Foreigners may find it extremely disgusting, but for Koreans, it’s an irreplaceable dish.
Live octopus.
A foot of octopus coated in sesame oil, accompanied by a glass of soju.
Just eating it like that made me feel like all the fatigue of the day had disappeared.
Then, a sudden thought crossed my mind.
Live octopuses are such resilient creatures that even after their legs are severed, they continue to move, so perhaps they can be an endlessly replenishable source of sashimi?
It was an idea that only came to me at the age of 20, a time when I was in my prime for eating.
However, even I, back then, obsessed with chewy sashimi like octopus, would probably find this, just like foreigners, extremely disgusting.
Kugugugugu.
“Sir, the legs are still chasing us!”
“Grarr!”
I was running down a straight corridor with Carmilla.
Behind us, the endless octopus legs kept coming.
Those legs, coated in sticky mucus, continued to regenerate no matter how much we tore them apart, even seeming to divide and multiply.
The number of legs kept growing, and there were already more than 10 octopus bodies.
“What the hell! How can an octopus have such great regenerative powers? Anyone would think it’s a jellyfish!”
That’s what I said.
Any trace left behind would simply regenerate into a new entity, an amazing display of vitality.
The only way to deal with such a creature seemed to be to pulverize it completely with overwhelming power, leaving no trace behind.
“But if I use such strength in the middle of a city like this, it won’t just be the aquarium that gets destroyed.”
In the Okami domain, where I defeated the sword monster, the mountain top at least kept things from getting worse.
If our domain had been in the middle of D City, I could have lost control and ended up dropping my sword.
And right now, we were in that kind of situation.
“Dammit, even if I wanted to use the flamethrower, we’d run out of oxygen if we did it indoors.”
“Grarr…”
“But this corridor has to end eventually… Dammit! Of all times, we have to meet the legendary Kraken now!”
The octopus monster.
Commonly known as the Kraken.
It’s probably one of the strongest beings among the minions of the deep-sea monsters.
As Carmilla had said, after running down the corridor for a while, the walls started coming into view.
When we hit a dead-end, we would have to fight no matter what.
But any half-hearted attack would result in even more octopus legs coming out from the severed parts.
‘How can I take it down without leaving any trace…?’
Should I try to control my strength enough that only the aquarium gets destroyed and try a punch?
At that moment.
“This perverted octopus! The texture is so awful that it can’t even be served in an omakase menu! What makes it so tough?!”
…Omakase?
Now that I think about it, people in this world avoid eating octopus because they find it ominous.
It’s not that it’s simply unappetizing, it’s the fact that even after tasting it, they found it disgusting, and the image of it stuck.
The Western taste that doesn’t know octopus at all.
And Carmilla, who only saw octopus as an enemy.
“Grarr!”
‘Ah!’
I had been overthinking.
This octopus, with its regenerative abilities, was not your average creature.
No, it could even create duplicates of itself, going beyond mere regeneration, and became one of the favored minions of the Kraken, a deep-sea monster.
“If you were set loose in the human world’s ocean, humanity wouldn’t be able to touch seafood at all.”
However, the Kraken itself, being a fish-eating monster, could consume fish at a far greater rate than humans, possibly destroying the marine ecosystem.
That’s why the deep-sea monsters decided that no matter what, they wouldn’t allow the Kraken to exist in the human world.
But during the time when she was blocking Kang Jahoon, a single octopus leg was left unaccounted for and was neglected for a long time.
Afterward, the calamity, unknowingly passed on by its master, began from 1 o’clock, and as it was cut and pierced, the number of octopuses grew as it moved toward the sea.
Munch munch.
“…?”
Munch munch munch munch.
“??!?!!?!?”
The Kraken had been desperate to go to the human world’s ocean, following the instinct of the octopus.
But the fantasy of the octopus ‘monsters’ was shattered the moment they arrived.
“Ah, sir, fighting! I’ll refill the wasabi and soy sauce anytime, just let me know if it’s not enough!”
“Munch munch munch!”
Even a small wound was enough for the Kraken to cultivate new cells from it.
Once it saw the two sources of nutrition before its eyes in the human world, it instinctively reached out to absorb them, whether they were its own kin or humans.
That was a mistake.
From the legs crowded in the inner corridor, an ominous sound could be heard.
At the same time, as long as any trace remained, it could regenerate.
“Hmm~. Octopus sashimi is so delicious.”
Eating octopus?
The Kraken, who was devouring an octopus leg as large as its own body, had soon swallowed all the octopus legs in the corridor and emerged from it.
The creature with a horned mask.
As it looked at its own body parts being consumed without leaving a trace, it shivered.
The Kraken, who had always believed it was invincible, felt fear for the first time in its life.
“Grarr, grarr.”
“Ah, I guess I could have just eaten it, but sometimes I overthink things, don’t I?”
Returning to its original position, the Kraken and Kang Janghoon, who had witnessed it, decided it was time to move on to the main dish: the octopus head, which would taste great if boiled with ramen.
Meanwhile, Carmilla, who was trying hard to suppress her nausea at the sight of the man finishing the octopus, thought:
‘Don’t throw up…! It’s because of me that he’s eating this.’
Actually, it was just achieving a dream from my 20s.
Anyway, at the moment she swallowed her saliva, thinking it was a tremendous sacrifice.
Brrr.
“Krk?”
“Ink?!”
What flew toward the two of them was none other than black ink.
It was the ultimate defense mechanism that an octopus uses when frightened by a predator.
‘The range is too wide to dodge!’
Of course, at first glance, it was just ordinary ink.
But since it was ink from a monster rather than an octopus, Carmilla couldn’t afford to be careless and was quickly thinking of a way to block it.
At that moment, in front of her, spreading both arms wide—
“Uncle!”
“Krrrk…”
Before she even saw the monster uncle, now stained black.
“Are… are you okay?! No, before that, is your body completely fine?”
Nod, nod.
It seemed that while running toward the Krakens, he had dodged, but when he saw that she couldn’t, he returned.
What if this was something pretending to be ink but was actually acid?
Even though they had almost won, she could have suffered a fatal injury.
In the worst case, her body might have melted away instantly.
Yet, looking up at the monster uncle, who had protected her without hesitation—
“M-Mi… sorry…”
“Krrk?!”
“Hicc… I shouldn’t cry in this situation… I must have jumped to conclusions on my own!”
Even after ten years, Uncle was still Uncle.
Carmilla once again realized that truth.
‘I… was a fool.’
This was the same Uncle who had easily defeated even radioactive monsters, ones far stronger than an octopus.
If he was dragging out this fight, it was probably because they were in the middle of a tourist district, where even a slight misuse of power could cause devastation.
“Haa.”
“The blue-haired girl you tried to hit back then… she was a monster, right?”
Nod, nod.
“And I just made a dumb misunderstanding?”
…Shake, shake.
“You don’t have to try so hard to deny it. …I’ve already realized it.”
What kind of misunderstanding had she even made?
For even a moment, she had doubted her ‘savior.’
She felt disgusted with herself.
So, even though this was a crucial moment, tears fell from her eyes on their own.
But even then, the monster uncle kindly patted her head and comforted her.
Pat.
“Krrk. Krrk.”
“Heheh. I get it. You’re saying we should take care of that thing first, right?”
Maybe he just wanted to move on quickly.
Even with a mask on, his awkwardly troubled expression was clear.
Honestly… he was bad at acting.
But thanks to that, Carmilla regained her composure and, in an effort to atone for even a little of her mistake—
Click.
Right on her shoulder appeared Allah’s Magic RPG.
“Uncle, that octopus head looks too big. You’re going to eat it, right?”
Nod, nod, nod!
Of course.
Octopus heads were best when grilled with butter or boiled for a chewy texture.
And anything grilled automatically tasted good.
“I’ll cook it deliciously(?) for you!”
Since a flamethrower would burn it, she figured this was the best option and immediately fired an RPG missile.
As a result, the aquarium’s interior was utterly destroyed.
But so what?
“Crunch, crunch, crunch!”
Uncle was eating so deliciously!
Glance, glance.
Then, as if tired of just grilling it, he ran over to the aquarium snack shop and grabbed some ramen.
And so, in the middle of a cheerful aquarium where both humans and monsters were laughing—
“Just… please… kill me…”
That day, the octopus remembered.
The terror of being dipped in sauce and eaten with a chewy texture.
The humiliation of being trapped under a ramen lid, boiling away…