ask Kodai about this."
Kirishima knew that this image would be ingrained into his mind forever.
In front of them was a giant tree, one they had never seen the likes of before. Its trunk twisted and turned, with the color of its wood ranging from a light pink, to a dark purple. The leaves on the tree were also of various colors. Blue, pink, yellow, orange, and purple, all of those colors adorned the leaves, as various small pieces of coral made the trunk their home.
It was truly beautiful. Something that would make most adults cry with how beautiful it was, and Kodai made sure to get many, many photographs of this magnificent tree.
And right in front of the trunk of the tree, was the shrine. It was a small rectangular monolithic pillar made of a gray stone, with zig-zags carved on the body, and only reaching a bit over half of Melissa's height. But something that was noted of interest was the fact that surrounding the shrine was a bow, along with two staffs that would belong to certain magic-users.
But the thing that grabbed Kirihima's and Kodai's attention was that the top of the stone was slanted down towards them, revealing what they came there for.
An up-to-date map of the entire continent of Occidens.
Putting the piece of medical paper Kodai had onto the shrine, the ink absorbed itself into the paper, creating a whole new map for themselves. Kirishima also insisted on doing it two more times, to make sure in the event that they lost the first map, they had spares.
And now, they had three copies of the continent's most accurate map.
Unfortunately, in their haste to create the maps, they failed to notice the three swords that surrounded the shrine. Nor did they notice when those swords began to glow ominously.
"Kosei."
"Hm? What is it, Sen?"
"Look alive. The Lieutenant's back."
"Oh, okay."
Uraraka, along with Rin and Komori, also noticed that Yaoyorozu had returned, along with both Kendo and Monoma's groups. However, they also seemed to be carrying…
"Sato?" Komori realized who it was. "What happened to him?"
"Turns out my group wasn't the only one that got jumped by monsters," Monoma explained.
"Great. Just great," Rin drawled out sarcastically.
"Regardless of how it happened, he needs medical attention. Though, I see that Kodai and her group are nowhere to be found." Yaoyorozu immediately grabbed her radio. "Come in, Sargeant Kodai. Where are you? We need you back at camp. Corporal Sato has been injured."
No response.
She tried again. "Sargeant Kodai, do you read me? I'm requesting –"
"This is Corporal Kirishima, requesting help, RIGHT NOW!" her radio blared out. "Were at the center of the forest and were under attack! You'll find us at the purple tree! SEND HELP –"
Then it cut off.
"Kirishima? KIRISHIMA?!" She knew she had to do something right away. "Rin, Komori, Kaibara, Tsuburaba, with me! The rest of you, stay behind and reload your weapons!"
"Shouldn't we come and help you?" Awase asked.
"No, you're low on ammunition and some of you are tired and injured," she explained. "If the situation calls for it, we'll request for more help. Until then, stay here, that is an order!"
"Yes, ma'am!"
"AUUGGHHH…" the ghost moaned out, as it launched out to attack them.
"I KNEW SOMETHING WAS OFF ABOUT THIS!" Melissa yelled, as she unsheathed her sword.
Eijiro and Kodai hated that she was right.
One minute they were celebrating the acquisition of their new maps, the next minute a bunch of ghosts pop out from the cursed weapons that were surrounding the shrine.
"AUUGGHHH…"
One of them resembled a human with short hair and whiskers, wearing clothes befitting of a bamboo forest. The second one was obviously a wizard with a cape and everything. And the third one, the human with long hair, if Eijiro was going to try and describe it, looked like he was wearing a stereotypical Native American costume from the United States.
Eijiro looked towards their other companion. "Death Arms, help us!"
The adventurer did not move from his place.
"Death Arms?"
"HE WAS IN ON THIS!" Melissa yelled, as she charged towards the undead, and reflected their attacks with her sword. "He was using this place as bait to lure us here!"
Before Eijiro could even deny it, their radios went off with the same message. "Come in, Sargeant Kodai. Where are you? We need you back at camp. Corporal Sato has been injured."
"Kodai!" the artificial redhead called out to the medic. "You gonna answer that?!"
"Little busy right now!" she hissed, dodging another attack from the ghosts.
"Sargeant Kodai, do you read me? I'm requesting –"
Oh, for fuck's sake, Eijiro cursed, before grabbing his walkie-talkied, and shouting, "This is Corporal Kirishima, requesting help, RIGHT NOW! Were at the center of the forest and were under attack! You'll find us at the purple tree! SEND HELP –"
"AUUGGHHH…"
"AHHH!" Kirishima screamed, and instinctively fired his assault rifle.
BRAKA-BRAKA-BRAKA-BRAKA!
"Keep doing that!" Melissa yelled to the two soldiers, as each one of them took on a ghost. "It's not hurting them, but it's catching them off-guard! Help me try and box them in! My celestial nature will allow me to purify them if I'm close enough to all three of them!"
"Augh!" Eijiro hissed in pain, as he was tossed towards the coral. Before he got up, he also saw Kodai get dragged up and tossed into the air by some unknown force.
It wasn't fair. There was no way in hell to box them in, let alone Shield exorcize them! But neither he nor Kodai could predict the fact that the ghosts were capable of using telekinesis.
So, while they also had to recover quickly from getting tossed around like ragdolls, they also had the initial problem of not letting the ghosts drain them of their life essence. All while still trying to get close enough to them in an effort to box them in. In short, it was a balancing act, where if they screwed up, they'd die.
And now it seemed like Eijiro was gonna get his ticket punched.
Even with Shield's ability to teleport around, that ability was limited, and she was still only one person. Which meant that the inevitable was just gonna get there even slower.
And that's while discounting the fact that whoever responded to his distress call would also come to experience a similar fate to them.
It wasn't fair. He still had a lot more to do. He needed to prove himself! He wanted to make friends, be outgoing, stop being the coward he was! He wanted to thank the mystery woman for giving him that blindfold! He… he… he wanted to apologize to the masked girl.
As the wizard-looking ghost cornered him, Eijiro was ready to accept his fate, when out of the corner of his eye, he saw dull yellow skin tone, and with dozens of red rings adorning a body.
The octopus?
Flying through the air was the large red-ringed octopus that the trio encountered earlier, before it was scared off by Death Arms. He had no idea why it came back to them, when suddenly –
WHAM!
"AHHH!"
… it wrapped its tentacles around the ghost's head, and used a spell on the ghost.
The spell cast was a bright yellow dust-like cloud, and kinda reminded Eijiro of Tinkerbell's fairy dust from the movies, but sure enough, it caused the ghost to start writhing in pain.
WHAT?!
Before he could even stand up, several more red-ringed octopuses swam into Eijiro's frame of view, and began ganging up on the ghost, blasting it with the same spell over and over again.
"Uhh… Kodai?" he called out. "Are you seeing this?"
"Seeing," Kodai answered. "Still not believing."
Looking around at what Kodai was seeing, Eijiro's eyes bulged out of his skull when he saw an entire army's worth of octopuses floating around all of them. Oddly enough, the only ones that were attacking the ghosts were the larger ones with red rings, while the smaller ones with blue rings swam around the ghosts, as if they were trying to confuse or scare them.
However, that quickly ended when Ejiro realized what they were doing, and yelled out to Shield. "OI! THEY'RE BOXING THEM IN FOR YOU! DO THE THING! NOW!"
"Oh, right!" the angel said, as she immediately darted towards the three ghosts, and grabbed each and everyone of them, and began to do her magic. In an instant, the bluey and undead aura of the ghosts began to fade, and was replaced with some normal-looking dudes.
Both Eijiro and Kodai breathed a sigh of relief, as it was finally over.
"SARGEANT KODAI! CORPORAL KIRISHIMA!"
Well, almost over.
Momo had no idea what to make… of any of that.
She, along with Rin, Komori, Kaibara, and Tsuburaba, had spent the last ten minutes running like madmen to save their guide, medic, and radio specialist from some unknown threat, without even knowing where they were aside from the general direction they went.
It was a good thing that Komori spotted the purple tree, otherwise they'd be lost.
Climbing up the coral was no easy feat, and it was definitely something that Rin vocally disapproved of, but this was a state of emergency, and time was of the essence.
And then, they came and witnessed… this.
An army's worth of flying cephalopods had apparently rescued her men, and were now ganging up on whatever the hell attacked them, some kind of ghost? Regardless, they kept harassing the ghosts until they trapped them all together, at which point their guide to this world charged towards them, and began… disintegrating them? She had no idea.
And it was time to get some answers.
"What exactly happened here?" she asked.
Before either Kirishima or Kodai could answer, a bright flash of light appeared, grabbing everyone's attention. Melissa had backed away from their attackers and said, "It's done."
Momo took a better look at the ghosts… and they looked normal. They no longer had that bluish aura or those rotting faces, they looked like people… at ease.
One of them was a blond man with whiskers, wearing a lot of green and some bamboo decorations. The second one was a human wearing a blue outfit and a red cape, along with a monocle on his right eye. And the last one was a man wearing a traditional Native American outfit, with a fur-like cape and a feather on his head and everything.
"Takeshita. X-Less. Native."
Momo and her team did a double-take as they heard a new voice. They turned to see some white-haired dude wearing a blue jacket and a yellow-and-black bandana.
Melissa, Kodai and Kirishima looked at him cautiously, so they obviously knew him, and were weary of them. Momo decided to be cautious and quietly observe him. "Sorry it took so long," he said, as he approached the three figures, and hugged them. "But you're free now."
As soon as he let them go, the three former ghosts started to glow white, and their figures began to float up, before suddenly disappearing into the sky.
The sole stranger then walked away, and sat down on one of the pieces of coral, and smiled. "I'm sorry I wasn't truthful with my intentions from the start," he said. "But using the shrine as bait was the only way I knew you would follow me, and for that, I apologize."
Momo and the newcomer didn't say anything, as they had no context for what just happened, so they simply let the trio do all of the talking. "Was the map also a lie, Death Arms?"
"No, the map is genuine," he said. "Consider it a reward for freeing my friends."
"What…" Kirishima began to speak. "What happened to them?"
"This coral forest is beautiful, but it also comes with its own dangers. We were foolish enough to take from its natural bounty. I was the last one standing, and my anguish gave me this…" the man Momo now knew as Death Arms said, as he removed his jacket to reveal… that his body was being consumed by something purple and mold-like, giving off a darker smoke.
Melissa's breath hitched. "Whispering dead."
"That's right," the white-haired man nodded solemnly. "If you never arrived, my wish would never have been fulfilled, and I would have slowly lost my sanity, turning into an undead."
"Wait, but your wish was granted!" Kirishima argued. "Your friends are free –"
"That wasn't what I wished for," Death Arms said. "I wished for myself and my party to be at peace, together. Yes, they have been freed from their ghostly prisons, but I am still here. If I am to truly be free from this curse I ask of you, angel… to please, purify me. Let me die."
Everyone looked toward Melissa, who didn't know what to say to that. She was basically asked to kill him, after killing his friends, even if he did wish for both of those outcomes.
She was silent for a moment, before saying…
"I'll do it."
Approaching the sitting man, the blonde angel set out her arms, placed them on his head, and began to glow white. Unlike with the ghosts, this took longer, and everyone could hear Death Arms' grunts of pain at being burned away, as he started to become… green dust.
"Thank you," he smiled. "Let us meet again in the afterlife…"
And with that, the white-haired man was reduced to hundreds of specks that glowed green, all of them scattering like ashes to the wind, reaching the sky, and then disappearing.
"Hey, Kosei?" Momo heard Kaibara whispering to Tsuburaba.
"Yeah?"
"You recorded all of that, right?"
"Your thoughts, Rin?" Momo asked.
"Yeah, physically speaking these are blue-ringed octopuses," the zoologist said. "The only difference being that they're now over one meter in length rather than just being twenty centimeters, and that the ones with the red rings have magic powerful enough that it scares off the undead. Oh, and the fact that they're smart enough to live in colonies and they tried to rescue Kirishima and Kodai from certain danger, making them also capable of morality, or at the very least, understand it enough that they consider helping others to be a good thing."
Momo nodded at the assessment, as she turned to Komori and Kaibara. "Well?"
"The tree, despite its odd coloration, has physical characteristics to that of an oak tree, given the shape of the trunk and the leaves," Komori said. "So my current theory is that someone either blasted it with magic, or this off-shoot naturally evolved in this world, though I'm leaning more towards the first option due to the fact chlorophyll usually creates green leaves, not… this."
"This shrine appears to have been sculpted from a combination of both marble and granite, hence the weird gray coloration," Kaibara said. "Though, I have no idea how the ink on the top of it has stayed this wet for so long. I doubt there's a hollow cavity inside the base of the shrine that has reserves of ink, so I'm gonna go out on a limb and say it's magic."
"I swear to God, if one more person says "magic" I'm gonna lose it," Tsuburaba growled.
Momo nodded along to that sentiment. It had been ten minutes since Melissa had exorcized that Death Arms guy, and while she sent her rescue team to do some basic research on this new location they discovered, she began chewing out her three insubordinate subordinates.
Like, seriously, did they never hear of the term "stranger danger"?! At the very least, Melissa was vocal about the fact that she didn't trust the adventurer for one second and tried to tell the others, but they were too enamored with the prospects of a map to listen to her!
However, upon seeing that the map was one that showed the entire continent they were ordered to explore, her wrath decreased by a bit. At least now they knew where the hell they were going.
Speaking of… the majority of the octopi had already left, and with the state everyone else back at base was, now was as good a time as any to grad back.
"Corporal Komori, did you get some of the tree samples?"
"Sure did!" the botanist said, holding up a baggie filled with multicolored leaves.
"Excellent, then we're heading back, but we're also going to be getting some samples from the dead monsters on the way back, so get ready for that, Rin," she said, getting up. "Sargeant Kodai, Corporal Sato was injured in the line of duty, so treat him once we get back, post-haste."
"Mm," Kodai nodded. "How serious?"
"He was bleeding from the biceps, and his legs had some friction burns," Momo said. "Chances are he won't be able to work for the next week, at least. The good news is that Sargeant Bakugou is also a capable cook, and will make an excellent substitute for the time being –"
"I can just heal him."
Momo turned around to look at Melissa. "Excuse me?"
"I can just heal him," the angel said. "It's one of my abilities as an angel. I simply cast the spell, and even something as bad as broken bones would be mended in seconds."
Momo simply stared at the blonde woman in shock. Decking to err on the side of caution, she also asked, "What else are angels like you capable of? Just out of curiosity."
She would learn that the number of an angel's skills was, including but not limited to, changing their appearances, knowing all languages, healing major injuries, detecting lies, seeing in darkness, summoning monsters, teleporting, altering the weather, and reviving the dead.
Shaking her head, Momo decided to deal with all that later. Right now, she had to deal with the map that Kirishima and Kodai had gone through all that trouble to acquire for them.
She had to admit, it was pretty detailed: It showed the borders of the four major superpowers of the nation, surrounding archipelagos, and it even had the Collibus Hills written down.
"So…" Krishima said, as he eyed the map. "Where are we headed?"
"Hmm… you remember how Awase said that he was sick of seeing the desert?"
"Yeah?"
As the fish swam through the sky above them, Momo simply smiled as she looked over to the corporal. "Well… how do you think he would feel about going south to see a jungle?"
They were here. Their tracks and trail of destruction gave her no doubt.
But their beast-less carriages were fast. She would have to predict where they were going next. Asking the spirits for guidance, she had her answer: The Saltu Jungles.
They were in danger. Her crimson-haired savior… he was in danger.
Running as fast as her mana reinforcements could allow her, she sped away from the coral forest as fast as she could. She doubted she would be able to reach the jungles before the viridian soldiers did, but she could at least save them from their fates.
Mina Ashido would make sure of that… personally.
Author's Note: And another leg of the adventure is done!
Now for the comments!
valkrus: I mean, you're probably right about adding the "Gate" tag, but it doesn't use any characters or elements from that anime, just the premise. It would be like adding the "Cthulhu Mythos" tag on Mirrond's "When Reasons Fail" or the "Dark Souls" tag on "Only Embers Remain." Sure, there are elements from those media in those stories, but they're not crossovers. Also, thank you for bringing all of these typos to my attention, they have been revised, glad you'll be sticking around for future chapters.
ShinyZubat: I had Rin's reaction to the coral forest prepared for MONTHS. But now, as you can see, the wolf-things had absolutely nothing to do with Death Arms, even if you were right about him being super untrustworthy. This coral forest just happens to be filled with creatures that wanna murder you cold around every corner.
Elvengirl3: Glad you find my story fascinating, I put a lot of effort into worldbuilding for this story, so I hope you stick around for the rest of it. And as for translating Latin into English, I just used Google Translate, it was nothing special, really.
And now, for the last bit of shilling…
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